La défense de l’idéal sioniste au Canada, point de rencontre entre Juifs et chrétiens 1939–1947

Abstract

In the early 1940s, the Canadian Jewish Zionist organizations, whose activities were essentially focused on the Jewish community and fundraising for Jewish settlement in Palestine, decided to reorient their strategy and establish a real public relations policy. The priority was to find support among the Canadian population so that parliamentarians and the Canadian government would put pressure on London to end the migration restrictions on persecuted European Jews to Palestine. Canadian Jewish Zionists found singular support among a few English-speaking Christian compatriots whose familiarity with the biblical stories nurtured a certain sympathy for their cause. Two organizations made up of “non-Jewish Zionists” were created to channel their support: the Canadian Palestine Committee and the Christian Council for Palestine. The study of their archives highlights the moral and political arguments put forward by those designated as “Christian Zionists”. The antagonistic portraits of the Jew and the Arab that are revealed in their speeches betray both their imperialist projections and the paradoxical absence of a true dialogue between Jews and Christians in Canada.