Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 20, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 7, 1941 Page: 2 of 8
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THE JEWISH HERALD-VOICE
August 7, 1941
No country in the world resembles the
United States as much as Canada does.
Canadian Jewry is almost a miniature re-
plica of American Jewry and, in many
ways, merely part of it. Still, there are
certain facts and peculiarities about Can-
adian Jewry worth noting.
The study of similarities is in itself of
interest. Let us take a few simple facts.
There are more Jews in the East of Can-
ada than in the West. About half of
Canada’s Jewry live in the country's larg-
est eastern port, which is also its largest
city—Montreal. The second largest city
in Canada, Toronto, the largest Canadian
port on the Great Lakes, contains the sec-
ond largest Jewish community. Substi-
tute New York for Montreal, Chicago for
Toronto, and you have the situation in
the United States.
The first Jews to arrive in Canada were
Sephardic Jews, the descendants of the
Spanish and Portuguese exiles. Later
came the German Jews, and still later the
Jews from Eastern Europe. The first
Jews came into Canada with the British
army which wrested the country from the
French in 1761. The small group of
English Sephardic Jews maintained its
identity for a long time and played an im-
portant part in the history of Canada. The
first Jewish congregation established by
these Sephardim still exists in Montreal,
but very few of the original families have
remained within the Jewish fold to this
dav
The immigration of German Jews into
Canada was not as extensive as it was in
this counttry, and the imprint the German
lews made on the Canadian Jewish com-
munities was not as strong as in the
States. During the middle of the ninc-
ttenth century, when the bulk of German
Jews came into the U. S. A., Canada was
hardly a land of immigration. It was
only towards the end of the nineteenth
and the beginning of the twentieth century
that Canada began to absorb large numb-
ers of immigrants. The Eastern European
Jewish immigration into Canada is thus
The Jews Of Canada
By M. Z. R. FRANK
The author, an editor of Canadian papers for many years, has studied the Jewish
communities of the Dominion at first hand. Frequent contributor to important
publications, he is noted for the factualness of his interpretations.—The Editor.
of more recent origin than the one into
the United States. Canada has a younger
Jewish community than has this country.
Many Jews began to come into Canada
from New York and other American
cities ju$t as they went to New Orleans
or Ia>uisville or Nashville or San Francisco
—that is, they simply moved from one
center to another in search of better Op-
portunities. Many others dime directly
from Eastern Europe, attracted by a new
country, planning to set up as farmers, to
join relatives—or because at certain times
the requirements for entry into Canada
were milder than those into the United
States. I do not know if there are statisti-
cal figures available on the number of
Jews migrated to Canada from the United
States and vice versa, but from my own
observation I should state that there are
many more Jews in the United States who
come from Canada than the other way
round. For a period of a few years im-
mediately following the last war, when
it was much easier to enter Canada than
the United States, thousands of Jews mi-
grated into Canada from Eastern Europe,
about half of those immigrants eventually
finding their waj into this country.
There are between 160,000 and 175,000
Jews in the whole of Canada out of a total
population of about eleven million. These
Jews are scattered from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, which in Canada stretch* farther
East and farther West than south of the
border. There are three large Jewish
communities — Montreal, Toronto and
Winnipeg. Each of these three cities rep-
resents an important commercial and cul-
tural center in the Dominion and supplies
a different background to the Jewish com-
munity in its midst. Montreal is the met-
ropolis of the French-speaking province of
Quebec, Toronto of the English-speaking
province of Ontario; Winnipeg, in Mani-
toba, is the largest city in the Canadian
West. Both Montreal and Toronto have
their own conservative traditions, French-
Canadian and English-Canadian Tory re-
spectively. Winnipeg represents the free
spirit of the West—and incidentally, it
is the largest Ukrainian center on the
whole American continent. Montreal
2nd Toronto are industrial and financial
centers; Winnipeg is the center of Cana-
da’s wheat exchange.
The Various Jewish Communities
The oldest Jewish community in Can-
ada is in Montreal which boasts one of
the oldest synagogues on the continent
and one of the wealthiest Orthodox syna-
gogues on our continent. It commands
more social prestige than the Reform
Temple there. Montreal also has the
continent’s largest radical Jewish school,
where Yiddish is cultivated along with
Hebrew. On the whole, there is more
Yiddish spoken a«d cultivated in Canada
than in any community of like size in the
States. The most important feature of
Montreal is that it is about 80 per cent
French-speaking and that its rural hinter-
land, Province of Quebec is even more so.
The official recognition given the existence
of two nationalities and two languages in
the Province of Quebec tends to the ac-
centuation of the third nationality. At
4jne time there was a serious question in
Montreal whether the Jews ought not to
be given schools of their own just as the
Protestants and Catholics are given their
own schools by the Constitution. However,
Jews in Montreal continue to send their
children to the Protestant schools and,
in spite of what has been said about their
cultivation of Yiddish, they speak English
in a French-speaking country; and this the
French Canadians resent.
