THE JEWS IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA.
The legend about the Jewish origin of Chevalier de Levis—Aaron Hart, the English Commissary, and Abraham Gradis, the French banker—Early settlers in Montreal—Its first Congregation—Troubles of Ezekiel Hart, the first Jew to be elected to the Legislature—Final Emancipation in 1832—Jews fight on the Loyalist side against Papineau’s rebellion—Prominent Jews in various fields of activity—Congregation “Shaar ha-Shomaim”—Toronto—First synagogue in Victoria, B. C., in 1862—Hamilton and Winnipeg—Other communities—Agricultural Colonies—Jewish Newspapers.
The beginning of the history of the Jews in Canada goes back to legend. There is a tradition that the founder of the house of Levis, from whom descended Henri de Levis, Duke de Vontadur, Viceroy of Canada for some time after 1626, and his more distinguished relative, Chevalier de Levis, who was Montcalm’s successor as commander of the French forces in Canada (1759) and later became a marshal of France, were descendants of the patriarch Levi Ben Jacob, and a cousin of Mary of Nazareth.[59]
The earliest authentic records of the Jews of Canada go back to the period when England and France were engaged in their final contest for the mastery of the northern part of the continent. Aaron Hart (b. in London, 1724) was Commissary in General Amherst’s army, which invaded Canada from the south, and there were in the same army three more Jewish officers: Emanuel de Cordova, Hananiel Garcia and Isaac Miranda. Hart was later attached to General Haldimond’s command at Three Rivers, and at the close of the war settled in that city and became seignior of Bécancour.
There were, of course, no Jews on the other side of the struggle, for France at that time suffered no Jewish inhabitants in her colonies, nor Jewish soldiers in her armies. But it was a Jew, Abraham Gradis (d. 1780), the head of the great French banking house founded by his father, David Gradis (naturalized in Bordeaux, 1731; d. 1751), who furnished money and supplies to the French King to carry on the unsuccessful war with England. Abraham Gradis had founded (in 1748) the Society of Canada, a commercial organization, under the auspices of the French government, and erected magazines in Quebec. Exceptional privileges were later granted to him and his family in the French colonies, and full civil rights were accorded him in Martinique in 1779. But the house of “the Rothschilds of the 18th century” was finally ruined by the insurrections in Santo Domingo and Martinique, combined with the losses which were occasioned at home by the French Revolution. (See Wolf, “The American Jew ...” pp. 476–82.)
About the time of the Canadian conquest by England (circa 1760) a number of Jewish settlers took up their residence in Montreal, including Lazarus David (b. 1734), Uriel Moresco, Samuel Jacobs, Simon Levy, Fernandez da Fonseca, Abraham Franks, Andrew Hays, Jacob de Maurera, Joseph Bindona, Levy Solomons and Uriah Judah. Lazarus David was a large land owner and was noted as a public spirited citizen. Several of the others held offices in the English army; there were also among them some extensive traders, who did much for the development of the newly acquired colony. After they had been reinforced by other settlers, a congregation, called “Shearit Israel,” was organized in 1768, which for nearly a century remained the only Jewish congregation in Canada. Most of the members were Sephardim, and they stood in close communion with the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of London, who presented them with two scrolls of the Law for the newly founded congregation. At first the congregation met for worship in a hall on St. James Street; but in 1777 the members built the first synagogue, at the junction of Notre Dame and St. James Streets, close to the present court house, on a lot belonging to the David family, whose founder, the above mentioned Lazarus David, died one year previously, and was the first to be interred in the cemetery which the congregation acquired in 1775. His son, David David (1764–1824), was one of the founders of the Bank of Montreal in 1808.
