The Jewish Community Council of Montreal: A National Kehillah or a Local Sectarian Organization?

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
The Jewish Community Council of Montreal: A National Kehillah or a Local Sectarian Organization?
Abstract
The author outlines the history of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal (Vaad Ha'ir), established in 1922, and what he calls "the seemingly contradictory trends in its evolution." Orthodox Eastern European Jewish immigrants to North America during the early twentieth century were confronted with new social realities and legal prerogatives that were often quite different from those they had known in their home countries. The author notes that the individualism and freedom of North American society left traditionalist Judaism and its social structures bereft of their former authority. The Jewish Community Council (Vaad Ha’ir) of Montreal, in trying to marry the European kehillah model to the new context, typifies one response to the new challenges of communal organization. Begun as a local body representing the spectrum of Jewish political and religious thought, the Vaad Ha'ir of Montreal would come to aspire to national prominence. However, the author points out, other competing organizations, as well as the vicissitudes of national Jewish organization during the mid-twentieth century, impeded the Vaad’s lofty goals. The author traces that development as well as addresses the consequences of the Vaad's aspirations.
Publication
Canadian Jewish Studies/Études juives canadiennes
Volume
Vol. 16 / 17
Pages
27-52
Date
2008-2009
Language
en
Citation
Lapidus, Steven. “The Jewish Community Council of Montreal: A National Kehillah or a Local Sectarian Organization?” Canadian Jewish Studies/Études juives canadiennes Vol. 16 / 17 (2009 2008): 27–52.
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