Rabbis & Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896–1930 (review)

In recent years we evidence a welcome rise in scholarly interest in eastern European Orthodox rabbis and preachers who settled in North America during the mass immigration era and between the two World Wars. The impact of these rabbis on their communities as well as on the wider Jewish community varied, and those who left manuscripts and published materials enable us to document their outlook on the challenges they and their communities faced. But while Jeffrey Gurock, Charles Liebman, Abraham Karp, and others discuss rabbis and preachers on the American scene, the Canadian scene remained a scholarly terra incognita. In this sense, Ira Robinson’s book is a welcome addition.

The book, which is based upon previously published articles and lectures, consists of eight chapters. Following a preface, the first chapter, essentially an introduction, primarily discusses the importance of studying the immigrant rabbinate and the reasons for prior neglect of this topic. Chapters two to four are devoted to the biographies and activities of Rabbis Hirsch Cohen, Simon Glazer, and Yudel Rosenberg. The following three chapters focus on the local kosher meat market, its main players (slaughterers, butchers, and rabbis), and the issues and forces that determine its dynamics (supervision, finances, religious and institutional control by, among others, the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, and local regulations). Chapter eight explores the biblical commentary of Hirsh Wolofsky, the editor of the Keneder Odler, and an influential figure in Montreal’s Jewish community, and it is followed by a brief afterward.

Overall, Robinson studies these rabbis and their communities in a balanced and critical way, analyzing a wide range of primary sources: rabbis’ personal letters to family members; local newspapers in English and Yiddish; diaries, memoirs, and autobiographies; various rabbinic literature (exegesis, sermons, and halachic); official communal and legal documents such as court protocols; and existing scholarly literature.

Aside from uncovering thus far unknown sources, the author sketches several leading religious leaders of Montreal’s Orthodox Jewish community, some of whom were somewhat colorful characters, illuminating their activities, rivalries (even physical assaults), successes, and failures. In addition, the reader gets a close look at the dynamics of the business of kosher meat supervision and sales. This case study represents a much smaller setup than that of New York, which Harold Gastwirt analyzed in Fraud, Corruption, and Holiness: The Controversy over the Supervision of Jewish Dietary Practice in New York City, 1881–1940 (1974). The Montreal case study reveals some differences, which the author unfortunately does not discuss. Other aspects of the immigrant rabbinate are addressed, too, such as the different ways rabbis responded to the need to learn and use English as opposed to their struggle to maintain Yiddish, although these aspects are not analyzed within the wider context at the challenges faced by immigrant rabbis in North America.

Robinson’s book is pioneering within the Canadian Jewish context and a noteworthy contribution for those interested in immigrant rabbis, the history of Montreal’s Jewish community, and Canadian ethnic studies. It will intrigue students to explore further a host of personalities, events, and processes, and undoubtedly serve as a starting point and reference for future scholarship on Montreal’s Jews and the Canadian Jewish community in general.

Notwithstanding its merits, this book suffers from several problems, some of them rather fundamental. The first chapter discusses the importance of studying the immigrant rabbinate within the North American experience, but barely discusses the specifics of the Canadian context. This myopia leads us to conclude that Robinson sees the Canadian and North American Jewish experience as synonymous. But although the Jewish experience in both countries has certain common features, the Canadian setup has its unique features, as Gerald Tulchinsky and Jonathan Sarna have shown. If so, this should presumably be the case with regard to the rabbinate as well and invites a host of questions that Robinson avoids. For example, did rabbis who relocated from the United...