bodies, which were in many cases off-shoots of synagogue auxiliaries. When the need for these became more widespread, owing to the impoverished condition of immigrants who were fugitives from European oppression, they developed into organizations which drew their resources from the community at large. Later, special organizations for aiding immigrants and for settling newcomers on the land sprang into being, first with the personal assistance of Baron Maurice de Hirsch and his wife, and, later, with the aid of the Jewish Colonization Association which was endowed with the Hirsch fortune. During the World War, Canadian Jewry organized a Jewish Congress for the relief of Jewish war sufferers, and to agitate for the granting of full civil and political equality for the Jews of those European lands in which they had been theretofore subjected to discriminatory laws. Philanthropic work in the Canadian Jewish community is now showing a distinct tendency toward federation.

A. RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION

MONTREAL. Having been joined from time to time by other settlers, in 1768 the Jews of Canada organized themselves into a congregation, which they called "Shearith Israel", the "Remnant of Israel", the same name that had been adopted by the earliest Jewish settlers in New York about one hundred years before. Since nearly all of these first Canadian Jewish colonists were descended from the exiles of Spain and Portugal, they followed strictly the historic customs and impressive ritual of the Sephardic Jews, and their descendants to this day have ever remained loyal to the same venerable and imposing orthodox rites. In 1775, the congregation bought a plot of land for a burial

ground, and there was dug the first Jewish grave in Canada when Lazarus David died on October 22, 1776. His remains were subsequently removed to the cemetery on Mount Royal, when the earliest burial ground, situated on St. Janvier Street, St. Antoine suburbs, was required for the extension of the city; and the original headstone still marks the last resting place of this one of the pioneer Jews of the Dominion.

The congregation first met for worship in a hall, but in 1777 they erected a synagogue on a piece of ground owned by David David, son of Lazarus David. On the death of David David, in 1824, this land reverted to his heirs, and the congregation decided to remove to another site. They were in temporary quarters until, in 1838, they opened a new synagogue, which served as the house of worship until 1890, when the present synagogue on Stanley Street was dedicated, its cornerstone being laid in 1887 by Gershom Joseph, Q. C., who was at that time the president. The two first Scrolls of the Law were presented to the congregation by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of London, England, in 1768, and were even then accounted very old; they are still occasionally used at services. Questions of ecclestiastical law were in these early times usually referred to the Chief Rabbi of England, and the congregation appears to have maintained a correspondence with the parent congregation at Bevis Marks, London, whose decisions were followed in every particular.

The first regularly ordained Minister of the congregation of whom there is any authentic record was the Rev. Jacob Raphael Cohen, who arrived from London in 1778 and remained four years. He later went to Philadelphia,

where he was Minister of congregation Mikve Israel till his death in 1810. The spiritual heads of the Montreal congregation during the following years were Myer Levy, Isaac Valentine, Dr. de la Motta and David Piza. In 1846, Dr. Abraham de Sola was elected by the congregation and held the office for thiry-six years, being succeeded at his death by his son, Meldola de Sola, who also remained in office until his death thirty-five years later; the de Sola family thus serving the Shearith Israel congregation for over seventy consecutive years and ably fulfilling their ministerial duties. Dr. Abraham de Sola occupied the Chair of Semitic Languages at McGill University, was President of the Natural History Society of Montreal for many years, and was an author of note, having written many valuable works on theology, philology and Jewish history. The prominence which Dr. de Sola reached among men of letters led McGill University to confer upon him in 1858 the degree of LL. D., he being the first Jew to receive this honor. Dr. de Sola's ability in the pulpit led to his being frequently invited to lecture in the United States, where he acquired much prominence and popularity. On the January 9, 1872, he was invited by General Grant's government to perform the ceremony of opening the United States Congress with prayer, and, for the first time, was witnessed the unique spectacle of one who was not a citizen of the United States nor an adherent of the dominant belief officiating at the opening ceremonies at the assembling of Congress at Washington. The broad liberality of this act upon the part of the United States Government was fraught with particular significance at that time,

owing to the fact that the diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the United States had then but lately been strained to dangerous tension by the Alabama Claims, and this high compliment to a British subject was the first evidence of the growth of a better feeling between the two countries. Sir Edward Thornton, the British Ambassador at Washington, extended Dr. de Sola the thanks of the British Government, and Gladstone, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, also expressed his personal feelings of satisfaction.

For nearly a century Shearith Israel was the only Jewish congregation in Canada. Its members attained prominence in every walk of public life, financial, commercial and social, being men who by their energy and initiative were helping, even in those early days, to lay the foundation of Canada's future greatness.

In 1846 several Polish Jewish families arrived in Montreal, and in the same year organized congregation Shaar Hashomaim, following the German and Polish, or Ashkenazic, ritual. This led the Spanish and Portuguese Jews to seek and obtain a new Act of Incorporation from the Legislature, in which the German and Polish congregation was also incorporated. The new congregation, however, was short-lived, for the Montreal community was as yet too small to support two synagogues. In 1858 a second and successful effort was made to institute a German and Polish congregation in Montreal, which took the name of the defunct organization. Abraham Hoffnung, M. A. Ollendorf, and Solomon Silverman were among the most active of its charter members; and the Rev. Samuel Hoffnung was its earliest minister. He was soon succeeded

by the Rev. Mr. Fass, who in turn was followed by other prominent ministers, notably Rabbi E. Friedlander in 1884. The first building of this congregation was dedicated in 1860. Its cornerstone was laid by David Moss, who belonged to a family which was active in advancing the welfare of this congregation during three decades. The act of 1846 was first availed of; but in 1902 the congregation secured a separate Act of Incorporation. In 1886 they removed to a new edifice on McGill College Avenue, and in 1922 the magnificent structure on Kensington Avenue, Westmount, was opened, under the spiritual guidance of Rev. Dr. Herman Abramowitz, who has been the revered pastor of the congregation for over 20 years, and is known throughout the length and breadth of the land as a man of scholarly attainments and as a true exponent of Judaism.

There are now 37 congregations in Montreal, one of which, Temple Emanu-El, is a Reform congregation. This was founded in 1882 by Samuel Davis, B. Kortosk, Adolph Goldstein, B. A. Boas, William and Maxwell Goldstein, Lyon Silverman, and others. Beginning in a modest way in a small building on Stanley street, the membership grew under Rabbi Nathan Gordon, who later left the ministry and is now one of the leading Jewish lawyers of Montreal. In 1911 the congregation removed to their presént handsome building on Sherbrooke Street West, which is the centre for a great deal of communal activity. The present minister Rabbi Max Merritt, is a man who is not only beloved and honored by his own congregation, but is rapidly becoming a force in the whole community, for he is imbued with a broad humanitarianism, and is to be found on the boards not only of the Juvenile Court Committee, but of many