History of the Jews in Canada

The history of the Jews in Canada is the history of Canadian citizens who follow Judaism as their religion and/or are ethnically Jewish. Jewish Canadians are a part of the greater Jewish diaspora and form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States, and France. As of 2011, Statistics Canada listed 329,500 adherents to the Jewish religion in Canada and 309,650 who claimed Jewish as an ethnicity. One does not necessarily include the other and studies which have attempted to combine the two streams have arrived at figures in excess of 375,000 Jews in Canada. This total would account for approximately 1.1% of the Canadian population.
The Jewish community in Canada is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews and their descendants. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented and include Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and Bene Israel. A number of converts to Judaism make up the Jewish-Canadian community, which manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions and encompasses the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance. Though they are a small minority, they have had an open presence in the country since the first Jewish immigrants arrived with Governor Edward Cornwallis to establish Halifax, Nova Scotia (1749).
Early history (1759–1850).
Prior to the British conquest of New France, there were Jews in Nova Scotia. There were no official Jews in Quebec because when King Louis XIV made Canada officially a province of the Kingdom of France in 1663, he decreed that only Roman Catholics could enter the colony. One exception was Esther Brandeau, a Jewish girl who arrived in 1738 disguised as a boy and remained for a year before being sent back to France after refusing to convert. The earliest subsequent documentation of Jews in Canada are British Army records from the French and Indian War, the North American part of the Seven Years' War. In 1760, General Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst attacked and seized Montreal, winning Canada for the British. Several Jews were members of his regiments, and among his officer corps were five Jews: Samuel Jacobs, Emmanuel de Cordova, Aaron Hart, Hananiel Garcia, and Isaac Miramer.
The most prominent of these five were the business associates Samuel Jacobs and Aaron Hart. In 1759, in his capacity as Commissariat to the British Army on the staff of General Sir Frederick Haldimand, Jacobs was recorded as the first Jewish resident of Quebec, and thus the first Canadian Jew. From 1749, Jacobs had been supplying British army officers at Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1758, he was at Fort Cumberland and the following year he was with Wolfe's army at Quebec. Remaining in Canada, he afterwards became the dominant merchant of the Richelieu valley and Seigneur of Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu. However, as Jacobs married a French Canadian girl and brought his children up as Catholics, he is often overlooked as the first permanent Jewish settler in Canada in favour of Aaron Hart, who married a Jew and brought up his children, or at least his sons, in the Jewish tradition.
Lieutenant Hart first arrived in Canada from New York City as Commissariat to Jeffery Amherst's forces at Montreal in 1760. After his service in the army had ended, he settled at Trois-Rivières. Eventually, he became a very wealthy landowner and a respected community member. He had four sons, Moses, Benjamin, Ezekiel and Alexander, all of whom would become prominent in Montreal and help build the Jewish Community. One of his sons, Ezekiel, was elected to the legislature of Lower Canada in the by-election of April 11, 1807, becoming the first Jew in an official opposition in the British Empire. Ezekiel was expelled from the legislature with his religion a major factor. Sir James Henry Craig, Governor-General of Lower Canada, tried to protect Hart, but the legislature dismissed him in both 1808 and 1809. French Canadians later saw this as an attempt of the British to undermine their role in Canada. Ezekiel was re-elected to the legislature, but Jews were not allowed to hold elected office in Canada until a generation later.
Most of the early Jewish Canadians were either fur traders or served in the British Army troops. A few were merchants or landowners. Although Montreal's Jewish community was small, numbering only around 200, they built the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal, Shearith Israel, the oldest synagogue in Canada in 1768. It remained the only synagogue in Montreal until 1846. Some sources date the actual establishment of synagogue to 1777 on Notre Dame Street.
Revolts and protests soon began calling for responsible government in Canada. The law requiring the oath "on my faith as a Christian" was amended in 1829 to provide for Jews to not take the oath. In 1831, prominent French-Canadian politician Louis-Joseph Papineau sponsored a law which granted full equivalent political rights to Jews, twenty-seven years before anywhere else in the British Empire. In 1832, partly because of the work of Ezekiel Hart, a law was passed that guaranteed Jews the same political rights and freedoms as Christians. In the early 1830s, German Jew Samuel Liebshitz founded Jewsburg (now incorporated as German Mills into Kitchener, Ontario), a village in Upper Canada. By 1850, there were still only 450 Jews living in Canada, mostly concentrated in Montreal.
Abraham Jacob Franks settled at Quebec City in 1767. His son, David Salesby (or Salisbury) Franks, who afterward became head of the Montreal Jewish community, also lived in Quebec prior to 1774. Abraham Joseph, who was long a prominent figure in public affairs in Quebec City, took up his residence there shortly after his father's death in 1832. Quebec City's Jewish population for many years remained very small, and early efforts at organization were fitful and short-lived. A cemetery was acquired in 1853, and a place of worship was opened in a hall in the same year, in which services were held intermittently; but it was not until 1892 that the Jewish population of Quebec City had sufficiently augmented to permit of the permanent establishment of the present synagogue, Beth Israel. The congregation was granted the right of keeping a register in 1897. Other communal institutions were the Quebec Hebrew Sick Benefit Association, the Quebec Hebrew Relief Association for Immigrants, and the Quebec Zionist Society. By 1905, the Jewish population was about 350, in a total population of 68,834. According to census of 1871, there were 1, 115 Jews living in Canada with 409 in Montreal, 157 in Toronto, and 131 in Hamilton with the rest living in Brantford, Quebec City, St. John, Kingdon and London.
Growth of the Canadian Jewish community (1850–1939).
With the beginning of the pogroms of Russia in the 1880s, and continuing through the growing anti-Semitism of the early 20th century, millions of Jews began to flee the Pale of Settlement and other areas of Eastern Europe for the West. Although the United States received the overwhelming majority of these immigrants, Canada was also a destination of choice due to Government of Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway efforts to develop Canada after Confederation. Between 1880 and 1930, the Jewish population of Canada grew to over 155,000. At the time, according to the 1901 census of Montreal, only 6861 Jews were residents.
Jewish immigrants brought a tradition of establishing a communal body, called a kehilla to look after the social and welfare needs of their less fortunate. Virtually all of these Jewish refugees were very poor. Wealthy Jewish philanthropists, who had come to Canada much earlier, felt it was their social responsibility to help their fellow Jews get established in this new country. One such man was Abraham de Sola, who founded the Hebrew Philanthropic Society. In Montreal and Toronto, there developed a wide range of communal organizations and groups. Recently arrived immigrant Jews also founded "landsmenschaften", guilds of people who came originally from the same village.
Most of these immigrants established communities in the larger cities. Canada's first ever census, recorded that in 1871 there were 1,115 Jews in Canada; 409 in Montreal, 157 in Toronto, 131 in Hamilton and the rest were dispersed in small communities along the St. Lawrence River. When elected mayor of Alexandria in 1914, George Simon had the double honour of being both the first Jewish mayor in Canada, as well as the youngest mayor in the country at the time. He died suddenly in 1969 while serving his tenth term in office.
A community of about 100 settled in Victoria, British Columbia to open shops to supply prospectors during the Cariboo Gold Rush (and later the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon). This led to the opening of a synagogue in Victoria, British Columbia in 1862. In 1875, B'nai B'rith Canada was formed as a Jewish fraternal organization. When British Columbia sent their delegation to Ottawa to agree on the colony's entry into Confederation, a Jew, Henry Nathan, Jr., was among them. Nathan eventually became the first Canadian Jewish Member of Parliament. In 1899, the Federation of Canadian Zionist Societies was founded to champion Zionism, and became the first nation-wide Jewish group. The overwhelming majority of Canadian Jews were "Ashkenazim" who came from either the Austrian empire or the Russian empire. Jewish women tended to be particularly active in Canadian Zionism, perhaps because many of the Zionist groups were secular.
