The Town of Hampstead’s first Jewish mayor, Irving Adessky, was remembered following his death Sept. 19 as a man of unimpeachable principles who adored the municipality he ran for 27 years.
He died after a brief illness at age 82.
“I ran with him in 2005,” said Hampstead town councillor Leon Elfassy, who also used to see him regularly at the YM-YWHA. “I think he cared more about his city than almost everything else.
“All the residents respected him,” Elfassy, who has known Adessky since 1999, told The CJN. “He would never spend the people’s money without due diligence.”
An overflow crowd of family and friends filled Paperman & Sons funeral home Sept. 20 to bid farewell to the former mayor, who served for five years on Hampstead town council before succeeding Stuart Finlayson as mayor in 1974.
Also at the funeral were most of the council members of Hampstead and adjacent Cote St. Luc.
Adessky was reported to have stayed the course during his first mayoral campaign even though at the time – when the town was mostly Protestant, unlike today, when it is more than 80 per cent Jewish – running for the town’s top job created division in the nominating committee. In 1978, while Adessky was mayor, Hampstead twinned with the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmonah, which was victim of a 1974 terrorist attack that killed 18 residents.
Those paying tribute at his funeral included Congregation Shaare Zion’s Rabbi Lionel Moses; Adessky’s friend, Rabbi Reuven Bulka of Ottawa; his son Mark and 15 grandchildren. The grandchildren talked about how their grandfather made his own homemade pickles and how he steadfastly remained calm amid household chaos, said one man who attended the funeral.
Politically, Adessky could joust with the best of them, but was characterized as someone who picked his battles.
Barbara Seal, a Hampstead town councillor for more than 20 years who was his good friend, told The Gazette that he “loved his work. He was a strong mayor, totally devoted to the city… He held the respect of the city council and he was elected many times. That says a lot.”
A lawyer, Adessky decided not to run in the 2001 election since he was against the planned controversial merger. He lost when he ran again after the demerger in 2005.
Under his leadership, Hampstead town council demanded that former premier Jacques Parizeau apologize after his infamous “money and the ethnic vote” comment in 1995, but Adessky did not consider it a big deal when Quebec ordered that stop signs switch to the word “arrêt.”
One of Adessky’s best-known feats as mayor, it was reported, was to force Hydro-Québec to spend $12 million to change its underground grid in Hampstead.
Hampstead had been plagued by blackouts and Adessky was preparing a class-action suit against the electricity giant.
Adessky was pre-deceased by his wife, Zelda Soloway, and is survived by companion Hanka Hornstein, children Jeffrey, Liz, Andrew, Mark and Joy; siblings Bob and Hy, and 15 grandchildren.
