When North African colonies gained their independence in the 1950s, a mass exodus of Sephardic Jews sought new homes in France, Israel, and bilingual Montreal. In Quebec they encountered a French Canadian population that was experiencing rapid sociological change with the secularizing Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. Nevertheless, French Canadians often referred to Sephardim as “les juifs catholiques” (Catholic Jews).
As Montreal’s established Jewish community had been predominantly English-speaking for 200 years, French Canadians were intrigued to meet French-speaking Jews. Sephardim challenged an outdated perception of Quebec’s linguistic-religious dualism where, for some, “Catholic” and “French” were almost interchangeable words. Sephardic Jews’ efforts to assert their unique cultural and linguistic identity therefore punctured the stereotype that Jews were all English speakers connected to Montreal’s economically influential Anglophone community. While past relations between French Canadians and Jews had periodically been marked by antisemitic sentiment often perpetrated by allies of the Catholic Church, with the arrival of Sephardic Jews, business relationships, friendships and even intermarriage became more common.
The term Juif catholique persisted even in the context of the Quiet Revolution, when societal distinctions shifted from religio-linguistic to simply linguistic lines. While this term has since disappeared from everyday conversation, it serves for some of the original members of Montreal’s Sephardic community as a reminder of the unique and often challenging situation they faced upon their arrival in Montreal.
Compiled by Marian Pinsky.
Sources
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