A Geography of Jewish Care

A virtual tour of 150 years of Jewish social services in Montreal. The year 2013 marks 150 years of continuous Jewish social service in Montreal, beginning with the founding of the Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society (YMHBS) in 1863 and continuing through the work of Ometz today. For the first century of its existence, from 1760 to 1860, the Jewish community of Canada was too small to require a formal charity. Montreal’s first Jews were British Sephardim, who arrived alongside the British conquest of New France. This small community initially established itself in business and trades.
The 1840s began several decades of mass immigration by Central- and later Eastern European Jews to Montreal. Many of these newcomers arrived with little money and had great difficulties adjusting to Canadian life. The established community responded, guided by the Jewish ethics of tzedakah (righteousness or justice) and tikun olam (repairing the world), by establishing a society dedicated to providing assistance to the newcomers. As the Jewish community of Montreal expanded and developed, so did its framework for community support.