From Immigration To Integration
The Canadian Jewish Experience:
A Millennium Edition
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From Immigration To IntegrationThe Canadian Jewish Experience:
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Harold M. Waller
Canadian Jewry has made remarkable progress during the last half century, developing from an insecure, largely immigrant community into a full-fledged partner in the breadth of Canadian experience. During this period the community has grown in numbers and built a complex and vibrant community life with a variety of institutions serving most needs. Its organizational arrangements have evolved into an elaborate structure that governs internal activities and represents the community to the larger society. The Jews of Canada have contended with considerable antisemitism, but have managed to achieve notable success in most fields of endeavour in both public and private life. At the close of the twentieth century, Canada’s Jewish community was the third largest in the Diaspora and was growing, at a time when other Jewish communities were in decline. It was generally well educated and relatively affluent. The main problems that it faced were sustaining Jewish identity in an increasingly welcoming environment, providing for an aging population, and educating a younger generation that was less anchored in Jewish life than its forebears had been. Collectively, Canada’s Jews also sought to find a way to remain distinctive on a continent where Jewish life is dominated by an American Jewish community nearly sixteen times as large.
With the benefit of historical perspective, the struggle of the Jews for equality and recognition is a major feature of the past fifty years. Jews of the post-World War II generation inherited a situation in which they had to fight hard for their rights in a society that had at times been unfriendly and even hostile to their interests. The relatively recent arrival of the bulk of the community as immigrants, almost all from Europe, meant that community leaders had to carry on their struggle backed by thousands of rank-and-file Jews who were not yet fully comfortable with their status as Canadians. Members of the community, while unified on many vital issues, were divided on a variety of others. Moreover, the basis for community membership was voluntary. Hence, the leadership faced the formidable task of forging sufficient community unity to enable them to build the institutions that would ensure continuity, as well as the provision of necessary services.
In carrying out this task, they faced at least two important challenges: the needs of the developing State of Israel, which required a significant portion of the community’s resources, and the constantly encroaching presence of governments, both federal and provincial, in the areas of health, education, and social services. The former limited the resources available for local and country-wide needs, while the latter complicated the task of service delivery at the same time that it made some government resources available for community purposes.
The two most significant events for world Jewry during the period were the Holocaust and the creation of Israel. Both of these had a great impact on Canadian Jewish life. Canadian Jews, with their close ties to relatives and friends in Europe, were particularly sensitive to the rise of Nazism and the implications for Europe’s Jews. Thus the primary issue during the 1930s was immigration: enabling Jewish refugees to settle in Canada. This proved to be an insurmountable challenge because of entrenched opposition in government and political circles.1 As a result, after the war, Jews worked especially hard to bring in at least some of the remnant of European Jewry. Ever since that time, the survivors who did settle here have played an important and often vocal role in the life of the community. The establishment of Israel and the challenges and threats that it faced created a strong bond between the Jewish state and Canadian Jews. The latter supported Israel and its institutions enthusiastically, visited Israel in impressive numbers, and became very connected to the state and its people. Identification with Israel became a major component of Canadian Jewish identity.2
In order to understand the direction of the community at the turn of the twentieth century, it will be useful to recapitulate some of the key developments of the past fifty years, a period during which the community has undergone some major transformations. This was a period that witnessed the establishment of major trends in institutional development and political structure that are likely to persist into the twenty-first century.
Canadian Jews in the 1945-50 period were still reeling from the tragedy of the Holocaust and their country’s refusal to admit their refugee brethren when the opportunity had existed. Domestically, they remained concerned with antisemitism, both of the genteel and overt varieties. Social and career opportunities were limited by the existence of such attitudes and actions. This created a paradox for Canada’s Jews: although they valued their country’s commitment to freedom and democratic practices and greatly appreciated its contribution to the war effort, they still did not feel like full participants in its public life.3 As a result, many of their efforts as a community were directed toward the achievement of equality and social justice, universal goals that certainly benefitted Jews. Securing the place of Jews in the Canadian environment was a high priority. The Joint Public Relations Committee established by B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) became increasingly active in its struggle against domestic antisemitism. There were other priorities as well, notably obtaining admission for as many Holocaust survivors as possible and then settling and absorbing them. Thus the focus on immigration policy was a community concern that spanned the war period, but has also persisted down to the present day, albeit with a different emphasis. Precisely because of the memory of the period before and after the war, Jews have retained a particular concern about immigration, whether or not large numbers of Jewish immigrants are at issue at any particular time.
