Au nom de l'ordre ou de la liberté? Le Congrès juif canadien face à la répression des libertés civiles et des droits des minorités religieuses au Québec (1945–1954)

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Au nom de l'ordre ou de la liberté? Le Congrès juif canadien face à la répression des libertés civiles et des droits des minorités religieuses au Québec (1945–1954)
Abstract
The author examines the positions taken by the Montreal-based national Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) on the issues affecting the repression of civil liberties and the infringement of the rights of religious non-Catholic minorities in Quebec in the decade following the Second World War. His analysis sheds new light on the understanding of the place held by representatives of Montreal's Jewish community in the social human rights movement in Canada. The author argues that the CJC – the main voice of Canada's Jewish community – in fact remained on the fringe of the movement protesting Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis' regime, refusing to condemn the Padlock Act and supporting the repression of the Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious minorities considered by the provincial government to be “seditious” or “subversive.” The controversies that ensued due to these positions, the author points out, demonstrate the ideological, regional, and class divisions the Jewish community and the “human rights community” were undergoing in the postwar period. He notes that they expose the tensions that existed within the CJC, between the leaders from Ontario and the Canadian West and their counterparts in Quebec, confronted more directly with the repressive Duplessis regime and the pattern of inter-faith relations in this mainly Catholic province.
Publication
Canadian Historical Review
Volume
Vol. 99
Issue
no. 2
Pages
196-224
Date
Summer 2018
Language
fr
Citation
Rainville, Paul-Etienne. “Au nom de l’ordre ou de la liberté? Le Congrès juif canadien face à la répression des libertés civiles et des droits des minorités religieuses au Québec (1945–1954).” Canadian Historical Review Vol. 99, no. 2 (Summer 2018): 196–224.
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