Bibliography
Caruso, Naomi,
A preliminary guide to the Jewish Canadiana collection of the Jewish Public Library / compiled
by Naomi Caruso, Golda Cukier, Ronald Finegold ; editorial assistance, Claire Stern ; technical
assistance, Rose Rosaminer. -- Montreal : Jewish Public Library, 1981.
Davies, Raymond Arthur,
Printed Jewish Canadiana, 1685-1900 : tentative check list of books, pamphlets, pictures,
magazine and newspaper articles and currency written by or relating to the Jews of Canada. 1st
ed. Montreal : Lillian Davies, 1955.
Gregorovich, Andrew,
Canadian ethnic groups bibliography : a selected bibliography of ethnocultural groups in Canada
and the Province of Ontario / Andrew Gregorovich. Toronto : Ontario Dept. of the Provincial
Secretary and Citizenship, 1972.
Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal-Selective Canadian Jewish Bibliography
http://www.gtrdata.com/jgs-montreal/cdn-hist-biblio.htm (March 2, 2000)
Jewish Public Library (Montreal, Quebec)
The Bronfman Collection of Jewish Canadiana in the Jewish Public Library, Montreal= Die
Bronfman zamlung vegen di Yidn in Kanada bay der Yidisher Folks Bibliotek in Montreal. --
Montreal : The Library, [196-]
Rome, David.
A selected bibliography of Jewish Canadiana. Montreal : Canadian Jewish Congress, 1959.
Rome, David.
Jews in Canadian literature : a bibliography.
Montreal : Canadian Jewish Congress and Jewish Public Library, 1962.
Rome, David.
Les juifs du Quebec : bibliographie retrospective annotee / David Rome, Judith Nefsky, Paule
Obermeir. - Quebec : Institut quebecois de recherche sur la culture, 1981.
Rome, David.
Recent Canadian Jewish authors and La langue francaise : supplementary to Jews in Canadian
literature, 2d. ed., 1964 / With preface by Joseph Kage. Montreal : Bronfman Collection of
Jewish Canadiana at the Jewish Public Library, 1970.
Vadnay, Susan.
A selected bibliography of research on Canadian Jewry, 1900-1980 / compiled by Susan Vadnay.
– Ottawa : [S. Vadnay], 1991.
Assignment on compiling a subject bibliography, part 1
For: Pam McKenzie
Due: March 17, 2000
Mark Aaron Polger
250038844
cubby 170
LIS 541
Canadian Jewish Bibliographies
I chose to do my research on Canadian Jewish History. I found a couple of
bibliographies that are listed alphabetically following this paper. I found that there has not
been a great deal of material on this topic and that there are very few new compilations of
Canadian Jewish Bibliographies. There has been a great deal of material published but
there has been few bibliographers who have actually compiled them together. Most of the
materials that I found are from the late 1950’s and the early 1960’s. Only about 2 -3
bibliographies are from 1981, and the rest are from the 1970’s. They material is not in
print anymore and the DB Weldon Library only carries two David Rome books (a Selected
Bibliography of Jewish Canadiana and Jews in Canadian Literature. There is also a small
booklet by Raymond Arthur Davies called Printed Jewish Canadian 1685-1900, that was
published in 1955. The problem is that there are no recent bibliographies that have been
compiled within the past ten years. One bibliography by Susan Vadnay was from 1991
and another bibliography of Quebec Jewry by David Rome and Jacques Langlais was
compiled in 1981 but the only recent bibliography I found was online and the Jewish
Genealogical Society of Montreal compiled it.
The first source I chose was the oldest, Printed Jewish Canadiana by Raymond
Arthur Davis. This source claims it defines Canadian, “Written by or relating to the Jews
of Canada”. This bibliography includes Newspaper articles, magazine articles, pictures,
pamphlets, and books from 1685 to 1900. The bibliography is alphabetically listed by
author and it is bilingual. Intertwined are photos, newspaper advertisements, posters,
flyers, and newspaper articles. Each listing is annotated with a brief explanation and some
entries gives biographical information about the author. For the entries that the
bibliographer did not know information about the author, the entry is smaller, with only a
list of what they have written. Each entry is easy to read with the author’s name bolded
and their biographical information beside their name. Each item they produced is at the
end of the biographical sketch. Each biographical sketch discusses their birth and death
date, as well as information about their life. For example, Isaac Hellmuth was born in a
Jewish family in Poland and was educated in Breslau. He taught at Bishop’s college in
Lernnoxville (presently Bishop’s University) This entry shows that the Davies defined
Canadian not strictly for being a Canadian but in contributing something to Canada. In this
case, Hellmuth was not Canadian but he moved here in 1844 to teach in Lennoxville,
Quebec. Hellmuth was also the person who established the University of Western Ontario
with a personal grant of $10,000. He died in 1901 and it did not mention when he found ed
the University. This source is divided by author and not by subject. The whole
bibliography is about Jewish Canadiana and so Davies must have not wanted to further
subdivide it.
