Canada's Religion History

Today, Canada is a country known for its mosaic of cultures, as well as its promise to provide protection to all cultural groups regardless of origin and equal opportunity for all. Unfortunately, these multicultural ideals did not always exist within Canadian society. As Canada grew as an independent nation the roots of anti-Semitism began to grow with it. Although Jewish settlement in Canada had once been respected and praised, the changing atmosphere of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century brought forth an era of anti-Semitism and turbulence for Canadian Jewry. In this period of advancement, the country’s open immigration policy welcomed Eastern European Jews and in turn changed the face of Canadian Jewry forever. The increase in Canada’s Jewish population, corabined with the highly anti-Semitic influence of Europe, stirred previously idle feelings of anti-Semitism among the non-Jewish communities of Canada. Consequently, anti-Semitism spread throughout Canada and its Jews were used as scapegoats for the insecurities and tensions brought forth by the changing times of the turn of the century.
In mid-nineteenth century Canada, the Jewish population consisted of approximately one thousand people most of whom were the direct descendants of either French or English colonists. It was an era of tranquility for Canadian Jews as the standard of living was high and the Jews of early Canada were treated well. These early Jewish settlers were considered ‘almost equal’ to their Anglo-Saxon or Catholic counterparts with few restrictions being placed on them and since they were of such a small proportion of Canada’s population they were able to almost completely assimilate in 1850s Canadian society. As a matter of fact, these Jews were barely even noticed. Jews such as Jesse Joseph, president of the Montreal gas company and Sigismund Mohr, head of the Quebec electric company, were among the Jews respected by their Canadian contemporaries. In 1870 a Montreal newspaper declared, “if only more of our citizens could be like the Jews, we would be a far more industrious and progressive nation.” In general, life was prosperous and secure for the Jews of mid-nineteenth century Canada.
As programs and anti-Semitism became more widespread in Eastern Europe Jewish immigration into Canada increased. These new Jewish immigrants were very different from their earlier counterparts:
By 1914 it was not the Anglicized, comfortable, integrated
community it had been thirty years before.
Rather, the majority of Canada’s Jewry
were now Yiddish speaking, Orthodox, penurious immigrants.
By 1914 Montreal’s Jewish population had swelled to forty thousand. Consequently, they were seen as a threat to ‘traditional French-Canadian rural values’ and as such were unwelcome.
There were many factors that influenced Canadian response to Jewish immigration and help explain why it coincided with an increase in anti-Semitism. In French- Canada anti-Semitism was rampant as people feared the loss of their French identity. The anti-Semitic thoughts and stereotypes had always been a part of French Canadian society, however, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that they became public and widespread:
These notions were not new in themselves…
What was new was the presence in Quebec
of a significant Jewish population. Earlier,
anti-Jewish tales had been little more than
the stuff of religion and folklore, unrelated
to real people; they had been told less often,
and in generally more moderate language.
Now these strident beliefs pertained to neigrabroadors
and fellow citizens…
Another important factor that contributed to the increase of anti-Semitism in Quebec was the strong influence of the press. In 1897 La Croix, one of Quebec’s circulating journals, warned the public of the ‘Hebrew Peril’ predicting:
If the syndicate was not exposed and halted,
that within fifty years the Jews would devour
Canada, and that the country would cease to
exist.
Edouard Drumont, author of Le France Juive and founder of the anti-Semitic group Ligue Nationale Anti-semitique, was gaining popularity in France and also had a large following in Quebec. It was in this time period that the controversy over Dreyfus affair occurred, resulting in a significant increase of anti-Semitism in Canada. A Jewish Captain of the French Army, named Alfred Dreyfus, was accused and later found innocent of spying on behalf of the Germans. With the accusations in France came widespread anti-Semitism throughout Quebec. Edouard Drumont’s anti-Jew and now anti-Drefus articles were republished in various French-Canadian magazines. French-Canadian publications such as La Libre Parole, La Croix, Le Pionnier, Le Verite, and La Semaine religieuse de Quebec showed support for Edouard Drumont by publishing anti-Semitic satires and articles labeling Jews as the ‘Christ killing race’.
In English-Canada the Dreyfus affair did not cause the uprising that it did in French regions, instead English Canadians sympathized with Dreyfus for having been an innocent victim of French Catholic hatred. It is important to note that although English Canadians sympathized with Dreyfus they were not reacting to the anti-Semitism in France, on the other hand their support stemmed from ongoing tensions between Anglophone and Francophone society. As explained by Alan Davies:
The newspapers [Western Canadian] denounced vehemently the outrages in France, not because they really wished to defend Jews, but because the persecution of Dreyfus supplied them with an easy means of condemning a Catholic and French Society.
One of the most significant reasons for the anti-Semitism displayed by French Canada was the fear of being outnurabered by Anglophones. Eastern European immigrants tended to favor the English language and tended to align themselves politically with English society. This in turn created further resentment in French Canada towarRAB Jewish immigration. Essentially, French-Canadians believed that their identity was derived from their religion and language; since Jews were different and easily recognizable they became the scapegoat for French frustrations. According to Arnold Ages, ‘this reflects a less traditional form of anti-Semitism and rather a form of resentment against Jews as representatives of English society’.
Not only Quebec had an anti-Semitic sentiment, in English-Canada Goldwin Smith was the anti-Semitic figure head. Smith was able to deliver his message through various means; he was a scholar, a politician, a journalist, and an educator. He was the leader of the Nationalist Canada First Party, and helped write or edit numerous influential anti-Semitic journals. In his writings, Smith refers to:
A parasite race whose tribal religion
is based on exclusiveness. They are
dangerous to any country that allows
them to enter and need to be watched
very closely.
In 1891, when the Premier of Manitoba went to Europe to attract immigrants, Smith was shocked to discover that Jews had been included in the invitation. In turn, Smith wrote to the Winnipeg Tribune arguing that it would be a horrible mistake to allow Jews into Canada since they ‘would be of no use agriculturally, instead they would use Canadian labour for their personal benefit.’ In its response the Tribune voiced its agreement by declaring, “If there is anything this country does not want, it is parasites!”
In the future, Smith’s most significant impact would prove to be his influence on William Lyon Mackenzie King, “whose anti-Semitism was among the major factors in the dreadful tragedy of the 1930s and 1940s when Canada closed her doors to desperate Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi death camps.” Another one of Smith’s loyal followers was French-Canadian Henri Bourassa who founded the anti-Semitic newspaper Le Devoir. In this newspaper Bourassa passionately protested Jewish immigration into Canada calling them, “the most undesirable class that can be brought into this country.”
By the early 1920s Ontario’s Jewish population was approximately thirty five thousand and many of the same elements in French society were now surfacing in English regions. By 1911, Jews in Canada were subjected to social exclusion. Rules and regulations were in place that denied them access to public swimming pools, hotels, and parks. The face of Canadian Jewry had changed and there was a new image of the Jew:
By 1914 the acculturated Anglo-Jewish
community had all but disappeared; gone
was their serene comfortable world. In
its place had emerged the new world of
Canadian Jewry, the seething, crowded,
chaotic, noisy, Yiddish world of the
Eastern European newcomers.