Being Jewish in Canada: Past and Present

 

Special thanks to Anne Dance, Tina Adcock, Stephanie Pettigrew, Lee Blanding, and especially Lynne Marks for their help with this piece.

Content Warning/Trigger Warning: antisemitism, racism, violence

In the wake of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, I wrote a Twitter essay sharing some thoughts and feelings. To my surprise, it gained a lot of attention, and I am overwhelmed by the resulting outpouring of love and support. However, since Twitter isn’t an ideal medium for a nuanced discussion of history, I was also debating putting together a blog post. A number of individuals expressed interest in more information about the racial identity of Jews and the history of antisemitism[1]. There seems to be overwhelming support for this idea, so here we go. While I’ll be repeating a lot of what I’ve said already, if you want to see the original Twitter thread, just go here.

 

Before I go any further, it is important to talk about two things. First, my own personal history. If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, then you’ve likely heard most of this before. I am a fourth-generation Jewish Canadian. My ancestors come from Poland, Austria, and Russia, though I have never been to any of these places. I was born and raised in Montreal, in a traditional Orthodox Jewish family, though we are more properly called “High Holiday Jews.” To explain, while Jewish tradition and religion were (and are) important to my family, we only celebrated and attended synagogue for major holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippour, Passover) as well as life-cycle events (like bat/bar mitzvahs, weddings, etc…). I never had a bat mitzvah myself, and my formal Jewish education has been limited and spotty. And while Jewish traditions are still important to me, I no longer attend synagogue for a number of reasons that aren’t really relevant to this story.

Second, while I will be discussing antisemitism in this blog post, it is important to underline here that it is not my intention to downplay other forms of racism and colonialism in North America and around the world or to imply that Jews somehow have it worse. What’s more, it is crucial that we acknowledge that, at least some of the time, most Jews benefit from white privilege to a greater or lesser extent, which I will discuss in more detail below, and that Jews are 100% complicit in reinforcing racial hierarchies and colonial regimes both in the past and in the present, in North America and around the world.

 

Whiteness, Racialization,  and the Racial Identity of Jews

I’m going to go ahead and assume that I don’t need to define antisemitism here. But I do think that it is important to discuss the racial identity of Jews in Canada in the twentieth century. Simply put: it’s complicated. Judaism is a religion, but Jews are also an ethnic group and a cultural group. What’s more, the racial identity of Jews has varied considerably across time and space.[2]

As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post, there is no biological basis for race. Race is entirely socially constructed, based on the categorization of certain arbitrary features. This categorization is a process that is known as racialization. Consequently, whiteness is not really about having pale skin so much as socio-cultural markers (like language and religion) that are considered “normal” or “the default.” In Canada, prior to World War II, the term “white,” outside of Quebec, referred specifically to English-speaking and Protestant individuals of Northern European descent.[3]Anyone who did not fall into this category was seen as suspect, even if they had pale skin. For example, Catholics, especially non-English Speaking Catholics, were not considered entirely white. Neither were many Southern and Eastern European people (Italian, Greek, Russian, etc…).

The meaning of whiteness shifted after the end of World War II in Canada, and began to incorporate many individuals who previously would not have been considered white. This included Southern and Eastern Europeans, the Irish, and, to a certain extent, Jews. While these changes included more acceptance around non-Christians, it is important to remember that Christianity remained the default religion.

This bears repeating: Christianity is considered the default religion in Canada, even as we become an increasingly secular country. A really good example is when people claim that Christmas isn’t a religious holiday, but a secular one. While your celebrations may not include visits to church, it is still a Christian holiday, and Santa is a Christian saint.[4] Keep this in mind, because I will come back to it in a minute.

 

Are Jews White?

In more recent years, Jews have become increasingly seen as white. This includes many Jews who see themselves as white. But this identification is problematic in two respects: the ethnic diversity of Jews and the precarity of whiteness.

