Skip to content

Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

Strategic Alliances for a Secure, Connected, and Prosperous Region
Menu

Author: Michael Brown

Michael Brown is professor emeritus at York University in Toronto. In 2006, he was visiting professor at the Halbert Center for Canadian Studies and the Institute of Contemporary Jewry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Canadian Jews and Multiculturalism: Myths and Realities

Canadian Jews and Multiculturalism: Myths and Realities

November 14, 2007 | Michael Brown
Since the British conquest in 1759, Canada has experienced multiculturalism in three phases: (1) a period of multiculturalism manqué from 1759 to 1971; (2) a period of official multiculturalism that began in 1971 and is still running its course; and (3) the beginning of an open society paying only mild lip service to multiculturalism that has been emerging since the late 1990s. Each period has had advantages and disadvantages for the Jewish collective and for individual Jews. Often the interests
From Binationalism to Multiculturalism to the Open Society: The Impact on Canadian Jews

From Binationalism to Multiculturalism to the Open Society: The Impact on Canadian Jews

July 16, 2006 | Michael Brown
With multiculturalism falling out of favor, many in Canada and elsewhere now laud the individualism of the open society. Declining communal participation and rising intermarriage rates among Canadian Jews, however, indicate that both multiculturalism and even binationalism were more conducive to Jewish group survival.
Good Fences do not Neccesarily Make Good Neighbors: Jews and Judaism in Canada’s Schools and Universities

Good Fences do not Neccesarily Make Good Neighbors: Jews and Judaism in Canada’s Schools and Universities

October 30, 1999 | Michael Brown
In the post-World War II years, strict separation of church and state, especially with regard to education, has been viewed as an essential ingredient of social comity in the United States. In Canada, however, that has not been so. In fact, there, religion and education have been intimately connected since colonial times, and the role of religion in the schools has constitutional sanction. In the years before World War II, the outsider status of Jews and Judaism in schools and universities was demeaning to them. Ultimately it served to reinforce group loyalty, but Jewish educational institutions did not emerge.
Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? Jews and Judaism in Canadian Schools and Universities

Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? Jews and Judaism in Canadian Schools and Universities

October 1, 1998 | Michael Brown
Waste Land with Promise: Chaim Nachman Bialik’s America

Waste Land with Promise: Chaim Nachman Bialik’s America

October 30, 1994 | Michael Brown