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151-477: Federation CJA is one of the oldest Canadian Jewish organizations. CJA was founded in 1916 with the hope of uniting Montreal's Jewish community and providing a central fundraising organization to serve the 14 founding organizations. It has been involved in major issues facing the community, such as government restrictions on immigration beginning in the 1920s, extreme poverty during the Great Depression ,

302-516: A French Canadian girl and brought his children up as Catholics, Jacobs is often overlooked as the first permanent Jewish settler in Canada in favour of Aaron Hart, who married a Jew and brought up his children, or at least his sons, in the Jewish tradition. Lieutenant Hart first arrived in Canada from New York City as Commissariat to Jeffery Amherst 's forces at Montreal in 1760. After his service in

453-574: A Sefer Torah borrowed from Canada's only other synagogue , the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation of Montreal. A year later in 1857 a permanent Torah arrived as a gift from Albert Ascher's (Asher) parents in Montreal (Isaac Gottschalk Ascher & Rachel Altmann) inscribed in Hebrew to "The Holy Congregation, Blossoms of Holiness [Pirchei Kodesh], in the city of Toronto." The name resonated among

604-627: A British Orthodox Jew would rent the upper floor of Coombe's Drug Store at the corner of Yonge Street and Richmond Street in Toronto for High Holy Day services which became only the second temple in Canada), Isidore a highly acclaimed Canadian poet and novelist, Jacob A Canadian Chess Champion (1878, 1883). By 1850, there were still only 450 Jews living in Canada, mostly concentrated in Montreal. Toronto's first Jewish prayer services were held on Rosh Hashanah , September 29, 1856, initially with

755-485: A baseball game in Toronto a group of young men using Nazi symbols started a massive melee, arguably the largest in Toronto's history, on the ground of racial hatred, involving hundreds of men. In 1934, another anti-Semitic incident occurred when the first medical strike in a Canadian hospital was held in response to the appointment of a Jewish doctor to Montreal's Notre-Dame Hospital. Dr Sam Rabinovitch would have been

906-435: A bastion of federalism, and Quebec separatists with their ideal of a creating a nation-state for French-Canadians have tended to be hostile to Jews. In both the 1980 and 1995 referendums, Montreal's Jews voted overwhelmingly for Quebec to remain in Canada. It was official Canadian policy after 1945 to accept immigrants from Eastern Europe as long they were anti-communist even if they had fought for Nazi Germany. For an example

1057-794: A brief period of stability and unity in Francia . This created opportunities for Jewish merchants to settle again north of the Alps. Charlemagne granted the Jews freedoms similar to those once enjoyed under the Roman Empire . In addition, Jews from southern Italy, fleeing religious persecution, began to move into Central Europe. Returning to Frankish lands, many Jewish merchants took up occupations in finance and commerce, including money lending, or usury . (Church legislation banned Christians from lending money in exchange for interest.) From Charlemagne's time to

1208-461: A diverse Jewish population of Montreal. Past-President of Federation CJA, Marc Gold, said "the federation recognizes that it must be open to change to be relevant to Montreal Jews, especially the younger generation and those not involved with the organized community, and recognize that all Jews in a diverse Jewish population of Montreal." History of the Jews in Canada The history of

1359-596: A figure of one million Jews living in Egypt. Brian McGing rejects Baron's figures entirely, arguing that we have no clue as to the size of the Jewish demographic in the ancient world. Sometimes the scholars who accepted the high number of Jews in Rome had explained it by Jews having been active in proselytising . The idea of ancient Jews trying to convert Gentiles to Judaism is nowadays rejected by several scholars. The Romans did not distinguish between Jews inside and outside of

1510-651: A number of push and pull factors . More Jews moved into these communities as a result of wars, persecution, unrest, and for opportunities in trade and commerce. Jews migrated to southern Europe from the Middle East voluntarily for opportunities in trade and commerce. Following Alexander the Great 's conquests, Jews migrated to Greek settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean, spurred on by economic opportunities. Jewish economic migration to southern Europe

1661-459: A result of Judeo-Latin language contact with various High German vernaculars in the medieval period. It is a Germanic language written in Hebrew letters, and heavily influenced by Hebrew and Aramaic , with some elements of Romance and later Slavic languages . Historical records show evidence of Jewish communities north of the Alps and Pyrenees as early as the 8th and 9th centuries. By

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1812-528: A rule requiring in effect at least a 10% higher academic average for Jewish applicants; in certain schools of the University of Toronto anti-Jewish bias is being felt. City Councils debate whether Jewish petitioners should be permitted to build a synagogue; property deeds in some areas bar resale to them. I have seen crude handbills circulated thanking Hitler for his massacre of 80,000 Jews in Kiev." In 1945, in

1963-671: A small minority, they have had an open presence in the country since the first Jewish immigrants arrived with Governor Edward Cornwallis to establish Halifax, Nova Scotia (1749). Prior to the British conquest of New France , Jews lived in Nova Scotia . There were no official Jews in Quebec because when King Louis XIV made Canada officially a province of the Kingdom of France in 1663, he decreed that only Roman Catholics could enter

2114-525: A transformation in their interpretation of Judaism. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, Jews who remained in or returned to historical German lands experienced a cultural reorientation. Under the influence of the Haskalah and the struggle for emancipation, as well as the intellectual and cultural ferment in urban centres, some gradually abandoned Yiddish in favor of German and developed new forms of Jewish religious life and cultural identity . Throughout

2265-546: A very different lifestyle to that of their neighbours; all of these tendencies increased with every outbreak of antisemitism . In parts of Eastern Europe, before the arrival of the Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe, some non-Ashkenazi Jews were present who spoke Leshon Knaan and held various other Non-Ashkenazi traditions and customs. In 1966, the historian Cecil Roth questioned the inclusion of all Yiddish speaking Jews as Ashkenazim in descent, suggesting that upon

2416-546: A very high toll of life and enslavement. The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple . Two generations later, the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE) erupted. Judea's countryside was devastated, and many were killed, displaced or sold into slavery. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina , and the province of Judea

2567-594: Is also believed to have occurred during the Roman period. In 63 BCE, the Siege of Jerusalem saw the Roman Republic conquer Judea, and thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves. After gaining their freedom, they settled permanently in Rome as traders. It is likely that there was an additional influx of Jewish slaves taken to southern Europe by Roman forces after the capture of Jerusalem by

2718-607: Is home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America and the third largest in the Americas after the United States and Canada. A population of Israeli Jews emigrate to Canada to study and work. The Israeli Canadian community is growing and it is one of the largest Israeli diaspora groups with an estimate of 30,000 people. A small proportion of Israeli Jews who come to Canada are Ethiopian Jews . Following

2869-404: Is much higher than that in the United States, with a TFR of 1.91 according to the 2001 Census. This is due to the presence of large numbers of Orthodox Jews in Canada. According to the census, the Jewish birth rate and TFR is higher than that of Christian (1.35), Buddhist (1.34), Non-Religious (1.41), and Sikh (1.9) populations, but slightly lower than that of Hindus (2.05), and Muslims (2.01). In

