Max Levitas was born in 1915 in Dublin, Southern Ireland to Jewish parents who migrated to Ireland because of the persecution they and their families experienced - members of both families were murdered in Eastern Europe. Max’s father had been trained as an engineer in Lithuania but in Dublin, he found work in the tailoring industry where he organised Irish Jewish workers against the use of cheap immigrant labour. At the age of 12, during a time of political turbulence in Southern Ireland with Irish Nationalists fighting for Home Rule, Max become active in the Young Communist League.
Because of his union activity Max’s father was often out of work so the family moved to Glasgow where Max’s father found work as a tailor’s presser. At the age of 14 Max started work as a tailor. Soon after, Max, his siblings and parents moved to Whitechapel in Tower Hamlets, again for job prospects. Max found work in the clothing industry and continued his political involvement fighting against Mosley and the Fascists in the 1930s and serving as a Communist Councillor. Because of his politics and Irish accent Max came to be known as the Irish Yid Republican. Since his teens Max was an active Tottenham supporter. He died in 2018 aged 103. Read his obituary here.
Listen to Max telling how his mother protected her family from the bullets of the Black and Tans, a force of temporary constables recruited to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) during the Irish War of Independence.
