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Authors: Mordecai Richler
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enough for them, was not to be for us, and that they told us again and again was what the struggle was for. The Main was for
bummers
, drinkers, and (heaven forbid) failures.
During the years leading up to the war, the ideal of the ghetto, no different from any other in America, was the doctor. This, mistakenly, was taken to be the very apogee of learning and refinement. In those days there also began the familiar and agonizing process of alienation between immigrant parents and Canadian-born children. Our older brothers and cousins, off to university, came home to realize that ourparents spoke with embarrassing accents. Even the younger boys, like myself, were going to “their” schools. According to them, the priests had made a tremendous contribution to the exploration and development of this country. Some were heroes. But our parents had other memories, different ideas, about the priesthood. At school we were taught about the glory of the Crusades and at home we were instructed in the bloodier side of the story. Though we wished Lord Tweedsmuir, the Governor-General, a long life each Saturday morning in the synagogue, there were those among us who knew him as John Buchan. From the very beginning there was their history, and ours. Our heroes, and theirs.
Our parents used to apply a special standard to all men and events. “Is it good for the Jews?” By this test they interpreted the policies of Mackenzie King and the Stanley Cup play-offs and earthquakes in Japan. To take one example – if the Montreal
Canadiens
won the Stanley Cup it would infuriate the WASP s in Toronto, and as long as the English and French were going at each other they left us alone:
ergo
, it was good for the Jews if the
Canadiens
won the Stanley Cup.
We were convinced that we gained from dissension between Canada’s two cultures, the English and the French, and we looked neither to England nor France for guidance. We turned to the United States. The real America.
America was Roosevelt, the Yeshiva College, Max Baer, Mickey Katz records, Danny Kaye, a Jew in the Supreme Court, the
Jewish Daily Forward
, Dubinsky, Mrs. Nussbaum of Allen’s Alley, and Gregory Peck looking so cute in
Gentleman’s Agreement
. Why, in the United States a Jew even wrote speeches for the president. Returning cousins swore they had heard a cop speak Yiddish in Brooklyn. There were the Catskill hotels, Jewish soap operas on the radio and, above all, earthly pleasure grounds, Florida. Miami. No manufacturer had quite made it in Montreal until he was able to spend a month each winter in Miami.
We were governed by Ottawa, we were also British subjects, but our true capital was certainly New York. Success was (and still is) acceptance by the United States. For a boxer this meant a main bout at Madison Square Garden, for a writer or an artist, praise from New York critics, for a businessman, a Miami tan and, today, for comics, an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show or for actors, not an important part at the Stratford Festival, but Broadway, or the lead in a Hollywood TV series (Lorne Greene in
Bonanza)
. The outside world, “their” Canada, only concerned us insofar as it affected our living conditions. All the same, we liked to impress the
goyim
. A knock on the knuckles from time to time wouldn’t hurt them. So, while we secretly believed that the baseball field or the prize-fighting ring was no place for a Jewish boy, we took enormous pleasure in the accomplishments of, say, Kermit Kitman, the Montreal Royals outfielder, and Maxie Berger, the welterweight.
Streets such as ours and Outremont, where the emergent middle-class and the rich lived, comprised an almost self-contained world. Outside of business there was a minimal contact with the Gentiles. This was hardly petulant clannishness or naive fear. In the years leading up to the war neo-fascist groups were extremely active in Canada. In the United States there was Father Coughlin, Lindbergh, and others. We had
bummers
, drinkers, and (heaven forbid) failures.
During the years leading up to the war, the ideal of the ghetto, no different from any other in America, was the doctor. This, mistakenly, was taken to be the very apogee of learning and refinement. In those days there also began the familiar and agonizing process of alienation between immigrant parents and Canadian-born children. Our older brothers and cousins, off to university, came home to realize that ourparents spoke with embarrassing accents. Even the younger boys, like myself, were going to “their” schools. According to them, the priests had made a tremendous contribution to the exploration and development of this country. Some were heroes. But our parents had other memories, different ideas, about the priesthood. At school we were taught about the glory of the Crusades and at home we were instructed in the bloodier side of the story. Though we wished Lord Tweedsmuir, the Governor-General, a long life each Saturday morning in the synagogue, there were those among us who knew him as John Buchan. From the very beginning there was their history, and ours. Our heroes, and theirs.
Our parents used to apply a special standard to all men and events. “Is it good for the Jews?” By this test they interpreted the policies of Mackenzie King and the Stanley Cup play-offs and earthquakes in Japan. To take one example – if the Montreal
Canadiens
won the Stanley Cup it would infuriate the WASP s in Toronto, and as long as the English and French were going at each other they left us alone:
ergo
, it was good for the Jews if the
Canadiens
won the Stanley Cup.
We were convinced that we gained from dissension between Canada’s two cultures, the English and the French, and we looked neither to England nor France for guidance. We turned to the United States. The real America.
America was Roosevelt, the Yeshiva College, Max Baer, Mickey Katz records, Danny Kaye, a Jew in the Supreme Court, the
Jewish Daily Forward
, Dubinsky, Mrs. Nussbaum of Allen’s Alley, and Gregory Peck looking so cute in
Gentleman’s Agreement
. Why, in the United States a Jew even wrote speeches for the president. Returning cousins swore they had heard a cop speak Yiddish in Brooklyn. There were the Catskill hotels, Jewish soap operas on the radio and, above all, earthly pleasure grounds, Florida. Miami. No manufacturer had quite made it in Montreal until he was able to spend a month each winter in Miami.
We were governed by Ottawa, we were also British subjects, but our true capital was certainly New York. Success was (and still is) acceptance by the United States. For a boxer this meant a main bout at Madison Square Garden, for a writer or an artist, praise from New York critics, for a businessman, a Miami tan and, today, for comics, an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show or for actors, not an important part at the Stratford Festival, but Broadway, or the lead in a Hollywood TV series (Lorne Greene in
Bonanza)
. The outside world, “their” Canada, only concerned us insofar as it affected our living conditions. All the same, we liked to impress the
goyim
. A knock on the knuckles from time to time wouldn’t hurt them. So, while we secretly believed that the baseball field or the prize-fighting ring was no place for a Jewish boy, we took enormous pleasure in the accomplishments of, say, Kermit Kitman, the Montreal Royals outfielder, and Maxie Berger, the welterweight.
Streets such as ours and Outremont, where the emergent middle-class and the rich lived, comprised an almost self-contained world. Outside of business there was a minimal contact with the Gentiles. This was hardly petulant clannishness or naive fear. In the years leading up to the war neo-fascist groups were extremely active in Canada. In the United States there was Father Coughlin, Lindbergh, and others. We had
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