3020-667: The Saquliba or Slavic territories , and such usage covered also the lands of tribes neighboring the Slavs, and Eastern and Central Europe. In modern times, Samuel Krauss identified the Biblical "Ashkenaz" with Khazaria . Sometime in the Early Medieval period, the Jews of central and eastern Europe came to be called by this term. Conforming to the custom of designating areas of Jewish settlement with biblical names, Spain

3171-542: The 1944 Quebec election . The leader of the Union Nationale , Maurice Duplessis appealed to anti-Semitic prejudices in Quebec in a violently anti-Semitic speech by claiming that the Dominion government of William Lyon Mackenzie King together with Liberal Premier Adélard Godbout of Quebec had secretly made an agreement with the "International Zionist Brotherhood" to settle 100,000 Jewish refugees left homeless by

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3322-628: The Austrian or Russian Empires . There were two competing strands of Jewish nationalism in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, namely Zionism and another tendency that favoured forming separate Jewish cultural institutions with a focus on promoting Yiddish. Institutions such as the Montreal Jewish Library with its collection of Yiddish books were examples of the latter tendency. The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC)

3473-770: The Cimmerians . The Biblical Ashkenaz is usually derived from Assyrian Aškūza ( cuneiform Aškuzai/Iškuzai ), a people who expelled the Cimmerians from the Armenian area of the Upper Euphrates ; the name Aškūza is identified with the Scythians . The intrusive n in the Biblical name is likely due to a scribal error confusing a vav ו ‎ with a nun נ ‎ . In Jeremiah 51:27, Ashkenaz figures as one of three kingdoms in

3624-733: The Crusaders as Ashkenazim. Given the close links between the Jewish communities of France and Germany following the Carolingian unification , the term Ashkenazi came to refer to the Jews of both medieval Germany and France. Like other Jewish ethnic groups , the Ashkenazi originate from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah . Ashkenazi Jews share a significant amount of ancestry with other Jewish populations and derive their ancestry mostly from populations in

3775-591: The Fall of Kabul in August 2021, the final Afghan Jew still in Afghanistan , Tova Moradi, fled to Canada. This marked the end of Afghanistan's 2,700-year Jewish history. Jewish Canadian population by province and territory in Canada in 2011 according to Statistics Canada and United Jewish Federations of Canada Yiddish ( יידיש ‎) is the historical and cultural language of Ashkenazi Jews , who make up

3926-478: The Holocaust . The answer to why there was so little assimilation of Jews in central and eastern Europe for so long would seem to lie in part in the probability that the alien surroundings in central and eastern Europe were not conducive, though there was some assimilation. Furthermore, Jews lived almost exclusively in shtetls , maintained a strong system of education for males, heeded rabbinic leadership, and had

4077-631: The Isthmus of Corinth in Greece. Jewish slaves and their children eventually gained their freedom and joined local free Jewish communities. Many Jews were denied full Roman citizenship until Emperor Caracalla granted all free peoples this privilege in 212 CE. Jews were required to pay a poll tax until the reign of Emperor Julian in 363 CE. In the late Roman Empire, Jews were free to form networks of cultural and religious ties and enter into various local occupations. However, after Christianity became

4228-675: The Minhag of Ashkenaz and Poland. According to 16th-century mystic Rabbi Elijah of Chelm , Ashkenazi Jews lived in Jerusalem during the 11th century. The story is told that a German-speaking Jew saved the life of a young German man surnamed Dolberger. So when the knights of the First Crusade came to siege Jerusalem, one of Dolberger's family members who was among them rescued Jews in Palestine and carried them back to Worms to repay

4379-708: The Re Drummond Wren case, a Jewish group, the Workers' Education Association (WEA) challenged the "restrictive covenants" that forbade the renting or selling of properties to Jews. Through the case was something of a set-up as the WEA had quite consciously purchased a property in Toronto known to have a "restrictive covenant" in order to challenge the legality of "restrictive covenants" in the courts, Justice John Keiller MacKay struck down "restrictive covenants" in his ruling on October 31, 1945. In 1948, MacKay's ruling in

4530-561: The Republican Party , while Conservative, Reform, and non denominational ones tend to support the Democratic Party. Religious Jews have minhagim , customs, in addition to halakha , or religious law, and different interpretations of the law. Different groups of religious Jews in different geographic areas historically adopted different customs and interpretations. On certain issues, Orthodox Jews are required to follow

4681-865: The SHuM cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The cluster of cities contain the earliest Jewish settlements north of the Alps, and played a major role in the formation of Ashkenazi Jewish religious tradition, along with Troyes and Sens in France. Nonetheless, Jewish life in Germany persisted, while some Ashkenazi Jews joined Sephardic Jewry in Spain. Expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), and parts of Germany (15th century), gradually pushed Ashkenazi Jewry eastward, to Poland (10th century), Lithuania (10th century), and Russia (12th century). Over this period of several hundred years, some have suggested, Jewish economic activity

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4832-593: The Segal Centre for Performing Arts , as well as the YM-YWHA Montreal Jewish Community Centres. CJA is connected with other groups such as Hillel International. Hillel International has a presence on college campuses to support Jewish students in their college life and to support their connection to Israel as part of their identity. This can sometimes be in conflict with groups supporting other causes and most recently with

4983-701: The Statute of Kalisz of 1264. By the 15th century, the Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Poland were the largest Jewish communities of the Diaspora. This area, which eventually fell under the domination of Russia, Austria , and Prussia (Germany) following the Partitions of Poland , and was later largely regained by reborn Poland in the interbellum , would remain the main center of Ashkenazi Jewry until

5134-471: The 11th century, Hai Gaon refers to questions that had been addressed to him from Ashkenaz, by which he undoubtedly means Germany. Rashi in the latter half of the 11th century refers to both the language of Ashkenaz and the country of Ashkenaz. During the 12th century, the word appears quite frequently. In the Mahzor Vitry , the kingdom of Ashkenaz is referred to chiefly in regard to the ritual of

5285-477: The 11th century, Jewish settlers moving from southern European and Middle Eastern centers (such as Babylonian Jews and Persian Jews ) and Maghrebi Jewish traders from North Africa who had contacts with their Ashkenazi brethren and had visited each other from time to time in each's domain appear to have begun to settle in the north, especially along the Rhine, often in response to new economic opportunities and at

5436-549: The 1880s, and continuing through the growing anti-Semitism of the early 20th century, millions of Jews began to flee the Pale of Settlement and other areas of Eastern Europe for the West. Although the United States received the overwhelming majority of these immigrants, Canada was also a destination of choice due to Government of Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway efforts to develop Canada after Confederation. Between 1880 and 1930,

5587-608: The 1940s to the 1960s, the man generally recognized as the chief spokesman for the Canadian Jewish community was Rabbi Abraham Feinberg of the Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. In 1950, Dorothy Sangster wrote in Macleans' about him: "Today American-born Rabbi Feinberg is one of the most controversial figures to occupy a Canadian pulpit. Gentiles recognize him as the official voice of Canadian Jewry. This fact

5738-407: The 1950s the community was "virtually devoid" of discussion. Although one in seven Canadian Jews were survivors or their children, most "did not want to know what happened, and few survivors had the courage to tell them". He argued that the main obstacle to discussion was "an inability to comprehend the event". Awareness emerged in the 1960s, as the community realized that antisemitism remained. From

