Avi Lewis
Avram David (Avi) Lewis (1968) is a Canadian, social democratic documentary filmmaker and host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) current-affairs program On the Map. He is the son of diplomat and former Ontario New Democratic Party Leader Stephen Lewis and journalist Michele Landsberg, the grandson of former New Democratic Party leader David Lewis, and the nephew of architect Daniel Libeskind.
Most recently, Avi has been hosting a new show on Al Jazeera English named Frontline USA.[1]
Biography
Family
Avi Lewis is the great grandson of Moshe Losz (Lewis), an outspoken member of the Jewish Bund who left Svishlock, Poland (today Ukraine) for Montreal in 1921, with his wife Rose (née Lazarovitch) and three children, after being interrogated by the Russians for days. Avi Lewis is the grandson of federal NDP leader David Lewis and the son of politician and diplomat Stephen Lewis and journalist Michele Landsburg. Avi Lewis is married to journalist and author Naomi Klein.
Lewis grew up in Toronto, Canada, and attended Jarvis Collegiate and Upper Canada College. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1988.[2]
Avi Lewis was featured on the November 20, 2001 Life & Times episode of The Lewis Family.[3]
Avi Lewis's genealogical search was featured on the January 31, 2008 episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?".[4]
Career
Between 1996 and 1998, Avi Lewis was host of The NewMusic, a music magazine show on MuchMusic and CityTV. He also served as MuchMusic's political specialist — by doing extensive special events coverage for the channel designed to engage youth in the political process. Among other events, he covered the 1993 Canadian federal election and the 1995 Quebec referendum. Avi Lewis won a Gemini for Best Event Coverage.
In 1998-2001, Lewis hosted CBC Newsworld's current affairs discussion show counterSpin where he presided over 500+ debates. Avi Lewis was later the host of Counterspin Sunday.
In 2004, Lewis and his wife Naomi Klein collaborated on The Take — a documentary which detailed the "recovered factory" movement in Argentina. The Take, winner of the International Jury Prize, was nominated for four Gemini Awards.
Lewis began hosting CBC Newsworld's The Big Picture with Avi Lewisin the autumn of 2006 and On the Map in 2007.
Lewis became host of Frontline USA for Aljazeera in 2008.
On the Map
In June 2007, CBC Newsworld debuted On the Map with Avi Lewis, a daily (Mon-Thurs) half hour of international news spin.
Avi Lewis faced criticism from viewers for his piece on Hugo Chavez to which Lewis responded: “I've been called a lot of things, but Neo-con? that's a first.” It is true that Lewis seemed more favourable to the views expressed by Jennifer McCoy than by Mark Weisbrot concerning Chavez’s spending on social programs (health, literacy, agriculture and housing), treatment of dissenting opinions, and attempts to concentrate of power in the office of President. In the rant that followed, Avi said that Chavez’s actions did not match his rhetoric and criticised Chavez for not doing more to close down the “laboratory” of “market economics” which he had inherited from previous administrations. Naomi Klein, who credited Avi Lewis for his input into her book The Shock Doctrine, links both stifling of dissent and concentration of power with the implementation of these earlier economic policies.
Why Democracy
From October 8-18 2007, Avi Lewis hosted the ten part documentary series "Why Democracy?".[5]