‘I Do Think We Can Carry On’: The Women’s War Efforts Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, 1939-1946
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-0925.40145Abstract
The Jewish community’s involvement in the Canadian war effort during the Second World War has been a topic of scholarly interest for decades. However, this scholarship has largely focused on the activities of men, whether as soldiers or members of volunteer organizations, most notably the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). When women’s contributions are noted, it has generally been a mention of undefined volunteer work or their activities as soldiers’ wives and mothers, thus ignoring the monumental efforts of Jewish women. In particular, the Women’s War Efforts Committee (WWEC) of the CJC contributed thousands of hours of unpaid labour, fundraising, running a Next-of-Kin League for the wives, mothers, and children of enlisted men, and working with other women’s organizations for the war effort. However, it was their work on massive projects such as the furnishing of recreation spaces on armed forces bases and the opening of Servicemen’s Centres across Canada that would be most impactful. This paper will explore how the activities of the WWEC increased the visibility of the Jewish community in Canada and contributed to changing the public perception of Jews from that of an unwanted immigrant community to that of an accepted minority group. It will also examine the tensions between the men and women of the CJC and the shifting public roles of women within the Jewish community.
References
Annual Report of the Women's War Efforts Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Western Division, December 1943, ADCJA, CJC Collections, WEC, DA18.1 box 18, file 21.
Arthur J. Chiel, The Jews in Manitoba: A Social History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1961). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442652736
Barbara Dundas and Dr. Serge Durflinger, "The Canadian Women's Army Corps, 1941-1946," Canadian War Museum, http://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/dispatches/the-canadian-womens-army-corps-19411946/#tabs, accessed September 9, 2017.
David Rome, "Canada," The American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 45, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1943_1944_6_BritCommonwealth.pdf. Accessed January 4, 2019.
Dionne Brand, "We Weren't Allowed to Go Into Factory Work Until Hitler Started the War: The 1920s to the 1940s" in We're Rooted Here and they can't Pull Us Up: Essays in African Canadian Women's History, ed. Peggy Bristow (Toronto: University of Toronto Press: 1994): 186. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442683273-008
Ellin Bessner, Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military and World War Il (Toronto: New Jewish Press, 2017).
Gerald Tulchinsky, Branching Out: The Transformation of the Canadian Jewish Community (Toronto: Stoddart, 1998): 212.
Gurston Allen, "What Jewish Women Here Are Doing To Help With The War," Toronto Hebrew Journal, n.d., ADCJA, CJC Collections, WEC, DA18.1, Box 18, File 6.
Jack Lipinsky, Imposing their Will: An Organizational History of Jewish Toronto, 1933-1948 (Montreal & Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011).
James W. St.G. Walker, "Race and Recruitment in World War I: Enlistment of Visible Minorities in the Canadian Expeditionary Force," The Canadian Historical Review, 70, no. 1 (1989): 1-26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/CHR-070-01-01
James Walker, "Claiming Equality for Canadian Jewry: The Struggle for Inclusion, 1930 1945," Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War, ed. L. Ruth Klein, (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2012): 239.
Jeff Keshen, "Revisiting Canada's Civilian Women During World War II," Histoire Sociale/Social History 30, no. 60 (1997): 239-266.
Jeff Keshen, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers: Canada's Second World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2000).
Letter from Isaac Rose to Rosalie Phillips, July 6, 1944, ADCJA, CJC Collections, WEC, DA18.1, box 18, File 19.
National Council of Jewish Women 50th Anniversary Book, 1897-1947, OJA, Fonds 52, Series 6, File 3.
Pamela Sugiman, "Life is Sweet': Vulnerability and Composure in the Wartime Narratives of Japanese Canadians," Journal of Canadian Studies 43, no. 1 (2009): 195-196. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/jcs.43.1.186
Pathways to the Present: Canadian Jewry and Canadian Jewish Congress (Toronto: Canadian Jewish Congress, 1986).
Ruth Roach Pierson, 'They're Still Women After All: The Second World War and Canadian Womanhood (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986).
Ruth Roach Pierson, Canadian Women and the Second World War, Canadian Historical Association, Historical Booklet, No. 37.
Saundra Lipton, "She Also Served: Bringing to Light the Contributions of the Canadian Jewish Servicewomen of World War II," Canadian Jewish Studies/Etudes juives canadiennes 25 (2017): 93–116. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25071/1916-0925.40016
Undated CJC War Efforts Bulletin, ca. 1943, ADCJA, CJC Collections, ZA1943, Box 6, File 70.
Undated Special Bulletin on Furnishing Project from the Canadian Jewish Congress, ca. 1943, CJC Collections, ZA1943, box 6, file 70.
Women's War Efforts Committee Central Division meeting minutes, October 9, 1940, OJA, CJC WEC, RG297, Box 1, Shelf 20-2, File 170.
Women's War Efforts Committee, Western Division Annual Report for 1943, ADCJA, CJC Collections, WEC DA18.1, Box 18, File 21.
"600,000 Guests is Club's Record in Three Years," Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 3, 1945.
"Canadian Jewry and the War Effort," pamphlet published by the Canadian Jewish Congress Central Division, 1943, ADCJA, CJC-ZA1943, box 6, file 71.
"Canadian Jewry and the War Effort," pamphlet published by the Canadian Jewish Congress Central Division, 1943, ADCJA, CJC-ZA1943, box 6, file 71.
"Resolutions Adopted at the 5th Annual Regional Conference of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Central Division)," January 7, 1940, ADCJA, CJC-BC/ZE RO2.
"Timely Topics for Women," The Georgetown Herald, October 16, 1940, http://images.ourontario.ca/Partners/HHPL/HHPL000090490p0003f.pdf.
"Volunteer 'Pinafore Girls' Hostesses to Servicemen," Toronto Daily Star, March 9, 1944, ADCJA, CJC Collections, WEC, DA18.1, Box 18, File 23.
"Women in Uniform," Maclean's, August 1, 1941, http://archive.macleans.ca/article/1941/8/1/women-in-uniform.
"Women's War Efforts Committee," Canadian Jewish Chronicle, January 29, 1943, ADCJA, CJC Collections, WEC, DA18.1, box 18, file 22.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Canadian Jewish Studies/ Études juives canadiennes is a journal dedicated to the open exchange of information; therefore the author agrees that the work published in the journal be made available to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerrcial-No Derivative Woks 4.0 Unported License. The publisher (Association for Canadian Jewish Studies / Association des études juives canadiennes) recognizes the author's intellectual property rights. The author grants the publisher first serial publication rights and the non-exclusive right to mount, preserve and distribute the intellectual property. The journal is digitized and published on the open access website http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/cjs/index.