First of all, the group of Jews who can pass as white is usually limited to Jews that have Eastern European background. But not all Jews have an Eastern European background. Until relatively recently, there were significant historical populations of Jews all across North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt) and the Middle East (Iran, Iraq, Syria).[5]There are also Chinese Jews, Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and many others. To imply that all Jews are white is to erase the existence of a significant number of Jews. It also ignores the fact that Jews who are not of Eastern European descent also have to deal with racism and racial discrimination, even from other Jews.

Second, Eastern European Jews are caught in this strange place between not-white and not-not-white.[6]As I noted before, many Jews can and have benefitted from white privilege by passing as white. But this categorization is almost always precarious, and depends to a large extent on our ability to effectively pass. Any indications of “otherness” or difference will result in the loss of that status. As I noted three paragraphs earlier, much of the problem lies with the fact that Christianity is considered the default religion in Canada. Whiteness is inextricably linked to religion. Most of the time, these markers of difference come in the form of religious and cultural displays. For instance, Jewish men who wear kippahs are often subject to harassmentbecause their difference is visible.[7]So, to consider Jews as unproblematically white is to, as Robert Englebert put it, “deny [our] moments of otherness,” ignore the extent to which antisemitism is deeply embedded in Western culture, and overlook the complete and total dominance of the Christian religion in Canada.

Am I trying to say that Jews experience racism like Black, Indigenous, and non-Black People of Colour? Absolutely not, and I would never suggest there is any possible comparison. I also want to be clear here that many Jews have it easier because they can successfully pass as white and therefore benefit from white privilege. Further, Jewish people have also often worked against (and still work against) equality for Black, Indigenous, non-Black People of Colour, and helped to reinforce white normalization and settler colonialism. Rather, what I am trying to say is that it isn’t as simple as saying that Jews are white, since, as Lynne Marks noted, “we aren’t totally unmarked and identity-free like the majority.” For my part, I usually just say that Jews are “white-passing,” though I don’t really think there is an ideal term.

 

Historical Antisemitism in Canada

The present labelling of Jewish people as white has also served to effectively erase antisemitism from public culture. I cannot tell you how many students I have taught who are absolutely shocked to find out about historical antisemitism in Canada. You can even see the erasure in this article on antisemitism from the Canadian Encyclopedia, particularly at the end, where the author noted that “anti-Semitism is no longer a major concern.” I do want to recognize that the article was written (at least as far as I can tell) by Irving Abella, one of the author of the None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948, and that this represents his viewpoint. But I respectfully and vehemently disagree, and the statistics from B’nai Brith Canada seem to agree with me.

A detailed history of antisemitism in Canada is beyond the scope of this blog post (though I would highly recommend this detailed guide from the Montreal Holocaust Museum). But it is important to acknowledge that it was pervasive and took many forms: racial, economic, political, religious. What’s more,

anti-Semitism in Canada was never restricted to the extremists of society. Rather, it has always been part of the mainstream, shared to varying degrees by all elements of the nation. Until the 1950s it had respectability; no one apologized for being anti-Jewish – no one asked them to. Expressions of anti-Semitism were heard in the halls of Parliament, read in the press, taught in the schools and absorbed in most churches.[8]

Simply put, antisemitism was a fact of life for Jews for much of the twentieth century. This ranged from verbal and physical abuse, to attacks in the press, and even prohibitions on entering certain professions and institutions. For example, administrators at McGill University noted a surge in applications from potential students of the Jewish faith in the mid-1920s. Initially, McGill’s response was to not admit “Hebrews” from other provinces; when this was unsuccessful, all Jewish candidates were required to have higher matriculation marks than non-Jews.[9]Some of these quotas, particularly against Jewish medical students, persisted at McGill and the University of Toronto until the 1960s.

Expert Tip: As a side note, most of you know that I am a historian by profession. We have our own history of antisemitism. Donald Wright’s research on the professionalization of history in English Canada has shown that many Canadian historians from the 1920s to the 1940s were antisemitic and actively campaigned against the idea of Jewish historians. Donald Creighton apparently gossiped about “Jews, kikes and the sons of Abraham,” Harold Innis did not want to hire Jews as historians because it would only encourage more, and Arthur Lower commented that he could “’admit that French Canadians seem a good deal more my own people than do Japs or Jews (at least many Jews).” [10]I am too polite to write what I am thinking right now, but I’m sure you can guess.