By 1911, there were Jewish communities in all of Canada's major cities. By 1914, there were about 100, 000 Jews in Canada with three quarters living in either Montreal or Toronto. The overwhelming majority of Canadian Jews were "Ashkenazim" who came from either the Austrian empire or the Russian empire. There were two competing strands of Jewish nationalism in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century, namely Zionism and another tendency that favored forming separate Jewish cultural institutions with a focus on promoting Yiddish. Institutions such as the Montreal Jewish Library with its collection of Yiddish books were examples of the latter tendency.
The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was founded in 1919 and would be the major representative body of the Canadian Jewish community for 90 years. Much of its work was focused on lobbying government around issues of immigration, human rights and anti-Semitism. One of the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles were the so-called "minorities treaties" that committed Eastern European states with substantial Jewish populations such as Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia to protect the rights of minorities with the League of Nations to monitor their compliance. The CJC was founded in part to lobby the government of Canada to use its influence at the League of Nations to ensure that the Eastern European states were abiding by the terms of the "minorities treaties".
Jewish total population in Canada was 1.8%.
On August 6, 1933 one of the most famous anti-Semitic incidents in Canada took place, known as "the Christie Pits Riot". On that day after a baseball game in Toronto a group of young men using Nazi symbols started a massive melee, arguably the largest in Toronto's history, on the ground of racial hatred, involving hundreds of men.
Jewish settlement in the West.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, through such utopian movements as the Jewish Colonization Association, fifteen Jewish farm colonies were established on the Canadian prairies. Few of the colonies did very well, partly because the Jews of East European origin were not allowed to own farms in the old country and thus had little experience in farming. One settlement that did do well was Yid'n Bridge, Saskatchewan, started by South African farmers. Eventually the community grew larger as the South African Jews, who had gone to South Africa from Lithuania invited Jewish families directly from Europe to join them, and the settlement eventually became a town, whose name was later changed to the Anglicized name of Edenbridge. The Jewish farming settlement did not last to a second generation, however. Beth Israel Synagogue at Edenbridge is now a designated heritage site. In Alberta, the Little Synagogue on the Prairie is now in the collection of a museum.
At this time, most of the Jewish Canadians in the west were either storekeepers or tradesmen. Many set up shops on the new rail lines, selling goods and supplies to the construction workers, many of whom were also Jewish. Later, because of the railway, some of these homesteads grew into prosperous towns. At this time, Canadian Jews also had important roles in developing the west coast fishing industry, while others worked on building telegraph lines. Some, descended from the earliest Canadian Jews, stayed true to their ancestors as fur trappers. The first major Jewish organization to appear was B'nai B'rith. Till today B'nai B'rith Canada is the community's independent advocacy and social service organization. Also at this time, the Montreal branch of the Workmen's Circle was founded in 1907. This group was an offshoot of the Jewish Labour Bund, an outlawed party in Russia's Pale of Settlement. It was an organization for The Main's radical, non-Communist, non-religious, working class.
Growth and community organization.
By the outbreak of World War I, there were approximately 100,000 Canadian Jews, of whom three-quarters lived in either Montreal or Toronto. Many of the children of the European refugees started out as peddlers, eventually working their way up to established businesses, such as retailers and wholesalers. Jewish Canadians played an essential role in the development of the Canadian clothing and textile industry. Most worked as labourers in sweatshops; while some owned the manufacturing facilities. Jewish merchants and labourers spread out from the cities to small towns, building synagogues, community centres and schools as they went.
As the population grew, Canadian Jews began to organize themselves as a community despite the presence of dozens of competing sects. The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was founded in 1919 as the result of the merger of several smaller organizations. The purpose of the CJC was to speak on behalf of the common interests of Jewish Canadians and assist immigrant Jews. The largest Jewish community was in Montreal, at the time the largest, wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city in Canada. The vast majority of Montreal's Jews who arrived in the early 20th century were Yiddish-speaking "Ashkenazim" but their children chose speak English rather than French. Until 1964, Quebec had no public education system, instead having two parallel educational systems run by the Protestant churches and the Catholic church. As the Jewish community did not have the financial resources to set up their own educational system, most Jewish parents chose to enroll their children in the English-speaking Protestant school system, which was willing to accept Jews unlike the Catholic school system. The CJC had its headquarters in Montreal while the Jewish Public Library of Montreal and the Montreal Yiddish Theatre were two of the largest Jewish cultural institutions in Canada. The Jews of Montreal tended to be concentrated in several neighborhoods, which gave a strong sense of community identity.
In 1930 under the impact of the Great Depression, Canada sharply limited immigration from Eastern Europe, which adversely impacted on the ability of the  "Ashkenazim" to come to Canada. In a climate of anti-semitism where the Jewish immigrants were seen as economic competition for Gentiles, the leadership of the CJC was assumed by the whisky tycoon Samuel Bronfman who it was hoped might be able to persuade the government to allow more Jews to come. In view of worsening situation for Jews in Europe, allowing more Jewish immigration became the central concern of the CJC. Through many Canadian Jews voted for the Liberal Party, traditionally seen as the friend of minorities, the Liberal Prime Minister from 1935 onward, William Lyon Mackenzie King, proved to be extremely unsympathetic. Mackenzie King adamantly refused to change the immigration law, and Canada accepted proportionally the fewest Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
World War II (1939–1945).
About 17,000 Jewish Canadians served in the Canadian Armed Forces during World War II. Major Ben Dunkelman of the Queen's Own Rifles regiment was a noted soldier in the campaigns of 1944–45 in north-west Europe, being highly decorated for his courage and ability under fire. In 1943, Saidye Rosner Bronfman of Montreal, the wife of the whiskey tycoon Samuel Bronfman was appointed MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her work on the home front. Saidye Bronfram had organized 7, 000 women in Montreal to make packages for Canadian soldiers serving overseas, for which she was recognized by King George VI.
In 1939, Canada turned away the MS "St. Louis" with 908 Jewish refugees aboard. It went back to Europe where 254 of them died in concentration camps. And overall, Canada only accepted 5,000 Jewish refugees during the 1930s and 1940s in a climate of widespread anti-Semitism. A most striking display of antisemitism occurred with the 1944 Quebec election. The leader of the "Union Nationale", Maurice Duplessis appealed to anti-Semitic prejudices in Quebec in a violently anti-Semitic speech by claiming that the Dominion government of William Lyon Mackenzie King together with Liberal Premier Adélard Godbout of Quebec had secretly made an agreement with the "International Zionist Brotherhood" to settle 100,000 Jewish refugees left homeless by the Holocaust in Quebec after the war in exchange for the "International Zionist Brotherhood" promising to fund both the federal and provincial Liberal parties. By contrast, Duplessis claimed that he would never take any money from the Jews, and if he were elected Premier, he would stop this alleged plan to bring Jewish refugees to Quebec. Though Duplessis' claims about the alleged plan to settle 100,000 Jewish refugees in Quebec was entirely false, his story was widely believed in Quebec, and ensured he won the election.
In 1945, several organizations merged to form the left-wing United Jewish Peoples' Order which was one of the largest Jewish fraternal organizations in Canada for a number of years.
As in the United States, the community's response to news of the Holocaust was muted for decades. Bialystok (2000) argues that in the 1950s the community was "virtually devoid" of discussion. Although one in seven Canadian Jews were survivors and their children, most Canadian Jews "did not want to know what happened, and few survivors had the courage to tell them.' He argues that the main obstacle to discussion was "an inability to comprehend the event. Awareness emerged in the 1960s, however, as the community realized that antisemitism had not disappeared.