The impact of the survivors on community life was quite significant. At first, as in other countries, survivors tended to keep to themselves, their searing memories bottled up inside. But, as time wore on, at least some of them became willing to speak out, so that the community in its collective existence would not forget the horrors of the Nazi period and would be dedicated to preserving the memory of the victims and ensuring that the lessons of the Nazi genocide would be taught and understood. They emerged as a political force around 1960 and formed an Association of Survivors of Nazi Oppression in 1961, which operated independently of Congress and often advocated different approaches.
Despite the presence of so many survivors and then their descendants among Canada’s Jews, it took decades for the community to become fully engaged with the issue of Nazi war criminals and assert its demand for government action. After the war, Canada had been quite lax in screening European immigration applicants who might have had some kind of Nazi connection. This was especially true with a number of men from places in eastern Europe such as the Baltic States, Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine. As was later demonstrated, immigration officers often failed to discharge their responsibilities properly, allowing people who had participated in war crimes to be admitted.4 At the time, little was made of the issue, due to a lack of knowledge of the facts. But it was no small irony that a country that had been so inhospitable to Jewish refugees seeking safety before the war was so permissive with some of their persecutors after the war.
The other issue that engaged the community after the war was the struggle for Jewish statehood in Palestine. Support for Zionism came naturally to many Jewish immigrants who had been involved with various movements in Europe.5 As a result, there was relatively little formal anti-Zionism within the community, aside from Bundists who persisted in holding to their traditional ideological positions. Among the Zionists, Labour Zionism was the most common form of identification, though the whole panoply of Zionist organizations, including Mizrachi, Revisionists, and General Zionists was represented. On the whole, Canadian Jews welcomed the creation of Israel enthusiastically and have remained strongly committed to it ever since.
One of the by-products of the emergence of Israel was the disruption of Jewish life in the Arab world, a development that was to have a profound effect on Canadian Jewry. In response to growing anti-Jewish sentiment in most parts of the Arab world after 1948, Jews departed en masse, the majority to Israel, but many to other countries as well, including France, the United States, and Canada. Canada attracted Jewish immigrants from North Africa, notably Morocco, because of the existence of a French society in Quebec. Therefore, the greatest number came to Montreal, although some settled in the Toronto area. In addition, there were also immigrants from other parts of the Arab world, such as Iraq.
The arrival of these immigrants, beginning in the 1950s and eventually numbering 30,000 to 40,000, brought about some profound changes in the community. They differed from the Jews who were already in Canada in several important ways. One clear difference was that they were Sephardim, whereas the vast majority of the Jews already in Canada were Ashkenazim. Secondly, most of the Moroccan Jews spoke French - some spoke Spanish - while the Jews already in Canada had adopted English as their main language, even in Quebec. And thirdly, in an effort to preserve their own community traditions, they tended to stick together and form their own organizations, thus presenting the organized community with a structural challenge. The situation became particularly acute in Montreal, where it has been one of the defining characteristics of community development ever since.6
As the decade of the 1950s drew to a close the community was growing rapidly, though still dwarfed in overall size by the American Jewish community. The growth was driven primarily by immigration, which had three key waves in the post-war period: the survivors during the late 1940s, the Sephardim from the mid-1950s onward, and Hungarian Jews who escaped during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. As the community grew, the demands on its institutions expanded commensurately, leading to a re-evaluation of community structures during the following years.
Most of the immigrants had settled either in Montreal, still the leading city for Canadian Jews, or Toronto, the other major centre. In addition, a movement of Jews away from smaller communities toward the big cities was underway. This process eventually led to a growing concentration of Jews in the two main cities, especially Toronto. Indeed, the problem of maintaining quality Jewish life in smaller cities and towns became a challenge for the countrywide community in subsequent decades.
