Jun 17, 2026 · 45 min · 10 segments
Too often, when people talk about Jewish life in Canada, they are really talking about Jewish life in Toronto and Montreal. But the truth is more than a quarter of Jewish Canadians live outside those…
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Recently, the Jewish Federation of Vancouver had a summit of all the Jews across BC, uh, in Whistler, uh, BC, and part of that summit was to talk about the smaller communities and the way in which British Columbia actually functions as a community on its own, and that there were communities that were independent and were doing their own thing.
But they decided to rebrand themselves and rename and call themselves the Jewish Federation of British Columbia to recognize that Vancouver, even though they were serving these outlying communities, they didn't wanna be the be all and end all, and to recognize that there was a lot of Jewish communities, and some of them that were doing their own thing and needed the support and were happy to get the support from the Federation.
When I visited Nova Scotia on our honeymoon, uh, I got to see the shul in Glace Bay.
Uh, and, and the guy who ran the dry goods store on the main street was so happy to see a Jewish guy walk in with his kippah, and ran over and got the keys and showed me the whole shul, and it was beautiful.
Like, people were in small communities, and what may have been a trend for years of Jews deciding that they needed to move to the big city in order to be Jews, now we start seeing that those trends are starting to get reversed, and smaller Jewish communities are actually increasing at faster rates than everybody else.
So I guess it was a time, and, and I really wanna use this opportunity to talk about the nature of the communities that we have in Canada that are outside of Montreal and Toronto, and w- the nat- the difference between living in a major metropolitan Jewish community versus living in a smaller one.
What is the value of these things? Uh, Karen Collins, who runs the Hartman Institute in Canada, wrote a piece recently about the middle powers, as she called them, you know, based on Carney's, uh, middle powers speech, and saying that these smaller communities are actually the, the value and the heart of Canadian Jewry, and that we should look towards them for a lot of different lessons, and she promoted a lot of these lessons.
Um, Matthew, you are our resident, uh, small, smaller town, y- uh, despite the fact that Van- you know, Winnipeg has a federation and has a s- real Jewish community for many, many years.
Um, what, what do you see? You've lived in Winnipeg pretty much your whole life, but what seems it's like for Jewish communities?
Didn't attend the t- the camps, but all my friends did, and my sister was super involved at one of the two camps, and same thing with BBYO.
But I lived in Halifax for a bunch of years, '07, '08, '09, and I worked at both of the shuls in Halifax.
Recently, the Jewish Federation of Vancouver had a summit of all the Jews across BC, uh, in Whistler, uh, BC, and part of that summit was to talk about the smaller communities and the way in which British Columbia actually functions as a community on its own, and that there were communities that were independent and were doing their own thing.
But they decided to rebrand themselves and rename and call themselves the Jewish Federation of British Columbia to recognize that Vancouver, even though they were serving these outlying communities, they didn't wanna be the be all and end all, and to recognize that there was a lot of Jewish communities, and some of them that were doing their own thing and needed the support and were happy to get the support from the Federation.
When I visited Nova Scotia on our honeymoon, uh, I got to see the shul in Glace Bay.
Uh, and, and the guy who ran the dry goods store on the main street was so happy to see a Jewish guy walk in with his kippah, and ran over and got the keys and showed me the whole shul, and it was beautiful.
Like, people were in small communities, and what may have been a trend for years of Jews deciding that they needed to move to the big city in order to be Jews, now we start seeing that those trends are starting to get reversed, and smaller Jewish communities are actually increasing at faster rates than everybody else.
So I guess it was a time, and, and I really wanna use this opportunity to talk about the nature of the communities that we have in Canada that are outside of Montreal and Toronto, and w- the nat- the difference between living in a major metropolitan Jewish community versus living in a smaller one.
What is the value of these things? Uh, Karen Collins, who runs the Hartman Institute in Canada, wrote a piece recently about the middle powers, as she called them, you know, based on Carney's, uh, middle powers speech, and saying that these smaller communities are actually the, the value and the heart of Canadian Jewry, and that we should look towards them for a lot of different lessons, and she promoted a lot of these lessons.
Um, Matthew, you are our resident, uh, small, smaller town, y- uh, despite the fact that Van- you know, Winnipeg has a federation and has a s- real Jewish community for many, many years.
Um, what, what do you see? You've lived in Winnipeg pretty much your whole life, but what seems it's like for Jewish communities?
Didn't attend the t- the camps, but all my friends did, and my sister was super involved at one of the two camps, and same thing with BBYO.
But I lived in Halifax for a bunch of years, '07, '08, '09, and I worked at both of the shuls in Halifax.
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