Businessman and community leader Leon Gasner, right, died last week of pancreatic cancer. He was 78.

Gasner was born in Toronto, the son of noted communal leader Meyer W. Gasner, a founder and first lay chairman of the Kashruth Council of Canada, and his wife Goldie.

Leon Gasner’s son, Robert, said that his father wanted to study at the University of Toronto’s faculty of engineering, but he was rejected because of its then-quota on Jewish students and entered medical school instead.

But his time there was short-lived.

“He was lucky: the Jewish guy who was accepted into engineering quit, and my father could take his place.”

In 1952, Gasner graduated as a mechanical engineer and went to work with the Avro Arrow fighter plane project. When that was cancelled by the Diefenbaker government, he went first into the auto parts business, and then into shelving.

“When he couldn’t find proper shelving for his auto parts businesses, he decided to manufacture his own. He founded Triple-A Manufacturing, which produced shelving, racking and storage systems,” Robert said.

He sold shelving in many parts of the world, and he donated shelving to organizations in Canada and Israel.

Gasner was heavily involved in Jewish communal life. He was on the board of governors and house committee of Mount Sinai Hospital. He was also active in United Jewish Appeal, and in raising funds for the Jerusalem College of Technology and Bar-Ilan University, where he and his father dedicated a building in 1980. In addition, he was a founder of Shaarei Tefillah Congregation, and he carried on the Gasner family’s involvement with Shaarei Shomayim Congregation.

But his real love, Robert said, was the Canada-Israel Gesher Foundation, an organization dedicated to bridging the gap between the secular and religious world in Israel.

A jazz fanatic, Gasner was “a gifted musician,” his son said, playing the piano and mandolin.

“He even played trumpet in the Lady Godiva Memorial Band,” a popular and somewhat wacky marching band made up of U of T engineering students.

Gasner was also an avid skier, and a lover of boating and canoeing.

He is survived by his brother Stan and his wife Diane; children Myra and Nathan Mechanic; Brenda and Brian Lass; Robert and Julea Gasner, and Jon and Ellise Gasner; grandchildren Rachel and Jason Swirsky; Meyer and Deborah Mechanic; Melissa, Jordan and Shira Lass; Orly, Kayla and Elisheva Gasner; Micha, Rafi, Zev, Noah, Avishai, Nadav, Atara and Yakira Gasner, and great-grandchild Chana Rivka Swirsky.