Changes in demography were a major feature of the evolving community from the 1960s onward. There were several major trends, including the effect of immigration. The longer-term historical context is that immigration has always played a large role in community life, though the nature of the immigration has changed over time. The influx of Sephardim that began in the 1950s continued through the succeeding decade and then began to abate. Later on, there were Sephardim who came from Israel, but much of the early Sephardic immigration came directly from Arab countries. Another demographic consideration was the birthrate and resultant age distribution in the community. Canadian Jews, as in many Western countries, reproduced at lower rates than the general population. Hence the proportion of Jewish senior citizens eventually came to exceed that of non-Jews. This process began to be apparent during the 1960s, but became more marked as time went on. Finally, as Canadian Jews became more highly educated, there was a movement away from the traditional occupations in family and small businesses and toward professional and managerial positions. Again, this was a gradual process, but it had its beginnings in the generation that came of age in the two decades after the war.
As the community matured and became more rooted in Canadian society, there was increased demand for communal services in such fields as health, education, and family welfare. Moreover, Israel’s growing needs also required attention at the communal level. As a result, major shifts in community organizational structure began in the mid 1960s with the establishment of modern-style Jewish federations in the major centres. These federations not only provided the delivery of the various services, but they raised the funds on a community-wide basis as well. As time passed, they also assumed more centralized direction for community strategic planning. The emergence of the federations marked the beginning of what were essentially voluntary governments for the community, with the federations acquiring what amounted to taxing and spending powers.
The idea of the federations, while hardly novel in the context of Jewish history, was something that had emerged primarily in the United States. Canadian Jews, in contrast, had organized the Canadian Jewish Congress as their representative body as early as 1919, although, from the outset, B’nai Brith chose not to come under its umbrella and reserved the right to act independently. Congress operated nationally, but with local and regional councils as well. It was not involved primarily in service delivery, but rather acted in a representational sense, both in responding to grassroots opinion and as a major vehicle for dealing with governments and other interests external to the Jewish community. Congress saw itself as the focus for community policy-making, but as the activities of the local communities became increasingly complex, many of the necessary decisions seemed to be beyond the purview of the CJC. The trend toward the increasing importance of the federations led to a decades-long search for a role for what had traditionally been the dominant organization in Canadian Jewish life.
Another group that began to question its purpose was the Canadian Zionist Federation (CZF), which brought together the disparate Zionist bodies during the late 1960s as a way to revitalize a Zionist movement that had weakened after the achievement of Israeli statehood. Before that time, the Zionists had the primary responsibility for raising funds for Israel, but when the new federations emerged on the scene, that responsibility was shifted to them, leaving the Zionists without a claim as the major address for Israel affairs in Canada.7
When the Six-Day War broke out in 1967, the priority of raising funds for Israel became an urgent matter in the short term, as well as a central issue in long-term planning. The increased focus on Israel, coupled with the shift of central fundraising responsibilities to the federations, provided those bodies with heightened visibility and salience in community affairs.
In general, the Six-Day War came as a shock to Canada’s Jews, who quickly grasped the significance of the threat to Israel posed by that country’s adversaries. As in many countries, the experience intensified identification and involvement with Israel at the grassroots level and focused attention on the need for effective pro-Israel advocacy and representation to government at the leadership level. One product of this stronger involvement with Israel was the establishment of the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC), a joint undertaking of the Canadian Zionist Federation, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and B’nai Brith Canada, the three leading community organizations with a national outlook and scope.
An external development that did not affect Jews directly, but had an impact nevertheless was the 1968 election of Pierre Elliott Trudeau as prime minister. Trudeau’s Liberal Party had long been the party of choice for Canadian Jews. In fact, Trudeau himself represented a largely Jewish riding in the Montreal area. Trudeau’s ascent to power certainly made the Jews feel more closely identified with the national political scene. Moreover, his liberal and pluralistic outlook provided a number of opportunities for Jews to reach high-level positions and have an unprecedented role in government. Indeed, Herb Gray became the first Jewish Cabinet member in 1969. Even though there were differences of opinion between Trudeau and most Jews over Middle East policy, he remained extremely popular in the community during his nearly sixteen years in office.
