Shuln and Sheulelach: Large and Small Synagogues in Montreal and Europe

Introduction

This chapbook focuses on a range of subjects, which include synagogue architecture, the development of Montreal's communal infrastructure, as well as the changes that affected devotional life in the city leading up to and after World War Two.

Sara Tauben has used as her focal points three booklets published by downtown synagogues in order to see how the institutions viewed themselves at particular times in their history. To do so, she pays attention to contributions by leading rabbis, to strategies for survival, some of which are portrayed in Yiddish texts, which she translates.

The outcome is a document that increases our awareness of the shifts that took place as communal life broke along old world-new world lines.