Post war (1945–1999).
From the 1940s to the 1960s, the man generally recognized as the chief spokesman for the Canadian Jewish community was Rabbi Abraham Feinberg of the Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. In 1950, Dorothy Sangster wrote in "Macleans"' about him: "Today American-born Rabbi Feinberg is one of the most controversial figures to occupy a Canadian pulpit. Gentiles recognize him as the official voice of Canadian Jewry. This fact was aptly demonstrated a few years ago when Montreal's Mayor Houde introduced him to friends as "Le Cardinal des Juifs"—the Cardinal of the Jews". Feinberg was very active in various social justice efforts, campaigning for laws against discrimination against minorities and to end the "restrictive covenants".
In March 1945, Rabbi Feinberg wrote an article in "Maclean's" charging that there was rampant antisemitism in Canada, stating: "Jews are kept out of most ski clubs. Sundry summer colonies (even on municipally owned land), fraternities, and at least one Rotary Club operate under written or unwritten “Gentiles Only” signs. Many bank positions are not open to Jews. Only three Jewish male physicians have been admitted to non-Jewish Hospital staffs in Toronto. McGill University has instituted a rule requiring in effect at least a 10% higher academic average for Jewish applicants; in certain schools of the University of Toronto anti-Jewish bias is being felt. City Councils debate whether Jewish petitioners should be permitted to build a synagogue; property deeds in some areas bar resale to them. I have seen crude handbills circulated thanking Hitler for his massacre of 80,000 Jews in Kiev."
In 1945, in the Re Drummond Wren case, a Jewish group, the Workers' Education Association (WEA) challenged the "restrictive covenants" that forbade the renting or selling of properties to Jews. Through the case was something of a set-up as the WEA had quite consciously purchased a property in Toronto known to have a "restrictive covenant" in order to challenge the legality of "restrictive covenants" in the courts, Justice John Keiller MacKay struck down "restrictive covenants" in his ruling on 31 October 1945. In 1948, MacKay's ruling in the Drummond Wren case was struck down in the Noble v Alley case by the Ontario Supreme Court, which ruled that "restrictive covenants" were "legal and enforceable". A woman named Anna Noble decided to sell her cottage at the Beach O' Pines resort to Bernard Wolf, a Jewish businessman from London, Ontario. The sale was blocked by the Beach O'Pines Resort Association which had a "restrictive covenant" forbidding the sale of cottages to any person of "Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or colored race or blood". With the support of the Joint Public Relations Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai B'rith headed by Rabbi Feinberg, the Noble ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which in November 1950 ruled against "restrictive covenants", albeit only on the technicality that the phrase "Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or colored race or blood" was too vague.
After the war, Canada liberalized its immigration policy. Roughly 40,000 Holocaust survivors came during the late 1940s, hoping to rebuild their shattered lives. In 1947, the Workmen's Circle and Jewish Labour Committee started a project, spearheaded by Kalmen Kaplansky and Moshe Lewis, to bring Jewish refugees to Montreal in the needle trades, called the Tailors Project. They were able to do this through the federal government's "bulk-labour" program that allowed labour-intensive industries to bring European displaced persons to Canada, in order to fill those jobs. For Lewis' work on this and other projects during this period, the Montreal branch was renamed the Moshe Lewis Branch, after his death in 1950. The Canadian arm of the Jewish Labor Committee also honored him when they established the Moshe Lewis Foundation in 1975.
In the post-war era, universities proved more willing to accept Jewish applicants and in decades after 1945, many Canadian Jews tended to move up from being a lower-class group working as menial laborers to a middle class group working as "bourgeois" professionals. With the ability to obtain a better education, many Jews become doctors, teachers, lawyers, dentists, accountants, professors and other "bourgeois" occupations. Geographically, there was a tendency for many Jews living in the inner cities of Toronto and Montreal to move out to the suburbs. The rural Jewish communities almost vanished as Jews living in rural areas decamped to the cites. Reflecting a more tolerant attitude, Canadian Jews became active on the cultural scene. In the post-war decades Peter C. Newman, Wayne and Shuster, Mordecai Richler, Leonard Cohen, Barbara Frum, Joseph Rosenblatt, Irving Layton, Eli Mandel, A.M. Klein, Henry Kreisel, Adele Wiseman, Miriam Waddington, Naim Kattan, and Rabbi Stuart Rosenberg were individuals of note in the fields of arts, journalism and literature.
Since the 1960s a new immigration wave of Jews started to take place. A number of French-speaking Jews from North Africa ended up settling in Montreal. Some South African Jews decided to emigrate to Canada after South Africa became a republic in 1961, and was followed by another wave in the late 1970s, which was precipitated by anti-apartheid rioting and civil unrest. The majority of them settled in Ontario, with the largest community in Toronto, followed by those in Hamilton, London and Kingston. Smaller waves of Zimbabwean Jews were also present during this period.
In 1961 Louis Rasminsky became the first Jewish governor of the Bank of Canada. Every previous governor of the Bank of Canada had been a member of the prestigious Rideau Club of Ottawa, but Rasminsky's application to join the Rideau Club was turned down on the account of his religion, a rejection that deeply hurt him. Through the Rideau Club changed its policies in response to public criticism, Rasminsky only joined the club after he retired as bank governor in 1973. In 1968, the Liberal MP Herb Gray of Windsor became the Jewish federal cabinet minister. In 1970, Bora Laskin became the first Jewish justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and in 1973, the first Jewish Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In 1971, David Lewis became the leader of the New Democratic Party, becoming the first Jew to head a major Canadian political party.
In 1976, the Quebec provincial election was won by the separatist "Parti Québécois" (PQ), which sparked a major flight of Montreal's English-speaking Jews to Toronto with about 20, 000 leaving. The Jewish community of Montreal has been a bastion of federalism, and Quebec separatists with their ideal of a creating a nation-state for French-Canadians have tended to be hostile towards Jews. In both the 1980 and 1995 referendums, Montreal's Jews voted overwhelmingly for Quebec to remain in Canada.
It was official Canadian policy after 1945 to accept immigrants from Eastern Europe as long they were anti-communist even if they had fought for Nazi Germany. For an example the veterans of the 14th Waffen SS Division "Galizien", which was mostly recruited from Ukrainians in Galicia, settled in Canada. The fact that the men of the 14th Waffen-SS division had committed war crimes was ignored because they were felt to be useful for the Cold War. In Oakville, Ontario, a public monument honors the men of the 14th SS Division as heroes. Starting in the 1980s, Jewish groups began to lobby the Canadian government to deport the Axis collaborators from Eastern Europe whom the government of Canada had welcomed with open arms in the 1940s-1950s. In 1997, a report by Sol Littman, the head of Simon Wiesenthal Center operations in Canada charged that Canada in 1950 had accepted 2,000 veterans of 14th Waffen-SS Division with no screening; the American news program "60 Minutes" showed that Canada had allowed about 1,000 SS veterans from the Baltic states to become Canadian citizens; and the "Jerusalem Post" called Canada a "near-blissful refuge" for Nazi war criminals. The Canadian Jewish historian Irving Abella stated that for Eastern Europeans the best way of getting into postwar Canada "was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist". Despite pressure from Jewish groups, the Canadian government dragged its feet on deporting Nazi war criminals out of the fear of offending voters of Eastern European background, who make up a significant number of Canadian voters.
Canadian Jews today.
Today the Jewish culture in Canada is maintained by both practising Jews and those who choose not to practise the religion (Secular Jews). Nearly all Jews in Canada speak one of the two official languages, although most speak English over French. However, there seems to be a sharp division between the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi community in Quebec. The Ashkenazi overwhelmingly speak English while the Sephardi mostly speak French. There is also an increasing large number who speak Hebrew, other than for religious ceremonies, while a few keep the Yiddish language alive.