One of the things that made Trudeau very popular with the Jews, especially those in Montreal, was his strong promotion of Canadian unity and his staunch opposition to Quebec separatism. The separatist movement emerged as a potent political force at about the same time as he became prime minister with the formation of the Parti Quebecois (PQ), a provincial party dedicated to the achievement of independent status for Quebec. Jews, who had been living in Quebec, primarily in the Montreal, for many decades, were uniformly and unalterably opposed to Quebec independence. Jews elsewhere shared the strong preference for holding the country together. All saw Trudeau as their champion in the national unity battle.
Trudeau’s presence in government was not enough to forestall either the rise to power in 1976 of the PQ or the referendum on the so-called plan of “sovereignty association” in 1980. The referendum lost, but the combination of the PQ’s draconian language laws and unending commitment to eventual secession frightened many English-speaking Quebecers and probably had deleterious economic effects as well. Many Jews in Quebec lost confidence in their province and its prospects.8 Some, especially young adults, decided to seek their fortunes elsewhere, often in Toronto or other parts of Ontario. The result was a serious demographic reversal for the Montreal Jewish community, a change with a number of long-term implications. For one thing, the decline in population accentuated the proportion of the aged who remained, eventually straining community services for the elderly. Another change was the decided shift in population advantage to Toronto. At the start of the PQ era, the Toronto and Montreal communities were about equal in size and shared power equally on a countrywide basis. But Montreal’s loss was Toronto’s gain, with the latter clearly emerging as the dominant force in Canadian Jewish life by 1980. And finally, since most of the Montrealers who moved away were English-speaking, the migration resulted in an increase in the proportion of French-speaking Sephardim in the Montreal community.
The Jews’ antipathy toward the Quebec independence movement produced some difficult challenges for Montreal community organizations, which increasingly had to deal with the provincial government on a variety of issues, from education to health care to social services. With the PQ in power from 1976 to 1985 and again since 1994, community leaders representing a population that voted almost unanimously for the opposition Liberals had to do their best to achieve their objectives from a government that was not disposed to be responsive. Community organizations strove to be officially neutral and to promote the use of French internally in order to cultivate good ties with the government. Throughout it all, the government continued to fund the Jewish day schools, for example, but not without attaching a number of conditions to that aid.
During the 1970s the federations solidified their positions as the key organizations in Jewish life. Ultimately, all funding decisions regarding community money had to be made within the federations or in bodies created by the federations. Congress, which was dependent on the federations for its operating budget, faced increasing pressure in order to maintain its programs.9 The Canadian Zionist Federation did remain independent, but had given up its significant fundraising activities. As a result, it had to look to Israel for the revenue to keep its programs active. One organization that remained independent was B’nai Brith Canada, which raised its own funds from its member- ship. This independence enabled it to be a full partner in bodies such as the Canada-Israel Committee. More importantly, B’nai Brith Canada carried on extensive programming in the fields of community relations, government relations, and international affairs. In those fields it was effectively competing with the Congress, which was trying to retain its position as the authoritative voice of Canadian Jewry on matters external to the community. In addition, it competed on aspects of Israel-oriented activities with the Canadian Zionist Federation. In a sense, competition was healthy and allowed for alternative points of view to be represented. But it also diminished unity within the community and the community’s ability to speak to governments or society in general with one voice. Over the years, however, the organizations made a real effort to work together in times of crisis, especially on matters dealing with Israel.
As the community became increasingly secure and self-confident, it adopted a more assertive stance against antisemitism and in favour of pressuring the government to pursue Nazi war criminals in Canada. Many of the issues that arose during the 1980s concerned these two matters. It was during this period that the prosecutions of antisemites such as James Keegstra in Alberta and Ernst Zundel in Ontario took place.10 These legal battles took years and required the involvement of the Supreme Court of Canada on more than one occasion. Antisemitism was no longer as pervasive as it had been before and after the war, but there were enough antisemites around, including the likes of Keegstra, Zundel, and Malcolm Ross, to necessitate vigilance by community organizations and the outspoken support of attempts to prosecute or otherwise use the force of law to rein in hate-mongers. These efforts were aided by the adoption of a federal criminal law regarding hate crimes. However, even armed with the force of law, Crown prosecutors faced formidable legal struggles in trying to obtain convictions and then see them through the appeals process.
