Dr. Ira Robinson, PhD.

Professor, Religion
Chair & Director of the Concordia Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies

Research areas: Jews in Canada; Orthodox Judaism in North America

Contact information

Email:

ira.robinson@concordia.ca

CV:

View Ira Robinson's CV

Biography

Short CV

Ira Robinson is Professor of Judaic studies in the Department of Religion of Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec. He has taught at Concordia University since 1979 and served as the Chair of the Department of Religion. He also serves as Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies and Director of the Concordia University Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies. Dr. Robinson is the President of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, past President of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies (formerly the Canadian jewish Historical Society) and past President of the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. Dr. Robinson was awarded the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award by the Association of Canadian Jewish Studies in recognition of his lifelong contribution to the study of Canadian Jewry. Dr. Robinson was recently inducted to the Provost's Circle of Distinction

Research interests

Canadian Judaism
Orthodox Judaism in North America
Hasidism
Judaism and Science
Jewish Mysticism

Traditions

Judaism

Teaching activities

RELI 220/2 A:

INTRODUCTION TO THEHISTORY AND RELIGION

OF THE JEWS

RELI 329/2

Israel: Religion and State

Research activities

A Kabbalist in Montreal: the Life and Times of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg

History, Memory, and Jewish Identity

Academic Studies Press

Selected publications

Articles

Dr. Robinson has published over fifty articles in journals such as Studies in Religion, Jewish Social Studies, American Jewish History, American Jewish Archives Journal, Jewish Quarterly Review, Judaism, Modern Judaism, Canadian Ethnic Studies and Canadian Jewish Studies.

Books (edited, co-edited, translations)

Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters (2 volumes, 1985). (Winner of the Kenneth Smilen Award for Judaica non-fiction).

AnEveryday Miracle: Yiddish Culture in Montreal(editor), (Montreal, Véhicule Press, 1990).

TheThought of Moses Maimonides: Philosophical and Legal Studies (editor),(Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter, Edwin Mellen Press,1990).

MenahemKaufman, An Ambiguous Partnership: Non-Zionist and Zionist in America,1939-1948 (Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1991) (translator from Hebrew toEnglish)

Moses Cordovero'sIntroduction to Kabbala: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne'Erav (Ktav/Yeshiva University Press, 1994).

TheInteraction of Scientific and Jewish Cultures in Modern Times (co-editor),(Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter, Edwin Mellen Press, 1994).

RenewingOur Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century(editor), (Montreal, Vehicule Press, 1995)

Juifs etCanadiens Français dans la société Québécoise(co-editor) (Sillery, Septentrion, 2000)

NotWritten in Stone: Canadian Jews, Constitutions and Constitutionalism in Canada(co-editor) (Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, 2003).

Joseph Margoshes, AWorld Apart: a Memoir of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century Galicia (Boston,Academic Studies Press, 2008) (co-translator from Yiddish to English).

LesCommunautés juives de Montréal: histoire et enjeux contemporains(Sillery, QC, Septentrion, 2010) (co-editor)

Canada’s Jews in Time,Space, and Spirit(Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2013) (editor)

The Future of the Past: the Jewish Public Library ofMontreal, 1914-2014 (Montreal, Concordia University Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies,2015) (co-editor)

History,Memory, and Jewish Identity(Boston, Academic Studies Press, 2016) (co-editor)

Books

Rabbisand Their Community: Studies in the Immigrant Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal,1896-1930. (Calgary,University of Calgary Press, 2007). Available for free download:

http://dspace.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/49279

Translating aTradition: Studies in American Jewish History (Boston, Academic Studies Press,2008).

A History of Antisemitism in Canada (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015).

Conference Presentations

Recent Conference Presentations

“TheReligion of the Average Israeli Jew”, Israel at 65 Years: Dimensions ofNational Identity in a Divided Society”, Concordia University, 2013.

“Antisemitismin Quebec”, Oyfn Veg (On the Road): aSymposium in Canadian Jewish Studies in honour of Professor Gerald Tulchinsky,University of Toronto, 2013.

“TheDavid Ahenakew Affair and the Problem of Using the Canadian Justice System inthe Fight Against Antisemitism”, Association for Canadian Jewish Studies, 2014.

“YehudaKaufman (Even Shmuel): the Portrait of an Israeli scholar, Intellectual, andActivist, 1927-1976”, Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, 2014; Associationfor Israel Studies, 2014.

“La migration hassidique à Montréal depuis 1941,” MIGRATIONSJUIVES CONTEMPORAINES, CIRCULATIONS ET ANCRAGES, Université du Québec àMontréal, 2014.

“A Link in the Great American Chain”: the Evolution ofan Orthodox Jewish Community in Cleveland, Ohio” Conference on the JewishCommunity of Cleveland, 2015

“A ‘Jewish Monkey Trial’: the Cleveland Jewish Centerand the Emerging Borderline between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in 1920sNorth America”, Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, 2015

“Hasidic Migration to Montreal, 1941-2014”,Association for Canadian Jewish Studies, 2015.

“The Impact of “Lev Tahor” in Canada and ItsImplications for the Study of Contemporary Jewish Migration”, Sephardic, NorthAfrican and Middle Eastern Jewish Communities in North America (Montreal) 2015.