George Jonas, Hungarian-born Canadian writer, Died at 80

  Writers

George Jonas was born on June 15, 1935, in Budapest and died on January 10, 2016.

He was a Hungarian-born Canadian writer, poet, and journalist.

George was educated at the Lutheran Gymnasium between the years 1945 and 1954

He was a self-described classical liberal.

Jonas has authored 16 books, including the international bestseller Vengeance (1984), the story of an Israeli operation to kill the terrorists responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre.

The book was interpreted in films twice, first as Sword of Gideon (1986), and more recently as Munich (2005).

His parents were Dr. Georg M. Hübsch and Magda Klug

Himself and Amiel co-wrote By Persons Unknown: The Strange Death of Christine Demeter in 1976, an account of the 1973 murder of Christine Demeter and the subsequent murder trial and conviction of her husband, Peter.

They won the 1978 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime book.

George Jonas has also contributed to the National Review, Saturday Review, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Hungarian Review (Budapest) and The National Interest.

George was best known, for producing the true crime series The Scales of Justice, in collaboration with famed criminal lawyer Eddie Greenspan, for both CBC Radio and CBC Television.

George Jonas first wife was Sylvia (née Nemes) in 1962.

They had a son, Alexander, who was born in 1964.

Then, he married Barbara Amiel in 1974; they divorced in 1979.

Amiel was a Jew, and she insisted they marry in a synagogue; Jonas, a secular Jew, had written that it was the first time he had been inside one.

His third wife was Maya (née Cho), who was born in Korea.

George Jonas passed away at 80 yrs old due to Parkinson’s disease.