War crimes presented similar problems, as well as some special ones. After years of pressure from the Jewish community to act on the hundreds of possible war criminals who had been allowed to immigrate to Canada after the war, the government finally appointed Justice Jules Deschênes as a one-man commission to investigate the situation. His 1986 report generally supported the Jewish community’s contentions regarding war criminals and outlined a strategy for dealing with a limited number of perpetrators.11 Subsequently, the government passed a law that retroactively criminalized war crimes. Nevertheless, prosecutors encountered serious problems due to the advanced age of defendants and witnesses and the difficulty of gathering evidence and testimony in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, where the alleged crimes had taken place.
A Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1993 in the Finta case effectively ended the possibility of criminal prosecutions, which led the government to pursue the route of denaturalization and deportation. This proved more fruitful as the process proceeded throughout the 1990s. Fewer than twenty cases were actually launched, with the government prevailing in about half of them. Since the Deschênes report, over 1,500 alleged Nazi war criminals in Canada had been investigated, but most of the files were closed for lack of evidence. Despite disappointments, the very fact that the government was pursuing alleged war criminals was a source of some degree of satisfaction within the Jewish community.
Another issue between the community and the government involved Canadian foreign policy toward the Middle East. Canada was on generally friendly terms with Israel, but often took official positions that were perceived to be hostile. When Joe Clark was running for prime minister in the 1979 election, he promised to move the Canadian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But after winning the election, he caved in to pressure from the Arabs and from business interests and backed down. Over the longer term, Canada, which takes the United Nations very seriously, expressed increasing support for the Palestinian cause by voting for General Assembly resolutions promoted by the Arabs, resolutions that were often one-sided and prejudicial to Israel’s interests.12 On occasion, they abstained from voting for the more egregious resolutions. But rarely did Canada stand with Israel and vote against the resolutions. Canada’s position became more consequential on the occasions that it was elected for two-year terms on the Security Council. That position made the Canadian votes more salient and added to the consternation of the CIC, Jewish organizations, and the community as a whole. During the nine years of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government (1984-93), the government displayed greater understanding of Israel’s position than was evident when the Liberals were in power.
By the 1990s, trends that had been underway for years began to have a noticeable effect on the public life of the community. The centre of gravity of Jewish life had decisively shifted from Montreal to Toronto. Toronto experienced tremendous growth during the decade, and now includes nearly half of Canada’s Jews in its metropolitan area. Montreal’s community, in contrast, is appreciably below what it was in 1971, its high point, and lacks the dynamism that characterizes Toronto. Indeed, the national headquarters of B’nai Brith is located in Toronto. Even the last highly visible symbol of a national Jewish presence in Montreal, the headquarters building of Congress, disappeared in 1999 when that organization moved to Ottawa, leaving behind its regional office, which relocated to the Federation building.
The dominance of community life by Montreal and Toronto has long been a source of resentment in the West, somewhat paralleling developments in Canadian politics. But communities like Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and even Vancouver are just not large enough to give them any real weight compared to Toronto. Efforts are made from time to time to demonstrate recognition that such communities are an integral part of Canadian Jewry, but demographic realities generally predominate.
As the importance of the federations, now located in every community of any size, grew, co-operation with US counterparts increased. The Canadian federations have long been active in the US-based Council of Jewish Federations, where they have been greatly respected for successful fundraising in highly organized communities. In 1998 UIA Federations Canada was formed through a merger of the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Israel Appeal to co-ordinate policy at the country-wide level and oversee the allocation of financial resources for national and international purposes. The existence of a national body to perform these functions was not a novelty; predecessor bodies go back some thirty years. But the new entity has enhanced powers that have made it the focal point of organized Jewish life in the country.
Despite the success of the federation movement in Canada, the community remains differentiated from the American community in some important respects. One difference is in the nature of religious life.13 In general, Canadian Jews have been more conservative and traditional than American Jews. With the marked turn toward liberalism in the United States in recent decades, those differences are accentuated. For example, a larger portion of the community affiliates with Orthodox synagogues than in the US, and the Conservative synagogues have generally resisted many of the changes, especially toward egalitarianism, that are so common in American Conservative congregations. Even the Reform movement here is much more wary of rapid change than is American Reform. Furthermore, studies have shown higher levels of religious observance among Canadian Jews in comparison to their co-religionists south of the border. However, during the 1990s pressures for change increased, as did interest in more liberal forms of Jewish practice.
