The historical relationship between Jews and French Canadians is fundamentally important in understanding the history of Jews in Canada, but as a topic it remains controversial due to the occurrence of antisemitism in the province of Quebec, Canadian historian Ira Robinson told a symposium in Toronto on Nov. 17.
Robinson, a professor of Judaic Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, said that antisemitism in Quebec is one of the few issues in Canadian Jewish Studies that has drawn the interest of Quebec’s French and English press.
He made his comments at a Canadian Jewish Studies symposium at the University of Toronto held in honor of historian Gerald Tulchinsky.
Robinson, the interim chair of Concordia’s Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies, claimed that a great deal of “superficial writing” on antisemitism in Quebec has been published.
Two diametrically opposed schools of thought have emerged, he noted.
The first claims that all doors were open to Jews in Quebec, while the second contends that antisemitism was an endemic phenomenon in Quebec society.
Refraining from taking sides, Robinson instead offered a number of reflections.
Historically, Jews in Quebec had to contend with the perception, espoused by Quebec’s intellectual elite, that immigration would be detrimental to French Canadians. Jews, comprising Quebec’s biggest minority after the English, were generally regarded as the face of immigration, which was resented by many Quebecois.
Jews, too, were perceived as the symbol of modern urban life, which was seen as a threat to Quebec’s purity and integrity, said Robinson, whose book on antisemitism in Canada will be published by a Canadian university press next year.
The deeply traditional nature of Roman Catholicism in Quebec also contributed to the often negative French Canadian image of Jews, he suggested.
Robinson mentioned two iconic French Canadian figures who perpetuated antisemitic beliefs.
Henri Bourassa (1868-1952), a political leader and the founder of the daily newspaper Le Devoir, propounded the theory that urbanization threatened French Canadians and that Jews had to be resisted. He later recanted his antisemitic views.
Lionel Groulx (1878-1967), a priest, historian and Quebec nationalist, was supposedly uncomfortable with the accusation that he was an antisemite. Nonetheless, he levelled a plethora of calumnies against Jews: Jews were rootless, they were agents of revolution, they were consumed by a passion for money, and they lacked scruples.
During the interwar period, said Robinson, French Canadian intellectuals advised Jews to accept the values of Christianity. But there was never a significant movement in Quebec to ban kosher slaughter, in contrast to countries like Switzerland and Norway, where the practice was banned.
After the war, he added, there was a “subtle” improvement in French Canadian-Jewish relations. For example, the visible concentration of Jews in some mountain resorts outside Montreal ceased to be an issue.
By the early 21st century, the Quiet Revolution in Quebec had achieved many of its economic goals and had changed perceptions and facts concerning French Canadian economic power.
Nonetheless, Jews came under criticism by the Bouchard-Taylor Commission for their economic power, he noted.