5889-554: The 21st century, anti-Semitism has become a growing concern, with reports of anti-semitic incidents increasing sharply in recent years. This includes the well publicized anti-Semitic comments of Ernst Zündel . In 2009, the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism was established by all four major federal political parties to investigate and combat antisemitism, namely new antisemitism . The League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith monitors

6040-613: The Anti-zionist movement gaining momentum from the Israel- Gaza war and the barbaric October 7 attacks by Hamas, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas , a known terrorist group. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/04/29/the-lead-columbia-protest-palestine-israel-students-tapper.cnn . In its vision of the future, the director of CJA believes that the Federation CJA must be more inclusive and recognize all Jews in

6191-667: The Austrian empire or the Russian empire. Jewish women tended to be particularly active in Canadian Zionism, perhaps because many of the Zionist groups were secular. By 1911, there were Jewish communities in all of Canada's major cities. By 1914, there were about 100,000 Jews in Canada with three-quarters living in either Montreal or Toronto. The overwhelming majority of Canadian Jews were Ashkenazim who came from either

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6342-674: The Baltic states to become Canadian citizens; and the Jerusalem Post called Canada a "near-blissful refuge" for Nazi war criminals. The Canadian Jewish historian Irving Abella stated that for Eastern Europeans the best way of getting into postwar Canada "was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist". Despite pressure from Jewish groups, the Canadian government dragged its feet on deporting Nazi war criminals out of

6493-537: The British Empire. Ezekiel was expelled from the legislature with his religion a major factor. Sir James Henry Craig , Governor-General of Lower Canada, tried to protect Hart, but French Canadians saw this as an attempt of the British to undermine them and the legislature expelled Hart in both 1808 and following his re-election in 1809. The legislature then barred Jews from holding elected office in Canada until

6644-462: The British Empire. In 1832, partly because of the work of Ezekiel Hart , a law was passed that guaranteed Jews the same political rights and freedoms as Christians. In the early 1830s, German Jew Samuel Liebshitz founded Jewsburg (now incorporated as German Mills into Kitchener, Ontario ), a village in Upper Canada . In 1841 Isaac Gottschalk Ascher arrived in Montreal with his family, including sons Albert (who later in 1856 together with Lewis Samuel

6795-404: The British. Several Jews were members of his regiments, and among his officer corps were five Jews: Samuel Jacobs, Emmanuel de Cordova, Aaron Hart , Hananiel Garcia, and Isaac Miramer. The most prominent of these five were the business associates Samuel Jacobs and Aaron Hart. In 1759, in his capacity as Commissariat to the British Army on the staff of General Sir Frederick Haldimand , Jacobs

6946-499: The CJC was to speak on behalf of the common interests of Jewish Canadians and assist immigrant Jews. The largest Jewish community was in Montreal, at the time the largest, wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city in Canada. The vast majority of Montreal's Jews who arrived in the early 20th century were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim but their children chose speak English rather than French. Until 1964, Quebec had no public education system, instead having two parallel educational systems run by

7097-476: The Canadian prairies . Few of the colonies did very well, partly because the Jews of East European origin were forbidden to own farms in the old country and thus had little experience in farming. One settlement that did do well was Yid'n Bridge, Saskatchewan , started by South African farmers. Eventually the community grew larger as the South African Jews , who had gone to South Africa from Lithuania invited Jewish families directly from Europe to join them, and

7248-449: The Canadian government to deport the Axis collaborators from Eastern Europe whom the government of Canada had welcomed with open arms in the 1940s–1950s. In 1997, a report by Sol Littman, the head of Simon Wiesenthal Center operations in Canada charged that Canada in 1950 had accepted 2,000 veterans of 14th Waffen-SS Division with no screening; the American news program 60 Minutes showed that Canada had allowed about 1,000 SS veterans from

7399-421: The Canadian population. The Jewish community in Canada is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews . Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented and include Sephardi Jews , Mizrahi Jews , and Bene Israel . A number of converts to Judaism make up the Jewish-Canadian community, which manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions and the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance . Though they are

7550-419: The Drummond Wren case was struck down in the Noble v Alley case by the Ontario Supreme Court, which ruled that "restrictive covenants" were "legal and enforceable". A woman named Anna Noble decided to sell her cottage at the Beach O' Pines resort to Bernard Wolf, a Jewish businessman from London, Ontario. The sale was blocked by the Beach O'Pines Resort Association which had a "restrictive covenant" forbidding

7701-409: The Hellenized parts of the Roman Empire. The excavations suggest they first lived in isolated enclaves attached to Roman legion camps and intermarried with other similar oriental families within the military orders of the region. Raphael Patai states that later Roman writers remarked that they differed little in either customs, manner of writing, or names from the people among whom they dwelt; and it

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7852-434: The Holocaust in Quebec after the war in exchange for the "International Zionist Brotherhood" promising to fund both the federal and provincial Liberal parties. By contrast, Duplessis claimed that he would never take any money from the Jews, and if he were elected Premier, he would stop this alleged plan to bring Jewish refugees to Quebec. Though Duplessis' claims about the alleged plan to settle 100,000 Jewish refugees in Quebec

8003-399: The Holocaust. These included 3 million of 3.3 million Polish Jews (91%); 900,000 of 1.5 million in Ukraine (60%); and 50–90% of the Jews of other Slavic nations, Germany, Hungary, and the Baltic states, and over 25% of the Jews in France. Sephardi communities suffered similar devastation in a few countries, including Greece, the Netherlands and the former Yugoslavia. As the large majority of

8154-427: The Israeli Occupation and advocate for a two-state solution but focus primarily on Jewish cultural, educational and social justice issues. A smaller organization, Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) , characterized as anti-Zionist, argues that the CIJA and B'nai B'rith do not speak for most Canadian Jews. Also, many Canadian Jews simply have no connections to any of these organizations. The birth rate for Jews in Canada

8305-435: The Jewish immigrants were seen as economic competition for Gentiles, the leadership of the CJC was assumed by the whisky tycoon Samuel Bronfman who it was hoped might be able to persuade the government to allow more Jews to come. In view of worsening situation for Jews in Europe, allowing more Jewish immigration became the central concern of the CJC. Through many Canadian Jews voted for the Liberal Party, traditionally seen as

8456-434: The Jewish population of Canada grew to over 155,000. At the time, according to the 1901 census of Montreal, only 6861 Jews were residents. Jewish immigrants brought a tradition of establishing a communal body, called a kehilla to look after the social and welfare needs of their less fortunate. Virtually all of these Jewish refugees were very poor. Wealthy Jewish philanthropists, who had come to Canada much earlier, felt it

8607-580: The Jews in Canada goes back to the 1700s. Canadian Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel , the United States and France . In the 2021 census , 335,295 people reported their religion as Jewish, accounting for 0.9% of the Canadian population. Some estimates have placed the enlarged number of Jews, such as those who may be culturally or ethnically Jewish, though not necessarily religiously, at around 400,000 people. This total would account for approximately 1.4% of

8758-418: The Middle East, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe. Other than their origins in ancient Israel, the question of how Ashkenazi Jews came to exist as a distinct community is unknown, and has given rise to several theories. Beginning in the fourth century BCE, Jewish colonies sprang up in southern Europe, including the Aegean Islands, Greece, and Italy. Jews left ancient Israel for a number of causes, including