One of the primary issues for community organizations engaged in external relations during the decade of the 1990s remained the prosecution of war criminals. After years of pressure on the federal government for action, proceedings were begun, with some successes achieved. From the point of view of the Jewish community, allowing any accused war criminal to remain comfortably in Canada without facing the legal process was unacceptable, given the enormity of the Nazi crimes. Hence the representative organizations pressed hard for vigorous action, publicized the issue on a regular basis, and provided prosecutors with any assistance possible. The results of the cases launched during the past decade did not ameliorate the bitterness that had arisen from over forty years of inaction, but they did provide some reassurance that justice was finally being done in at least a few cases. These cases sent the symbolic message that Canadians were no longer prepared to tolerate war criminals in their midst.
Internally, the community found the 1990s to be a difficult decade because of serious financial pressures. An economy that had been limping along for many years simply did not provide the wherewithal to meet the needs of community organizations, which, of course, depended upon a regular flow of charitable contributions for their sustenance. The tight budgetary situation made it necessary for most community bodies either to scale back their activities and programs or to keep salary increases to a minimum. It was only as the decade drew to a close that a more buoyant economy allowed for the resumption of growth. Given the aging of the community across the country, the need for growth in social and other services was quite substantial and an ongoing source of concern.
Another major issue involving community services was Jewish education. There was little dissent from the contention that a high quality and accessible Jewish education was a major community priority and one of the keys to continuity. In most provinces with Jewish schools, the provincial governments provided grants for the secular part of their educational programs. The result was considerable relief on parental tuition bills. However, Ontario, the largest province with the largest concentration of Jews, steadfastly refused to aid the Jewish day schools. The community, especially in Toronto, pressed the government with great determination, using a variety of legal and political arguments, but to no avail. Neither the government nor the courts would relent from the position that Roman Catholic schools were entitled to public funding because of constitutional commitments, but schools of other religious groups were not. Consequently, the tuition fees at the Ontario Jewish day schools remained the highest in the country by far, leaving parents with tough choices and the Federation under pressure to provide scholarship relief to families that made Jewish education a high priority for their children.
Looking back over the past half century, several major trends in the life of the organized Jewish community can be discerned. The first has to do with the organizations themselves. There has been a clear trend toward centralization within individual communities. For example, the service delivery agencies have come together as federations, with fundraising, planning, allocation, and general administration carried out at the federation level. While this clearly reduces the autonomy of the agencies, there is little doubt that there has been an overall gain in efficiency and resources. It also means that there are processes in place to develop the overall picture of what the various agencies do, to assess community needs and how the agencies relate to those needs, and to establish priorities and adjust them in response to changing needs.
Fundraising is also more systematic and professional, resulting in relatively large bases of contributors. As a consequence, the federations have come to dominate the taxing and spending functions within the community and thus act as quasi-governments for community life within the context of voluntary association with the organized community. Although the federations do not technically have the power to tax, in effect the annual community appeals are a form of voluntary taxation and do provide fairly regular and predictable sources of income for the federations. Moreover, the governance of the federations has become increasingly professionalized, borrowing techniques and processes from other large entities, especially in the non-profit sector. Thus the older model of domination by powerful (and usually wealthy) individuals has given way to a more bureaucratic model with well-established rules and procedures. Of course the reality that a relatively small proportion of donors contribute the lion’s share of the annual budget does give those people greater access and influence in the decision-making process. But federations also have public accountability and broadly based governing bodies. They are not fully democratic in the sense of having elections in which large numbers of community members participate, but they do hold annual elections that are open to all contributors.
As with any voluntary organization, full-time professionals may have substantial influence compared to lay leaders. Nevertheless, there have been few contentions that the professionals are pursuing different policies than the lay leaders would want. More commonly, questions are raised as to whether the lay leadership reflects the interests and concerns of the community as a whole. For the most part, such complaints have been limited to the fringes of the community. Probably the best available measure of satisfaction with the governance provided is the continuing high level of support for the annual campaigns. Were there widespread dissatisfaction, participation rates would undoubtedly drop. But the federations have displayed flexibility by allowing donors to specify where their donations are allocated, thereby ameliorating any complaints about allocation priorities.
