Awards

Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award

Marcia Koven Award for Best Student Paper

Inaugural Meeting of the Jewish Historical Society,  Montreal, 1964. Louis Rosenberg at the podium. Photo credit: Canadian Jewish Congress Charities Committee National Archives

About the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award

The ACJS established this award in 2001 to recognize the significant contribution by an individual, institution or group to Canadian Jewish Studies.

In tribute to the scholarship of Louis Rosenberg, as of 2008 the award was named the “Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award.”

Louis Rosenberg was a pioneer in the social scientific study of Canada’s Jews. Born in Poland in 1893, he moved with his family to England and studied at Leeds University (B.A., 1914). In 1915 he moved to Canada and, served as the director of settlement of the Jewish Colonization Association between 1919 and 1940. While in Saskatchewan he became active in the CCF and published, under the pseudonym Watt Hugh McCollum, a study of the concentration of wealth in Canada entitled Who Owns Canada? (1935, 1947). In 1939, he published his magnum opus on Canadian Jewry, Canada’s Jews (reprinted, 1993). Using the census data in a comprehensive and profound fashion, Rosenberg had few peers in the area of the study of Canadian demography. In 1945, Rosenberg was appointed to serve as “National Research Director” (and only employee) of the Bureau of Social and Economic Research at Canadian Jewish Congress, and he moved to Montreal. He produced a steady stream of social studies of Canada’s Jews, continuing to use the Canadian census material, but also conducting his own surveys. He wrote the several works of Jewish history, occasionally transcribing long primary sources in the process. His archives are located in both Ottawa (LAC) and Montreal (CJCCC). He died in 1987.

2013 Award Recipient

The Association for Canadian Jewish Studies (ACJS) is very pleased to announce that Professor Ira Robinson of Concordia University in Montreal is the 2013 recipient of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award.

For over thirty years, Professor Robinson has been a major pillar and contributor to the teaching and scholarship of Jewish Studies in Canada. Throughout this time, his contributions have added to such areas as; the history of Jews in Canada, Orthodox Judaism in North America, Hasidism, Judaism and Science, and Jewish mysticism. Of his extensive list of publications, several have been recognized for their outstanding contributions such as: The Thought of Maimonides (1990), An Everyday Miracle: Yiddish Culture in Montreal (1990), Not Written in Stone: Canadian Jews, Constitutions and Constitutional in Canada (2003) and Rabbis & Their Community: Studies in Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930 (2007).

Furthermore, Professor Robinson has been a regular contributor to several academic journals such as: Studies in Religion, American Jewish History, American Jewish Archives, Canadian Jewish Studies. He is also been very active in several academic organizations such the ACJS, the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, Association for Jewish Studies and the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies – to name a few. He is also recognized internationally as dedicated and learned scholar. As an educator, Ira Robinson has been a consistent and enthusiastic part of the promotion of Jewish Studies across Canada. Teaching at Concordia University, he is well respected by students and faculty members for his contributions to a strong Jewish studies program within the Department of Religion. Many students who have taken his courses over the years have recognized the value of his knowledge, style, and presentation. He has always welcomed open discussions and provided frequent opportunities for students to express their thoughts or explore specific areas of interest. As a regular public speaker on Jewish studies, he is well known and recognized for his skillfulness and extensive knowledge of Jewish affairs.

We look forward to presenting the Rosenberg Award to Professor Robinson on the evening of June 3, 2013 at our upcoming ACJS conference in Victoria, British Columbia.

Past Award Recipients

More details about the Award Recipients

2012 – Harold Troper
2011 – Marcia Koven
2010 – Eiran Harris
2009 – Seymour Mayne
2008 – Seymour Levitan
2007 – Cyril E. Leonoff
2006 – Irving Abella
2005 – Gerald Tulchinsky
2004 – Abraham Arnold
2003 – Ruth Goldbloom
2002 – Rabbi Gunther Plaut
2001 – Miriam Waddington

About the Marcia Koven Award for Best Student Paper

In  2011 our annual “best student paper” award was renamed the “Marcia Koven Award.”

Marcia Koven was born in 1926 and throughout her life has been devoted to the preservation and transmission of the history of the Canadian Jewish community. She is the founder of the Saint John Jewish Historical Society and the creator of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum. Koven received the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award in 2011.

This award is sponsored by friends and relatives of Marcia Koven. There is a cash prize associated with this award.

Past Award Recipients

2012

Kata Bohus, PhD student, Central European University, Budapest
“Standing together or staying apart? Contradictions of integration among 1956-er Hungarian Jewish refugees in Toronto”

2011

Adara Goldberg, PhD student, Clark University
“Left in the West: Orphaned Holocaust survivors in Western Canada” and
Gary Smolyansky, MA student, York University
“Class, identity and ethnicity in Russian-speaking Jewish communities in post-WWII Canada”

2010

Faith Jones, MA student, University of British Columbia
“‘Di ershte un greste Yidishe bukh stor’: Miller’s Books advertising, 1910-1920”

2009

Tanhum Yoreh, York University
“Religious Geographies: A case study of Haredi consumption patterns in Canada and Israel”