Maintaining Consensus: The Canadian Jewish Polity in the Postwar World
Preface
Daniel J. Elazar
Jews and Jewish life have long been the subjects of both popular
and scholarly writings. The many facets of Jewish life have
interested both Jewish and non-Jewish readers, especially because
of the remarkable character of Jewish history and society. The
development of the social sciences in the twentieth century has
fostered innumerable efforts to extend modern conceptual
frameworks and methodological tools to the study of Jewish life.
Much of this work has been in the areas of history and sociology.
Political studies of Jewish communities have lagged because
political scientists have generally considered formal governments
and the attendant political process to be the most appropriate
objects for investigation. Eventually, however, it was realized
that Jewish communities
in general are excellent subjects for study
because they possess so many of the attributes of governments.
Certainly they meet Easton's criterion of "the authoritative
allocation of values,"1 which he used to define politics. This,
in turn,
has stimulated research into the Jewish
political process.
If the State of Israel is one key to the new shape of world
Jewry, the New World Jewries of the western and southern
hemispheres constitute the other. The mantle of diaspora
leadership has passed to the New World, particularly to the
Jewish community of the United States, but also to communities
such as Canada, Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, and Australia,
the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth largest Jewish
communities in the world. The frontier experiences of these new
Jewries, all effectively the products of the last century, have
shaped them into something at least as unprecedented on the
Jewish scene as the modern State of Israel. Their emergence as
fully articulated communities with highly articulated
organizational structures is the story of the completion of the
adaption of the Jewish people to modernity. Hence, it should be
no surprise that they are the cutting edge of the Jewish diaspora
in the post-modern epoch.
The major institutional encouragement for the study of the
politics of these and other Jewish communities and their
organizations has come from the Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs through its Study of Jewish Community Organization. For
two decades, the Center has sponsored comparative research
covering most countries where organized Jewish communities exist,
using a research framework developed by Daniel J. Elazar. Most
of the studies have been published by the Center as books or
reports, including such volumes as Community and Polity, Israel:
Building a New Society, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies,
The Balkan
Jewish Communities, The Jewish Communities of Scandinavia,
and People and Polity.2
The present volume is another book in that series. It is based
on studies of the major Jewish communities of Canada, conducted
during 1971-1973 and partially updated in 1979 and again in
1982-1988.
The original round of studies resulted in the following reports:
The Canadian Jewish Community: A National Perspective, Harold M.
Waller (1977); The Governance of the Jewish Community of Calgary,
Harvey Rich (1974); The Governance of the Jewish Community of
Edmonton, Jennifer K. Bowerman (1975); The Governance of the
Jewish Community of Hamilton, Louis Greenspan (1974); The
Governance of the Jewish Community of London, Alan M. Cohen
(1974); The Governance of the Jewish Community of Montreal,
Harold M. Waller and Sheldon Schreter (1974); The Governance of
the Jewish Community of Ottawa, Zachariah Kay (1974); The
Governance of the Jewish Community of Toronto, Yaacov Glickman
(1974); The Governance of the Jewish Community of Vancouver, Edna
Oberman (1974); The Governance of the Jewish Community of
Windsor, Stephen Mandel and R.H. Wagenberg (1974); and The
Governance of the Jewish Community of Winnipeg, Anna Gordon
(1974).
All of the studies, which were based on the Center's
research framework and directed by the two authors of this
volume, involved extensive empirical work on the local plane,
mostly the interviewing of community influentials, activists, and
observers. The specific theoretical framework for this type of
Jewish community study was developed by Daniel J. Elazar in an
article stressing the federal structure of Jewish
communities.3 The framework is reflected in Studying the Jewish
Community, which stresses demography and structures and
functions, as well as the categories mentioned above.4
In many
respects the current investigation is similar to some of the
community power studies that have been carried out over the past
thirty years.
One of the most intense debates of the past generation has
centered around questions of "who governs?"
Among the earlier studies, the
reputational method was most popular. Using this approach,
people were selected for interviews on the basis of their
reputation for power and influence within their city. The
operation of the political system was described on the basis of
these interviews and attributions of power to those who were not
interviewed. Hunter's study of Atlanta was the foremost of those
using this approach.5 Critics of that approach argued that the
important thing was to ascertain exactly how decisions were made,
rather than relying on reputations. The best example of this
approach is Dahl's New Haven Study.6
Eventually an articulate critique of both the
reputational and decision-making methods was developed by
Bachrach and Baratz.7 They correctly pointed out that many
important outcomes in politics are represented by the failure to
take a decision. Such "non-decisions" clearly are not amenable
to investigation by the two methods just described. In fact,
getting at these non-decisions is extremely important and
requires new methodological tools.8
In his work on medium-size cities in the United States, Daniel J.
Elazar has developed a method that goes beyond any one of these
three approaches. The current investigation utilizes that
method.9 Much of the information was gathered from interviews of
people active in Jewish community affairs, as well as well-placed
observers. Documentary evidence is introduced where appropriate.