While the federations have transformed fundraising and the provision of community services, they have largely steered clear of the advocacy arena, at least in a direct sense. Indirectly they have joined with other groups as constituents of the Canada-Israel Committee, which is the designated body for pro-Israel advocacy. The CIC has the responsibility for dealing with government and with non-Jews on matters relating to Israel and the Middle East. Generally, and understandably, the Committee follows the lead of the Israeli government, which means that groups who hold an alternative view may be frozen out. During the years when Likud was in power, this left groups like Canadian Friends of Peace Now out of the picture in terms of central community organizations. But eventually, through association with the CJC, they gained access to decision-making processes. However, federation money generally is not made available on matters concerning Israel to groups other than the Canada-Israel Committee.
As for domestic advocacy, the two major forces are the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith Canada. Congress, which has not had any independent source of funds in years, depends on the federations for its annual budget, both nationally and regionally. It maintains an identity and governing structure separate from the federations and concentrates on community and government relations, international affairs, antisemitism, and similar matters external to the community. In particular, it prides itself on its access to government and to policy makers. B’nai Brith, in contrast, does raise its own funds and it deals with many of the same issues as Congress. B’nai Brith generally has been perceived as more aggressive and forceful in its tactics and more assertive in terms of substance. Congress is perceived to prefer quiet diplomacy and lower key approaches to governmental bodies. The presence of B’nai Brith Canada on the scene belies CJC’s claim to be the sole official voice of the community to external audiences. Still, over the years a modus vivendi has emerged in which the two organizations, while operating independently, will join together on an ad hoc basis when vital interests are at stake.
The community-relations area has been dominated by the struggle against antisemitism. There is no doubt that vestiges of antisemitism persist in some sectors of society, but these tend to be isolated elements far from the mainstream. Individuals may still harbour antisemitic attitudes, but studies over the years have shown a decline of such attitudes in the general population. Thus concern over antisemitism has been focused in recent years on the professional racists and the far right in English-speaking parts of the country, especially in Ontario and the West, and on extreme nationalists in Quebec. The recent Yves Michaud affair in Quebec is instructive.14 Michaud, an aspirant for the Parti Quebecois by-election nomination in a Montreal riding, made provocative antisemitic comments late in 2000. He also singled out B’nai Brith Canada for its opposition to Quebec secession and Côte St. Luc Jews for their bloc voting. Shortly thereafter, he was unanimously condemned by Quebec’s national assembly and rebuked by then-Premier Lucien Bouchard. When Bouchard announced his retirement in January 2001, his distress over the Michaud affair, especially support for Michaud in some sectors of the party, was identified by many commentators as one factor in a complex decision. Quebec public opinion, for the most part, supported Bouchard’s opposition to Michaud’s attack on the Jews.
Probably the highest profile antisemite in Canada over the past twenty years has been Ernst Zundel, a professional Holocaust-denier in Toronto. He has certainly been an annoyance and a nuisance, but he has also been hamstrung in his activities because of vigorous actions by Jewish organizations and the government. Moreover, his attempt to obtain citizenship after many years of immigrant status was thwarted by government action. It is fair to say that antisemitism has not disappeared from Canada by any means, but it is controlled and is nowhere near as pervasive and consequential as it was fifty years ago.15
In societal terms, Canadian Jewry has tried to carve out an independent niche for itself among world Jewish communities. In political terms it has certainly succeeded and is effectively represented in the councils of world Jewry. In terms of sociological development, the Canadian Jewish community has had a more difficult time in differentiating itself from the much larger community in the United States. Changes occur in Canada with a time lag, but it is difficult for Canadian Jews to resist trends that have been observed in the United States, such as intermarriage, changes in religious practice, patterns of community organization, assimilation, demographic structure, and development of financial resources. One of the key challenges for Canadian Jews is to identify these trends in the US and adopt policies that avoid the pitfalls that have confronted American Jewry.
