1. Max Samuel Levitas was an Ireland-born British communist activist and councillor, prominent in the East End of London for many years.
14 Facts About Max Levitas
1. 2.
The brother of communist activist Maurice Levitas, Max Levitas was a member of the Young Communist League and later the Communist Party of Great Britain.
3.
Max Levitas was born in the Portobello area of Dublin, where he attended St Peters' School, a son of two Yiddish-speaking Jews fleeing pogroms in Imperial Russia: Lithuanian-born Harry and Latvian-born Leah.
4.
In Glasgow, Max Levitas became interested in communism, and when he was sixteen, he joined the Young Communist League.
5.
Max Levitas became secretary of the Mile End branch of the YCL, which his younger brother Maurice joined.
6.
In 1939, Max Levitas led a four-month rent strike at Brady Street Mansions, where he lived, as did his grandmother.
7.
Max Levitas continued to work in the garment trade, serving as a shop steward for the Tailors' and Garment Workers' Union.
8.
Max Levitas served several terms of office, latterly on Tower Hamlets London Borough Council.
9.
Max Levitas stood unsuccessfully in Stepney at the 1952 and 1955 London County Council elections.
10.
Max Levitas stood unsuccessfully for the Greater London Council in Tower Hamlets in 1970 and Stepney and Poplar in 1973,1977 and 1981.
11.
Max Levitas remained active in the CPGB, eventually joining its Communist Party of Britain split, and in local tenants' and pensioners' groups, and anti-racism campaigns.
12.
Max Levitas retired from work when he was eighty, but continued campaigning.
13.
Max Levitas was a fan of Tottenham Hotspur FC, and frequently attended games with his son, Stephen, until Stephen's death in 2014.
14.
Max Levitas remained a member of the CPB until his death, becoming its oldest and longest-serving member.