Recent surveys of the national Jewish population are unavailable. According to population studies of Toronto and Montreal, 14% and 22% are Orthodox, 37% and 30% are Conservative and 19% and 5% are Reform. The Reform movement is weaker in Canada, especially in Quebec, compared to the United States. This may explain the higher proportion of Canadian Jews who identify as unaffiliated – 30% in Montreal and 28% in Vancouver – than is the case in the United States. As in the United States, regular synagogue attendance is rather low – with less than one-quarter attending synagogue once a month or more. However, Canadian Jews also seem to have lower intermarriage rates than the American Jewish community. Canadian census data should be reviewed with care, because it contains separate categories for religion and for ethnicity. Some Canadians identify themselves as ethnically but not religiously Jewish.
Most of Canada's Jews live in Ontario and Quebec, followed by British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta. While Toronto is the largest Jewish population centre, Montreal played this role until many English-speaking Jewish Canadians left for Toronto, fearing that Quebec might leave the federation following the rise during the 1970s of nationalist political parties in Quebec, as well as a result of Quebec's Language Law. According to the 2001 census, 164,510 Jews lived in Toronto, 88,765 in Montreal, 17,270 in Vancouver, 12,760 in Winnipeg, 11,325 in Ottawa, 6,530 in Calgary, 3,980 in Edmonton, and 3,855 in Hamilton.
The Jewish population is growing rather slowly due to aging and low birth rates. The population of Canadian Jews increased by just 3.5% between 1991 and 2001, despite much immigration from the Former Soviet Union, Israel and other countries. Recently, anti-Semitism has become a growing concern, with reports of anti-semitic incidents increasing sharply in recent years. This includes the well publicized anti-Semitic comments by David Ahenakew and Ernst Zündel. In 2009, the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism was established by all four major federal political parties to investigate and combat antisemitism, namely new antisemitism. However, anti-semitism is less of a concern in Canada than it is in most countries with significant Jewish populations. The League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith monitors the incidents and prepares an annual audit of these events.
Politically, the major Jewish Canadian organizations are the Centre for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) and the more conservative B'nai Brith Canada which both claim to be the voice of the Jewish community. The United Jewish People's Order, once the largest Jewish fraternal organization in Canada, is a left-leaning secular group established in 1927 with current chapters in Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Politically, UJPO opposes the Israeli Occupation and advocate for a two-state solution but focus primarily on Jewish cultural, educational and social justice issues. A smaller organization, Independent Jewish Voices (Canada), characterized as anti-Zionist, argues that the CIJA and B'nai B'rith do not speak for most Canadian Jews. Also, many Canadian Jews simply have no connections to any of these organizations.
Mainstream Jewish community views are expressed in "Canadian Jewish News", a moderate weekly. Western Canadian Jewish views are reflected in the Winnipeg-based weekly "The Jewish Post & News", as well as the "Winnipeg Jewish Review".
The birth rate for Jews in Canada is much higher than that in the United States, with a TFR of 1.91 according to the 2001 Census. This is due to the presence of large numbers of orthodox Jews in Canada.
According to the census, the Jewish birth rate and TFR is higher than that of the Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox (1.35), Buddhist (1.34), Non-Religious (1.41), and Sikhs (1.9). populations, but slightly lower than that of Hindus (2.05), and Muslims (2.01).
In the 21st century there was an increase of the scope of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada with number of cases of anti-Semitic vandalism and spraying Nazi symbols in August 2013 in Winnipeg and in the greater Toronto area.
On February 26, 2014, and for the first time in Canadian history, B'nai Brith Canada led an official delegation of Sephardi community leaders, activists, philanthropists and spiritual leaders from across the country visiting Parliament Hill and meeting with the prime minister, ambassadors and other dignitaries.
Since the beginning of the 21st century Jewish immigration to Canada has continued, increasing in numbers with the passing of the years. With the rise of antisemitic acts in France and weak economic conditions, most of the Jewish newcomers are French Jews who are mainly looking for new economic opportunities (either in Israel or elsewhere, with Canada being one of the top destinations chosen by French Jews to live in, particularly in Quebec). For the same reasons, and due to cultural and linguistic proximity, several members of the Belgian-Jewish community choose Canada as their new home. There are efforts by the Jewish community of Montreal to attract these immigrants and make them feel at home, not only from Belgium and France but from other parts of Europe and the world. There is also some immigration of Argentine Jews and from other parts of Latin America with Argentina being home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America and the third one in the Americas after the United States and Canada itself. However, the weight of French Jewish emigration must be balanced, as it represents between 2,000 and 3,000 people in total per year (Vs a community of ~500,000 people in France) and only a percentage of this couple of thousands go to Canada.
Also, there is a vibrant population of Israeli Jews who emigrate to Canada to study and work. The Israeli Canadian community is growing and it is one of the largest Israeli diaspora groups with an estimate of 30,000 people. A small proportion of Israeli Jews who come to Canada are Ethiopian Jews.
Demographics.
Jewish Canadians by province or territory.
Jewish Canadian population by province and territory in Canada in 2011 according to Statistics Canada and United Jewish Federations of Canada
Jewish culture in Canada.
Languages.
Hebrew.
Hebrew () is the liturgical and historical language of the Jews and Judaism and also the language of Jewish Israeli expatriates living in Canada.
Yiddish.
Yiddish () is the historical and cultural language of Ashkenazi Jews, who make up the majority of the Canadian Jewry and was widely spoken within the Canadian Jewish community up to the middle of the twentieth century.
Montreal had and to some extent still has one of the most thriving Yiddish communities in North America. Yiddish was Montreal's third language (after French and English) for the entire first half of the 20th century. "Der Kanader Adler" ("The Canadian Eagle", founded by Hirsch Wolofsky), Montreal's daily Yiddish newspaper, appeared from 1907 to 1988. The Monument National was the centre of Yiddish theatre from 1896 until the construction of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, inaugurated on September 24, 1967, where the established resident theatre, the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre, remains the only permanent Yiddish theatre in North America. The theatre group also tours Canada, US, Israel, and Europe. Bernard Spolsky, author of "The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History", stated that Yiddish "Yiddish was the dominant language of the Jewish community of Montreal". In 1931 99% of Montreal Jews stated that Yiddish was their mother language. In the 1930s there was a Yiddish language education system and a Yiddish newspaper in Montreal. In 1938, most Jewish households in Montreal primarily used English and often used French and Yiddish. 9% of the Jewish households only used French and 6% only used Yiddish.
Community press.
The Canadian Jewish News was, until April 2020, Canada's most widely-read Jewish community newspaper. It had suffered from financial shortfalls for years, which were exacerbated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in Canada on its finances. CJN president Elizabeth Wolfe stated that "The CJN suffered from a pre-existing condition and has been felled by COVID-19."
Shortly thereafter, two new Jewish community newspapers made their debuts, with the Canadian Jewish Record and TheJ.ca beginning publication in May 2020. These two papers seek to fill the void left by the CJN, but unlike the CJN, do not attempt as moderate or centrist an editorial stance. The Canadian Jewish Record's co-founder Bernie Farber has stated, "We’re trying to have a big tent … We already got into some hot water because we published a piece by Dr. Mira Sucharov. She’s a wonderful writer, she’s on the edge, people don’t like what she writes, but tough shit. People are allowed to have their opinions." Sucharov, who is widely regarded as left-leaning, is a professor of political science at Carleton University and has written extensively on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Farber has also emphasized that the Canadian Jewish Record is not an anti-Zionist outlet, but rather that the newspaper will periodically provide legitimate criticism of the State of Israel: "It’s not that we don’t support Israel … We run opinion. We’re not going to [say] you can only write good things about Israel or good things about the Jewish community. We want there to be some spark to it where people can say, no, I disagree with that … That’s the Jewish community, right? They are vibrant, they come from all over the place and we want to be able to reflect that." Farber describes himself as a Zionist and a progressive.
