A seemingly nondescript pizza place on Côte-des-Neiges, Blanche Neige served as a popular late-night restaurant hangout for Sephardic (and especially Moroccan Jewish) youth in the late 1960s and 1970s. The nearby Paisano Restaurant and Chez Vito were also meeting places, along with the downtown Café Prague on Bishop Street, a salon that featured poetry readings. But visits to Blanche Neige stand out in many minds almost as a ritual where young immigrant Moroccan Jews would encounter everyone they knew after a night out.
Many Sephardim arriving in Montreal from North African countries during the 1960s were traditional Jews yet were less religiously observant than today, as was attested by the non-kosher cuisine of these restaurants. A recent revival of Jewish observance has developed among segments of the Sephardic community, and certified kosher Pizza Pita and Chez Benny have replaced Blanche Neige as post-party, post-Shabbat meeting places.
Compiled by Marian Pinsky.
Sources
Berdugo-Cohen, Marie, Yolande Cohen and Joseph Levy. 1987. Juifs marocains à Montreal : Temoinages d’une immigration modern. Montreal : VLB Éditeur.
Communaute Sepharade De Quebec. « Rien de tout cela n’etait prevu ». In 50 Ans Ensemble:Le Livre Sepharade 1959-2009. Ed. David Bensoussan ed. Montreal, 2010:148-153.
Lasry, Jean-Claude. "A Francophone Diaspora in Quebec." The Canadian Jewish Mosaic. Eds. William Shaffir, Morton Weinfeld, and Irwin Cotler ed. Rexdale, Ont.: J. Wiley & Sons Canada, 1981. 221-40.
Levy, Joseph, and Yolande Cohen. "Moroccan Jews and Their Adaptation to Montreal Life." Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century. Eds. Mervin Butovsky and Ira Robinson ed. Montreal: Vehicule, 1995. 95-118.
Image courtesy of the Museum of Jewish Montreal.
Pictures
Address
5735 Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges
Interactive map at coordinates 45.4991932, -73.6280337. Open this location in Google Maps (opens in a new tab) .