ÉTUDES JUIVES CANADIENNES
CJS/ÉJC TABLES
OF CONTENTS VOLUMES 1-8 (1993-2000)
ASSOCIATION FOR CANADIAN JEWISH
STUDIES HOMEPAGE
VOLUMES 7-8 (1999-2000)
SPECIAL ISSUE:
JEWS AND JUDAISM IN CANADA
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS
PUBLISHED SINCE 1965
Michael Brown, Richard Menkis, Benjamin
Schlesinger and Stuart Schoenfeld
Introduction
Thirty-five
or forty years ago, a scholar compiling a bibliography of Canadian Jewry would
have found a very limited number of works to list. Some historical research had
been done, archival collections established, and memoirs written, but the Selected Bibliography of Jewish Canadiana,
published in 1959 by David Rome, the pioneer chronicler and antiquarian of
Canadian Jewry, was a comparatively brief document. In 1965, Rome himself was
in the midst of assembling primary materials and making them available to a
small, but growing, audience. In the social sciences, the pioneer demographer,
Louis Rosenberg, was still actively engaged in his extensive and detailed
examination of census data. At the country’s universities, Jewish Studies was
not yet a presence.
In
the intervening years, the situation has changed remarkably. Most of the
founding scholars of Canadian Jewish Studies are no longer with us. As Canadian
universities expanded, however, professional scholars with a specialized
interest in Canadian Jewry have emerged, some in the Jewish Studies programmes
that have been established, some in other departments. The Guide to the Study of Jewish Civilization in Canadian Universities
(Jerusalem: International Center for University Teaching in Jewish Civilization
and Toronto: York University Centre for Jewish Studies, 1998) compiled by
Michael Brown lists forty-three institutions of higher learning in Canada
offering at least a few courses in Jewish Studies.
Building
on the work of local groups, the Canadian Jewish Historical Society was founded
in the early 1970s and published The Journal of the Canadian Jewish
Historical Society between 1977 and 1988. In 1993, the reorganized
Society, now called the Association
for Canadian Jewish Studies, began publishing Canadian Jewish
Studies/Études juives canadiennes. By the end of 1999, there were two
chairs of Canadian Jewish Studies: the J. Richard Schiff Chair for the Study of
Canadian Jewry at York University, held by Professor Irving Abella, and the
Chair for the Study of Quebec and Canadian Jewry at Concordia University, held
by Professor Norman Ravvin.
On
the threshold of the new century, a surprising number of books and articles on
Canadian Jews (over 1600 entries here) may be found in the disciplines of
history, political science, economics, anthropology, sociology, women’s
studies, literature, and other fields. For the benefit of researchers, archival
sources have been consolidated and described. Several anthologies on
contemporary Canadian Jewish life have been published, as well as two focusing
on Quebec. Chapters on Jews may be found in numerous books on various topics.
The broader field of Canadian Studies, moreover, reflects the country’s new
multicultural ethos. As a matter of course, notice is now taken of Jews and
other once overlooked groups, and the scholarly and popular literature on
Canadian Jewish life grows steadily.
The
present project is intended to document that proliferation of the literature.
It has, as its main goal, the production of a history and social science
bibliography on the Jews of Canada and, as a second goal, pointing the way to
future research. By highlighting those aspects of Canadian Jewish life, which
have already received attention, the editors hope to highlight areas still
under-researched.
For
example, much detailed and thoughtful research has been done on Jewish immigration
and settlement in Canada. In contrast, very little research has been published
on the internal migration of Canadian Jews, a process which has had important
implications for Jewish identity, social networks, and organizations. Extensive
portraits of the economic conditions faced by the wave of immigrants at the
turn of the 20th century have appeared in print. Less is available about
contemporary economic issues, such as the occupational choices of recent
generations. And much remains to be said about gender issues relating to
Canadian Jews. In the area of religion, the practices of Canadian Jews have
received some study, but relatively little has been written on synagogues as
institutions or on the internal dynamics of the various branches of Judaism.
And, despite the extent of the Jewish communal school and social welfare
systems in Canada, not very much has been written about their history or the
current challenges which they face. These issues are of more than antiquarian
interest, since individuals and institutions will be making decisions about the
future on the basis of what they know about the past and present.