But perhaps the most well-known manifestation of antisemitism was in immigration laws from the 1920s and 1930s.The Canadian government did not have ‘racial quotas’ in the same way as the United States. However, it was still able to restrict immigration in other ways. Northern and central Europeans were most desirable as immigrants. Jews were ranked at the bottom of the “Acceptable, but Not Preferred” category. Because it was well known that Jews tended to gravitate toward cities like Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg (at a time when farmers were wanted, and Jews were not), they were prevented from immigrating unless they could prove that they intended to farm. Given that there wereJewish farmers, the Immigration Branch made sure that they could not immigrate by placing Jews in a “Special Permit” class along with prospective immigrants from Turkey, Syria, Italy, and Bulgaria. Between 1919 and 1923, Cabinet also approved new measures requiring a continuous journey and forcing prospective immigrants to submit to medical inspection prior to leaving Europe. While these measures were not specifically targeted towards Jews, they would have major consequences for Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms and antisemitism in Europe.

Matters only grew worse in the 1930s, when an increasing number of German Jews and other European Jews attempted to flee persecution in their homelands. Canadians were not unaware of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, or unsympathetic. Far from it.[11]Recent work shows that many articles in Canadian newspapers covered the plight of Jews in Europe in the late 1930s, often sympathetically. Nonetheless, the voices against Jewish immigrants to Canada were louder and more politically powerful. For example, Wilfrid Lacroix, a federal Member of Parliament from Quebec, delivered a petition signed by almost 128,000 members of la Société Saint Jean Baptiste in which they voiced their disapproval of “all immigration and especially Jewish immigration.”[12]

As Irving Abella and Harold Troper point out in None is Too Many, the Canadian government’s refusal to allow Jewish refugees into Canada was not the work of one person: there were several actors involved. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was well aware of what was going on and seems to have been torn on the issue. On one hand, he was a personal friend of Lillian and Archie Freiman, two very prominent Ottawa Jews. On the other hand, his ‘Quebec lieutenant’ Ernest Lapointe urged him not to allow more Jews into Canada. Lapointe and King were both concerned about the electoral fortunes of the (provincial) Liberal Party of Quebec, which had lost power in 1936. If the party hoped to regain power from the Union Nationale, the federal Liberals could not be seen to be supporting Jewish refugees. Such an action would be a gift for Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis. In 1937, the Union Nationale leader had implemented the Padlock Act, which allowed him to shutter the businesses of his political enemies – including those owned by religious minorities like Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Civil servants were also involved. The head of the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources, Frederick Charles Blair, made it difficult for Jews to immigrate to Canada, even if they otherwise were qualified to do so. Famously, in justifying the Immigration Branch’s decision to turn back the refugees aboard the St. Louis, he said that neither Canada nor any other country could “open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who want to leave Europe: the line must be drawn somewhere.”[13]Additionally, Vincent Massey, the Canadian High Commissioner in London, was also opposed to allowing more Jewish immigrants or refugees into Canada.

After the end of World War II, when the full extent of the Holocaust became known to Canadians, antisemitic attitudes were no longer considered publicly acceptable. However, while antisemitic views were no longer acceptable in public, deeper and more subtle forms of antisemitism persisted.

 

The Everydayness of Antisemitism Today

It’s a funny thing to be raised Jewish. I cannot remember when I first learned that there are people out there who hate Jews and would kill me for being Jewish if they could. Nor can I remember when I first learned about the Holocaust, though it was certainly when I was a small child. This has always been part of my lived reality. I have been taught by my parents and my community to be afraid, to not draw attention to myself if at all possible or to (not) make my difference visible if I could avoid it.

 

And I have always been surrounded by violence.

The place where I attended Hebrew pre-school was firebombed when I was a teenager.

