Interrogated by authorities on arrival, Brandeau was the subject of high-level consultations before she was sent back to France the following year.<\/p>\n
Although they are certain there were Jews in the land that would become Canada before 1738, professors Richard Menkis and Pierre Anctil say Brandeau\u2019s case is the first documented proof of a Jewish presence here.<\/p>\n
The historians shared Brandeau\u2019s story at a book launch in Vancouver Nov. 21, following the annual general meeting of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia. Menkis, an associate professor in the departments of history, and classical, Near Eastern and religious studies at the University of British Columbia, and Anctil, a University of Ottawa history professor, co-edited In a \u201cLand of Hope\u201d: Documents on the Canadian Jewish Experience, 1627-1923.<\/i><\/p>\n
The book spans three centuries through the lens of more than 150 documents, many of them never before published.<\/p>\n
Menkis emphasized the efforts made to provide geographical diversity in the volume.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we want to appreciate the Canadian Jewish experience, we\u2019ve got to move beyond \u2013 believe it or not \u2013 the borders of Quebec and Ontario,\u201d he told the audience at Temple Sholom. \u201cWe have offered texts that represent the experiences from west to east. We offer an excerpt from the minute book of Congregation Emanu-El, in Victoria, recording a debate on whether to include the Freemasons in a cornerstone-naming ceremony. We have documents from the other ocean, from a controversy in Halifax, where the local SPCA argued that kosher slaughtering was cruel and that the local shochet <\/i>(kosher slaughterer) was accordingly charged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anctil, who is francophone, emphasized the uniqueness of the Jewish experience in Quebec and noted that shared interest between Catholics and Jews led to one of the first legislative acts of Jewish emancipation in pre-Confederation Canada. In 1832, the legislature of Lower Canada (later Quebec) passed a statute making British subjects who are Jewish equal under the law to all other British subjects in the jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a foundational document,\u201d said Anctil. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time that Canada and most British colonies allowed Jews to have political and civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
The motivation may have had less to do with Jewish rights \u2013 there were only about 150 Jews in colonial Canada at the time \u2013 than self-interest among French Catholics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were Catholics living in a Protestant world and they knew that, if the Jews had more rights, the Catholics also had more rights,\u201d Anctil said.<\/p>\n
The Quebec education law of 1903 had lasting impacts on the province, especially for Jews and their place in the \u201cdistinct society.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Quebec government decided that Jews would be considered Protestants for the purpose of education,\u201d said Anctil, \u201cand [Jews] were all sent to the Protestant school board of Montreal and did not receive a Catholic or French education, which proved problematic in the decades ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Brandeau, the young Jewish woman who tried to masquerade as a non-Jewish boy, was only the first documented case of Jews coming up hard against Canada\u2019s explicitly or implicitly racist immigration laws. The theme runs through the 400-page book.<\/p>\n Canadian immigration policies reflected the agricultural dominance of the Canadian economy into the 20th century and, since most European Jewish migrants were not farmers, this was an inherent, if not unwelcome from the perspective of immigration officials, bar to many Jews.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>The editors address Jewish farmers in the book \u2013 those who had experience in the Old Country as well as those who, successfully or less so, took to the land after migration \u2013 but prioritize the economic experiences of Jews in peddling, retail and the garment industry.<\/p>\n