Jeannette Goldwater Moscovitch was born in Warsaw, Poland, and immigrated to Montreal with her family. She enrolled at McGill University and studied, simultaneously, French, Spanish, German, Russian language and literature. After obtaining a B.A. and an M.A., she interrupted her Ph.D studies to found Canadian Cultural Programmes, a non-profit organization to promote Canadian literature, art and architecture. It became so successful that the Nobel Prize Committee permitted her to nominate candidates for the Nobel Literature Prize. She nominated two Canadian authors and travelled to Stockholm with the required letters of recommendation and brought along some of their books for the Nobel Library. In 1992, she received a citation from Governor General R. J. Hnatyshyn for outstanding contributions.