Juifs au Maroc, Séfarades au Canada. Migrations et processus de construction identitaire

Abstract

The arrival in Canada of North-African and predominantly Moroccan Jewish immigrants transformed both the internal balance and ethnic identity of Canadian Jewry which until then was mainly composed of Ashkenazi Jews. The integration of Sephardic Jews into the Canadian Jewish community, and more largely in the Quebec society, led to an identity reconstruction process implying the return to former, sometimes mythical, referents as well as a reinterpretation of their tradition in light of new Quebec identity parameters. The identification of Moroccan Jews with their Sephardic culture was both complex and beneficial because it was an answer to Canadian political expectations in favour of both multiculturalism and French-speaking immigrants. At the same time it partly erased the post-colonial specificity of that immigrant group but also created tension with Ashkenazi Anglophone Jewish world. This article intends to explain the identity reconstruction process of Moroccan Jews in the cosmopolitan city of Montreal, the renewal of Jewish community structures as well as the construction of new institutional groups based on Sephardic identity and Sephardic Jews swift economical integration.