Susan Landau-Chark - Concordia University

3
moved from the urban areas for cheaper housing, as well as the burgeoning middle-class.
Most American suburban Jewish communities formed Conservative synagogues.
By 1956, in the United States, there were 599 conservative synagogues - an increase of
65% from 1949, when there were 365 Conservative synagogues. Albert Gordon, a
Conservative rabbi as well as a professor of anthropology, was curious about the fact that
young Jewish couples, whom he called “seekers of the good life,” were establishing
themselves in America’s suburban communities in vast numbers. He undertook a three
year research project that covered 89 American suburban Jewish communities. His
study, Jews in Suburbia, was completed in 1959. 4 Gordon was concerned with how the
acculturation of suburban Jews might adversely affect the Jewish family and by
extension, the Jewish community. He noted that the suburban synagogue had however,
become the most important Jewish institution, as families tended to affiliate as soon as
their children were old enough to attend Hebrew or Sunday school.
During these years after the war, all families, Jewish and non-Jewish, sought
collective involvement in a religious social life. In the 1950's and 60's in North America,
a billion dollars were raised to build 1000 new synagogues. 5 Tulchinsky noted that in
Canada, between 1945 and 1952, eight million dollars was spent on synagogue
development. 6 In his article, “Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada” Louis Rosenberg
further noted that in 1935 throughout Canada there were 152 Jewish congregations of
which 140 were Orthodox, 9 were Conservative, and 3 were Reform. 7 By 1960 there
4
Albert Gordon, Jews in Suburbia (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959).
5
Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter: A
History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997): 309.
6
Gerald Tulchinsky, Branching Out: The Transformation of the Canadian Jewish
Community (Toronto, ON: Stoddart Publishing Co., Ltd, 1998): 278.
7
Louis Rosenberg, “Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada,” in Canadian Jewish