Solly Levy

A brilliant cultural icon, Solly Levy is a writer, educator, comedian and theatre director; he is also the Founder and Director of the Kinor Choir in Montreal and the Hallel Vezimra Liturgical Choir at the Sephardic Kehila Centre in Toronto. In the early 80s he co-founded the Sephardic musical group Gerineldo and was the male soloist.

Through his many talents, he has strengthened ties between the Jewish community of Montreal and Quebec culture. He is a leading expert in Haketia, a Judeo-Spanish vernacular language once spoken by Jewish communities in Northern Morocco. He has written numerous books in that same vernacular.

Levy has adapted into Judeo-Arabic several classic works of Molière, and of renowned Quebec and Francophone playwrights including Gratien Gélinas, Michel Tremblay and Antonine Maillet. These, which he also directed, were a great success. Levy’s theatrical and artistic work helped fortify intercultural bridges between Quebec’s Jewish community and native-born Francophone Quebecers.

While teaching at the École de Roberval in Montreal, Levy directed classic Quebec plays, including the famous Ti-Coq by famed playwright Gratien Gélinas. Michel Tremblay, Gratien Gélinas, Antonine Maillet and other great francophone writers from Quebec and Canada have personally attended Levy’s adaptation of their plays. They have highly praised his work.

Levy was the subject of Donald Winkler’s A Scattering of Seeds: A Sephardic Journey, film depicting his life after arriving in Montreal. His discovery of the Quebecois literature and culture greatly influenced his teachings.

In the documentary film Les Juifs du Québec: une histoire à raconter, produced by Shelly Tepperman, Levy brilliantly plays the role of Haïm, an old Jewish antique dealer who recounts to a young “pure-laine” girl from Quebec the 400 years of history of Quebec’s Jewish community.

In 2001, the prestigious French magazine L’Express ranked Levy among the top “100 people who move Quebec.” In 2014, he was a keynote speaker at UNESCO’s (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) International Conference on Judeo-Spanish languages, in Paris.