The Rev. Jacob Raphael Cohen was the first regular minister of the Montreal congregation of whom there remains any record. He came there in 1778 and remained until 1782, when he went to Philadelphia, where he became rabbi of Congregation Mickweh Israel. The president or parnas of the Montreal congregation in 1775 was Jacob Salesby (or Salisbury) Franks, a member of the family whose other branch played an important part in Philadelphia in the period of the Revolution. Abraham Franks (1721–97) supported the British in repelling the American invasion, while his son-in-law, Levy Solomons, who later became parnas of the Montreal congregation, was commanded by the invading American general, Montgomery, to act as purveyor to the hospitals for the American troops. But after the death of General Montgomery and the retreat of the American forces from Canada, Solomons, who was never paid for the services he rendered to the invaders, was exposed to the resentment of the British, as one suspected of sympathy for the revolting colonists. He and his family were expelled from Montreal by General Burgoyne, but eventually was permitted to return.
In 1807 Ezekiel Hart, one of the four sons of Commissary Aaron Hart, was elected to represent Three Rivers in the Legislature. He declined to be sworn in according to the usual form, “on the true faith of a Christian,” but took the oath according to the Jewish custom, on the Pentateuch, and with his head covered. At once a storm of opposition arose, due, it is said, not to religious prejudice or intolerance, but to the fact that his political opponents saw in this an opportunity of making a party gain by depriving an antagonist of his seat. After heated discussions and the formality of a trial, he was expelled, and when his constituents re-elected him, the House proposed passing a bill to put his disqualification as a Jew beyond doubt. But the governor, Sir John Craig, dissolved the Chamber before the bill could pass. After a bill, in conformity with a petition by the Jews, was passed in 1829, and sanctioned by royal proclamation in January 1831, authorizing the Jews to keep a register of births, marriages and deaths, they felt encouraged and made another attempt to secure recognition of their civil rights. When a new bill extending the same political rights to Jews as to Christians was introduced in the Legislative Assembly in March, 1831, it met with no opposition. It rapidly passed both the Assembly and the Council, and received the royal assent June 5, 1832. The Jews of Canada were thus emancipated about a quarter century before their co-religionists in the mother country. Mr. Nathan of British Columbia was the first Jewish member of the Canadian Parliament.
When Canada was convulsed in 1837–38 by the rebellion led by Papineau and others, a number of Jews fought on the Loyalist side. Two members of the David family held cavalry commands under Wetherell at the action at St. Charles, and took a distinguished part in the battle of St. Eustache. Aaron Philip Hart, grandson of the commissary, temporarily abandoned his large law practice to raise a company of militia, which rendered valuable service. Jacob Henry Joseph and his brother Jesse were with the troops on the Richelieu and at Chambly. Several Canadian Jews won distinction in various capacities in the first half of the last century. Dr. Aaron Hart David (b. in Montreal, 1812; d. there 1882), a grandson of Lazarus David, was dean of the faculty of medicine of Bishop’s College; Samuel Benjamin was the first Jew elected to the Montreal City Council; and Jesse Joseph (b. in Berthier, Canada, 1817; d. in Montreal, 1904), one of a family of merchant princes, established the first direct line of ships between Antwerp and Montreal, and was appointed Belgian Consul in the latter city. His brother Jacob was connected with the promotion of early Canadian railways and telegraph lines, and another brother, Gershom, was the first Jewish lawyer to be appointed a queen’s counsel in Canada. All these men were officers of the synagogue, at the time when its rabbi, Rev. Abraham de Sola (b. in London, 1825; d. in New York, 1882), was professor of Semitic languages and literature at the McGill University.
The Congregation Shearit Israel passed through a crisis when the old synagogue building had to be demolished, when the land on which it stood reverted to the heirs of David David, after his death in 1824. It was again forced to worship in a hall, until the new synagogue on Chenneville Street was dedicated in 1838. It had no regular minister after the retirement of Rabbi Cohen, until nearly 60 years later, when Rabbi David Piza was appointed in 1840 and was, six years later, succeeded by Rabbi Abraham de Sola, who was in turn succeeded by his son, Dr. Meldola de Sola (b. 1853), who is still one of the ministers of the congregation, his associate being Rev. Isaac de la Penyha.