History of the Jews in Canada
| Juifs canadiens (French) יהודים קנדים (Hebrew) |
|
|---|---|
| Total population | |
 Canada ~375,000-500,0001.1% of the Canadian population |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Ontario
|
212,000 |
 Quebec
|
95,000 |
 British Columbia
|
21,230 |
 Manitoba
|
19,000 |
 Alberta
|
14,000 |
| Languages | |
| English (among Ashkenazis) · French (among Sephardis) · Hebrew (as liturgical language, some as mother tongue) · Yiddish (by some as mother tongue and as part of a language revival) · and other languages like Russian | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism · Jewish secularism | |
Canadian Jews or, alternatively, Jewish Canadians are Canadian citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. Jewish Canadians are a part of the greater Jewish diaspora and form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States, and France. As of 2011, Statistics Canada listed 329,500 adherents to the Jewish religion in Canada and 309,650 who claimed Jewish as an ethnicity. One does not necessarily include the other and studies which have attempted to combine the two streams have arrived at figures in excess of 375,000 Jews in Canada. This total would account for approximately 1.1% of the Canadian population.
The Jewish community in Canada is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and a number of converts. The Jewish Canadian community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance. Though a small minority, Canadian Jews have had an open presence in the country since the arrival of the first Jewish immigrants after the British took possession of nearly all of New France after the 1763 Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years' War.
Prior to the British Conquest of New France there were officially no Jews in Canada because when King Louis XIV made Canada officially a province of the Kingdom of France in 1663, he decreed that only Roman Catholics could enter the colony. One exception was Esther Brandeau, a Jewish girl who arrived in 1738 disguised as a boy and remained for a year before being sent back to France after refusing to convert. The earliest subsequent documentation of Jews in Canada are British Army records from the French and Indian War, the North American part of the Seven Years' War. In 1760, General Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst attacked and seized Montreal, winning Canada for the British. Several Jews were members of his regiments, and among his officer corps were five Jews: Samuel Jacobs, Emmanuel de Cordova, Aaron Hart, Hananiel Garcia, and Isaac Miramer.
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