8909-421: The Protestant churches and the Catholic church. As the Jewish community was too poor to fund its own educational system, most Jewish parents chose to enrol their children in the English-speaking Protestant school system, which was willing to accept Jews unlike the Catholic school system. The CJC had its headquarters in Montreal while the Jewish Public Library of Montreal and the Montreal Yiddish Theatre were two of

9060-423: The Quebec Hebrew Relief Association for Immigrants, and the Quebec Zionist Society. By 1905, the Jewish population was about 350, in a total population of 68,834. According to census of 1871, there were 1,115 Jews living in Canada with 409 in Montreal, 157 in Toronto, and 131 in Hamilton with the rest living in Brantford, Quebec City, St. John, Kingston and London. With the beginning of the pogroms of Russia in

9211-468: The Queen's Own Rifles regiment was a soldier in the campaigns of 1944–45 in northwest Europe, highly decorated for his courage and ability under fire. In 1943, Saidye Rosner Bronfman of Montreal, the wife of the whiskey tycoon Samuel Bronfman was appointed MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her work on the home front. Saidye Bronfram had organized 7, 000 women in Montreal to make packages for Canadian soldiers serving overseas, for which she

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9362-461: The Responsa of Isaac ben Sheshet (numbers 193, 268, 270). In the Midrash compilation, Genesis Rabbah , Rabbi Berechiah mentions Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah as German tribes or as German lands. It may correspond to a Greek word that may have existed in the Greek dialect of the Jews in Syria Palaestina , or the text is corrupted from "Germanica". This view of Berechiah is based on the Talmud (Yoma 10a; Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 71b), where Gomer,

9513-683: The United States after the war. Following the Holocaust, some sources place Ashkenazim today as making up approximately 83%–85% of Jews worldwide, while Sergio DellaPergola in a rough calculation of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews , implies that Ashkenazi make up a notably lower figure, less than 74%. Other estimates place Ashkenazi Jews as making up about 75% of Jews worldwide. Jews of mixed background are increasingly common, partly because of intermarriage between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi, and partly because many do not see such historic markers as relevant to their life experiences as Jews. Religious Ashkenazi Jews living in Israel are obliged to follow

9664-451: The actual establishment of synagogue to 1777 on Notre Dame Street. Revolts and protests soon began calling for responsible government in Canada. The law requiring the oath "on my faith as a Christian" was amended in 1829 to provide for Jews to refuse the oath. In 1831, prominent French-Canadian politician Louis-Joseph Papineau sponsored a law which granted full equivalent political rights to Jews, twenty-seven years before anywhere else in

9815-410: The army ended, he settled at Trois-Rivières , where he became a wealthy landowner and respected community member. He had four sons, Moses, Benjamin, Ezekiel and Alexander, all of whom would become prominent in Montreal and help build the Jewish Community. Ezekiel was elected to the legislature of Lower Canada in the by-election of April 11, 1807, becoming the first Jew in an official opposition in

9966-424: The arrival of Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe to Eastern Europe, from the Middle Ages to the 16th century, there were a substantial number of non-Ashkenazim Jews already there who later abandoned their original Eastern European Jewish culture in favor of the Ashkenazi one. However, according to more recent research, mass migrations of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews occurred to Eastern Europe, from Central Europe in

10117-475: The authority of the chief Ashkenazi rabbi in halakhic matters. In this respect, a religiously Ashkenazi Jew is an Israeli who is more likely to support certain religious interests in Israel, including certain political parties. These political parties result from the fact that a portion of the Israeli electorate votes for Jewish religious parties; although the electoral map changes from one election to another, there are generally several small parties associated with

10268-545: The centuries, Ashkenazim made significant contributions to Europe's philosophy , scholarship, literature , art , music , and science . As a proportion of the world Jewish population , Ashkenazim were estimated to be 3% in the 11th century, rising to 92% in 1930 near the population's peak. The Ashkenazi population was significantly diminished by the Holocaust carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II which killed some six million Jews, affecting almost every European Jewish family. In 1933, prior to World War II,

10419-446: The colony. One exception was Esther Brandeau , a Jewish girl who arrived in 1738 disguised as a boy and remained a year before she was returned for refusing to convert. The earliest subsequent documentation of Jews in Canada are British Army records from the French and Indian War , the North American part of the Seven Years' War . In 1760, General Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst attacked and seized Montreal , winning Canada for

10570-617: The congregants, and on July 23, 1871, the synagogue officially adopted the name פרחי קדש — Toronto Holy Blossom Temple . Abraham Jacob Franks settled at Quebec City in 1767. His son, David Salesby (or Salisbury) Franks, who afterward became head of the Montreal Jewish community, also lived in Quebec prior to 1774. Abraham Joseph, who was long a prominent figure in public affairs in Quebec City, took up his residence there shortly after his father's death in 1832. Quebec City's Jewish population for many years remained very small, and early efforts at organization were fitful and short-lived. A cemetery

10721-476: The country visiting Parliament Hill and meeting with the prime minister, ambassadors and other dignitaries. Since the beginning of the 21st century Jewish immigration to Canada has continued, increasing in numbers with the passing of the years. With the rise of antisemitic acts in France and weak economic conditions, most of the Jewish newcomers are French Jews who are mainly looking for new economic opportunities (either in Israel or elsewhere, with Canada one of

10872-500: The cradle of Germanic tribes, as early as a 6th-century gloss to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius . In the 10th-century History of Armenia of Yovhannes Drasxanakertc'i (1.15), Ashkenaz was associated with Armenia, as it was occasionally in Jewish usage, where its denotation extended at times to Adiabene , Khazaria , Crimea and areas to the east. His contemporary Saadia Gaon identified Ashkenaz with

11023-662: The culture of the Babylonian Talmud that underlies it became established in southern Italy and then spread north to Ashkenaz. Numerous massacres of Jews occurred throughout Europe during the Christian Crusades . Inspired by the preaching of a First Crusade, crusader mobs in France and Germany perpetrated the Rhineland massacres of 1096, devastating Jewish communities along the Rhine River, including

11174-459: The customs of their ancestors and do not believe they have the option of picking and choosing. For this reason, observant Jews at times find it important for religious reasons to ascertain who their household's religious ancestors are in order to know what customs their household should follow. These times include, for example, when two Jews of different ethnic background marry, when a non-Jew converts to Judaism and determines what customs to follow for

11325-573: The degree and sources of European admixture , with some focusing on the European genetic origin in Ashkenazi maternal lineages, contrasting with the predominantly Middle Eastern genetic origin in paternal lineages. The name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz , the first son of Gomer , son of Japhet , son of Noah , and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations ( Genesis 10 ). The name of Gomer has often been linked to

11476-548: The early Middle Ages, some Jews assimilated into the dominant Greek and Latin cultures, mostly through conversion to Christianity. King Dagobert I of the Franks expelled the Jews from his Merovingian kingdom in 629. Jews in former Roman territories faced new challenges as harsher anti-Jewish Church rulings were enforced. Charlemagne 's expansion of the Frankish empire around 800, including northern Italy and Rome, brought on

