A Reluctant Welcome for Jewish People ― Voices in Le Devoir's Editorials 1910-1947

Thepositions held by Canada’s most intellectual French-language daily, Le Devoir, with respect to the MontréalJewish community and Judaism more generally have been one of the most discussedhistoriographical topics in Canadian Jewish history. A number of works writtenby Anglophone authors cite Le Devoiras typical of French Canada’s ideological defensiveness during the 1930s andits inclination to adopt a hostile position towards Jews.

However, untilnow, no serious analyses existed supporting or disproving this thesis. That is preciselythe task undertaken by Pierre Anctil in his exhaustive analysis of Le Devoir (1910-1947), from the foundingof the newspaper by Henri Bourassa until the death of its second director,Georges Pelletier. What place did Jews occupy in Le Devoir’s editorials and how, exactly, are they perceived?

Between1910 and 1947, approximately 200 editorials were devoted to Jews and Judaism inLe Devoir—approximately 2% of thetotal number of editorials written over that period. Sixty of those, of greathistoriographical significance, have been reproduced here in their entiretyalong with annotations. These editorials shed light on the way the nationalistFrancophone elite viewed the Jewish presence in Montréal, the German Nazi Stateand anti-Semitism, and the Shoah.