David Rome’s “A Selected Bibliography of Jewish Canadiana” is organiz ed by
detailed subjects. Some subjects include Canadian Jewish History, The arts, religion,
sociology, Jewish education, the Holy Land, Jewish Studies, Civic Effort, Group Relations,
Literature, Education, Social Studies, The Sciences, Hebrew Literature, Yiddish Literature.
There is an introduction by the president of the Canadian Jewish Congress at the time
Samuel Bronfman. Bronfman emphasizes that the bibliography is not complete because it
is limited to entire books and pamphlets. Rome also defines Canadian in a general sense.
A Canadian does not have to be born in Canada, but has to have made a contribution
to the Canadian Jewish community. Many people who have been documented are recent
immigrants from Eastern Europe and so very few are actuall y born in Canada. Bronfman
further states that valuable articles in periodicals and parts of books have been omitted
because the selection criteria must perforce be drawn somewhere.(Rome, 1964). The
author, David Rome was born in Lithuania and moved to Canada when he was a very
young. He is an authoritative source because he contributed significantly to Canada and he
worked in Canada for most of his life. He was also a historian and archivist of the
Canadian Jewish Congress National Archives and director of the Jewish public library in
Montreal.
The subjects are divided alphabetically by author. There is no biographical data for
the authors but only a small citation. The bibliography is written in Hebrew, Yiddish,
French, and English. I know that David Rome and Naomi Caruso are librarians so I can
trust their organizational skills. I have also worked with Naomi and David and I do not
know David as well because he was most active in his work in the 1950’s –1970’s. I know
that he is a librarian, historian, archivist, and he had an honourary law degree. He was a
well known scholar who contributed significantly to Canadian Jewish history. For more
information on David Rome, the Canadian Jewish Congress has a lot of biographical
information on him at http://www.cjc.ca
The last bibliography I could physically get my hands on was a two volume work
called Jews in Canadian Literature. This bibliography was published in 1964 and it is an
historical view of Jews in Canadian Literature up to 1964. Most of Rome’s books define
Canadian as not necessarily being Canadian but contributing to the Canadian Jewish
community. In the 1960’s Rome was director of the Jewish public library in Montreal and
the curator for the Bronfman collection of Jewish Canadiana. The bibliography is
organized by author in order of their birth and death date. It is not organized by
alphabetical order. Rome annotates each entry in conversational tone and he discusses in
great depth their life and their works. A detailed biographical sketch is given as well
comments on the writer, his style and the material they have written. By browsing this
bibliography I could not see any women writers who were mentioned.
The fact that the authors are not organized in alphabetical order makes this
bibliography very incoherent. Rome has a lengthy introduction that illustrates the scope of
his research, the population density of Jews in Canada with statistics and the origins of the
Canadian Jewish writers.
I also sense that since his death in 1997, there has been a sharp decline in Canadian
Jewish reference tools. There is still much research in the field of Canadian Jewish history
but there is not yet a Historian and Librarian who can compile and organize the mate rial
into a more updated bibliography. There has not been a historian to take over David
Rome’s shoes just yet.
I found a partial bibliography on the world wide web site by the Jewish
Genealogical Society of Montreal-Selective Canadian Jewish Bibliography
http://www.gtrdata.com/jgs-montreal/cdn-hist-biblio.htm This bibliography seems more
current and updated and the source was reliable and more authoritative than an American
bibliographer. This organization deals with Jewish Genealogy in Montreal so I was
assured that this bibliography was done seriously.
The material that I could not take a look at appeared to be very authoritative and reliable.
Naomi Caruso worked for McGill University and the Jewish public library as a librarian and she
does freelance contract work for the Canadian Jewish Congress National Archives. She is in the
process of cataloguing a collection and preparing a book about the late David Rome and she is
thought to be a reliable source for documenting information about Jewish Canadiana.
The Jewish public library collection does specialize in Canadian, American, and Israeli material
and I will be getting a copy of her bibliography and I am sure it is very concise and appropriate.
Andrew Gregorovich’s Canadian ethnic groups bibliography : a selected bibliography of
ethnocultural groups in Canada and the Province of Ontario seems to be appropriate because it
discussed Canadian ethnic groups and Jews are both an ethnic group and a religion. However his
analysis may not be in depth because there are many ethnic groups in Canada and he may not
focus on many Canadian Jewish sources. The publisher is authoritative because it is a
government agency but I am not certain as the extent of Canadian Jewish coverage.
In conclusion, the few sources were very authoritative. Most were published in
Canada by the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Public Library. The compiler or
editors were librarians or archivists and they were well educated and informed about the
Jewish community and Jewish history in Canada. Furthermore, they had the skills to
organize information and document it in an accessible format.