Challah in the City

Between 1971 and 1981, 15,000 Jews left Montreal. Since then the population has declined by another 10,000. Relocation is a major adjustment, even between cities in the same country, so it is unlikely that the loss of Montreal as an inspiration and setting for Canadian Jewish fiction was a prominent concern while people dismantled and rebuilt their lives. When a community dwindles, its ability to incubate talent diminishes with it, so chances were reduced that new Jewish Montreal writers would emerge to follow A.M. Klein, Mordecai Richler, Irving Layton or Leonard Cohen.

A glance at the list of fiction winners of the Canadian Jewish Book Awards since 1987 confirms this—Anne Michaels, Morley Torgov, David Bezmosgis and Aryeh Lev Stollman each came from other Jewish communities, although such Montrealers as Nancy Richler and, most recently, Nora Gold appear on the list. Even so...