THE JEWS IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA.
The legend about the Jewish origin of Chevalier de Levis――Aaron
Hart, the English Commissary, and Abraham Gradis, the French
banker――Early settlers in Montreal――Its first Congregation――
Troubles of Ezekiel Hart, the first Jew to be elected to the
Legislature――Final Emancipation in 1832――Jews fight on the
Loyalist side against ♦Papineau’s rebellion――Prominent Jews in
various fields of activity――Congregation “Shaar ha-Shomaim”――
Toronto――First synagogue in Victoria, B. C., in 1862――Hamilton
and Winnipeg――Other communities――Agricultural Colonies――Jewish
Newspapers.
The beginning of the history of the Jews in Canada goes back to legend.
There is a tradition that the founder of the house of Levis, from whom
descended Henri de Levis, Duke de Vontadur, Viceroy of Canada for some
time after 1626, and his more distinguished relative, Chevalier de
Levis, who was Montcalm’s successor as commander of the French forces
in Canada (1759) and later became a marshal of France, were descendants
of the patriarch Levi Ben Jacob, and a cousin of Mary of Nazareth.[59]
The earliest authentic records of the Jews of Canada go back to the
period when England and France were engaged in their final contest for
the mastery of the northern part of the continent. Aaron Hart (b. in
London, 1724) was Commissary in General Amherst’s army, which invaded
Canada from the south, and there were in the same army three more
Jewish officers: Emanuel de Cordova, Hananiel Garcia and Isaac Miranda.
Hart was later attached to General Haldimond’s command at Three Rivers,
and at the close of the war settled in that city and became seignior of
Bécancour.
There were, of course, no Jews on the other side of the struggle, for
France at that time suffered no Jewish inhabitants in her colonies,
nor Jewish soldiers in her armies. But it was a Jew, Abraham Gradis
(d. 1780), the head of the great French banking house founded by
his father, David Gradis (naturalized in Bordeaux, 1731; d. 1751),
who furnished money and supplies to the French King to carry on the
unsuccessful war with England. Abraham Gradis had founded (in 1748)
the Society of Canada, a commercial organization, under the auspices
of the French government, and erected magazines in Quebec. Exceptional
privileges were later granted to him and his family in the French
colonies, and full civil rights were accorded him in Martinique in 1779.
But the house of “the Rothschilds of the 18th century” was finally
ruined by the insurrections in Santo Domingo and Martinique, combined
with the losses which were occasioned at home by the French Revolution.
(See Wolf, “_The American Jew ..._” pp. 476–82.)
About the time of the Canadian conquest by England (_circa_ 1760)
a number of Jewish settlers took up their residence in Montreal,
including Lazarus David (b. 1734), Uriel Moresco, Samuel Jacobs, Simon
Levy, Fernandez da Fonseca, Abraham Franks, Andrew Hays, Jacob de
Maurera, Joseph Bindona, Levy Solomons and Uriah Judah. Lazarus David
was a large land owner and was noted as a public spirited citizen.
Several of the others held offices in the English army; there were also
among them some extensive traders, who did much for the development
of the newly acquired colony. After they had been reinforced by other
settlers, a congregation, called “Shearit Israel,” was organized in
1768, which for nearly a century remained the only Jewish congregation
in Canada. Most of the members were Sephardim, and they stood in close
communion with the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of London, who presented
them with two scrolls of the Law for the newly founded congregation. At
first the congregation met for worship in a hall on St. James Street;
but in 1777 the members built the first synagogue, at the junction of
Notre Dame and St. James Streets, close to the present court house, on
a lot belonging to the David family, whose founder, the above mentioned
Lazarus David, died one year previously, and was the first to be
interred in the cemetery which the congregation acquired in 1775. His
son, David David (1764–1824), was one of the founders of the Bank of
Montreal in 1808.