I can remember having the bottom of our car searched for bombs when we parked in the synagogue’s underground parking for my cousin’s bar mitzvah.

Every religious service I’ve ever attended at a synagogue has been watched over by security guards.

I’ve had several well-intentioned people tell me that I would burn in hell for being a Jew.

I’ve listened to people say that all Jews are terrorists, especially whenever Israel does something violent.

Even though I am a fourth-generation Montrealer, I’ve been told countless times that I don’t really count as a Quebecer because I am Jewish.

I’ve seen many swastikas and “SS” spray-painted on walls and other surfaces, including the door of my apartment building and on stone memorials at parks.

I’ve listened to countless accounts of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries being vandalized all over the country.

When I was learning to embroider, an acquaintance told me that she only used half of what the embroidery kit suggested, because “she was such a Jew.” Which she then followed up with, “oh, I hope you’re not Jewish.”

While standing at a bus stop, I listened to an older woman rant about how Jews run the clothing industry and that they are heading up a world-wide conspiracy to sexualize Christian girls. After commenting that my neckline wasn’t too bad, she said that “oh, I hope you aren’t Jewish.” And when I told her I was, she responded by saying that I seemed like one of the nice ones.

I’ve been forced to work on Jewish holidays so that my senior Jewish colleagues could have time off.

I’ve listened to academic colleagues admire the Nazis for their impressive record-keeping skills right in front of me, knowing full-well that I was Jewish.

I’ve had a high ranking Anglican official tell me that all Canadians celebrate Christmas.

I’ve been forced to attend events on major Jewish holidays, because “we couldn’t find another time that worked for everyone.”

And I have been repeatedly warned away from talking about historical antisemitism, lest I doom my career.

What’s more, because so many of us, myself included, can pass as white, we’ve been subject to antisemitic comments on the presumption that we were white. When I was working at said big box store, many customers would complain about “those fucking Jews” whenever Israel initiated a military offensive.[14]Such comments were often accompanied by the disclaimer, “I hope you aren’t Jewish.” And when I replied in the affirmative, they always answered, “Well, you know what I mean.” I do know what you mean: you’re racist.

 

Moving Forward

To those who claim to be shocked that something like this could happen, you shouldn’t be. Antisemitism is deeply embedded in North American culture, in jokes, casual language, and Christian normalization.

To those who think Canadians aren’t like that, think again. And if you don’t believe me, or think I’m just being anecdotal, check out these statistics from B’nai Brith Canada from the last ten years.

To those you want to help, thank you. There are lots of websites with advice on what to do in the wake of the latest hate crime at the Tree of Life Synagogue, with suggestions about volunteering at synagogues or donating to charities that help refugees all over the world.These are great. But as many commentators have noticed, Jews don’t tend to trust outsiders, often for good reason.

So I think that the most important things you can do are to learn, to reflect, and to act:

• Learn about the history of antisemitism in Canada and North America. If you want to focus on Canadian history, I particularly recommend learning about immigration policy in the 1920s and 1930s, which was specifically designed to keep out Jews.
• Think about how stereotypical assumptions about Jews may infect your language and your thinking, and how these can serve to make Jews seem strange and “other.” Many Jews make jokes about these views, but that’s because we are trying to take the sting out.
• Say something when people make antisemitic comments, as long as it is safe to do so. Report antisemitic vandalism to B’nai Brith. Email or text a Jewish friend to see how they’re doing after Saturday.
• And mourn for the lives and innocence that were lost, both on Saturday and in countless places and times all over the world.

So where do we go from here? I wish I had answers. But I take comfort in an old Jewish concept: Tikkum Olam. This literally translates to “repair the world,” and is often considered the basis for Jewish charity. I’ve always liked to think of it more as “leave the world better than you found it.” I think these are important words to live by, no matter your religion or worldview.

 

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We’ll be back on Sunday for our regular Canadian history roundup.

