Montreal’s Université de Montréal has launched a new course this semester that asks the question: “Who are the Jews of Quebec?” The course, organized by the theology and science of religions department, is the first of its kind to be held in a Francophone university, The Canadian Jewish News (http://www.cjnews.com/campus/new-udem-course-studies-quebec-jews) reported. Called “Culture et expériences…
With his election last Friday, Michael Applebaum has become not only the first non-native French speaker in a century to hold the post. He is also the first-ever Jewish mayor of the second-largest French speaking country in the world. “It’s definitely a proud day,” Leo Kolber, a businessman, philanthropist, former Canadian senator and lifelong Montrealer,…
Montreal has its first Jewish mayor. Michael Applebaum, 49, won a City Council vote to serve as interim mayor for a year, with a promise not to run in the next municipal election, which is slated for November 2013. He also is the first Anglophone mayor in a century of the predominantly French-speaking Canadian city….
A French-language tome by a hard-line Quebec separatist doesn’t seem like a typical candidate for a Canadian Jewish Book Award. But in June, Denis Vaugeois’s “Les Premiers Juifs d’Amérique” won the 2012 prize for history, crowning what the Montreal Gazette called the historian’s ”55-year quest” to rescue the story of Quebec’s pioneering Hart family ”from…
A small-town Canadian politician and talk-show host is in trouble — again — for on-air, anti-Israel rants. Stephane Gendron, mayor of tiny Huntingdon, Quebec and host of French-language chatfest “Face a Face,” informed his audience last month that Israel is an “apartheid regime” and doesn’t deserve to exist, the CBC reports. Now, after complaints from…
He won a slew of awards, had his books translated into multiple languages, and captured the soul of Jewish Montreal in novels like “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” and “Barney’s Version” — both adapted into big-budget Hollywood productions. But Mordecai Richler doesn’t merit the renaming of a street or other public place in the Plateau…
The Orthodox community in Quebec is fighting for Muslim women’s right to wear the niqab. Convinced that a bill to ban the Islamic face veil, if passed, could ultimately lead to the outlawing of Jewish religious practices and customs, they made an unprecedented appearance in front of the National Assembly committee considering the legislation. The…
With the recent rise in antisemitic violence in Montreal, Canada, such incidents are at an “all-time high” nationwide, according to B’nai Brith Canada. Even a century ago, however, Canada offered protection to Jews’ “households and rights,” to quote the French version of the Canadian national anthem. A reminder of such days recently appeared from Les…
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