The Rev. Jacob Raphael Cohen was the first regular minister of the
Montreal congregation of whom there remains any record. He came there
in 1778 and remained until 1782, when he went to Philadelphia, where he
became rabbi of Congregation ♦Mickweh Israel. The president or parnas
of the Montreal congregation in 1775 was Jacob Salesby (or Salisbury)
Franks, a member of the family whose other branch played an important
part in Philadelphia in the period of the Revolution. Abraham Franks
(1721–97) supported the British in repelling the American invasion,
while his son-in-law, Levy Solomons, who later became parnas of the
Montreal congregation, was commanded by the invading American general,
Montgomery, to act as purveyor to the hospitals for the American
troops. But after the death of General Montgomery and the retreat of
the American forces from Canada, Solomons, who was never paid for the
services he rendered to the invaders, was exposed to the resentment of
the British, as one suspected of sympathy for the revolting colonists.
He and his family were expelled from Montreal by General Burgoyne, but
eventually was permitted to return.
In 1807 Ezekiel Hart, one of the four sons of Commissary Aaron Hart,
was elected to represent Three Rivers in the Legislature. He declined
to be sworn in according to the usual form, “on the true faith of a
Christian,” but took the oath according to the Jewish custom, on the
Pentateuch, and with his head covered. At once a storm of opposition
arose, due, it is said, not to religious prejudice or intolerance, but
to the fact that his political opponents saw in this an opportunity
of making a party gain by depriving an antagonist of his seat. After
heated discussions and the formality of a trial, he was expelled, and
when his constituents re-elected him, the House proposed passing a bill
to put his disqualification as a Jew beyond doubt. But the governor,
Sir John Craig, dissolved the Chamber before the bill could pass. After
a bill, in conformity with a petition by the Jews, was passed in 1829,
and sanctioned by royal proclamation in January 1831, authorizing the
Jews to keep a register of births, marriages and deaths, they felt
encouraged and made another attempt to secure recognition of their
civil rights. When a new bill extending the same political rights to
Jews as to Christians was introduced in the Legislative Assembly in
March, 1831, it met with no opposition. It rapidly passed both the
Assembly and the Council, and received the royal assent June 5, 1832.
The Jews of Canada were thus emancipated about a quarter century before
their co-religionists in the mother country. Mr. Nathan of British
Columbia was the first Jewish member of the Canadian Parliament.
When Canada was convulsed in 1837–38 by the rebellion led by Papineau
and others, a number of Jews fought on the Loyalist side. Two members
of the David family held cavalry commands under Wetherell at the action
at St. Charles, and took a distinguished part in the battle of St.
Eustache. Aaron Philip Hart, grandson of the commissary, temporarily
abandoned his large law practice to raise a company of militia, which
rendered valuable service. Jacob Henry Joseph and his brother Jesse
were with the troops on the Richelieu and at Chambly. Several Canadian
Jews won distinction in various capacities in the first half of the
last century. Dr. Aaron Hart David (b. in Montreal, 1812; d. there
1882), a grandson of Lazarus David, was dean of the faculty of medicine
of Bishop’s College; Samuel Benjamin was the first Jew elected to the
Montreal City Council; and Jesse Joseph (b. in Berthier, Canada, 1817;
d. in Montreal, 1904), one of a family of merchant princes, established
the first direct line of ships between Antwerp and Montreal, and was
appointed Belgian Consul in the latter city. His brother Jacob was
connected with the promotion of early Canadian railways and telegraph
lines, and another brother, Gershom, was the first Jewish lawyer to be
appointed a queen’s counsel in Canada. All these men were officers of
the synagogue, at the time when its rabbi, Rev. Abraham de Sola (b. in
London, 1825; d. in New York, 1882), was professor of Semitic languages
and literature at the McGill University.
The Congregation Shearit Israel passed through a crisis when the old
synagogue building had to be demolished, when the land on which it
stood reverted to the heirs of David David, after his death in 1824.
It was again forced to worship in a hall, until the new synagogue on
Chenneville Street was dedicated in 1838. It had no regular minister
after the retirement of Rabbi Cohen, until nearly 60 years later,
when Rabbi David Piza was appointed in 1840 and was, six years later,
succeeded by Rabbi Abraham de Sola, who was in turn succeeded by his
son, Dr. Meldola de Sola (b. 1853), who is still one of the ministers
of the congregation, his associate being Rev. Isaac de la Penyha.
A second congregation, of Polish and German, or Ashkenazic Jews, was
organized in Montreal in 1846, but existed only for a short time.
