REVIEWS
GERRY MAFRE
This is an excellent presentation of a people’s experience. The extraction of common themes over periods of migration gives this book a strong sense of the individuals and what they went through.
December 2020
JASON MOSCOVITZ
Ideas and Impressions: How we ‘welcomed’ Holocaust survivors.
December 2, 2019
TOULA DRIMONIS
The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home After The Holocaust by Zelda Abramson and John Lynch, is a nuanced, moving, well-researched, — and with the current rising tide of far-right anti-immigrant sentiments — a very timely portrait of Holocaust survivors who settled in Montreal, and their daily struggles to integrate.
…This book is a vivid portrait of the daily struggles of Holocaust survivors who settled here, within the larger context of Canadian immigration policies, anti-semitism, and the history of Quebec’s Jewish community.
…A wonderful addition to any Montrealer’s library, or anyone interested in history, our country’s immigration policies and the overall plight of refugees.
October 27, 2019
DAVID DIVINE
The book is a wonderful example of bridging cultural groups, modelling sensitivity, successful discourse, learning from each other, seeking to meet one another as equals, acknowledging each individual as experts on their own lives and their interpretation and meanings of that life, and how this has played a role in their evolving identities.
September 12, 2019
MEL U – THE READING LIFE
The Montreal Shtetl- Making Home After the Holocaust by Zelda Abramson and John Lynch is a groundbreaking essential work, both for content and methodology…
This is a wonderful book. I liked everything about it! The interviews were a joy to read.
February 10, 2019
DAVID SILVERBERG
As to what Abramson would like readers to be left with when they finish the book, she says, “I want them to understand the politics of migration and learn about the decisions made of who can and can’t enter our country. At certain times, we need to be more generous in terms of supporting immigration and helping them once they arrive in Canada.”
February 8, 2019
JADE ANNA HUGHES
There are so many books (important books) to read on the Holocaust, on what people endured, and on why we have to make sure that this never happens again. Most of those books end with the end of the war. There are very few that detail what happened afterwards, and what people had to go through to find a home again, and the difficulties they faced when they made it to this new home. The Montreal Shtetl provides great insight into this, and while it does focus on Montreal specifically, it’s quite easy to imagine how similar it was in other cities and countries.
January 25, 2019
KENDRA PRESTON LEONARD
An excellent ethnography of the Shoah survivors who settled post-war in Montreal. Researched with care and respect, and with ethics and a thoughtfulness and intellect not often found in today’s non-fiction, The Montreal Shetl is an important and beautifully crafted book about Jews in North America, their lives as immigrants and outsiders, and the power of their testimonies.
December 31, 2018
MENTIONS
September 2022. Judith Kalman on writing under the influence of Irving Abella
March 30, 2022. Montréal: The French-Canadian City Where Art is Everywhere
The Montreal Shtetl 