page_title: History of the Jews in Canada
section_title: Growth and community organization
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Jews in Canada / Growth of the Canadian Jewish community (1850–1939) / Growth and community organization
caption_attribution_description: English: Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
context_page_description: The history of the Jews in Canada is the history of Canadian citizens who follow Judaism as their religion and/or are ethnically Jewish. Jewish Canadians are a part of the greater Jewish diaspora and form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States, and France. As of 2011, Statistics Canada listed 329,500 adherents to the Jewish religion in Canada and 309,650 who claimed Jewish as an ethnicity. One does not necessarily include the other and studies which have attempted to combine the two streams have arrived at figures in excess of 375,000 Jews in Canada. This total would account for approximately 1.1% of the Canadian population.
  The Jewish community in Canada is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented and include Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and Bene Israel. A number of converts to Judaism make up the Jewish-Canadian community, which manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions and encompasses the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance.
context_section_description: By the outbreak of World War I, there were approximately 100,000 Canadian Jews, of whom three-quarters lived in either Montreal or Toronto. Many of the children of the European refugees started out as peddlers, eventually working their way up to established businesses, such as retailers and wholesalers.  Jewish Canadians played an essential role in the development of the Canadian clothing and textile industry.  Most worked as labourers in sweatshops; while some owned the manufacturing facilities.  Jewish merchants and labourers spread out from the cities to small towns, building synagogues, community centres and schools as they went.
  As the population grew, Canadian Jews began to organize themselves as a community despite the presence of dozens of competing sects. The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was founded in 1919 as the result of the merger of several smaller organizations. The purpose of the CJC was to speak on behalf of the common interests of Jewish Canadians and assist immigrant Jews. The largest Jewish community was in Montreal, at the time the most largest, wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city in Canada. The vast majority of Montreal's Jews who arrived in the early 20th century were Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim but their children chose speak English rather than French. Until 1964, Quebec had no public education system, instead having two parallel educational systems run by the Protestant churches and the Catholic church. As the Jewish community did not have the financial resources to set up their own educational system, most Jewish parents chose to enroll their children in the English-speaking Protestant school system, which was willing to accept Jews unlike the Catholic school system.  The CJC had its headquarters in Montreal while the Jewish Public Library of Montreal and the Montreal Yiddish Theatre were two of the largest Jewish cultural institutions in Canada. The Jews of Montreal tended to be concentrated in several neighborhoods, which gave a strong sense of community identity.
  In 1930 under the impact of the Great Depression, Canada sharply limited immigration from Eastern Europe, which adversely impacted on the ability of the  Ashkenazim to come to Canada. In a climate of anti-semitism where the Jewish immigrants were seen as economic competition for Gentiles, the leadership of the CJC was assumed by the whisky tycoon Samuel Bronfman who it was hoped might be able to persuade the government to allow more Jews to come. In view of worsening situation for Jews in Europe, allowing more Jewish immigration became the central concern of the CJC. Through many Canadian Jews voted for the Liberal Party, traditionally seen as the friend of minorities, the Liberal Prime Minister from 1935 onward, William Lyon Mackenzie  King, proved to be extremely unsympathetic. Mackenzie King adamantly refused to change the immigration law, and Canada accepted proportionally the fewest Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.  
caption: The Jewish General Hospital opened in Montreal in 1934.
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