‘‘The Other Side of the Coin’’: The Anatomy of a Public Controversy in the Montreal Jewish Community,1931

Abstract

This article examines in detail the repercussions of a 1931 sermon by Sheea Herschorn, an immigrant Orthodox rabbi in Montreal, on the public discourse of the Montreal Jewish community. It begins with a brief consideration of the position of the immigrant Orthodox rabbinate in Montreal and then explores the nature of the public discourse on this sermon, in which Rabbi Herschorn was accused of agreeing with an anti-Semitic position, through a close examination of the reportage of the controversy in Montreal’s Jewish press, which then included two newspapers in Yiddish, the Keneder Adler and Der Shtern, as well as the English-language Canadian Jewish Chronicle. Finally, the article explores some of the major issues raised in Rabbi Herschorn’s sermon regarding the contemporary situation of Polish Jews in relation to their society, tying it to his perception of the relationship of Canadian Jews and Canadian society as a whole. These latter issues included especially the relationship between Montreal Jews and Montreal’s public Anglophone institutions, such as the Royal Victoria Hospital, and McGill University, whose ambivalent acceptance of Jews as physicians and students was then an issue of great concern to the Jewish community.

Cet article examine les répercussions d’un sermon d’un rabbin orthodoxe est-européen de Montréal, Sheea Herschorn, en 1931. Il commence avec une description brève de la position du rabbinat Montréalais de cette ère. Il examine le discours public juif autour du sermon, dans lequel on attribuait au rabbin des idées antisémites, dans la presse juive montréalaise qui inclue en 1931 deux journaux en yiddish et un en anglais. L’article examine aussi les grandes idées du sermon du rabbi Herschorn et leurs implications existentielles pour la communauté juive montréalaise. Essentiellement, le sermon a fait l’emphase sur les relations des juifs polonais dans la société polonaise en comparaison avec les relations des Juifs de Montréal avec la société anglophone montréalaise et ses institutions publiques de cette ère.