Alan Coatsworth — The Hero of Toronto Newsboys’ Interfaith Football

In the early ’thirties, the newsboys selling the Star and Telly at the corner of Yonge and King were gentiles and the newsboys at the corner of Bay and King were Jewish. Or the other way round. They did not talk to each other.

Alan Coatsworth was an insurance man and a good Christian. He thought this faith-based separation was profoundly wrong. So he inspired the formation of a Jewish football club, the Young Maccabees, whose members were to play against a Christian club – thereby ending the separation once and for all.

More than fifty years later, after Alan Coatsworth’s death, a few old newsboys, by now successful in their professions, honored his memory by organizing the Alan Coatsworth Memorial Lectures. The driving spirit was the lawyer Irving Himel. The lectures were given in alternate years in a church and a synagogue.

In the late ’thirties, Coatsworth read that in Germany life had become unpleasant for Jews. So he took steps to sponsor a Jewish boy, preferably one who wanted to become a rabbi, and invited him to come to Canada. One day, Klaus Goldschlag arrived at Union Station, a sign with his name around his neck, his English rudimentary. Alan met him and took him to his home at 24 Duplex. They got on splendidly. Klaus first went to Vaughan Road Collegiate – they had rarely seen anybody as brilliant – and then to university, to become a rabbi. But, alas, after a couple of years, he lost his faith. Alan did not mind – by now Klaus could do no wrong.

Klaus joined the army, and then External Affairs. Slowly he rose to the top. Trudeau chose him to become ambassador in Turkey and Italy and then the Jewish boy from Berlin became Canada’s first ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, in Bonn.

Klaus Goldschlag died a week ago today, at the age of eighty-eight.

In 1981, he played a major role in organizing the Montebello G7 Summit. It should go down in history as the Alan Coatsworth Summit.