Les Juifs de la Révolution tranquille. Regards d’une minorité religieuse sur le Québec de 1945 à 1976

The author points out that during the post-war period until the mid-1970s, fundamental changes took place within the Quebec Jewish community - based mainly in Montreal -, which manifested themselves in the demographic, cultural, and institutional fields. He notes that these included the irreversible loss of the Yiddish language and the overhaul of Jewish education, two issues that evolved in parallel with the rise of Montreal Jews on the Canadian socio-economic ladder. At the same time, he notes, the Jewish community in Quebec diversified following the immigration of a large number of Holocaust survivors of Hasidic beliefs and of French-speaking Moroccan Jews of Sephardic culture. The author considers these phenomena in light of the larger Quebec socio-political context. His basic assumption is that the peculiarities of the Montreal Jewish community appear in this light as being in part the product of Quebec socio-political debates and of growing contact with Quebecers of French Canadian origin. He maintains that Quebec Jews found themselves in a political and cultural situation unique in North America and Canada, the corollary of which is the formation of a Montreal Jewish identity distinct from Canadian and American Jewish identity. The author argues that post-war ecumenism and the fundamental societal debates surrounding the expansion of the Quebec state at the time of the Quiet Revolution provide a context for analyzing the media discourse articulated by a religious and cultural minority that counts strong institutional completeness in Quebec. He maintains that the fact of representing a distinct minority group offered Jewish commentators in Montreal a basis for promoting the Jewish community as a legitimate component of Quebec society as neonationalism and Quebec sovereignty unfolded. Furthermore, he claims that this context provoked a distinct reflection on the sustainability of Jewish life and culture in Quebec in a context marked by the promotion of civic pluralism and the adoption of the political rhetoric of multiculturalism.

Ottawa, ON

Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa

2022

xxii-323p.

fr

978-2-7603-3750-3