Yehupetzville

Ralph Benmergui visits smaller Jewish communities across Canada (and beyond) for The CJN Podcast Network

Kabbalat Shabbat on the Beach in Bowen Island

Aryana Rayne moved to Bowen Island years ago on a spiritual search. Once she discovered a small Jewish community on the island of 3,600 people—mostly ad hoc gatherings, meeting in people’s homes and celebrating potluck holidays, with an emphasis on the mystical side of Judaism— something clicked. She began reading up on her religion and becoming a linchpin of the community. Today, the Jews of Bowen Island have a driftwood hanukkiah and a Torah scroll they bought on eBay.

Finding Community in Kamloops

When Heidi Coleman moved to Kamloops from Montreal in 2012, she had to seek out its Jewish members—asking around, searching for information that was not widely available. Once she found them, however, they welcomed her warmly… and then quickly asked her to become their president. Today the charismatic leader is still the community’s president—mostly because, as she says, nobody else wants to do the job.

Living Jewishly in Lethbridge

Goldie Morgentaler is a literature professor and Yiddish expert who’s been active in local synagogues, engaged her university’s administration on antisemitic incidents and translated into English the work of her mother, poet Chava Rosenfarb. You might assume she lives in a hub of Jewish culture—but you’d be wrong. In 1997, Morgentaler moved to Lethbridge, where she teaches at the university. The city has fewer than 20 Jews left, but that hasn’t stopped Morgentaler from keeping the spirit of her community alive.

Imagination from Manitoba

Prairie Sonata is the debut novel by Sandy Shefrin Rabin. Based on her own childhood growing up Jewish in Manitoba after the Second World War, the book follows a teenage girl’s relationship with a recent immigrant from Prague, who teaches her Yiddish and violin. While the story may be fictional, its roots feel very real to anyone who grew up Jewish in a small town—part of the universal experiences felt by so many Jewish Canadians.

Ontario

A Woman on a Mission in Quebec City

Over the past generation, the Jewish community of Quebec City has been decimated—first by the Quebec Referendum, slowly by an outward migration of young people, and finally by COVID-19, which coincided with a loss of funds to keep any paid staff. The outlook for the couple dozen active remaining Jews looked grim. But Debbie Rootman wouldn’t accept that. She moved there in September 2019, and swiftly took it upon herself to revitalize the newsletter, organize events and galvanize community members as best she could.

Peace and Politics in Deer Lake

Sheina Lerman wanted a quiet life when she settled in Deer Lake, a town of 5,000 people— probably none of whom are Jewish. But then she shook things up by running for the provincial NDP against Andrew Furey, who wound up becoming the premier. Furey won with 2,838 votes; Lerman came in third with 107. But when you’re a come-from-away Jew in small-town Newfoundland, you’re no stranger to being the odd person out in a crowd.

Reflections in Glace Bay

Few Canadian Jewish communities have experienced such tumultuous changes as Glace Bay. In 1902, the coal mining town became home to the first synagogue built in the Atlantic provinces, and a booming economy drew a strong Jewish population—until the city’s overall population began slipping in the 1970s. The island’s oldest synagogue closed down in 2010, and many of its Jews ended up moving away. But some stayed— and they’re eager to share their stories.

Newfoundland

History Falling in Niagara

Quebec

Nova Scotia

New Brunswick

Sioux Lookout, Medical Meeting Point

You wouldn’t expect to find Jews in Sioux Lookout, a rural town of fewer than 6,000 people in Northern Ontario that’s a launching pad for fly-in First Nations communities. But enough Jews happen to be doctors that physicians with an adventurous side embrace those challenges and have flocked there, resulting in a surprising community that bakes challah, builds ice hanukkiahs and makes gefilte fish out of river fish caught on outings with their Indigenous neighbours.

During the pandemic, congregants of Niagara Falls’ only synagogue agreed to sell the building to a developer who plans to tear it down to build a new hotel. But the spirit of the community is not entirely lost. Its stained-glass windows will be relocated to a nearby cemetery as part of its Holocaust memorial. They may not attract the region’s 13 million annual tourists, but they will remind locals of what stood before.