Trends in community life probably appear in Canada about twenty to twenty-five years later than they do in the US. Thus policy-makers have the opportunity to convert American hindsight into Canadian foresight as they plan for the future. A good example is intermarriage. To date, that has not been a major problem among Canadian Jews for a number of reasons, including a more recently arrived population, more traditional religious values, and a general society that reflects a multicultural reality, resulting in less pressure to assimilate. Nevertheless, there are signs that intermarriage and attendant problems (for example, conversion) are on the upswing and moving in the direction set by American Jews. One of the challenges that the community will face over the next quarter century is whether Canadian Jews can follow a different path than their American counterparts in this regard.
Another trend that is underway involves the base for community fundraising. Traditionally the community campaigns have depended on a relatively small number of families, usually business owners, for a major share of the annual budget. As time goes on, many of these companies will be sold to outside interests, have the concentration of ownership diluted through inheritance, or even fold. The result is that fundraisers will have to be aggressive and imaginative in developing a new generation of leading donors, not only the children and grandchildren of earlier generations of the very wealthy, but also from among the ranks of those with newly-acquired wealth.
This issue accentuates the conundrum faced by fundraisers and community governing bodies in general. On the one hand, dependence on the wealthy for the lion’s share of community budgets raises questions about who has influence on decision-making. On the other hand, could the campaigns raise enough money without relying on the major donors?
Turning to the general scope of community activities, the past fifty years have seen an increasing role for government in a variety of sectors. The community has had to adjust to government involvement in areas that were once within the purview of Jewish organizations. Now the tide has shifted and the extent of government intervention is being reduced. This may well necessitate a readjustment of community attitudes and priorities, especially if shared government funding drops enough to jeopardize programs.
The education sector is particularly vulnerable. Providing a Jewish education for each child who wants it is a high priority to community organizations that see the day schools as a bulwark against assimilation and intermarriage. Even some Israeli officials have urged Diaspora communities to plow money into education that might otherwise have gone to Israel. In Ontario, Jews are struggling to obtain government funding for their schools, while in other provinces they want to hold on to what they already have. Certainly there are no guarantees that funding will be maintained indefinitely where it now exists, though there are no announced intentions to terminate such programs. But levels of funding can be reduced, as has happened in Quebec. Thus the community has to be prepared to cope with unanticipated calls for support without reserves to provide for such eventualities.
Another sector that will only grow in terms of needs is care for the aging. Demographic studies show that the Jewish community has a disproportionate share of senior citizens compared to the population as a whole. This is particularly true in Montreal, which has seen the departure of significant numbers of younger people, thus distorting the age structure even more. One of the challenges for policy makers across the country will be to devise ways to serve the needs of the older generation, while providing the traditional range of services for the rest of the community.
There is little doubt that the federations will continue to dominate community life, given their access to resources, the quality of their organizations and leadership, and the scope of their programs. As the federations keep growing, they have gradually assumed several of the programs of the Canadian Jewish Congress. In addition, as direct funders of Congress they are now in a position to control its activities. B’nai Brith Canada, on the other hand, remains independent of the federations because, as noted, its membership provides funds to support its programs and activities.
Looking ahead several decades, the Canadian Jewish community is well run and, in the main, serves the needs of its members, who form a reasonably cohesive group. There is a strong sense of Jewish identity, both in terms of religion and ethnicity, an instinctive connection to Israel, and a sense of communal responsibility and commitment. As with any large group of people, there are differences of opinion on policy, differing interpretations of Judaism, and different attitudes toward Israel. Nevertheless, Canadian Jews have demonstrated an ability to work together in pursuit of common goals. There is thus reason for optimism that the community will grow and cope with the challenges of the new century. However, it is not immune to the threats that all Diaspora communities will face in this century, specifically the possible decline in numbers late in the century due to low birth rates and assimilation. Furthermore, the general Canadian phenomenon of a brain drain to the United States may lure some potential leaders south if they perceive greater opportunities there. In addition, should the Quebec independence movement ever succeed, the implications for the community would be quite serious, with about one-third of its members being separated politically from their fellow Jews.
Canadian Jews can hardly afford to be complacent about the future. But they can be confident of their ability as a community to maintain a vibrant and integrated Jewish life in an environment that has become increasingly hospitable in recent decades.