TheJ.ca, by contrast, has emphasized that its stance on the question of Israel is right-leaning, with staff journalist and co-founder Dave Gordon quoted as saying: “In terms of Israel, we’re not going to make it a secret: we’re very pro-Israel, very Zionistic … It’s a good read to say that we are centre-right." Ron East, a publisher of TheJ.ca, is on record as opposed to progressive Jewish activism, and believes that right-wing Zionist viewpoints are "[being] drowned out," thereby necessitating "a platform [theJ.ca] that would allow for those voices".
While attitudes around Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been a flashpoint in discussions of Canadian Jewish community media, the Canadian Jewish Record and TheJ.ca are also dedicated to covering issues of general interest to the Jewish community, including Canadian and Israeli politics, the arts, and Jewish cultural life.
Museums and monuments.
Canada has several s and monuments, which focus upon Jewish culture and Jewish history. They often seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given geographical area.
Socioeconomics.
Education.
There are about a dozen day schools in Toronto and Montreal, as well as a number of Yeshivot. In Toronto, around 40% of Jewish children attend Jewish elementary schools and 12% go to Jewish high schools. The figures for Montreal are higher: 60% and 30%, respectively. There are also a few Jewish day schools in the smaller communities. The national average for attendance at Jewish elementary schools (at least) is 55%.
The Jewish community in Canada is amongst the country's most educated groups. As a group, Canadian Jews tend to be better educated and earn more than most Canadians as a whole. Jews have attained high levels of education, increasingly work in higher class managerial and professional occupations and derive higher incomes than the general Canadian population.
Three in ten Jews held managerial and professional positions in 1991, compared to one in five Canadians. In Toronto, four out of ten doctors and dentists were Jewish in 1991 and, nationally, four times as many Jews completed graduate degrees as Canadians generally. The levels of educational attainment among Canadian Jews is dramatically higher than for the overall Canadian population. One out of every two Jews in Canada age fifteen and over was either enrolled in university or had completed a BA in 1991. This is in contrast to Canadians as a whole, among whom one in five was attending university or had completed an undergraduate degree. At the graduate level, these differential rates of education are even higher. About one in six Jews (16 per cent) had obtained an MA, M.D., or PhD in 1991. Among Canadians in general, only one in twenty-five (4 per cent) had attained comparable educational levels.
Higher rates of educational achievement are particularly pronounced with Canadian Jews in the thirty-five to forty-four age cohort. Nearly one in four Canadians was enrolled in university or had completed a bachelor's degree in 1991 but among Canadian Jews in this age range, two out of three had comparable levels of education.
According to Multicultural Canada, 43 percent of Jewish Canadians have a bachelor's degree or higher; the comparable figure for persons of British origin is 19 percent and compared with just 16 percent of the general Canadian population as a whole.
Jewish Canadians comprise one percent of the Canadian population, but make up a larger percentage of graduates of some of the most prestigious universities in Canada.
Employment.
Before the mass Jewish immigration of the 1880s, the Canadian Jewish community was relatively affluent compared to other ethnic groups in Canada, a distinguishable feature that still continues on to this day. Arguably, Canadian Jews have made a disproportionate contribution to the economic development of Canada throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the 18th and the 19th centuries, upper class Jews tended to be fur traders, merchants, and entrepreneurs. In addition, upper middle class white collar occupations also included bankers, lawyers, and doctors as there was an overwhelmingly definable British economic or corporate elite in Canada, Jews remained well represented.
Building a distinctive occupational profile and an affinity for entrepreneurship and business, Jews were heavily involved in the Canadian garment industry as it was the only business for which they had any training. Furthermore, cultural factors that made the industry somewhat lucrative as Jews could be certain that they would not have to work on the Sabbath or on major holidays if they had Jewish employers as opposed to non Jewish employers and were certain that they were also unlikely to encounter anti-Semitism from co-workers. Jews generally did not exhibit any loyalty and sympathy toward the working class through successive generations. Even within the working class, Canadian Jews tended to be concentrated in the ranks of highly skilled, as opposed to unskilled labor. By the end of World War II, Jews in Canada began to disperse in to the working class in large numbers and attained a disproportionate amount success in a variety of white collar jobs and are cited as opening many new business to help stimulate the Canadian economy.
Sol Encel and Leslie Stein, authors of "Continuity, Commitment, and Survival: Jewish communities in the diaspora" cite that Jews over the age of the 15 who are in University or completed a bachelor's degree is roughly 40% in Montreal, 50% in Toronto and 57% in Vancouver. Stein also cites that Canadian Jews are statistically over-represented in many fields such as medicine, law, finance careers such as banking and accounting, and human service occupations such as social work and academia.
The Winter 1986 - Winter 1987 Issue of Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship cited that despite Jews comprise roughly 1 percent of the Canadian population, they comprised 35% of all entrepreneurs in Quebec and 10% of all technical entrepreneurs in Canada. According to the 1986 census data, about 56 percent of Jewish males, compared to 43 percent among those of British origin, are in select white-collar occupations, such as managerial and administrative positions, the natural sciences, engineering, mathematics, the social sciences, education, medicine and health, the arts, and recreational occupations.
Economics.
By any criterion, Canadian Jews have achieved an amount of socioeconomic success that is generally higher compared to the rest of the Canadian population.
Immigrant Jewish males earn $7,000 a year above the Canadian average, higher than any other ethnic and religious group in Canada. Among females, 47 percent are in select white-collar occupations. Immigrant Jewish women earn $3,200 above the national average for women, also the highest for any ethnic group. In modern times, Jews can be numbered among the wealthiest Canadians as they comprise 4% of the Canadian upper class elite despite constituting 1% of the population. Canadian Jews have begun slowly to penetrate those economic sectors that have hitherto been closed to them, concurrently as they are building up wealth in family-owned firms and creating their own family foundations. Prominent Canadian Jewish families such as the Bronfmans, the Belzbergs, and the Reichmanns represent the summit of the extremely affluent segment of high class Jewish society in Canada. Sol Encel and Leslie Stein, authors of "Continuity, Commitment, and Survival: Jewish communities in the diaspora" write that 22% of Canadian Jews lived in households with an income over $100,000 CAD or more, which was equivalent to the percentage of households in the general population according to StatsCan but was 7.3% higher than Canadian national average according to a University of Alberta study. Professional occupations translate into higher incomes for Jews and 38% of Jewish families live in households with an annual income of $75,000 CAD or more.
Mark Avrum Ehrlich of "The Encyclopedia of the Jewish diaspora: origins, experiences, and culture" writes that as Jews find themselves in Canada's contemporary wealthy elite, as 20 percent of the wealthiest Canadians were listed as Jewish. In 2004, Nadav ʻAner, author of "The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute" cited that Canadian Jews are better educated and more financially off than the general population and have high political influences in the Canadian parliament. Jews are twice as likely as non-Jews to get a bachelor's degree and are three times as likely in the aged 25–34 cohort. This translates into a higher standard of living and they are financially better off than overall Canadian population. Canadian Jews are also three times as likely to earn over $75,000 compared to their non-Jewish counterparts.
The 2011 Forbes' list of billionaires in the world listed 24 Canadian billionaires. Among the billionaires listed, 6 out of the 24 or 25% of the Canadian billionaires listed are Jewish (25 times the percentage of Jews in the Canadian population). Sol Encel and Leslie Stein, authors of "Continuity, Commitment, and Survival: Jewish communities in the diaspora" cite 14% of the top 50 richest Canadians are Jewish (14 times the percentage) as have been 31% of Canada's thirty wealthiest families (31 times the percentage), and while constituting only 1.0 percent of the Canadian population, they comprise 8% of the top executives of Canada's most largest and profitable companies.
References.
Notes
Bibliography
Primary sources
Further reading