Where relevant, reference is made to specific decisions as
examples or case studies. And finally there is a discussion of
decisions that are not made, action that is not taken.
In each of the communities studied, questionnaires were developed
and administered to influential local respondents in a flexible
manner. The object generally was not to obtain quantifiable
data, but rather to acquire an understanding of the political
process through the use of qualitative data.10
After examining Canadian Jewry as a whole in the Canadian
setting, and the governance of the country-wide community, this
book turns to the local scene. Wide variations in types
of communities help to provide valuable contrasts in
terms of Jewish organizational life. Naturally
the sections on Toronto
and Montreal are the longest, but all of the chapters contain
background information on the history and demography of the local
community, a discussion of the major Jewish institutions and
organizations, an analysis of organizational dynamics within the
community, a description of the political process within the
community and leadership patterns, and a presentation of issues
facing the particular community. The book concludes with a
separate discussion of the immediate past half generation in
Canadian Jewish life.
Wide variations in types of communities help to provide valuable
contrasts in terms of Jewish organizational life. The problems
of communities of fewer than 5,000 Jews are accentuated in
several of the studies. At the same time the complexities of
Jewish life in Toronto and Montreal are given extensive
treatment. Local Canadian Jewish communities have well developed
structures and at least the framework for a comprehensive
structure has been developed on the countrywide plane. Therefore
it is a particularly interesting community to examine and
provides numerous insights into the nature of Jewish
self-government in the diaspora today.
Notes
1. David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), p. 50.
2. Daniel J. Elazar, Studying Jewish Communities: A Research
Guide (Jerusalem and Philadelphia: Center for Jewish Community
Studies, 1970).
3. Daniel J. Elazar, Community and Polity: The Organizational
Dynamics of American Jewry (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1976).
4. Daniel J. Elazar, "The Reconstitution of Jewish Communities in
the Postwar Period," Jewish Journal of Sociology, XI, no. 2
(December 1969), 187-226; and Studying Jewish Communities: A
Research Guide (Jerusalem and Philadelphia: Center for Jewish
Community Studies, 1970).
5. See, for example, Floyd Hunter, Community Power Structure
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953); and
Robert Presthus, Men at the Top (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1964).
6. Robert A. Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1961). Supporters of Dahl who criticized the reputational
approach are Nelson Polsby, Community Power and Political Theory
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), and Raymond Wolfinger,
"A Plea for a Decent Burial," American Sociological Review, XXVII
(December 1962), 841-47. See also Edward Banfield, Political
Influence (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1961).
7. Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, Power and Poverty: Theory
and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). This
collection includes two of their earlier significant articles,
"The Two Faces of Power" and "Decisions and Non-decisions: An
Analytical Framework."
8. A good overall perspective is found in Edward Keynes and David
M. Ricci, Political Power, Community and Democracy (Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1970).
9. See Daniel J. Elazar, Cities of the Prairie (New York: Basic
Books, 1970).
10. More complete discussions of the methodologies used as well
as the questionnaires themselves are available in the individual
studies, published as separate reports by the Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs. They are:
- The Canadian Jewish Community: A National Perspective, Harold M.
Waller
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Calgary, Harvey Rich
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Edmonton, Jennifer K.
Bowerman
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Hamilton, Louis
Greenspan
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of London, Alan M. Cohen
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Montreal, Harold M.
Waller and Sheldon Schreter
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Ottawa, Zachariah Kay
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Toronto, Yaacov
Glickman
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Vancouver, Edna Oberman
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Windsor, Stephen Mandel
and R.J. Wagenberg
- The Governance of the Jewish Community of Winnipeg, Anna Gordon
A New Force in World Jewry
The Canadian Jewish community today is on the threshhold of
becoming a major force in world Jewry as the result of the
convergence of two factors that have become almost cliches and
the addition of what may become a third. The first is that
Canadian Jewry is a generation or two behind the American Jewish
community. Like most cliches, its banality covers up a basic
truth, which means that just as American Jewry had a great
flowering in the generation immediately after World War II, so
has Canadian Jewry begun to flower in the second generation after
the war, the generation that began in the mid-1970s and which is
now reaching its peak. The second cliche relates to that
flowering, namely that Canadian Jewry has now come of age. Here,
too, the banality should not mask the truth.
Because Canada is territorially adjacent to the United States,
Canadian Jewry has become intertwined with American institutions
as part of a North American "community." Yet at the same time it
has preserved European models of community, whether British or
Eastern European. They are reinforced by the special character
of Canadian bilingual, multicultural society and by Jewish
institutional connections as well. This combination has made
Canadian Jewry a linchpin between American and other diaspora
Jewries and even to some extent between the diaspora and Israel.
This is the third factor that has yet to become a cliche because
it is not yet widely recognized.
