Two other [Canadian Madoff investors] were more puzzling – Herb and Ruth Gamberg, a pair of modest, left-leaning professors who came to Halifax in the 1960s and taught at Dalhousie University before they retired.
Mr. Gamberg, 75, is regarded as one of the world’s leading Marxist scholars, according to a documentary about his life under development by Halifax director Walter Forsyth. He grew up in Worcester, Mass., and on his trips home from Brandeis University he would play pickup basketball with his younger friend, Abbie Hoffman, the radical social activist who comprised part of the Chicago Seven. After coming to Canada, he helped establish the Foundation Year Program at King’s College, and became one of the early members of Dalhousie’s sociology department, writing on everything from prison reform to socialism to the history of Nova Scotia’s political left.
Although they are retired, the Gambergs remain politically energized. They added their names to a petition nominating folk singer Pete Seeger for a Nobel Peace Prize, and were among a group of signatories protesting Barrick Gold’s Pascua Lama mining project in Chile.
The Gambergs could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Ruth’s work contributes to The Truth About the Cultural Revolution (see footnote 6).
February 6th, 2009 at 10:48PM
This makes me smile.