Islam in Hungary

Islam in Hungary has a long history that dates back to at least the 10th century. The influence of Sunni Islam was especially pronounced in the 16th century during the Ottoman period in Hungary. , the Muslim population in Hungary is approximately 5,000.
History.
Early history.
In the old form of the Hungarian language, Muslims were called "Böszörmény", cognates with "Turkish" Bozulmamış, which in turn descends from , "Muslim", a term preserved as both a family name, and as that of the town Hajdúböszörmény.
The first Islamic author to speak of this Muslim community was Yaqut al-Hamawi (575-626 AH/1179-1229 CE), he writes about a famous Hungarian student who studied in Aleppo, according to the student there were 30 Muslim villages in Hungary. Yaqut writes in his famous geographical dictionary, "Mu'ajam al-Buldan", about his meeting with a Hungarian Muslim youth in Syria who was studying Islam there and brought some details of the history and life of their people in Hungary. The Spaniard Muslim traveler Abu Hamid al Garnati wrote of two types of Muslims in Hungary, the first being the Böszörmény of the Carpathian Basin and Volga Bulgars (Khwarezmians).
In the 11th century, St. Ladislaus and later Coloman passed laws against the non-Christians (Synod of Szabolcs). These laws subdued Islam by coercing Muslims to eat pork, go to Church, intermarry, and to forbid them from celebrating Friday. Some of Coloman's laws include:
László (Saint Ladislaus) passed the following law:
These laws discriminated severely against the small minority and eventually led to the disappearance of the community and its professions altogether.
Turkish rule of central Hungary.
The Turks entered Hungary after the Battle of Mohács in 1526. From 1541, they started to control the central part directly and organized five eyalets: Budin, Kanije, Eğri, Varat (Oradea), and Temeşvar.
In the 16th century, during the Ottoman rule, numerous Muslim personalities were born in Hungary. Among them, the most important were the Ottoman Grand Vizier, Kanijeli Siyavuş Pasha (from Nagykanizsa) who held the function three times between 1582 and 1593, the Ottoman historian İbrahim Peçevi (Ibrahim of Pécs), and the famous Mevlevian dervish Pecsevi Árifi Ahmed Dede, also a Turk native of Pécs.
Most Islamic studies in Hungary were taught according to the Hanafi madhhab, or Hanafi school of thought, of Sunni Islam.
Turkish rule in the Hungarian lands ended definitively in 1699, with the signing of the Treaty of Karlowitz. The 150-year Ottoman period left behind a legacy of Turkish architecture such as mosques, türbes, and public baths (hamams), as well as changes in the local cuisine, such as the popularization of coffeehouses and the introduction of the paprika, an essential spice in Hungarian dishes.
Modern era.
In the 19th century, after the collapse of the revolution of 1848-9, more than 6,000 emigrated Poles and Hungarians followed General Józef Bem (Murat Paşa) into Turkish exile. Among them were such Hungarian officers such as Richard Guyon (Kurşid Paşa), György Kmety (Ismail Paşa) and Maximilian Stein (Ferhad Paşa). These personalities were afterwards raised to the post of General.
Guyon is described in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "the first Christian to obtain the rank of pasha and a Turkish military command without being obliged to change his religion", a sign of modernizing meritocracy under the 19th-century Ottomans.
The council of Újbuda has given permission for the Muslim community in Hungary to build the first Islamic centre in Budapest. The new Islamic centre will hold a library containing 50,000 volumes.
In 2013, the Hungarian Islamic Council requested for the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina Husein Kavazović to also become Grand Mufti of Hungary.
Religious law.
Hungary's new "Law on the Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion, and on Churches, Religions and Religious Communities" was enacted 12 July 2011 and recognizes only 14 religious groups. Islam is not included in this list and Muslims have to apply to get official recognition under the new law. Under the law, only 14 of 358 registered churches and religious associations will be granted legal recognition, while others will have to reapply for legal registration after two-thirds approval in parliament.
On 27 February 2012, Hungary's parliament amended the country's controversial law on religious organizations to expand the list of officially recognized the Hungarian Islamic Council.
Demographics.
According to the 2011 Hungarian census, there were 5,579 Muslims in Hungary, making up only about 0.057% of the total population. Of these, 4,097 (73.4%) declared themselves as Hungarian, while 2,369 (42.5%) as Arab by ethnicity. In Hungary people can declare more than one ethnicity (sum is greater than the whole), Data from 2011 does not show the Turkish population (which was 1,565 in the 2001 census). However, the majority of Muslims in Hungary are of Arab or Turkish origin. Moreover, there is also a growing number of ethnic Hungarian converts to Islam.
The actual number of Muslims in Hungary is likely to be above 5,579 Muslims, following an important influx of asylum seekers since 2014, as there arrived about 200,000 asylum seekers in Hungary, largely from the Muslim countries Afghanistan and Syria.


Harold Coward

Harold Coward (born 1936) is a Canadian scholar of bioethics and religious studies. A Bachelor in Divinity (Christian Theology), he earned a doctoral degree in Philosophy in 1973 from the McMaster University. He was a professor at University of Victoria and the University of Calgary. He is particularly known for his studies of Indian religions, as an editor of the "Encyclopedia of Hinduism", and has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada since 1991.
Coward is the author of many publications and has been profiled in "The Vancouver Sun".
Coward's works and publications have been discussed multiple times in popular media.
In 1994, "The Vancouver Sun" described Coward as "one of the world's leaders in creating a constructive religious response to the population crisis".
In 1997, Coward was described as "arguably the most dynamic religion scholar in Canada today".
Coward was the first director at the University of Calgary Press (1981–83).
Coward was director of the University of Victoria's Centre for Studies in Religion and Society.
Coward is a director at Genome British Columbia.
An honorary collection of essays has been dedicated to Coward.


Christianity in Bahrain

Christians in Bahrain make up about 14.5% of the population. Bahrain has had a native Christian community for many centuries, with the first recorded presence dating back to the 12th century. Expatriate Christians, however, make up the majority of Christians in Bahrain, while native Christian Bahrainis (who hold Bahraini citizenship) make up a much smaller community. Alees Samaan, the current Bahraini ambassador to the United Kingdom, is a native Christian.
Bahraini Christians.
Native Christians who hold Bahraini citizenship number approximately 1,000. The majority of Christians are originally from Iraq, Palestine and Jordan, with a small minority having lived in Bahrain for many centuries; the majority have been living as Bahraini citizens for less than a century. There are also smaller numbers of native Christians who originally hail from Lebanon, Syria, and India.
The majority of Christian Bahraini citizens tend to be Orthodox Christians, with the largest church by membership being the Eastern Orthodox Church. They enjoy many equal religious and social freedoms. Bahrain has Christian members in the Bahraini government. Bahrain is one of two GCC countries to have a native Christian population; the other country, Kuwait, also has Christian population but in smaller numbers, with less than 400 Christian Kuwaiti citizens.
Eastern Orthodox Christians in Bahrain traditionally belong to the jurisdiction of Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. Eastern Orthodox parish in Bahrain was organized in 2000 by late metropolitan Constantine Papastephanou of Baghdad and Kuwait (1969-2014), who also had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Eastern Orthodox in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Expatriate Christians.
Foreign citizens who live and work in Bahrain make up the majority of Christians in Bahrain. They include people from Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. They belong to various Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches.


