Jews and French Quebecers: Two Hundred Years of Shared History

Terry A. Crowley is an associate professor of history at the University
of Guelph.

In 1990, writer Mordecai Richler raised the ire of Quebec journalists
with comments in The New Yorker about the anti-Semitism he witnessed
during his youth in Montreal. Little known to most, the best response to
the novelist’s partial views had appeared four years previously, in
this book’s French edition. Now, with this excellent translation, the
larger story of relations between Jews and francophone Québécois is
available to a wider audience.

Langlais and Rome (both are historians) argue that widespread
anti-Semitism in Quebec represented a historical moment sandwiched
between two periods of relative ethno-religious harmony (up to the
middle of the nineteenth century, and after World War II). Reaching its
crescendo during the low, dishonest decade of the Great Depression,
anti-Semitism represented more than a response to the influx of Jewish
immigrants into Quebec society. It was a complex phenomenon with diverse
origins that the authors dissect carefully.

While Langlais and Rome are sometimes Whiggish in their approach and
fail to place their subject sufficiently within the findings of the best
recent scholarship, there is much to commend in this study. It is
sensitive to social, economic, religious, linguistic, and political
diversity within Quebec’s Jewish community and it avoids stereotyping
French-Canadians. Even for those interested only in recent history, it
reveals the great strides made in relations between Jews and Québécois
during the past four decades. This is a valuable book that deserves a
wide reception.