The Jewish community in Toronto is
probably the youngest of its size anywhere
in America. The bulk of its members are
recent arrivals from the small towns of
Poland. In the shaping of its communal
life the Reform Jews rather than the
Canadianizcd Orthodox Jews—as is the
case in Montreal—take the lead.
, Winnipeg, with its population of twenty
thousand Jews, is considered the ideal of
Jewish nationalists all over the American
continent. There are more Hebrew and
Yiddish schools proportionately in Win-
nipeg and in the other centers in the West
than in any city of such size anywhere on
the continent.
Jewish communities of a few thousand
souls exist in Halifax, Quebec, Ottawa,
Hamilton, Windsor and Van Couver, and
there are smaller Jewish settlements scat-
tered in Ontario and in the West with
Toronto and Winnipeg as their centers
respectively. In Canada, as in the States,
the Jews established the several branches
of the needle industry and are also ac-
tive in some new industries, such as
mining.
Organizationally, the Jews of Canada
arc in some respects affiliated with the
Jews of America; in others they stand on
their own feet. The Canadian Zionists
are not affiliated with the American
Zionists, but the Labor Zionists and the
Mizrachi are. Canadian Hadassah is also
independent of American Hadassah. There
is a Canadian Jewish Congress, which is
steadily gaining in prestige among the
Jews and the non-Jews of Canada. Smaller
organizations are usually part of Ameri-
can bodies. Canadian needle-trade unions,
like most Canadian trade unions, are part
of the American unions—AFL or CIO.
*lltU G4id ^Utai,,
from Here & There
By YOU* ASSOCIATE EDITOR
!;
MT The whispering has just reached our ears that
V geitz is no more a popular salutation with nazi
bigwigs but our hope is that V-geitz is really doing
the fob among the millions being ground in the
by the nazi heel, spelled h-i-t-l-e-r . . . Speak-
ing of the international scene, we must remember
that there is no more bark than bite in politics . . .
BH'fpu gander the imposing list of our boys
; their bit for Uncle Sammy as given on an-
page of this issue . . . Additional names will
he printed from time to time.
We wonder why Julian Shapiro hasn’t been by
with those Havanas—he fathered a bundle of blue
—both the Mrs. and baby doing well . . . Congrats
to Bernard Levy on that winning display window
at the Interurban Pharmacy—and the folding money
should come in handy . . . And did you see the
picture of modest Frank Freed whom Aetna Life
recognizes as one of the top men in the country
. . . Add another surprise—Cantor Max Landman
reccising and accepting the call from Adath Emeth
j. . . Thev tell me that Pincus Juran and Mike
<k>ld%tein are walking around as though they per-
jMMUy swallowed the canary.
Fust ntghters at the Metropolitan for the Abe
w brought out Dr. and Mrs. Israe1
*7ke.^*utliU
HERALD-V
1414
Published Every Thursday
At*. Phene Fx. MSI
D. R White ________ President & Editor
W. M. White____________Business Manager
Lazar Goldberg Asst Business Manager
Paul Kulick ...Jewish Community Center
Abe Greenberg-------------B*nai B*rtth
Two Delian Per Year
Rater as seoend class lwsttor at the Feet
Office at Houston. Texas, under the Aet
ef March >. l«l.
Sondock . ». down in the very, first row were Bet-
nie Shclansky and Abe Lewis—not missing a thing
. . . Odessa Davis greeted Houston after a long
stay in Los Angeles by attending the midnight show
on Saturday . . . That was the Phillip Dattles at
Galveston Sunday, with Phillip doing the pushing
act on the perambulator ... It looked like a riot
at Sylvan Beach last Sunday, but it turned out to
be the Wcingarten-Sidney Meyers Picnic . . . Ann
Berman back from her visit to New York and
still talking about the things she saw and did.
Slightly damaged but not the worse for wear is
"Zip II,” Hyman Rudy’s speed boating contri-
bution . . . They tell me Sakowitz’s Third Floor
College Edition Creations are really worth a visit
. . . Must be school in the air—here comes the MM
with their Back to School Dance ... So it’s “Cali-
fornia Here I Come” for Jeannette Dannenbaum
. . . Those were real bananas Alex Weinstein took
down to Camp Hulen Wednesday—and a bevy of
Houston beauties to dance the hours away—nice
work girls . . . Looks to me like the Paul Kulicks
will be celebrating a second anniversary soon.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: The incredu-
lous are gf all men the rrjpst credulous; they believe
the miracles of Vespasian, in order not to believe
those of Moses.—Pascal.
Plantationing the other eve we saw the‘Mitchell
Lewises and the Bob Friedbefgs . . . Kerrville seems
to be doing all right by the tan we see on Maurice
Berkman just returned from there . .. That stream-
lined advertising of the Alaskan seems to be hitting
the spot . . . Ellington Field seems to be doing all
right by Faye Schorr . . . They tell me Los Angeles
appealed to Seymour and Sylvia Sacks who va-
cationed amid the stars . . . The Saul Horowitzes
visited the various District 7 institutions while va-
cationing .. . Our friend Shlumeal says that the pnly
horn the men on the pulpit ought to blow is the
shofar.