11627-462: The early modern period. During the 16th century, as conditions for Italian Jews worsened, many Jews from Venice and the surrounding area migrated to Poland and Lithuania. During the 16th and 17th centuries, some Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews from throughout the Ottoman Empire migrated to Eastern Europe, as did Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews and Persian Jews . In the first half of

11778-582: The economy, media, and politics of Israel since its founding. During the first decades of Israel as a state, strong cultural conflict occurred between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews (mainly east European Ashkenazim). The roots of this conflict, which still exists to a much smaller extent in present-day Israeli society, are chiefly attributed to the concept of the " melting pot ". That is to say, all Jewish immigrants who arrived in Israel were strongly encouraged to "meltdown" their own particular exilic identities within

11929-605: The emancipation, Zionism developed in central Europe. Other Jews, particularly those in the Pale of Settlement , turned to socialism . These tendencies would be united in Labor Zionism , the founding ideology of the State of Israel. Of the estimated 8.8 million Jews living in Europe at the beginning of World War II , the majority of whom were Ashkenazi, about 6 million – more than two-thirds – were systematically murdered in

12080-429: The end of the first millennium CE . They traditionally speak Yiddish , a language that originated in the 9th century, and largely migrated towards northern and eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages due to persecution . Hebrew was primarily used as a literary and sacred language until its 20th-century revival as a common language in Israel. Ashkenazim adapted their traditions to Europe and underwent

12231-488: The estimated worldwide Jewish population was 15.3 million. Israeli demographer and statistician Sergio D. Pergola implied that Ashkenazim comprised 65–70% of Jews worldwide in 2000, while other estimates suggest more than 75%. As of 2013 , the population was estimated to be between 10 million and 11.2 million. Genetic studies indicate that Ashkenazim have both Levantine and European (mainly southern European) ancestry. These studies draw diverging conclusions about

12382-519: The far north, the others being Minni and Ararat (corresponding to Urartu ), called on by God to resist Babylon. In the Yoma tractate of the Babylonian Talmud the name Gomer is rendered as Germania , which elsewhere in rabbinical literature was identified with Germanikia in northwestern Syria, but later became associated with Germania . Ashkenaz is linked to Scandza/Scanzia , viewed as

12533-411: The father of Ashkenaz, is translated by Germamia , which evidently stands for Germany, and which was suggested by the similarity of the sound. In later times, the word Ashkenaz is used to designate southern and western Germany, the ritual of which sections differs somewhat from that of eastern Germany and Poland. Thus the prayer-book of Isaiah Horowitz , and many others, give the piyyutim according to

12684-512: The favor. Further evidence of German communities in the holy city comes in the form of halakhic questions sent from Germany to Jerusalem during the second half of the 11th century. Material relating to the history of German Jews has been preserved in the communal accounts of certain communities on the Rhine, a Memorbuch , and a Liebesbrief , documents that are now part of the Sassoon Collection. Heinrich Graetz also added to

12835-654: The fear of offending voters of Eastern European background, who make up a significant number of Canadian voters. Today, the Jewish culture in Canada is maintained by practising Jews and secular Jews . Nearly all Jews in Canada speak one of the two official languages , although most speak English over French. Most Ashkenazi Jews speak English as a first language, including most Ashkenazi Jews in Quebec . In terms of Jewish denominations, 26% of Canadian Jews are Conservative , 17% Orthodox , 16% Reform , 29% are "Just Jewish", and

12986-649: The federal government's "bulk-labour" program that allowed labour-intensive industries to bring European displaced persons to Canada, to fill those jobs. For Lewis' work on this and other projects during this period, the Montreal branch was renamed the Moshe Lewis Branch, after his death in 1950. The Canadian arm of the Jewish Labor Committee also honored him when they established the Moshe Lewis Foundation in 1975. In

13137-474: The federation following the rise during the 1970s of nationalist political parties in Quebec, as well as a result of Quebec's Language Law . The Jewish population is growing rather slowly due to aging and low birth rates. The population of Canadian Jews increased by just 3.5% between 1991 and 2001, despite much immigration from the Former Soviet Union, Israel and other countries. Politically,

13288-534: The fields of arts, journalism and literature.   Since the 1960s a new immigration wave of Jews started to take place. A number of French-speaking Jews from North Africa ended up settling in Montreal. Some South African Jews decided to emigrate to Canada after South Africa became a republic in 1961, and was followed by another wave in the late 1970s, which was precipitated by anti-apartheid rioting and civil unrest. The majority of them settled in Ontario , with

13439-551: The first Jew appointed to the a French-Canadian hospital. The four-day strike, nicknamed the " Days of Shame ", involved interns refusing to "provide care to anyone, including emergency patients". The strike was called off after Dr Rabinovitch resigned after he realised that no patients would be treated otherwise. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, through such movements as the Jewish Colonization Association , 15 Jewish farm colonies were established on

13590-561: The first Jewish Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1971, David Lewis became the leader of the New Democratic Party, becoming the first Jew to head a major Canadian political party. In 1976, the Quebec provincial election was won by the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ), which sparked a major flight of Montreal's English-speaking Jews to Toronto with about 20,000 leaving. The Jewish community of Montreal has been

13741-438: The forces of Herod the Great with assistance from Roman forces in 37 BCE. It is known that Jewish war captives were sold into slavery after the suppression of a minor Jewish revolt in 53 BCE, and some were probably taken to southern Europe. Regarding Jewish settlements founded in southern Europe during the Roman era, E. Mary Smallwood wrote that "no date or origin can be assigned to the numerous settlements eventually known in

13892-551: The friend of minorities, the Liberal Prime Minister from 1935 onward, William Lyon Mackenzie King , proved to be extremely unsympathetic. Mackenzie King adamantly refused to change the immigration law, and Canada accepted proportionally the fewest Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. About 17,000 Jewish Canadians served in the Canadian Armed Forces during World War II . Major Ben Dunkelman of

14043-502: The general social "pot" in order to become Israeli. As of 2020, 63% of American Jews are Ashkenazim. A disproportionate amount of Ashkenazi Americans are religious compared to American Jews of other racial groups. They live in large populations in the states of New York, California, Florida, and New Jersey. The majority of American Ashkenazi Jewish voters vote for the Democratic Party , although Orthodox ones tend to support

14194-467: The history of German Jewry in modern times in the abstract of his seminal work, History of the Jews , which he entitled "Volksthümliche Geschichte der Juden." In an essay on Sephardi Jewry, Daniel Elazar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs summarized the demographic history of Ashkenazi Jews in the last thousand years. He noted that at the end of the 11th century, 97% of world Jewry

14345-409: The idea that Jews had the know-how and capacity to jump-start the economy, improve revenues, and enlarge trade seems to have played a prominent role. Typically, Jews relocated close to the markets and churches in town centres, where, though they came under the authority of both royal and ecclesiastical powers, they were accorded administrative autonomy. In the 11th century, both Rabbinic Judaism and

14496-529: The incidents and prepares an annual audit of these events. There was an increase of the scope of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada with a number of cases of anti-Semitic vandalism and spraying Nazi symbols in August 2013 in Winnipeg and in the greater Toronto area. On February 26, 2014, and for the first time in Canadian history, B'nai Brith Canada led an official delegation of Sephardi community leaders, activists, philanthropists and spiritual leaders from across

