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

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.