Antisemitism in Canada

History and Interpretation

Alan Davies

• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9780889208414
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

This book is the first collection of scholarly essays to treat the topic of antisemitism in Canada, a complete history of which has yet to be written. Eleven leading thinkers in the field examine antisemitism in Canada, from the colonial era to the present day, in essays which reflect the saga of the nation itself. The history of the Jewish community, its struggles and its fortunes is mirrored in the wider history of Canada, from Confederation to the present.

The contributors cast light on Canadian antisemitism through a thorough examination of old and new tensions, including Anglo-French, east-west and Jewish-Ukrainian relations. Attitudes to Jews in pre-Confederation Canada, French Canada from Confederation to World War I as well as the interwar years, and in twentieth-century Ontario and Alberta from 1880-1950 are illustrated in various chapters. Of particular interest are the examinations of such well-known figures as Goldwin Smith, the greatly admired liberal historian of Victorian Canada, Adrien Arcand, the would-be Führer from Quebec, and James Keegstra and Ernst Züdel, of more recent notoriety. Analyses are also provided of Nazism and Canadian Protestantism and Jewish-Ukrainian relations since World War II. This is a complex and contentious subject; yet, to understand the ideas and forces that have sought to undermine the Jewish presence in Canada is to understand the dangers that threaten any democratic society, and thereby to guard against them.

This compelling collection of essays offers intelligent, readable accounts of an area of Canadian history about which we know too little.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Antisemitism and Anti-Judaism in Pre-Confederation Canada
• 2 From Stereotype to Scapegoat: Anti-Jewish Sentiment in French Canada from Confederation to World War I
• 3 Goldwin Smith: Victorian Canadian Antisemite
• 4 Antisemitic Dreyfusards: The Confused Western-Canadian Press
• 5 Antisemitism in Ontario: The Twentieth Century
• 6 Interlude of Hostility: Judeo-Christian Relations in Quebec in the Interwar Period, 1919-39
• 7 Politics, Religion and Antisemitism in Alberta, 1880-1950
• 8 The Shadow of Evil: Nazism and Canadian Protestantism
• 9 The Keegstra Affair
• 10 The Zundel Affair
• 11 Jewish-Ukrainian Relations in Canada Since World War II and the Nazi War Criminal Issue
• Index