And mazel-tov is due the Phillip Battlesteins—
the occasion, fifty years of wedded bliss—and a
hearty mazel-tov from us, and may there be many
more anniversaries . . . Congrats to Meyer Blank-
field on his election to the Commandership of -his
Legion Post . . . They tell me we were a bit pre-
mature in announcing that the tables had disap-,
peared from out Preston way . . . Has anyone ever
seen I. B. Shapiro when he was not in a hurry . . .
Tush, tush—need we remind our readers we do
not print rumor or gossip—hate to see our mails
cluttered up with whisperings—and if it’s news
why not sign your name to such communications.
Notes from Washington by notator
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
THE HYSTERIC
Senator Robert R. Reynolds of
North Carolina provided a new
critical estimate of Charlie Chap-
lin during the Senate discussfon
of the draft extension resolution.
Chaplin, according to Reynolds,
is one of the stimulators of hys-
teria about the danger of a Nazi
attack in this country.
Companions of Chaplain in this
“crime” are the writers and pro-
ducers of films which, like “The
Great Dictator,” have been re-
sponsible for putting “queer”
ideas into the heads of the Am-
erican people—ideas that from
Berlin streams a channel of dang,
er to American principles and
American independence, that op-
pression and torture are legalized
and idolized in Germany.
“The Mortal Storm,” “Confes-
sions of a Nazi Spy,” “I Married
a Nazi” and other like films are
held by Reynolds to rank with
“The Great Dictator” as culprits.
Reynolds gave it as his opin-
ion that Germany was being
weakened in Europe, contrary to
reports about its increasing streng-
th. But he made no mention of
the attempted coup in Bolivia,
prevented by the quick action of
its President, of the unnecessary
war between Peru and Ecuador,
fomented by Nazi deteremination
to start trouble in the Western
Hemisphere, or of known Nazi
influences in Argentina, Brazil
and Chile. *
Nor did Reynolds mention that
if Germany was being weakened
in Europe, it was because of the
machinery transported to Britain
under the terms of the Lease-Lend
bill. Had Senator Reynolds had his
way, these implements of warfare
would never have been put into
British hands.
THE ALLEN BILL
In recent weeks the Hobbs Bill,
which would put aliens ordered
deported into concentration camps
while deportation was impossible,
has been attracting much atten-
tion on the part of liberal-minded
persons. They do not realize that
their dislike of the Hobbs bill is
shared, for entirely different
reasons, by a far from liberal
group. Representative A. Leon-
ard Allen of Louisiana does not
like the Hobbs bill, either, but
he doesn't like it because of its
mildness.
sorrow
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Congressman Allen’s own bill is
patiently worse. If it passes, any
alien who has ever spent any
time in a concentration camp in
a German-occupied country or
in an internment camp in Great
Britain will automatically forfeit
any chance of admission into this
country. According to Congress-
man Alleft, a man or woman whom
the Nazis honored by puttting
into a concentration camp or who
was forced, by the temporary ex-
igencies of British control, into
an internment camp, is to be re-
garded in no different light than
a person who has been guilty of
murder or other moral turpitude.
Not long ago Representative
Allen, addressing a national con-
vention in .Washington, betrayed
the kind of thinking that lies be-
hind his sponsorship of his bill.
“You hear it said that we are
all the sons of immigrants,” he
said, “that we all got here some-
how and from somewhere. They
use that as an argument that we
should continue to hold the door
open to those of other lands who
wish to come here at this time.
“The fact that most of our an-
cestors came from Europe cer-
tainly is no argument that we
should receive Europeans with
open arms now. Conditions have
changed.”
Disregarding entirely the fact
that professionals who come from
dictatorship countries are the very
ones that have been ousted from
these countries, Congressman Al-
len went on to analyze the numb-
er of professors, teachers, lawyers
and social workers who had en-
tered this country recently and
intimated that these people rep-
resented the doctrines of the
countries from which they had
escaped.
Of the internees, he said: “We
do not say. that all of those per-
sons interned in Canada are bad,
but it is safe to conclude that
some of them are bad and we
take the position that if England
considered them unsafe for her,
and if Canada considered them
unsafe for Canada, in the name
of common sense we have no )
business taking a chance on letting /
them come into our country.” /
Such arguments represent the
elision of logic which marks til
anti-democratic thinking It joins
Senator Reynolds’ words in the
realm of fatuous and dangerous j
signals. . r*~*~ " "*
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White, D. H. Jewish Herald-Voice (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 20, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 7, 1941, newspaper, August 7, 1941; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1102098/m1/2/?q=+date%3A1941-1945: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .