The trip was born out of a simple but important idea – namely: that diaspora Jewish leaders should learn from one another’s experiences. Around the world, diaspora Jewish communities are living through a complex period of upheaval. Perhaps, as the trip’s organizers proposed, if a group of American rabbis were to spend a week immersed in the Canadian Jewish experience, we might return home with a deeper understanding of the American Jewish experience.
Indeed, the American Jewish experience is currently in a moment of tumult. The point is clearly illustrated by two prominent news stories that appeared in the Jewish press immediately before our trip.
The first news story was the vigorously debated “Re-Charging Reform Judaism” conference that took place two weeks ago on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The conference was organized by a group of Reform Jewish leaders who feel that the Reform Movement has become too universalistic and not enough particularistic – that is: that Reform Judaism has spent too much energy on issues that are not uniquely Jewish (say, for example, climate change or gun-violence prevention), and, correspondingly, has spent not enough energy on issues that are particular to the Jewish people (Israel, antisemitism, and a feeling of attachment to the Jewish people). The flashpoint of the conflict is a debate over whether Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion – the Reform Movement’s rabbinical and cantorial seminary – should ordain students who identify as antizionist. It is an issue around which the two-million Reform Jews in the United States share no general consensus – and one that is liable to develop into a future organizational schism.
The second news story that broke just before our group left for Canada had to do with New York City’s annual Celebrate Israel Parade – and, specifically, centered around two polarizing political figures: one who did not attend the parade, and one who did. The figure who did not attend is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – making him the first sitting mayor in the festival’s 60-year history not to participate, and illustrating a leftward shift in the politics of the city. The figure who did attend the parade is Israel’s Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich – the highly controversial leader of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, an illustration of the rightward shift in Israeli politics.
It was with these two headlines in mind – along with many other trends and dilemmas that are currently roiling the American Jewish community – that our group departed for Canada.
I had imagined that the trip would primarily be a study in similarities. Instead, it turned out to be a study of differences.
We soon discovered that Jewish life in Canada is culturally thicker than it is here in the US – that group identity is stronger, and that Jewish practice is more traditional. For example: among American Jews, only about 7% of non-Hasidic families enroll their kids in Jewish day schools. In Canada, the proportion is 20%. Similarly: among American Jews, 37% identify as Reform – making it the largest denominational affiliation. In Canada, only 16% identify as Reform – making it the smallest denomination, behind Conservative and Orthodox.
On questions of Jewish practice, Canadian Jewry is notably more traditional than here in the US. In the US, Reform rabbis are granted the autonomy to decide for themselves whether or not to officiate at weddings where only one of the partners is Jewish – and, according to a 2018 study, nearly 85% of Reform rabbis (including me) do indeed do so. Similarly, here in the US, the Reform movement has officially embraced the notion of “universal descent” (also known as “patrilineal descent”) – whereby a person is considered Jewish not only by virtue of their mother having been Jewish (the historically accepted position), but rather, so long as they have one Jewish parent (regardless of that parent’s gender) and they are actively living a Jewish life.
Canadian Jewish practice, by contrast, is far more restrictive on both of these issues. For example: according to the policies the Reform Rabbis of Greater Toronto (who, again, are the smallest denomination), a rabbi can maintain membership in the organization if they officiate at intermarriages or accept universal descent – but they are not permitted to serve on a Beit Din (a panel of three rabbis who preside over conversions to Judaism).
A quick glance at two websites further demonstrated the point. When you visit the homepage of the Reform Jewish Community of Canada, the top banner (at the time of our trip) reads: “We Stand with Israel.” When you visit the corresponding US website, ReformJudaism.org, the top banner reads: “Registration Now Open for our Biennial Conference 2026.”
There are many possible explanations for these differences between American Jewry and Canadian Jewry. Three, in particular, stand out.
The first is that while the US is strongly individualistic, Canada is more oriented towards group-identity. The US Constitution protects the private rights of its citizens: the individual’s right to personal property, or to freedom of expression. Because Canada, by contrast, was founded as a compromise between English and French settlers, woven into the Canadian Charter are specific protections not for individuals, but rather, for cultural groups. For example: the Anglo-community in Quebec is entitled by law to an independently operated English-language school-system – and the same applies to the French-community in the majority-Anglo provinces.
As a result, Canada is widely recognized as a model of true multiculturalism. Unlike the American model of “the melting pot” (a metaphor first articulated by the Jewish writer Israel Zangwill), in which various cultural groups gradually homogenize to a shared national norm, Canada epitomizes the model of “the mixed salad,” in which cultural groups are mixed and tossed together without losing their distinctive identity.
A second possible explanation for why Canadian Jewish life is relatively thicker than here in the US has not to do with the national multicultural ethos, but rather, with immigration timelines. The first large-scale wave of Jewish immigration to the US began in the 1840s, when the highly assimilationist German Jews began to arrive. Canada, by contrast, had no such wave. What’s more: at the turn of the 20th century, when Eastern-European Jewish immigrants began to arrive on these shores, they settled in the United States a full generation earlier than they did in Canada – starting in the 1880s, rather than the 1900s.
As many sociologists have argued, the cultural identity of immigrant groups tends to follow a generational pattern: the first generation (the immigrants themselves) are de facto cultural outsiders; the second generation (their children) work to shed their immigrant parents’ cultural awkwardness; the third generation can’t believe that their parents were so foolish as to discard their cultural legacy, and struggles to reclaim it; and the fourth generation is apathetic. If this is correct (even roughly speaking), then it is only natural that Canadian Jewry, which immigrated later than American Jewry, would have a thicker cultural identity.
A third possible explanation for the thickness of Canadian Jewish identity has not to do with immigration timelines, but rather, with immigration experiences – specifically: immigration after the Holocaust. After World War II, both the US and Canada took in a large number of Holocaust survivors. However, the pre-existing Jewish community in the US was significantly larger than in Canada. As a result, in today’s United States, Holocaust survivors and their descendants account for only 8% of the Jewish community. In Canada, that figure is 35% – and studies show that survivors and their descendants are more likely to have a deeply rooted sense of Jewish identity.
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This, so far, has been a study in differences: the ways in which Canadian Jewish identity is more traditionally constructed than here in the US, and three possible explanations for why that might be so. But the purpose of our trip was not merely to identify what is different about the Canadian Jewish experience – but rather, in so doing, to help us better understand the idiosyncrasies of the American Jewish experience: aspects of our lived reality that are often hiding in plain sight.
For starters, consider the differing roles that Israel-politics plays in each country. Because (unlike in Canada) the United States is a global superpower, and values having a democratic partner in the Middle East; and because (unlike in Canada) the United States has a powerful evangelical Christian voting bloc, with strong theological ties to Israel; our national conversation about Israel occupies a far more prominent and contentious position than it does in Canada. As a result, Jewish Americans more often feel themselves tumbling in the political whirlwind.
Perhaps even more significantly, consider two American narratives that are fundamental to our self-understanding. One narrative is aspirational; the other narrative is condemning.
The aspirational narrative is the American notion of the Promised Land. The United States has long thought of itself as a “shining city on a hill” – a beacon for humanity, a light unto the nations. Ours is a country that was founded on and strives after an ideal – even though we have not always lived up to it – that all people are created equal, and are endowed with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Canada, by contrast, strives for far less lofty aims. Its founding document promises not life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – but rather, a more mundane and practical trio: “peace, order, and good government.”
Indeed, this aspirational national narrative has impacted American Jewry. European Jewish immigrants came to this country not for convenience, but rather, because they believed it was a land of opportunity – di goldene medine, as they would have called it in Yiddish: a country where the streets were paved with gold. But the American Dream didn’t offer only economic advancement. Equally, the US offered a system of government committed to civil liberties and democratic norms – a degree of acceptance and protection that was unique in all of Jewish history. So strong was the American narrative of Promised Land that many Jews here proclaimed that “the United States is our new Zion.”
But there is also a second narrative that has shaped American life, and that has, in turn, shaped the American Jewish experience – this one not aspirational, but rather, condemning: the narrative of Original Sin. From the time before the country was even established, the United States committed grave injustices – towards the indigenous people who lived here, and through the institution of slavery and its long legacy. It is more than 250 years later, and the question of how to understand our nation’s Original Sin continues to be a matter of fierce ideological debate.
In that debate, American Jews have often found themselves maligned. In some circles, Jews are cast as the ultimate oppressors – the perpetrators or enablers of many of America’s sins. In other circles, Jews are accused of trying to overturn white cultural hegemony, under the supposed guise of atoning for America’s sins. In both instances, classic antisemitic tropes have seeped into the debate about our nation’s Original Sin – and American Jews are cast as villains.
In Canada, by contrast, these two narratives – the narrative of Promised Land, and the narrative of Original Sin – are not a core part of their national identity. It took visiting there to realize how significantly these narratives have shaped American Jewry.
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Last year, a biography was published (and last week, a new documentary released) of one of the most culturally significant Canadian Jews: the famed co-creator and executive producer of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels.
In it, the biographer describes how Michaels’ Canadian identity has contributed to his comedic sensibility. Growing up in Canada allowed Michaels to absorb American media, politics, and culture – but do so at a distance: able to see with ironic detachment what is funny about our society.
In a different cultural medium, this is the role not only of the comedian, but equally, of the prophet: to stand at the margins and point out things that are askew about our world. It is a role that, for thousands of years, Jews have naturally fit.
What the prophet does for the world; what the comedian does for society – such can Canadian Jewry do for the American Jewish community.
As we navigate this complex period of upheaval in American Jewish life – and as we approach the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country – we might learn from our neighbors to the north. Sometimes, you have to stand outside of a thing to understand it.
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