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Dec. 23, 2005
Jews of the province's past
New tome covers varied communities across British Columbia.
PAT JOHNSON
At a time when relations with Canada's aboriginal peoples are topping
the Jewish communal agenda, along comes a new book that analyzes
a little-known aspect of this relationship.
Illuminating a fascinating footnote to Jewish history in British
Columbia, Christopher J.P. Hanna, a Victoria historian, writes of
the development of a Jewish fur-trading industry that relied on
trade with First Nations, links to San Francisco and the historical
association of European Jews with the fur industry. Writing in the
just-released book Pioneer Jews of British Columbia, Hanna
states: "The prominence of Jewish furriers in the European
fur trade, which stemmed from anti-Semitic laws prohibiting Jewish
ownership of land and concentrating much of Jewish economic activity
into skilled trades, such as fur dressing, ensured that even if
Jewish 'Indian traders' lacked a knowledge of furs, they probably
knew someone who had such knowledge."
Though many of the Jews in British Columbia were drawn here directly
or indirectly due to successive gold rushes, those who entered the
fur trade were entrepreneurial spirits who dared go up against the
entrenched Hudson's Bay Company, which had effectively monopolized
the industry since 1670.
The Jewish "Indian traders" is just one chapter in the
diverse and groundbreaking new book, which has been published by
the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia (JHS) in conjunction
with the Los Angeles-based journal Western States Jewish History.
Chapters include sections on the rare Jews of Trail and Nelson,
the boomtown Jews of Dawson City, homesteaders in the Peace region
and the development of communal institutions, especially in Victoria.
Cyril Leonoff, the founding president of the JHS and a prolific
writer and researcher on regional Jewish history, edited and contributed
to this volume. He sees the new book as a compilation of past work
done by his group and its annual publication, The Scribe.
"This is kind of a summation of what we have accomplished to
date," said Leonoff. "It was intended to give the social
and settlement history of Jewish people throughout the province.
At this stage, it's not the definitive history of the Jews in British
Columbia, but it's a good picture."
One of the fascinating pictures of B.C. Jewry that has developed
through ongoing historical research, and which is demonstrated in
Pioneer Jews of British Columbia, is that the Jewish communities
of Vancouver and Victoria had very different geneses.
Victoria was the first centre of Jewish activity in the province,
populated by American Jews of English and European descent who came
north from California. Vancouver's Jewish community arose out of
the Russian emigrations, which began in the 1880s and reflected
a very different demographic.
"These were different waves of settlement," said Leonoff.
"The Jews who came through the United States originated in
pretty highly developed European nations - England and central Europe
- and they had spent quite a bit of time in the United States, where
they really were acculturated to American society and language.
They came with a background of a lot of business experience, a lot
of knowledge and training. They were kind of an elite group."
Not so Vancouver's first Jews.
"Vancouver happened at the time of the great Russian emigration,"
Leonoff explained. "These were Jews from small, poor towns
in Russia and the Ukraine. They came as very uncultured people.
They hardly knew the language. They were mostly tradesmen, tailors,
very small merchants. They had a long learning curve. They came
as peddlers originally, then they gravitated into small businesses.
Eventually, through two or three generations, they reached the upper
social and economic scales. We're talking about Jack Diamond, the
Wosks, Joe Segal. They came as refugees, but the Victoria ones were
the elite."
Though the two communities were distinct in their development, such
distinctions have largely disappeared now, Leonoff said.
"[Since the Second World War], all these barriers have disintegrated,"
he said.
Leonoff, who is the Canadian editor for Western States Jewish
History, founded the JHS in 1971 and has been researching local
Jewish history ever since. An engineer by profession, Leonoff gained
a diploma in public history from Simon Fraser University after his
retirement. He is humble about his part in the new publication.
"A lot of people contributed to this book," he said. "I'm
just one of the authors."
Now that this project is complete, Leonoff is turning his attentions
to other subjects he said need further exploration. He is working
on a story of the early religious congregations in Vancouver, which
has never been compiled before, and writing a history of Jews in
the political life of colonial and post-Confederation British Columbia.
"Jews were in the early legislative council of Vancouver Island,"
noted Leonoff. "The first Jewish member of Parliament in Canada
came from Victoria – Henry Nathan Jr. –- and of course
we had the first Jewish premier in British Columbia, David Barrett.
David Oppenheimer, who came from the early Victoria group, was the
second mayor and a very key mayor of Vancouver in its formative
period."
These luminary figures have been the subject of past works by the
historical society, but have not been analyzed in a comprehensive
way, said Leonoff.
"We've covered them, but not in detail, and these are the things
that we want to do now," he said.
The society's major initiative for 2006, however, is opening Vancouver's
first Jewish museum, on the third floor of the Jewish Community
Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC).
Pioneer Jews of British Columbia is available at the Jewish
Historical Society office in the JCC for $20.
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest,
www.mvox.ca.
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