14647-463: The interests of religious Ashkenazi Jews. The role of religious parties, including small religious parties that play important roles as coalition members, results in turn from Israel's composition as a complex society in which competing social, economic, and religious interests stand for election to the Knesset , a unicameral legislature with 120 seats. Ashkenazi Jews have played a prominent role in

14798-514: The invitation of local Christian rulers. Thus Baldwin V, Count of Flanders , invited Jacob ben Yekutiel and his fellow Jews to settle in his lands; and soon after the Norman conquest of England , William the Conqueror likewise extended a welcome to continental Jews to take up residence there. Bishop Rüdiger Huzmann called on the Jews of Mainz to relocate to Speyer . In all of these decisions,

14949-767: The land of Israel/Judaea. They collected an annual temple tax from Jews both in and outside of Israel. The revolts in and suppression of diaspora communities in Egypt, Libya and Crete during the Kitos War of 115–117 CE had a severe impact on the Jewish diaspora. A substantial Jewish population emerged in northern Gaul by the Middle Ages, but Jewish communities existed in 465 CE in Brittany , in 524 CE in Valence , and in 533 CE in Orléans . Throughout this period and into

15100-513: The larger cities. Canada's first ever census, recorded that in 1871 there were 1,115 Jews in Canada; 409 in Montreal, 157 in Toronto , 131 in Hamilton and the rest were dispersed in small communities along the St. Lawrence River . When elected mayor of Alexandria in 1914, George Simon was the second Jewish mayor in Canada (after David Oppenheimer , who was mayor of Vancouver from 1888 to 1891) and

15251-473: The largest Jewish cultural institutions in Canada. The Jews of Montreal tended to be concentrated in several neighbourhoods, which gave a strong sense of community identity. In 1930 under the impact of the Great Depression, Canada sharply limited immigration from Eastern Europe, which adversely impacted on the ability of the   Ashkenazim to come to Canada. In a climate of anti-semitism where

15402-521: The largest community in Toronto , followed by those in Hamilton , London and Kingston . Smaller waves of Zimbabwean Jews were also present during this period. In 1961 Louis Rasminsky became the first Jewish governor of the Bank of Canada. Every previous governor of the Bank of Canada had been a member of the prestigious Rideau Club of Ottawa, but Rasminsky's application to join the Rideau Club

15553-485: The major Jewish Canadian organizations are the Centre for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) and the more conservative B'nai Brith Canada both claim to be the voice of the Jewish community. The United Jewish People's Order , once the largest Jewish fraternal organization in Canada, is a left-leaning secular group established in 1927 with current chapters in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Politically, UJPO opposes

15704-576: The majority of the American Jewish community since 1750. In the context of the European Enlightenment , Jewish emancipation began in 18th century France and spread throughout Western and Central Europe. Disabilities that had limited the rights of Jews since the Middle Ages were abolished, including the requirements to wear distinctive clothing, pay special taxes, and live in ghettos isolated from non-Jewish communities and

15855-552: The majority of the Canadian Jewry and was widely spoken within the Canadian Jewish community up to the middle of the twentieth century. Ashkenazi Jews Ashkenazi Jews ( / ˌ ɑː ʃ k ə ˈ n ɑː z i , ˌ æ ʃ -/ A(H)SH -kə- NAH -zee ; also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ) constitute a Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around

16006-440: The manufacturing facilities. Jewish merchants and labourers spread out from the cities to small towns, building synagogues, community centres and schools as they went. As the population grew, Canadian Jews began to organize themselves as a community despite the presence of dozens of competing sects . The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was founded in 1919 as the result of the merger of several smaller organizations. The purpose of

16157-462: The mid-first century became widely accepted, including by Louis Feldman . However, contemporary scholars now accept that Bar Hebraeus based his figure on a census of total Roman citizens and thus included non-Jews, the figure of 6,944,000 being recorded in Eusebius' Chronicon . Louis Feldman, previously an active supporter of the figure, now states that he and Baron were mistaken. Philo gives

16308-482: The migration patterns of Jews from Southern and Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe. In 1740, a family from Lithuania became the first Ashkenazi Jews to settle in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. In the generations after emigration from the west, Jewish communities in places like Poland, Russia, and Belarus enjoyed a comparatively stable socio-political environment. A thriving publishing industry and

16459-488: The movement was by no means a singular, centralized event, and a Jewish diaspora had already been established before. During both of these rebellions, many Jews were captured and sold into slavery by the Romans. According to the Jewish historian Josephus , 97,000 Jews were sold as slaves in the aftermath of the first revolt. In one occasion, Vespasian reportedly ordered 6,000 Jewish prisoners of war from Galilee to work on

16610-435: The needs of the most vulnerable in Montreal, Israel, and in other communities under threat around the world. Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA) is the fundraising arm of Federation CJA, with over 18,000 donors to the annual campaign supporting various local, national, and overseas programs and activities. As a community organization , it mobilizes thousands of volunteers who devote their time and energy to raising funds, allocating

16761-489: The new rail lines, selling goods and supplies to the construction workers, many of whom were also Jewish. Later, because of the railway, some of these homesteads grew into prosperous towns. At this time, Canadian Jews also had important roles in developing the west coast fishing industry, while others worked on building telegraph lines. Some, descended from the earliest Canadian Jews, stayed true to their ancestors as fur trappers. The first major Jewish organization to appear

16912-1109: The official religion of Rome and Constantinople in 380 CE, Jews were increasingly marginalized. The Synagogue in the Agora of Athens is dated to the period between 267 and 396 CE. The Stobi Synagogue in Macedonia was built on the ruins of a more ancient synagogue in the 4th century, while later in the 5th century, the synagogue was transformed into a Christian basilica. Hellenistic Judaism thrived in Antioch and Alexandria , and many of these Greek-speaking Jews would convert to Christianity. Sporadic epigraphic evidence in gravesite excavations, particularly in Brigetio ( Szőny ), Aquincum ( Óbuda ), Intercisa ( Dunaújváros ), Triccinae ( Sárvár ), Savaria ( Szombathely ), Sopianae ( Pécs ) in Hungary, and Mursa ( Osijek ) in Croatia, attest to

17063-473: The outbreak of World War I , there were approximately 100,000 Canadian Jews, of whom three-quarters lived in either Montreal or Toronto. Many of the children of the European refugees started out as peddlers, eventually working their way up to established businesses, such as retailers and wholesalers. Jewish Canadians played an essential role in the development of the Canadian clothing and textile industry. Most worked as labourers in sweatshops ; while some owned

17214-516: The passage of the 1832 Emancipation Act . Most of the early Jewish Canadians were either fur traders or served in the British Army troops. A few were merchants or landowners. Although Montreal's Jewish community was small, numbering only around 200, they built the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal , Shearith Israel, the oldest synagogue in Canada in 1768. It remained the only synagogue in Montreal until 1846. Some sources date

17365-536: The possible exception of Trier and Cologne , the archeological evidence suggests at most a fleeting presence of very few Jews, primarily itinerant traders or artisans. Estimating the number of Jews in antiquity is a task fraught with peril due to the nature of and lack of accurate documentation. The number of Jews in the Roman Empire for a long time was based on the accounts of Syrian Orthodox bishop Bar Hebraeus who lived between 1226 and 1286 CE, who stated by

