The Jews in Canada

Raj S. Gandhi is a sociology professor at the University of Calgary.

Ethnic groups in Canada may be successful, persecuted, cohesive, or
endangered; only Canada’s Jews appear to embody all these
characteristics simultaneously. Canadian Jewry is enduringly
fascinating, worth knowing about because the community is an archetype
of multiculturalism as it confronts the difficulties and advantages of
ethnicity in the modern world.

This is the first book to paint a comprehensive sociological portrait
of Canada’s 350,000 Jews. It contains much of the best recent research
into Canadian Jewish society, politics, and history. Twenty-seven
leading scholars analyze the community’s economic organization,
political involvement, and religious diversity; its responses to social
mobility, anti-Semitism, assimilation, feminism, poverty, and aging; and
its relations with other minorities, especially Québécois and
Ukrainians. By examining the achievements of the community, and the
challenge of its attempts to survive the exigencies of modern life, the
book clarifies not only the evolution of Canada’s Jewish community but
also the evolution of ethnicity in Canadian society.

Editors Brym, Shaffir, and Weinfeld are to be commended for this
outstanding work.