 

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Recommend Readings:

• Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933–1948(Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1983).
• Cyril Levitt and William Shaffir, The Riot at Christie Pits(Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1987).
• Pierre Anctil, Le Devoir,les Juifs et l’immigration: de Bourassa à Laurendeau (Quebec City: Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1988).
• Pierre Anctil, “Interlude of Hostility: Judeo-Christian Relations in Quebec in the Interwar Period, 1919-39,” in Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation, ed. Alan Davies (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 135-165.
• Pierre Anctil, Le Rendez-vous manqué: les Juifs de Montréal face au Québec de l’entre-deux-guerres (Quebec City: Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture, 1988).
• Alan Davies, ed., Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992).
• Alan Davies and Marilyn F. Nefsky, How Silent Were the Churches? Canadian Protestantism and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era(Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997).
• Ruth Klein, ed., Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012).
• Jean-François Nadeau, The Canadian Führer: The life of Adrien Arcand, Translated by Bob Chodos (Toronto: Lorimer, 2011).
• Martin Robin, Shades of Right: Nativist and Fascist Politics in Canada(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).
• Ira Robinson, A History of Antisemitism in Canada(Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015).
• Stephen Speisman, “Antisemitism in Ontario: The Twentieth Century” in Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation, ed. Alan Davies (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 113-133.
• Hugues Théorêt, The Blue Shirts: Adrien Arcand and Fascist Anti-Semitism in Canada(Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2017).
• James Walker, “The ‘Jewish Phase’ in the Movement for Racial Equality in Canada,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 1-29.

 

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Notes

[1]There are many ways to spell antisemitism, and you will see some of the other spellings in quotes in this blog post. I have chosen to use antisemitism with no hyphen.

[2]Since I’m talking about the Canadian example, I will be focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, since that’s when the racial hierarchies that most of us are familiar with emerged. The eighteenth century had its own racial classification systems, to say nothing of previous eras. But make no mistake, Jews were in Canada by that point. The first Jewish person on record to arrive in Canada was Esther Brandeauin 1738, though she only remained a year. But there are also records of several Jewish fur traders as well as officers in the British Army during the Seven Years; War. Maybe I’ll do a blog post on this if there is enough interest.

[3]The term “white” isn’t really applicable for Quebec. I could probably write an entire book on race and racialization in Quebec. Instead, there were two dominant cultural groups: Catholic French-Canadians and Protestant English-language speakers. Jews generally fell in between, but were more closely allied with the Protestant English-language speakers, because this was seen as more politically and economically advantageous and because of Catholic attitudes about Jews.

[4]For more on Christian normalization, please see my blog post on A Jewish History of Christmas.

[5]Please note that I’m not including Israel here on purpose. The majority of Israeli Jews today are descended from Eastern European Jews who survived World War II, and moved to Israel later on. They are distinct from the historical Jewish populations that have lived in this area for thousands of years. With respect to the “Relatively recent” comment: many historical Jewish populations in North Africa and the Middle East were driven out of their respective countries in the 1980s.

[6]It is important to note here that in the present period, people of Eastern European descent are generally considered, and consider themselves to be white. However, Jews of all different ethnicities tend to be considered separately from other peoples who originate in the same area. I think that there is an argument to be made about religion as an aspect of whiteness, but that is a whole different subject.

[7]If you do check out the post linked in this sentence, please note that I do not endorse the view the author expresses at the bottom of the blog post, about how Jews should be more religious. I have always maintained that a person’s religiosity (or lack thereof) is entirely their own business.

[8]https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anti-semitism

[9]Pierre Anctil, “Interlude of Hostility: Judeo-Christian Relations in Quebec in the Interwar Period, 1919-39,” in Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation, ed. Alan Davies (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 142.

[10]Donald Wright,The Professionalization of History in English Canada(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 95-96.

[11]Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None is Too Many: Canada the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1983, 2000, 2012), 41.

[12]Abella and Troper, 18.

[13]Abella and Troper, 64.

[14]This is a whole quagmire, but to put it simply: the terms Israeli and Jew are not interchangeable (one is a nationality and citizenship, the other is a religious, ethnic, and cultural group. Also, not all Jews are Zionists.