Demographic Geography of Interwar Jewish Montreal

• In Event: Potpourri: Social Science and Community

Abstract

This presentation examines the distribution of the Montreal Jewish population between the two World Wars and presents the data cartographically. Through maps and graphs as well as words, this presentation explores and analyzes the distribution of the Montreal Jewish population, how it changed over the course of the interwar period, and in what ways Jewish Montreal in the interwar period can be mapped. The information used in this presentation - from the Canadian Census years of 1921, 1931, and 1941 - is drawn from both the Census results and the Lovell’s Montreal city directories, though it is mainly from the latter, as those contain many street addresses. The purpose behind using the data from the Census years, as opposed to the other years in that era, is to corroborate with the Census results as well as - in the case of the 1931 Census – with original Jewish demographic analyses by Louis Rosenberg and Judith Seidel, who both wrote in 1939. The addresses from the Lovell’s directories are then mapped. Over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, Jews moved ever further up (and west) along St. Lawrence Blvd. as well as its parallel streets (such as Park Ave.), with some - of better means - moving west into Outremont and eventually beyond. At the same time, there was a smaller community of Jews in Montreal, generally wealthier and more assimilated, that lived downtown as well in next-door Westmount and some adjacent parts of Notre Dame de Grace. Yet other Montreal Jews lived in more peripheral areas, such as the Papineau area, Little Burgundy/St. Henri, Longueuil, and Lachine. In the vast literature on early 20th-century Montreal Jewish history, the mapping has never been done on a systematic basis, certainly not since seminal socio-demographic works on that topic were published in 1939. Through these maps, it is hoped that one would gain a greater understanding of Jewish Montreal during that time period. This study serves as a complement to the other tools by which the development of Jewish Montreal in that era is understood.

Author

• Yosef Dov Robinson, Concordia University