Shia Islam in Yemen

Shia Islam in Yemen is practiced by an important minority of the population; estimates that Zaydi Muslims include about 35 percent of the population, Sunnis are 65 percent, and there are also tiny minorities of Muslims who are members of other Shia sects — the Ismaili and Twelver communities.
The Zaydis ruled Yemen for 1,000 years up until 1962. During this time they ferociously defended their independence and fought off foreign powers (Umayyads, Egypt, the Ottomans) who controlled lower Yemen and tried to extend their rule to the north. The Zaidi branch of Islam, also known as Fivers,is a sect of Islam almost exclusively present in Yemen.
Population.
Religion in Yemen consists primarily of two principal Islamic religious groups: 53% of the Muslim population is Sunni and over 45% is Zaidi Shia, according to the UNHCR. Others put the numbers of Shias at 30%. Sunnis primarily adhere to the Shafi'i school, and there are also significant followers of the Maliki and Hanbali schools. Shias are primarily Zaidi and also have significant minorities of Twelver and Ismaili Shias, on the whole Yemeni shia organize "over half of Yemen's 25 million people".
Zaidis are generally found in the north and northwest and Shafi'is in the south and southeast. There are also approximately 3,000 Christians and 400 Jews.
History.
According to historical narrations, Islamic identities in Yemen have been categorized into two main Islamic orientations: Shia Zaydism and Sunni Shafi‘i. Also, small groups of Shia Ismailis and some Jewish communities are seen in the country. The population density of Zaydis historically is placed in the north of Yemen, in Sa’dah, Amran, al-Jawf, Hajjah and Dhamar provinces, as well as Shafiism, is the dominant school of jurisprudence in lower Yemen the eastern part of the country and the Tihamah. However, it can not be said that Zaydies and shafei populations live in Separated regions. For instance, the Sa’dah region, is known as the residents of Zaydism but in some areas, notably al-Hishwah, al-Zahir, Shida and Ghamr, Sunnis make up a considerable part of the population.
The Zaydis belong to a sect of Shia Islam that their generation reaches to eponym Zayd ibn Ali, the great-grandson of Ali Shia first Imam and Zayd ibn Ali rebelled against Umayyad government in 740 CE after death of Husayn ibn Ali at Karbala. As the life of first Zaydi Imam in Yemen, Yahya b. al-Husayn (d.911), he made efforts to establish his rule over the tribes in the north of Yemen.
Houthi movement.
According to Charles Schmitz, a professor at Towson University, Houthi's origins reach to Al-Shabab al-Muminin (the Believing Youth), a group that carried out in the early 1990s. The Believing Youth concentrated on raising awareness to the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, which had ruled Yemen for centuries but after a North Yemen Civil War in the 1960s, they were restrained by the Yemeni government. The claim is supported that they are Yemen's Shia minority containing 35 percent of the country's Muslims.
Similar to Shia Muslims in matters of religious law and rulings, the Houthi belief in the concept of an Imamate as being essential to their religion makes them distinct from Sunnis.
The Houthi movement, which belongs to Yemen's Zaidi Shia Muslim community and fought a series of rebellions against Ali Abdullah Saleh during the last decade, took control of their northern heartland of Saada province and nearby areas.


National Church Life Survey

NCLS Research is an Australian organisation that surveys Australian community attitudes and runs studies on churches in Australia every 5 years called National Church Life Surveys. NCLS Research conducts surveys on community spirituality and well-being.
History.
Supporters.
Key supporters of the National Church Life Survey are:
Participating Denominations also support the NCLS, some by providing a regional survey coordinator.
Other research and mission organisations also partner with the NCLS, including Openbook and Christian Blind Mission International.
The 2001 NCLS was conducted in international partnership with organisations from Australia, England, New Zealand and the United States.
Aims.
NCLS research describe themselves as "an immense cooperative research venture designed to resource congregations for mission" that explores "aspects of both church and community life"
The purpose of the National Church Life Survey project is to:
Recent activities.
In January 2008, the "Sydney Morning Herald" reported research by the Christian Research Association and the NCLS into religious affiliation in rural areas. The article states that
The "Wellbeing and Security" Survey 2003 was conducted "in co-operation with Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia and ANGLICARE (Sydney)."
The National Church Life Survey 2001 was conducted in May 2001. The survey was completed by 435,000 church attendees from 7000+ Australian churches, across 19 denominations, representing 80%+ of Australian regular church-goers. NCLS Research claims that NCLS 2001 is "one of the largest surveys of its kind in the world".
The NCLS "First Look Report 2001" states:
In contrast, the AD2000 Journal article "National Church Life Survey: church-going declines further" summarises the research as follows:
Figures from the 2001 survey showed that Catholic mass attendance declined by an estimated 13% and overall weekly church attendance in Australia declined by 7%.
Initial results from the 2011 survey show that six out of 10 adult church members are female. Four out of 10 are younger than 50 years of age. They are well-educated – a third have university degrees compared to just under a quarter of all working-age Australians. The average age is 55 years, pointing to a long-term ageing trend. Individually, church members are much more likely to be volunteers in their communities than the average Australian. The survey found that Christians go to churches for community, with 75 per cent report a strong sense of belonging to their local church.


Yeunten Ling

Yeunten Ling is a Tibetan Buddhist institute in Huy in the province of Liège in Belgium. It is one of the largest Buddhist Dharma centres in Europe. The centre is part of the Tibetan Institute.
The name of the centre means the "Garden of Qualities" and was given by Kalu Rinpoche, a Rinpoche who founded several centres in Europe. The centre focuses on intensive courses and retreats.