One of the first ways in which this latter phenomenon has
manifested itself is in the institutions of the emerging world
Jewish polity, particularly the Jewish Agency. The Canadian
United Israel Appeal, as part of Keren Hayesod, is linked with
all the magbiot (fund-raising campaigns for Israel) of the Jewish
world other than the United States, while the Canadian Jewish
community federations, which actually raise the money, are linked
through the Council of Jewish Federations with American Jewry.
In the past decade or so, this has led to Canadian Jewish leaders
playing a special role in helping the reconstituted Jewish Agency
move forward.
That is just the first manifestation of Canadian Jewry's new
role. As the fourth largest diaspora Jewish community in size in
the Free World, exceeded only by the United States, France, and
Britain, it is one of those with a sufficient critical mass to
play a creative role on the Jewish scene. Moreover, while France
is limited in its influence by virtue of its language (since
English is now the lingua franca of the Jewish world) and its own
internal limitations, and British Jewry has ceased to play much
of a role on the world scene, in relative influence Canada
probably stands next to the United States. Indeed, as Canada
becomes more bilingual, Canadian Jewry even has begun to function
as a bridge between the Anglophone and Francophone Jewish worlds.
This study focuses principally on the first post-war generation
from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. In terms of community
structure, this was the generation of reconstitution since most
of the local communities underwent local reconstitutions of their
own, often in two stages: first in the form of the end of the
conflict between religious and secular elements in the community,
principally because secularism disappeared as an ideological
force. The next step was the emergence of the federations or, as
they were called in Canada in many cases, community councils as
the umbrella organizations in the local communities, in many
respects in ways that went beyond the similar trend in the United
States where in a different pluralistic environment, federations
had to struggle for position, while in Canada the kind of
oligopoly that they represented was more acceptable and indeed in
the small communities, necessary. Finally there was the
countrywide reconstitution which linked the local federations
with the Canadian Jewish Congress through the merger of the local
CJC chapters with the federations or community councils of the
major cities.
Accompanying this organizational reconstitution was a changing of
the guard as well. The generation that took over during the war
years passed on its mantle by the early 1970s in community after
community and nationally. By the late 1970s a new generation of
leadership was in place, trying to treat the reconstitution of
Canadian Jewry as the United Israel Appeal and National Budgeting
Conference took on new roles -- the former in connection with the
representation of Canadian Jewry in the Jewish Agency and the
latter in providing a means for allocating funds for countrywide
projects on a national basis.
Throughout all of this, the Canadian pattern of greater
integration within and between the spheres of Jewish communal
activity remained pronounced. In all except the largest
communities, even the religious congregational sphere in the
person of the synagogues and the educational-cultural sphere in
the persona of the local talmud torah or day school were tied in
with the overall structure in numerous ways.
Another way in which Canada was exceptional was in that its
communities continued to grow after World War II. Many of the
small communities proportionately grew a great deal. Montreal is
the only exception because of the particular problem of Quebec
nationalism. Those who examine the Jewish demography of our
times have to be impressed by the stark contrast between the
situation in Canada and that in other Jewish communities in this
regard. Nor is this marginal growth; it was the kind of growth
that changes the character of communities.
All of this must lead the objective observer to conclude that
Canadian Jewry is worthy of far more attention than it has
received. This book is designed to be a step in that direction.
Studying the Canadian Jewish Community
Much of the emphasis of political science has been on government
and the attendant political process. This is quite natural,
although legal governments clearly do not exhaust the supply of
subjects for analysis. Consequently political scientists have
also studied such phenomena as extra-parliamentary movements. In
recent years, theoretical development of the concept of a
political system has enabled scholars to examine politics at a
variety of levels, including heretofore ignored categories.
In principle it is possible to conceive of a variety of systems
as political systems. As a result, the focus of investigation
may be shifted usefully. Within the broad discipline of social
science this is hardly a radical departure. Sociologists, for
example, have long studied a wide variety of group phenomena with
profit.
The present investigation involves the application of the above
concepts to the Jewish community of Canada. Jewish communities
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the initial role of the Canadian Jewish Congress in
commissioning and funding the original round of studies and the
Toronto and Montreal Federation Endowment Funds for enabling us
to bring them up to date. This book is part of the Milken
Library of Jewish Public Affairs.
The original Ottawa study was partially updated in 1979 with the
assistance of the late Hy Hochberg, Executive Director of the
Ottawa Vaad Ha'ir, and again in 1988 with the assistance of
Hochberg's successor, Gittel Tatz. The Hamilton study was
updated by Sid R. Brail, Executive Director of the Hamilton
Jewish Federation/Jewish Community Centre of Hamilton, Wentworth
and area, and also includes material prepared by former
Federation Executive Director Sam Soifer. The Calgary study was
updated in 1988 with data provided by Drew J. Staffenberg,
Executive Director of the Calgary Jewish Community Council. The
Edmonton study was partially updated in 1979 and again in 1988
with the assistance of Howard Bloom, Executive Director of the
Jewish Federation of Edmonton. The Vancouver study was updated
in 1988 with the assistance of Jean Gerber, Coordinator of
Community Services of the Jewish Federation of Vancouver.
