Canada's Jews

Canada's Jews
Author: Gerald J. J. Tulchinsky
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 669
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802093868

Canada's Jews covers the 240-year period from the beginnings of the Jewish community in the 1760s to the present day, illuminating the golden chain of Jewish tradition, religion, language, economy, and history as established and renewed in the northern lands.

Faces in the Crowd

Faces in the Crowd
Author: Franklin Bialystok
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2022-06-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442604441

Starting with the first steps on Canadian soil in the eighteenth century to the present day, Faces in the Crowd introduces the reader to the people and personalities who made up the Canadian Jewish experience, from the Jewish roots of the NHL’s Ross trophy to Leonard Cohen and all the rabbis, artists, writers, and politicians in between. Drawing on a lifetime of wisdom and experience at the heart of the Canadian Jewish community, Franklin Bialystok adds new research, unique insights, and, best of all, memorable stories to the history of the Jews in Canada.

Double Threat

Double Threat
Author: Ellin Bessner
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487533624

"He died so Jewry should suffer no more." These words on a Canadian Jewish soldier's tombstone in Normandy inspired the author to explore the role of Canadian Jews in the war effort. As PM Mackenzie King wrote in 1947, Jewish servicemen faced a "double threat" - they were not only fighting against Fascism but for Jewish survival. At the same time, they encountered widespread antisemitism and the danger of being identified as Jews if captured. Bessner conducted hundreds of interviews and extensive archival research to paint a complex picture of the 17,000 Canadian Jews - about 10 per cent of the Jewish population in wartime Canada - who chose to enlist, including future Cabinet minister Barney Danson, future game-show host Monty Hall, and comedians Wayne and Shuster. Added to this fascinating account are Jews who were among the so-called "Zombies" - Canadians who were drafted, but chose to serve at home - the various perspectives of the Jewish community, and the participation of Canadian Jewish women.

Like Everyone Else but Different

Like Everyone Else but Different
Author: Morton Weinfeld
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2018-03-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0773553088

Liberal democratic societies with diverse populations generally offer minorities two usually contradictory objectives: the first is equal integration and participation; the second is an opportunity, within limits, to retain their culture. Yet Canadian Jews are successfully integrated into all domains of Canadian life, while at the same time they also seem able to retain their distinct identities by blending traditional religious values and rituals with contemporary cultural options. Like Everyone Else but Different illustrates how Canadian Jews have created a space within Canada’s multicultural environment that paradoxically overcomes the potential dangers of assimilation and diversity. At the same time, this comprehensive and data-driven study documents and interprets new trends and challenges including rising rates of intermarriage, newer progressive religious options, finding equal space for women and LGBTQ Jews, tensions between non-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews, and new forms of real and perceived anti-Semitism often related to Israel or Zionism, on campus and elsewhere. The striking feature of the Canadian Jewish community is its diversity. While this diversity can lead to cases of internal conflict, it also offers opportunities for adaptation and survival. Seventeen years after its first publication, this new edition of Like Everyone Else but Different provides definitive updates that blend research studies, survey and census data, newspaper accounts and articles, and the author’s personal observations and experiences to provide an informative, provocative, and fascinating account of Jewish life and multiculturalism in contemporary Canada.

None is Too Many

None is Too Many
Author: Irving M. Abella
Publisher: New York : Random House
Total Pages: 370
Release: 1983
Genre: History
ISBN:

This book traces the evolution and execution of Canadian immigration policy during the Great Depression, when the pressure of unemployment prevented large-scaleimmigration of any kind, through World War II and its aftermath. During this period, immigration regulations were restrictive, with Jews, Orientals and blacks at the bottom of the list. The authors describe how, as in all democracies, Canada's policies and her public servants were subject to the will of the people and to political considerations.

Canada's Jews

Canada's Jews
Author: Louis Rosenberg
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 454
Release: 1993
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780773511095

Louis Rosenberg's Canada's Jews is a pioneering study of the demographic, sociological, cultural, and economic dimensions of Canadian Jewish life in the 1930s. It provides a comprehensive portrait of a community struggling with the insecurities of recent

None Is Too Many

None Is Too Many
Author: Irving Abella
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2017-06-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 148751669X

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award (Holocaust Category) Winner of the Canadian Historical Association John A. Macdonald Prize Featured in The Literary Review of Canada 100: Canada’s Most Important Books [This] is a story best summed up in the words of an anonymous senior Canadian official who, in the midst of a rambling, off-the-record discussion with journalists in 1945, was asked how many Jews would be allowed into Canada after the war … ‘None,’ he said, ‘is too many.’ From the Preface One of the most significant studies of Canadian history ever written, None Is Too Many conclusively lays to rest the comfortable notion that Canada has always been an accepting and welcoming society. Detailing the country’s refusal to offer aid, let alone sanctuary, to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution between 1933 and 1948, it is an immensely bleak and discomfiting story – and one that was largely unknown before the book’s publication. Irving Abella and Harold Troper’s retelling of this episode is a harrowing read not easily forgotten: its power is such that, ‘a manuscript copy helped convince Ron Atkey, Minister of Employment and Immigration in Joe Clark’s government, to grant 50,000 “boat people” asylum in Canada in 1979, during the Southeast Asian refugee crisis’ (Robin Roger, The Literary Review of Canada). None Is Too Many will undoubtedly continue to serve as a potent reminder of the fragility of tolerance, even in a country where it is held as one of our highest values.

Taking Root

Taking Root
Author: Gerald J. J. Tulchinsky
Publisher: UPNE
Total Pages: 392
Release: 1993
Genre: Canada
ISBN: 9780874516098

Jews seeking a new life in Canada faced problems beyond those of other immigrants. Farm colonists often lived in communities too small to afford a rabbi or ritual slaughterer, or even to form a minyan for worship. In French Canada, Protestant and Catholic school boards battled over who was responsible for educating Jewish children. In the cities, the socialist philosophies of Jews fleeing the poverty and oppression of Europe were anathema to aggressive New World capitalists. And when suspicion or resentment arose, there was always someone to revive the old antisemitic slurs and myths. Taking Root is the meticulously researched record of how Canadian Jewry coped with these obstacles, and flourished despite them. The book covers the 160 years from the beginnings of the community in the 1760s to the end of the First World War, including the great European upheavals that forever changed the lives of the Jews of Eastern Europe and their migration to Canada. Canada's Jews took root in a nation with a distinctive history, political structure, and cultural diversity Gerald Tulchinsky weaves the threads of Canadian Jewish history into the wider Canadian fabric, and shows how the unique character of this history reflects the political, economic, and social development of the country. Drawing on letters, synagogue records, diaries, newspapers, and biographies, as well as a host of archival sources, Tulchinsky makes Taking Root not just a historical account, but a very personal one.

Canada's Jews

Canada's Jews
Author: Ira Robinson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781618113887

Canada is home to one of the world's largest and most culturally creative Jewish communities, one of the few in the Diaspora that continues to grow demographically. With its ability to mirror trends found in Jewish communities elsewhere (particularly the United States) while simultaneously functioning as a distinct society, Canada's Jewish community holds great interest for scholars, exercising a measurable influence on the culture and politics of World Jewry. Consisting of a series of essays written by experts in their respective fields, Canada's Jews is a topical encyclopaedia, covering a wide variety of topics, from history and religion to the intellectual and cultural contributions of Canada's Jews. An indispensable reference book for both laypeople and for scholars of Jewish and Canadian studies.

No Better Home

No Better Home
Author: David S. Koffman
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2021
Genre: Canada
ISBN: 1487523572

No Better Home? brings together a unique combination of voices to question whether or not Canada is the best home that Jews have ever had.