17516-441: The post-war era, universities proved more willing to accept Jewish applicants and in decades after 1945, many Canadian Jews tended to move up from a lower-class group working as menial laborers to a middle class group working as bourgeois professionals. With the ability to obtain a better education, many Jews become doctors, teachers, lawyers, dentists, accountants, professors and other bourgeois occupations. Geographically, there

17667-515: The presence of Jews after the 2nd and 3rd centuries where Roman garrisons were established. There was a sufficient number of Jews in Pannonia to form communities and build a synagogue. Jewish troops were among the Syrian soldiers transferred there, and replenished from the Middle East. After 175 CE Jews and especially Syrians came from Antioch , Tarsus , and Cappadocia . Others came from Italy and

17818-512: The present, Jewish life in northern Europe is well documented. By the 11th century, when Rashi of Troyes wrote his commentaries, Jews in what came to be known as "Ashkenaz" were known for their halakhic learning , and Talmudic studies . They were criticized by Sephardim and other Jewish scholars in Islamic lands for their lack of expertise in Jewish jurisprudence and general ignorance of Hebrew linguistics and literature. Yiddish emerged as

17969-467: The printing of hundreds of biblical commentaries precipitated the development of the Hasidic movement as well as major Jewish academic centers. After two centuries of comparative tolerance in the new nations, massive westward emigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries in response to pogroms in the east and the economic opportunities offered in other parts of the world. Ashkenazi Jews have made up

18120-979: The proceeds, and assisting in the delivery of services. It is one of 156 North American Jewish federations, a member of the United Israel Appeal Federations Canada , the Jewish Federations of North America , and a contributor to the Jewish Agency for Israel . Federation CJA is also affiliated with the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy . Constituent agencies of Federation CJA include Agence Ometz, Bronfman Jewish Education Centre , Camp B'nai B'rith , Communauté sépharade unifiée du Québec ( United Sefardic Community of Quebec ), Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors , Hillel Montreal, JEM Workshop Inc., Jewish Public Library , Montreal Holocaust Museum ,

18271-485: The prohibitions on certain professions. Laws were passed to integrate Jews into their host countries, forcing Ashkenazi Jews to adopt family names (they had formerly used patronymics ). Newfound inclusion into public life led to cultural growth in the Haskalah , or Jewish Enlightenment, with its goal of integrating modern European values into Jewish life. As a reaction to increasing antisemitism and assimilation following

18422-461: The remaining 12% align themselves with smaller movements or are unsure. Intermarriage is relatively low among Canadian Jews, with 77% of married Jews having a Jewish spouse. Most of Canada's Jews live in Ontario and Quebec, followed by British Columbia , Manitoba and Alberta . While Toronto is the largest Jewish population centre, Montreal played this role until many English-speaking Jewish Canadians left for Toronto, fearing that Quebec might leave

18573-615: The rights of minorities with the League of Nations to monitor their compliance. The CJC was founded in part to lobby the government of Canada to use its influence at the League of Nations to ensure that the Eastern European states were abiding by the terms of the "minorities treaties". On August 16, 1933, one of the most famous anti-Semitic incidents in Canada took place, known as the Christie Pits riot . On that day after

18724-547: The rise of fascism in Europe and Quebec during the thirties, the Second World War and assisting the remnants of European Jewry, the birth of the State of Israel , waves of immigration including especially Holocaust survivors, Sephardic Jews and Hungarians after the 1956 uprising , the rise of the separatist movements and outward immigration, particularly of young Jews that followed in the late '70s and '80s, as well as fighting antisemitism and assisting in meeting

18875-732: The sale of cottages to any person of "Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or colored race or blood". With the support of the Joint Public Relations Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai B'rith headed by Rabbi Feinberg, the Noble ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which in November 1950 ruled against "restrictive covenants", albeit only on the technicality that the phrase "Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or colored race or blood"

19026-704: The settlement eventually became a town, whose name was later changed to the Anglicized name of Edenbridge . The Jewish farming settlement folded in the first generation. Beth Israel Synagogue at Edenbridge is now a designated heritage site . In Alberta, the Little Synagogue on the Prairie is now in the collection of a museum. At this time, most of the Jewish Canadians in the west were either storekeepers or tradesmen. Many set up shops on

19177-494: The synagogue there, but occasionally also with regard to certain other observances. In the literature of the 13th century, references to the land and the language of Ashkenaz often occur. Examples include Solomon ben Aderet 's Responsa (vol. i., No. 395); the Responsa of Asher ben Jehiel (pp. 4, 6); his Halakot (Berakot i. 12, ed. Wilna, p. 10); the work of his son Jacob ben Asher , Tur Orach Chayim (chapter 59);

19328-413: The time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, as many as six million Jews were already living in the Roman Empire, a conclusion which has been contested as highly exaggerated. The 13th-century author Bar Hebraeus gave a figure of 6,944,000 Jews in the Roman world. Salo Wittmayer Baron considered the figure convincing. The figure of seven million within and one million outside the Roman world in

19479-611: The top destinations chosen by French Jews to live in, particularly in Quebec ). For the same reasons, and due to cultural and linguistic proximity, several members of the Belgian-Jewish community choose Canada as their new home. There are efforts by the Jewish community of Montreal to attract these immigrants and make them feel at home, as well as those from other parts of the world. There is also some immigration of Argentine Jews and from other parts of Latin America. Argentina

19630-535: The veterans of the 14th Waffen SS Division Galizien , which was mostly recruited from Ukrainians in Galicia , settled in Canada. The fact that the men of the 14th Waffen-SS division had committed war crimes was ignored because they were felt to be useful for the Cold War. In Oakville, Ontario , a public monument honors the men of the 14th SS Division as heroes. Starting in the 1980s, Jewish groups began to lobby

19781-588: The victims were Ashkenazi Jews, their percentage dropped from an estimate of 92% of world Jewry in 1930 to nearly 80% of world Jewry today. The Holocaust also effectively put an end to the dynamic development of the Yiddish language in the previous decades , as the vast majority of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, around 5 million, were Yiddish speakers. Many of the surviving Ashkenazi Jews emigrated to countries such as Israel, Canada, Argentina, Australia , and

19932-590: The west, and some may have been founded as a result of the dispersal of Palestinian Jews after the revolts of AD 66–70 and 132–135, but it is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BC, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce." The first and second centuries CE saw a series of unsuccessful large-scale Jewish revolts against Rome . The Roman suppression of these revolts led to wide-scale destruction,

20083-518: The west, who due to high birth rates absorbed and largely replaced the preceding non-Ashkenazi Jewish groups of Eastern Europe (whose numbers the demographer Sergio Della Pergola considers to have been small). Genetic evidence also indicates that Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews largely descend from Ashkenazi Jews who migrated from central to eastern Europe and subsequently experienced high birthrates and genetic isolation. Some Jewish immigration from southern Europe to Eastern Europe continued into

20234-650: The youngest mayor in the country at the time. He died suddenly in 1969 while serving his tenth term in office. A community of about 100 settled in Victoria, British Columbia to open shops to supply prospectors during the Cariboo Gold Rush (and later the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon ). This led to the opening of a synagogue in Victoria, British Columbia in 1862. In 1875, B'nai B'rith Canada

