“Give her the fruit of her hands, for her very own deeds are her praise…"
These words written by King Solomon millennia ago, are the first to come to mind when memorializing Frances Belzberg, a true woman of valor, who passed away peacefully at the age of 99 this past Shabbat surrounded by her loving family - her four children as well as many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren - in Vancouver, Canada, where she and her late husband Samuel made their home.
Frances and Samuel Belzberg were awarded the Order of Canada by the Governor of Canada on November 15, 1995, and after her beloved husband passed away in 2018, Fran, as she was called, received the Order of British Columbia in 2021. These honors were in recognition of the many causes in which they were involved, including the founding of the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation which greatly enhanced public awareness of this illness with which one of their daughters was diagnosed, support for the H.I.V. Care Unit at the B.C. Children's Hospital and for the Research Centre at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.
The couple donated the Samuel and Frances Belzberg Library at FSU in Vancouver, and Fran was co-founder of the Center for Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles, founding chair of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, also partnering with the Canadian government to establish Action Canada, which provides fellowships for potential future policymakers.
“Fran’s loss is the family’s loss first, but it is also Canada’s loss," Burnaby North-Seymour MP and Action Canada alumnus Terry Beech said Sunday at her funeral, where he delivered formal condolences from the Prime Minister.
Frances was born July 10, 1927, in Los Angeles to David and Dena Cooper, who had left Radom, Poland, in 1923. David died when Fran was only 17 and she and her brothers Bert, Harry and Ben were enlisted to help her mother support the family. As a teenager, she also volunteered to help immigrants learn to read and write English. An acquaintance from Poland who lived in Edmonton, asked if his son could drop in on a business trip to LA, he and Frances fell in love, and the couple moved to Edmonton for the first years of their marriage - where Fran was active in Hadassah and Sam built a flourishing business. Eventually, they moved to Vancouver with their family of four children, Cheri, Marc, Wendy and Lisa, and it was in their new home that Fran and her late husband’s vision for helping the world emerged, while their open-hearted philanthropy and caring made it happen.
Her first love, however, was for her family. Her daughter, Lisa, called her a “fun mom" who knew how to make each and every grandchild feel as if they were her favorite. “She wasn’t just open to adventure, she was often leading the charge," her son Marc said at her funeral, recalling that “she smothered her children with love".
Marc’s wife, Chantal, wrote: “What made Fran extraordinary was not simply what she did. It was who she was. She was a woman of profound goodness. Kind, gracious, humble, wise, and deeply compassionate. She possessed that rare ability to make every person she encountered feel valued, heard, and important. She listened with genuine curiosity, gave generously without seeking recognition, and quietly lifted those around her. Her character was impeccable, and she lived her values every single day."
In her later years, although shaken by its vehemence, she fearlessly served as a proud voice fighting the Jew-hatred that emerged after October 7. When the SFU Vancouver’s Samuel and Frances Belzberg Library at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue was defaced by anti-Zionists, she wrote an editorial filled with integrity, mettle and wisdom in the National Post, titled:
I am a 96-year-old Jew. Can we talk about this anti-Israel vitriol please?University campuses and library buildings have profound meaning in our civic and inner lives. They are the physical embodiments of so much of what we cherish in a democratic society: freedom of thought, the search for knowledge, and the debate over ideas among people of good will…
Universities across Canada and the United States have become alarming hotbeds for anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and actions. Students do not feel safe on campus nor protected by school leadership. In my hometown of Vancouver, a controversy has flared up at an institution of research and learning that was endowed by my late husband and me - the Samuel and Frances Belzberg Library, located in the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, at Simon Fraser University…
The librarian for history, international studies, liberal studies and political science at SFU posted several provocative and hateful tweets that go beyond criticism of Israeli policy. On Oct. 29, the librarian denounced Zionism and Israel as “vile, inhumane, deranged, and monstrous." She also urged people to boycott Indigo books simply because its owners founded a charity that funds former Israeli soldiers’ education, saying: “Don’t give your book money to Israel."
I make no secret of my Jewishness, nor do I conceal my deep attachment to Jewish history, including centuries of persecution and violence. I lost dozens of family members in the Holocaust: aunts, uncles, cousins yet to blossom into their full selves. The horrific events of Oct. 7 were a stark reminder that antisemitism has, in the worst sense possible, endured, and, astonishingly enough in recent months, deepened in Canada, the United States, Europe and well beyond.
When my husband and I celebrated the opening of the library 34 years ago, we could not have imagined such ugliness within its walls…
The extraordinary irony is that the library exists within the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue - whose stated mission is to “use dialogue and engagement to facilitate transformative conversation and create real world impact for society’s most pressing challenges." Several attempts were made by me and my daughter appealing for direct dialogue, at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue, with the librarian and anyone she chose to accompany her. These requests were denied…
The Jewish State, where her children Marc and Chantal Belzberg and Cheri and Harry Tennenbaum chose to live and raise their families, was an integral part of her life - she and Sam donated generously to Federation’s Israel projects, a school in Tsfat carries their name and they helped build Jerusalem’s Morasha Talmud Torah. She loved Israel passionately, was proud of the grandchildren serving in the IDF, some in combat units, in intelligence and the Rabbinate, and even well into her nineties, she was still boarding planes to Israel and celebrating family simchas there.
Fran’s pride in her children Marc and Chantal’s establishment of the OneFamily Organization, Israel’s leading organization supporting all victims of terror and their entire families, standing at their side in every way as they rebuild their lives, was boundless. She rightfully saw it as the fruition of the values learned at home, where she and her husband raised their children by example, showing them what it means to live with compassion, integrity, generosity, and a deep sense of responsibility for others.
Frances Belzberg was fortunate to receive many honors, but those who knew and loved her understood that making a difference, not receiving awards and recognition, was always what mattered most to her. That is why the family asked that those who wish to donate in her memory do so through OneFamily, where she and her husband's caring for the Jewish People lives on.
And as our Sages said: “All who labor for the community.. and for the sake of Heaven… their righteousness endures forever."
