Canadian Jewry is undergoing some startling political, demographic and religious trends. American Jews, accustomed to thinking of their northern neighbors as near clones, tend not to realize that there are some basic differences between the two communities.
The Jewish population of Canada has undergone some important shifts within the past 10 years. Montreal, which used to be the major Jewish center in Canada, is now second to Toronto in population. Accurate statistics are difficult to obtain but Toronto is now said to have about 125,000 Jews versus Montreal’s 115,000.
The amazing reversal in demographics is directly attributable to the Parti Quebecois, a nationalist political movement in Quebec which, since its rise to power in 1976, has stressed the primacy of French language and culture in the province — to the exclusion, some would argue, of English.
While the Parti Quebecois has attempted in recent months to mitigate somewhat the harshness of its legislation bearing on the use of French in the province, the move has come somewhat late to prevent the hemorrhaging of a significant number of Montreal’s Jewish population.
GROWING JEWISH PRESENCE IN TORONTO
Not all of the Montreal Jewish “defectors” have ended up in Toronto but enough of them have and their presence in the Ontario capital is making a difference in the cultural and religious configuration of the city.
When one adds the new Montreal component to Toronto’s burgeoning Russian, South African and North African Jewish immigrants, the city, which lies astride of Lake Ontario, takes on a new dynamism. To this new melange one must also add the solid block of Israelis (estimates range as high as 10,000) who have chosen Toronto as their home.
There are a number of signals which identify Toronto’s growing Jewish presence. For years the city got along with one kosher restaurant under rabbinical supervision. Now Toronto boasts of half a dozen, including a Moroccan eatery. The city also claims a fast food restaurant modeled on McDonalds but under strict kashruth controls.
With the growth of the Jewish population the community’s organizational structure also underwent changes. Demands on the part of the indigent, the troubled and the unemployed were channelled to the local offices of the Canadian Jewish Congress (an umbrella organization which exercises much greater monitoring activity than any counterpart in the United States).
The Congress offices were, for many years, located in an old if imposing structure on Spadina Avenue. Three decades ago the offices were in the heart of the Jewish neighborhoods. In recent years, as the Jewish population moved north, that formerly Jewish quadrant became an ethnic conclave inhabited primarily by Chinese and Portuguese immigrants.
In 1983 the Congress facilities were moved to a structure adjoining the spacious northern branch of the Jewish Community Center. There, in quarters befitting the Congress’s multifold obligations, officials will, it is hoped, be able to cope more adequately with the problems found in a population soon to reach the 150,000 mark.
While Toronto and Montreal are Canada’s two major Jewish centers they are not the only cities to have experienced demographic changes. The tiny Jewish community of Ottawa, the country’s capital, has also experienced impressive growth. Ottawa’s Jewish community is beginning to climb towards the 15,000 mark after years of demographic stagnation.
Ottawa’s Jewish profile has been enhanced in the past decade by the arrival in the city of large numbers of professionally trained observant Jews who have participated in the synagogue life of the community. Last year, for the first time, a yeshiva began to operate in an environment which had never had an institution of higher Jewish learning.
WINNIPEG’S DYNAMIC COMMUNITY
Winnipeggers cannot yet make a similar claim. This dynamic Jewish community (which has produced some of the ablest Jewish leaders, rabbis and entertainers on the North American continent) remains demographically stagnant at about 15,000 souls. Winnipeg is still a place to come from rather than go to — insofar as the Jewish community is concerned. This may be a function of the city’s uncongenial climate where -30 degrees Fahrenheit are not uncommon in winter.
Despite the absence of vigorous growth, Winnipeg’s Jewish community maintains a strong profile. Until recently, the city had three weekly Jewish newspapers, two in English and one in Yiddish. The latter folded two years ago but the surviving English weeklies provide ample column space for the “mamaloshen.”
DRIFT TOWARD VANCOUVER
Perhaps the most underreported Jewish community in Canada resides in Vancouver, the pearl of British Columbia, Canada’s western-most province. Affectionately termed Canada’s “lotus land,” Vancouver provides its one million-plus inhabitants unrivalled scenery and year round mild weather.
These two factors alone explain in part the western drift of Canada’s Jewish population. Many of Vancouver’s 20,000 Jews (an unofficial figure provided by local people who claim that the official number must be doubled to take into account the large number which has not yet identified itself as Jewish for various reasons) have come to the city from Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary seeking opportunity and more congenial temperatures.
Canada’s eastern provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland still have pockets of Jewish population but not of the same magnitude as the Jewish presence in Ontario, Quebec and the western provinces. Jewish maritimers usually depart for points west once they have completed their university or professional training. In fact, there are so many maritimers in Toronto and Montreal that they could almost form landsman-schaft organizations.
(Tomorrow: Part Two)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