20385-588: Was B'nai B'rith. Till today B'nai B'rith Canada is the community's independent advocacy and social service organization. Also at this time, the Montreal branch of the Workmen's Circle was founded in 1907. This group was an offshoot of the Jewish Labour Bund , an outlawed party in Russia's Pale of Settlement . It was an organization for The Main's radical, non-Communist, non-religious, working class. By

20536-558: Was Sephardic and 3% Ashkenazi; in the mid-17th century, "Sephardim still outnumbered Ashkenazim three to two"; by the end of the 18th century, "Ashkenazim outnumbered Sephardim three to two, the result of improved living conditions in Christian Europe versus the Ottoman Muslim world." By 1930, Arthur Ruppin estimated that Ashkenazi Jews accounted for nearly 92% of world Jewry. These factors are sheer demography showing

20687-608: Was a tendency for many Jews living in the inner cities of Toronto and Montreal to move out to the suburbs. The rural Jewish communities almost vanished as Jews living in rural areas decamped to the cities. Reflecting a more tolerant attitude, Canadian Jews became active on the cultural scene. In the post-war decades Peter C. Newman , Wayne and Shuster , Mordecai Richler , Leonard Cohen , Barbara Frum , Joseph Rosenblatt , Irving Layton , Eli Mandel , A.M. Klein , Henry Kreisel , Adele Wiseman , Miriam Waddington , Naim Kattan , and Rabbi Stuart Rosenberg were individuals of note in

20838-522: Was acquired in 1853, and a place of worship was opened in a hall in the same year, in which services were held intermittently. In 1892, the Jewish population of Quebec City had sufficiently augmented to permit the permanent establishment of the present synagogue, Beth Israel . The congregation was granted the right of keeping a register in 1897. Other communal institutions were the Quebec Hebrew Sick Benefit Association,

20989-811: Was aptly demonstrated a few years ago when Montreal's Mayor Houde introduced him to friends as Le Cardinal des Juifs —the Cardinal of the Jews". Feinberg was very active in various social justice efforts, campaigning for laws against discrimination against minorities and to end the "restrictive covenants". In March 1945, Rabbi Feinberg wrote an article in Maclean's charging that there was rampant antisemitism in Canada , stating: "Jews are kept out of most ski clubs. Sundry summer colonies (even on municipally owned land), fraternities, and at least one Rotary Club operate under written or unwritten “Gentiles Only” signs. Many bank positions are not open to Jews. Only three Jewish male physicians have been admitted to non-Jewish Hospital staffs in Toronto. McGill University has instituted

21140-549: Was denominated Sefarad ( Obadiah 20), France was called Tsarefat ( 1 Kings 17:9 ), and Bohemia was called the Land of Canaan . By the high medieval period, Talmudic commentators like Rashi began to use Ashkenaz/Eretz Ashkenaz to designate Germany , earlier known as Loter , where, especially in the Rhineland communities of Speyer , Worms and Mainz , the most important Jewish communities arose. Rashi uses leshon Ashkenaz (Ashkenazi language) to describe Yiddish, and Byzantium and Syrian Jewish letters referred to

21291-413: Was entirely false, his story was widely believed in Quebec, and ensured he won the election. In 1945, several organizations merged to form the left-wing United Jewish Peoples' Order which was one of the largest Jewish fraternal organizations in Canada for a number of years. As in the United States, the community's response to news of the Holocaust was muted for decades. Bialystok (2000) wrote that in

21442-425: Was especially difficult to differentiate Jews from the Syrians. After Pannonia was ceded to the Huns in 433, the garrison populations were withdrawn to Italy, and only a few, enigmatic traces remain of a possible Jewish presence in the area some centuries later. No evidence has yet been found of a Jewish presence in antiquity in Germany beyond its Roman border, nor in Eastern Europe. In Gaul and Germany itself, with

21593-478: Was focused on trade, business management, and financial services, due to several presumed factors: Christian European prohibitions restricting certain activities by Jews, preventing certain financial activities (such as " usurious " loans) between Christians, high rates of literacy, near-universal male education, and ability of merchants to rely upon and trust family members living in different regions and countries. In Poland, Jews were granted special protection by

21744-492: Was formed as a Jewish fraternal organization . When British Columbia sent their delegation to Ottawa to agree on the colony's entry into Confederation , a Jew, Henry Nathan, Jr. , was among them. Nathan eventually became the first Canadian Jewish Member of Parliament. In 1899, the Federation of Canadian Zionist Societies was founded to champion Zionism, and became the first nation-wide Jewish group. The overwhelming majority of Canadian Jews were Ashkenazim who came from either

21895-444: Was founded in 1919 and would be the major representative body of the Canadian Jewish community for 90 years. Much of its work was focused on lobbying government around issues of immigration, human rights and anti-Semitism. One of the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles were the so-called "minorities treaties" that committed Eastern European states with substantial Jewish populations such as Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia to protect

22046-487: Was recognized by King George VI.  Most Jewish Canadian who joined the Armed Forces at this time became members of the Royal Canadian Air Force . In 1939, Canada turned away the MS St. Louis with 908 Jewish refugees aboard. It went back to Europe where 254 of them died in concentration camps. And overall, Canada only accepted 5,000 Jewish refugees during the 1930s and 1940s in a climate of widespread anti-Semitism. A most striking display of antisemitism occurred with

22197-419: Was recorded as the first Jewish resident of Quebec , and thus the first Canadian Jew. From 1749, Jacobs had been supplying British army officers at Halifax , Nova Scotia. In 1758, he was at Fort Cumberland and the following year he was with Wolfe 's army at Quebec. Remaining in Canada, he became the dominant merchant of the Richelieu valley and Seigneur of Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu . Because he married

22348-445: Was renamed Syria Palaestina . Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt. With their national aspirations crushed and widespread devastation in Judea, despondent Jews migrated out of Judea in the aftermath of both revolts, and many settled in southern Europe. In contrast to the earlier Assyrian and Babylonian captivities,

22499-442: Was their social responsibility to help their fellow Jews get established in this new country. One such man was Abraham de Sola , who founded the Hebrew Philanthropic Society. In Montreal and Toronto, a wide range of communal organizations and groups developed. Recently arrived immigrant Jews also founded landsmenschaften , guilds of people who came originally from the same village. Most of these immigrants established communities in

22650-438: Was too vague. After the war, Canada liberalized its immigration policy. Roughly 40,000 Holocaust Survivors came during the late 1940s, hoping to rebuild their shattered lives. In 1947, the Workmen's Circle and Jewish Labour Committee started a project, spearheaded by Kalmen Kaplansky and Moshe Lewis , to bring Jewish refugees to Montreal in the needle trades, called the Tailors Project. They were able to do this through

22801-425: Was turned down on the account of his religion, a rejection that deeply hurt him. Through the Rideau Club changed its policies in response to public criticism, Rasminsky only joined the club after he retired as bank governor in 1973. In 1968, the Liberal MP Herb Gray of Windsor became the Jewish federal cabinet minister. In 1970, Bora Laskin became the first Jewish justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and in 1973,

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