Treasure Trove: Jean Beliveau, Montreal’s Hockey Playing Mensch

As a fan of Theodor Herzl, I know that dreams can be fulfilled.  As a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, I am not as certain. 

Growing up in Toronto,  I confess to being jealous of the Montreal Canadiens and their fans.  The Canadiens won ten Stanley Cups since the Maple Leafs won their last Cup in 1967 (with Montreal’s last Cup being in 1993).

Three Montreal Canadien players have won ten or more Stanley Cups  (the only players in NHL history to have done so).  Jean Beliveau and Yvon Cournoyer won ten each, and Henri Richard eleven.  Only one of them participated in not one but two Maccabiah Games (the Jewish Olympics to be held next this summer. See https://thecjn.ca/arts-culture/treasure-trove-looks-at-the-history-of-the-maccabiah-games-and-the-hopes-for-next-years-event/). That person is Jean Beliveau.

In 1985 Beliveau served as the honorary chef de mission of the Canadian team at the Maccabiah Games, the first non-Jew to serve in this role.  Beliveau often described that leading the Canadian delegation into the stadium in Ramat Gan at the opening ceremonies was one of the highlights of his life.   Beliveau returned to Israel in 1997 as he again served as the honorary chef de mission of the Canadian Maccabiah team.

The friendship between Beliveau and the Jewish community of Montreal continued to grow.  In 2008 he became the first non-Jewish inductee into the Montreal YM-YWHA’s Jewish Hall of Fame.  The Y awards the Jean Beliveau Athlete of the Year annually to a full-time student athlete for their outstanding achievements in Y programming.

After Beliveau’s death on December 2, 2014, David Lazarus wrote a tribute to him in the Canadian Jewish News.  Its title was Jean Beliveau: a mensch to the end.  See https://thecjn.ca/news/tribute-jean-beliveau-mensch-end/   

This philatelic cover shows three connections between Canada and Israel.  Theodor Herzl (the visionary of the Jewish state) is seen playing hockey (he never did play hockey and there is no record he ever knew the game existed).  There is a Canada Post postmark indicating the location of the stamping of the Canadian stamps as Tel Aviv (Canada Post had a booth at an international stamp show in Israel held to celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday in 2008).  The cover is signed by “Jean Beliveau #4”- a ten time Stanley Cup winner, an ally and a mensch.

For more treasures from the Herzl and Zionism Collection of David Matlow, which has appeared weekly in the Treasure Trove column in the Canadian Jewish News (www.thecjn.ca) since February 2021, see https://herzlcollection.com/treasure-trove

Treasure Trove is a program of The Herzl Project.