This
work builds upon Contemporary Jewish Life
in Canada, compiled by Stuart Schoenfeld and Dwight Daigneault in 1993. The
latter bibliography was an outcome of the conference, “Canadian Jewry in the
21st Century: Setting the Research Agenda,” mounted in 1989 by the York
University Centre for Jewish Studies in cooperation with the Jerusalem Centre
for Public Affairs. The present bibliography follows another conference at York
University, “A Heritage in Transition: Canadian Jewish Studies,” held almost a
decade later, in 1998. The second conference was sponsored by the York
University Centre for Jewish Studies and the Chair for Quebec and Canadian
Studies at Concordia University, and it was funded by the Policy Research
Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Although
it is intimately connected to previous bibliographic endeavours, the present
work may be seen to differ from them, not only in its inclusion of more recent
materials, but also in its emphases and in its use of some of the newer
technologies for locating materials. This bibliography will undoubtedly meet
some needs that others do not. As with every such work, however, the editors
have made choices about what to include and about organization which are, to a
degree, idiosyncratic. Some explanatory comments may, therefore, be of help to
readers.
In
order not to replicate the work of earlier bibliographers, the emphasis here has
been placed upon books and articles published since 1965. A few earlier works
have been included, because they are “classics of the canon,” because they
present a unique viewpoint or methodology, or because they are favourites of
one or more of the editors. Jews or Judaism are the focus of most of the
entries. Some, however, treat religion or ethnicity more generally and are
included because they deal with the contexts in which Canadian Jews and Judaism
exist. The editors have stressed the disciplines of social science and history,
and they have drawn a distinction between analytical studies and products of
the imagination. Films, belles lettres,
and works of art, theology, and music have been excluded, for the most part,
although discussions of them as artifacts of culture have been included.
Electronic publications, which are often of high quality and very useful, are
not yet judged by the same standards as those in print and have therefore been
excluded.
Some
entries are organized topically. Others are arranged according to geography
reflecting the regionalization characteristic of Canada, in general, and
Canadian Jewry, in particular. It may be noted that the size, age, and inherent
interest of the Montreal community make that section the largest of the city
entries. Most groupings with only a few listings have been combined with
others. Every attempt has been made to cross reference works which address a
multiplicity of topics.
The
editors consider this bibliography a “working paper.” That means several things.
First of all, it acknowledges the incompleteness of the work. Annotation proved
beyond the scope of the compilers, but they are aware that the omission limits
the usefulness of their efforts. Although the editors have been engaged in
their task for several years and have used a variety of standard and newer
means of gathering entries, they are aware that their work is far from
complete. They have attempted to compensate for their particular interests,
tastes, and specializations, but those have inevitably influenced choice more
than might be desirable.
More
serious are the areas omitted from the bibliography. There is a general
perception that psychology, social science, and perhaps history address the
community’s most immediate issues. Unquestionably, however, films, belles lettres, and other works of the
imagination are able to illustrate and penetrate the human experience as well
as—if not better than—many of the studies written by sociologists,
demographers, economists, or historians. In the realm of literature, moreover,
Canadian Jewry has produced major figures, such as Matt Cohen, Naïm Kattan,
A.M. Klein, Mordecai Richler, and Adele Wiseman, as well as a number of writers
in Yiddish and a host of other lesser, but not insignificant, lights. And a
number of non-Jewish writers have written about Jews in instructive ways. All
these works shed much light on the Jews and Judaism in Canada and their
context. The next revision of this bibliography should most definitely include
imaginative works, not just the memoirs, commentary, and criticism written by
novelists, musicians, and artists. One may expect, as well, that the next
revision will include an extensive list of electronic publications.
This
bibliography, then, is but a way station. We hope that it catalogues the
accomplishments of the past and points towards the research of the future. We
are aware of its partial nature, but hope nonetheless that it will prove useful
to all those with a professional or amateur interest in the past, present, and future
of Canadian Jewry. We look forward to the ongoing expansion and revision of our
“working paper.”
CJS/ÉJC
TABLES OF CONTENTS VOLUMES 1-8 (1993-2000)
ASSOCIATION FOR CANADIAN JEWISH
STUDIES HOMEPAGE