HAMILTON — After being named the City of Hamilton’s 2008 Royal Bank Distinguished Citizen of the Year, Madeleine Levy reflected on a life of social action.

Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger, left, and Roger Howard, vice-president of Hamilton Commercial Markets for RBC Royal Bank, congratulate Madeleine Levy on receiving the City of Hamilton’s 2008 Royal Bank Distinguished Citizen of the Year award.

“I heard my mother’s voice saying, “This is how we raised you,’” said the Ancaster, Ont., resident. “I was raised with the principles of tikkun olam. This was an affirmation of what these good deeds mean to the community.

“I believe you get opportunities and, if you seize them, we can all make a difference.”

And seize them she does. Levy sits on the Hamilton Community Foundation board of directors, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board InterFaith Advisory Committee and the Bob Kemp Hospice fund development committee. She’s on the United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton’s board of directors and was vice-chair of its 2007 campaign.

Levy is also a governing council member of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, chair of the UN International Day of Holocaust and a member of the UJA Federation of Hamilton Holocaust Education Committee. She chairs the Hamilton Asper Foundation Human Rights and Holocaust Studies Program for high school students.

The Nazis killed all except for one member of Levy’s family living in Romania during World War II.

She said her strong commitment to Holocaust education is justice for the six million Jews who died, as well as a way to foster tolerance and understanding.

“It’s also out of reverence for the survivors living in our city. It’s my obligation,” she added.

Levy and her husband, Monte, helped bring books, propaganda documents, concentration camp letters and other artifacts to McMaster University, as part of the exhibit Anti-Semitism, Concentration Camps and Underground Resistance in World War II. The artifacts are on display until the end of March, and all materials will remain at the Mills Library for research purposes. The couple also plans to put their materials online to create a virtual museum.

Darrel Skidmore, CEO of the United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton, was delighted when Levy received the citizen of the year honour.

“Madeleine has the ability to create bridges and build coalitions of disparate groups in the community,” Skidmore said. “In Hamilton, which is so diverse, to have people who can create those kinds of relationships [and] can bring people together, is a huge asset.

“Madeleine has a genuine interest in all people across the city. She brings compassion to her role, as well as passion.”

Levy is credited with building a relationship between Hamilton’s oldest black church and the city’s oldest synagogue,  and raising funds for an elevator at Stewart Memorial Church and for repairs to the Torah scrolls at Temple Anshe Sholom.

She also worked with Festitalia organizers to bring, to the festival, a film about Italian hero Giorgio Perlasca, who saved more than 3,500 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.

Levy grew up in New York. Her grandmother fought to give women the right to vote, and in the 1960s, her mother went door-to-door encouraging people to vote.

“We always had discussions about social justice and speaking up,” Levy says. “You can sit in your house and talk about it, but if you don’t go out and act, silence is agreement.”

When Levy moved to Hamilton in 1979, she became active in the National Council of Jewish Women and helped bring Ronald McDonald House to the city. In 2000, she became a co-ordinator of the local Out of the Cold program, which provides shelter and food for the homeless. She has also been involved in Hadassah and the Temple Anshe Sholom sisterhood.

“It’s a difficult time to be Jewish, but we can’t ignore the fundamental values of what we do as Jews – that’s to educate and be part of the struggle for social justice. We are here to be stewards and care for our fellow human beings,” Levy said.

“There is no shortage of opportunities. I wake up each day with so much energy. There are so many good works to be done.”