Another effort was made about twelve years later with more success,
and the result was the congregation “Shaar ha-Shomaim,” which was
established in 1858. Abraham Hofnung, M. A. Ollendorf and Samuel
Silverman were among the most active of its charter members, and the
Rev. Samuel Hofnung was its earliest minister, who was soon succeeded
by Rev. M. Fass. The first building of this congregation was in St.
Constant Street, and was dedicated in 1860. In 1886 it removed to
its present edifice in McGill College avenue. It has now two rabbis,
Rev. Dr. Herman Abramowitz and S. Goldstein. In 1863 was founded the
Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society (now called the Baron de Hirsch
Institute and Hebrew Benevolent Society), through which Baron de Hirsch
and his executors did much for the education and colonization of the
Russian immigrants who began to come to Canada in considerable numbers
after 1881. The present Jewish population of Montreal is probably about
40,000, and it has ten synagogues, besides the two mentioned above. Of
these, the Bet David Congregation (established 1888) is designated as
Roumanian; the Bet Israel Congregation, of which Rev. Hirschel Cohen is
rabbi, is surnamed “Chevra Shaas”; the B’nai Jacob Synagogue (founded
1885) is mainly Russian. There is also an Austro-Hungarian Congregation,
a Galician (“Chevra Kadisha Jeshurun”) and a Reform Temple (Emanuel,
founded 1882). There is also the usual complement of charitable,
educational, fraternal and social organizations, including Talmud
Torah, a branch of the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, and
a Jewish Lads’ Brigade. The Jewish community in Montreal and in Canada
generally is in many respects like the communities of the United States
of a similar size. But owing to the dissensions between religious
denominations, and especially the complicated school question, there is
more open partisan hostility to Jews, both on the part of the press and
in public life, than in the United States, where the government is
strictly secular.
About 1845 a sufficient number of Jews had settled in Toronto, Ont.,
to begin to think about the organization of a synagogue; but little
was accomplished until 1852, when a cemetery was purchased and the
Holy Blossom congregation was established. Mark Samuel, Lewis Samuel
and Alexander Miller did much to sustain the congregation in its early
struggles. It grew in strength and numbers under the presidency of
Alfred D. Benjamin during the closing years of the nineteenth century,
and it became necessary to remove from its first building in Richmond
Street to the present commodious edifice in Bon Street (1902). Toronto,
which had 1425 Jews in 1891 and 3,038 in 1901, now has considerably
over 10,000, with about ten congregations and several charitable and
fraternal organizations.
The discovery of gold in British Columbia in 1857 led to the settlement
there of a number of Jews, who built a synagogue in Victoria in
1862. In 1882 a synagogue was erected in Hamilton, and several years
later the Jews of Winnipeg (who numbered 645 in 1891) organized two
congregations. There are now seven congregations in Winnipeg, with
a Jewish population of about 8,000. It also has among the various
communal organizations a Hebrew Liberal Club and a Hebrew Conservative
Club. North Winnipeg is now represented in the Provincial Parliament
of Manitoba by S. Hart Green (b. ab. 1885), the honorary secretary of
the Congregation Shaare Shomayim and the president of the local B’nai
B’rith Lodge.
There are now Jewish communities in more than twenty-five separate
localities in Canada, and the total number of Jews is about 70,000
and growing very fast (it was only 16,060 in 1901). Besides the towns
mentioned, there are Jews in Berlin (Ont.), Belleville, Brandford,
Calgary (Alberta), Chatham, N. B.; Dawson (Yukon Territory), Glace
Bay, C. B.; Halifax, London, Magnetowan, Ont.; ♦Ottawa, Quebec,
Regina (Saskatchewan), St. Catherine’s, St. John, Sydney, Sherbrooke,
Vancouver, Woodstock and Salt River, N. B.; Yarmouth and Yorkton.
There are in Canada about a dozen Jewish agricultural colonies, most
of which were founded or promoted by the Baron de Hirsch Fund. The most
important of them are Bender, Hirsch, Ox Bow and Qu’appelle. There are
altogether about 700 Jewish farms occupying more than 110,000 acres,
and sustaining a farming population of about 3,000.
Montreal has a Yiddish daily newspaper, the “Canadian Eagle,” and
an English Jewish weekly, “The Jewish Times,” and there is a Yiddish
weekly in Winnipeg called the “Canadian Jew.”