History, Memory, and Jewish Identity

This volume takes a fresh view of the role representations of the past play in the construction of Jewish identity. Its central theme is that the study of how Jews construct the past can help in interpreting how they understand the nature of their Jewishness. The individual chapters illuminate the ways in which Jews responded to and made use of the past. If Jews’ choices of what to include, emphasize, omit, and invent in their representation of the past is a fundamental variable, then this volume contributes to the creation of a more nuanced approach to the construction of the histories of Jews and their thought.

Ira Robinson is Chair in Quebec and Canadian Jewish Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, where has taught since 1979. He has written, edited, and translated seventeen books, including Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, which won the Kenneth Smilen Award for Judaica non-fiction; Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century, which won a Toronto Jewish Book Award; Moses Cordovero's Introduction to Kabbala: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne'erav; Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930, which won a J.I. Segal Prize; A History of Antisemitism in Canada; History, Memory, and Jewish Identity, and, most recently, Les Juifs Hassidiques de Montréal (2019). He is president of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, and past president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. He is the 2013 winner of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.