Kukur Tihar

Kukur Tihar (English: Dog Festival, Nepali: कुकुर तिहार; Nepal Basha: Khichā Pujā) is an annual festival originating from Nepal which falls on the second day of the festival of Tihar (around October or November). On this day, people worship dogs to please Yama, the god of death, as they are considered to be his messengers. Dogs are decorated with tilaka and wear flower garlands around their necks. Worshippers offer them various foods including meat, milk, eggs, and dog food. It is considered a sin if someone acts disrespectfully to a dog on this day.
Kukur Tihar is also celebrated in Mexico and Australia. A charity event in Nepal raised about 300,000 Nepalese rupees (approximately US$2,540 in 2020) in 2017 and 2018, which was donated to Animal Nepal and Shree's Animal Rescue Nepal, respectively.
Background.
Tihar is a five-day-long Hindu festival originating from Nepal; it is the second-largest festival in the country, after Dashain. Kukur Tihar is celebrated on the second day of Tihar. During the festival of Tihar, many animals including cows and crows are also worshipped.
In the ancient Sanskrit epic "Mahabharata", the five Pandavas on their way to heaven are accompanied by a dog. The five Pandavas with their wife Draupadi and brothers climb the Himalayas; all of them except Yudhishthira and his dog perishing along the way. Then Yudhishthira meets Indra, King of the gods, who welcomes him to heaven but tells him he has to leave his dog behind. Yudhishthira refuses to enter heaven without his dog and says he will go back to earth. The dog disappears and it is replaced by Yama, the god of death; Indra is impressed by his actions and then his righteousness opens the gates of heaven for Yudhishthira.
In Hindu mythology, Yama has two dogs—Shyam and Sadal—who guard the door of hell. Nepali Hindus believe that by worshipping dogs they start to see death positively, because a dog follows them in their final journey. They hope that dogs will guard them against the torture in hell. Dogs are considered to be a messenger of Yama and to please him, dogs are worshipped.
According to ABC Science, dogs may have been first domesticated in Nepal and Mongolia.
Celebrations.
Tihar is celebrated around October or November every year. During the festival, dogs are worshipped, bathed, and decorated with tilaka, which is made from kumkuma or gulal powders with rice and yoghurt. Flower garlands are draped around their necks and they are offered food including meat, milk, eggs, and dog food. Police dogs and stray dogs are also honoured. Kukur Tihar also celebrates the relationship between dogs and humans. It is considered a sin if someone behaves disrespectfully to a dog on this day.
Reactions.
In 2005, Mobile Vet Clinic with Animal Nepal gave stray dogs rabies vaccine as well as health check-ups, biscuits, and chewable bones. It was the first time dogs were vaccinated in Lalitpur.
After the April 2015 Nepal earthquake, Animal Nepal used the occasion of the festival to promote awareness about dogs who became homeless. "The Kathmandu Post" reported that people were buying foreign breeds of dogs which left the local dogs in the streets.
Kukur Tihar spread around Mexico in 2016 to make people aware of respecting animals. Special Broadcasting Service reported that many Nepalis in Australia were also celebrating the festival. In 2008. Asian Art in London celebrated the festival by creating a dog walk charity event. Also in 2016, Kathmandu Metropolitan City with the help of Humane Society International and Jane Goodall Institute Nepal created a program to "humanely manage urban dog population". An educational assessment done by International Companion Animal Management Coalition found that dogs in the capital of Nepal were "generally healthy and accepted by the community".
In 2017, Andeep Acharya and others created a charity event to assist dogs which raised about 300,000 Nepalese rupees (approximately about US$2,540 in 2020); the funds were donated to the charity Animal Nepal in Chobhar. In 2018 nearly the same amount was raised and donated to Shree's Animal Rescue Nepal in Lalitpur.
In 2018, a dog named Kushal was named "The Best Dog of the Year" by the Nepal Police on the occasion of the festival after the dog helped discover the murderer of a 10-year-old girl.
After the Chinese Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, in which festival-goers eat dog meat and lychees, garnered international outrage, "One Green Planet" described Kukur Tihar as "[it] will restore your faith in humanity". People on social media contrasted the Chinese festival with Kukur Tihar and "The Dodo" reported that "[it gave] heartbroken dog lovers a reason to feel hopeful again". Kukur Tihar has gained popularity on Reddit. In a 2016 newspaper article, the President of Animal Nepal appealed to Nepalis "to take a pledge this Kukur Tihar, to not just worship your pets on this day but to do the right thing for them all year round. Unchain and uncage your dogs, learn to interact with them, take them for walks, understand their feelings, ..." A 2007 BBC photo essay also pointed out the need to improve the treatment of Nepali dogs which, "during the rest of the year, are not generally well treated..."


Pir of Pagaro VIII

Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi III (, ), also known as Raja Saein, Pir Pagaro the eighth, (born 14 February 1956) is a Pakistani politician who has served as a member of Provincial Assembly of Sindh. He is the eldest son of 7th Pir Pagaro Syed Shah Mardan Shah-II who died on 10 January 2012. He is 8th Pir Pagaro since January 12, 2012. He is currently the President of the Pakistan Muslim League (F) and the leader of the Grand Democratic Alliance which was formed on October 23, 2017.
Political career.
He was the Chairman of the District Council of Khairpur in 1983. He has been elected three times to the Sindh Assembly and has been a Provincial Minister. He became the President of the Pakistan Muslim League (F) after the death of his father Syed Shah Mardan Shah-II in 2012. Before the general election 2013 he participated in forming the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) with other political parties in Sindh. He announced a manifesto to provide Education Health and Justice to the people.
See also.

References.
Syed Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi becomes 8th Pir Pagara


Front of Shamyl

The Imam Shamil Front is a militant organization in Dagestan led by Gadzhi Makhachev which supports the cause of the Avar ethnic group, competing with the interest of Kumyk movements. The larger Avar movement had split into the Shamyl front and the Union of Avar Jamaat.


Mario Javier Saban

Mario Javier Sabán (Buenos Aires, 1966), is an Argentinian theologian of Sephardi origin.
Early life.
Mario Javier Sabán was born on 12 February 1966. He has a B.L. by University of Buenos Aires.
Career.
Sabán began his historical investigations about the Jewish origins of the Argentina's traditional families in 1987. His first work, "Converted Jews" (1990), became a best-seller. In 2002, he migrated to Spain, where he published his book "The Judaism of Saint Paul" (2003).
On June 2007 he founded the organization Tarbut Sefarad, over which he presides. In March 2008 he obtained a doctorate in Philosophy from the Complutense University of Madrid. In June of the same year he published his doctoral thesis entitled "Rambam, the genius of Moses Maimonides", based on his deep study of the "Guide for the Perplexed". In September 2008 he published his eleventh work, "The Judaism of Jesus", which is an extensive work dedicated to the teachings of Jesus and their natural relation with Judaism.
None of Saban's books have been translated into English. Although one is advertised for sale with the title ″The Jewish Roots of Christianity,″ it is actually in Spanish.


Bernard du Bec

Bernard du Bec (died May 8, 1149), also known as "Bernard le Vénérable," was a Benedictine monk who served as the thirteenth abbot of Mont Saint-Michel. He belonged to a high-ranking noble family in Normandy.
References.
French Wikipedia article of same name (see link in navigation bar to left)


Islam in Cambodia

Islam is the religion of a majority of the Cham (also called Khmer Islam) and Malay minorities in Cambodia. According to Po Dharma, there were 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims in Cambodia as late as 1975. Persecution under the Khmer Rouge eroded their numbers, however, and by the late 1980s they probably had not regained their former strength. In 2009, the Pew Research Center estimated that 1.6% of the population, or 236,000 people were Muslims. Like other Muslim Cham people, those in Cambodia are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i denomination and following the Maturidi doctrine. Po Dharma divides the Muslim Cham in Cambodia into a traditionalist branch and an orthodox branch. (see Islam in Vietnam)
Background of Early Islam.
The Chams originated from the Kingdom of Champa. After Vietnam invaded and conquered Champa, Cambodia granted refuge to Cham Muslims escaping from Vietnamese conquest.
According to some accounts the Chams first contact with Islam was with one of the fathers-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, who is Jahsh, the father of Zaynab bint Jahsh. It was in the wake of many Sahabas who arrived in Indo-China in 617-18 from Abyssinia by sea route.
Community life.
The Cham have their own mosques. In 1962 there were about 100 mosques in the country. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Muslims in Cambodia formed a unified community under the authority of four religious dignitaries—mupti, tuk kalih, raja kalik, and tvan pake. A council of notables in Cham villages consisted of one hakem and several katip, bilal, and labi. The four high dignitaries and the hakem were exempt from personal taxes, and they were invited to take part in major national ceremonies at the royal court. When Cambodia became independent, the Islamic community was placed under the control of a five-member council that represented the community in official functions and in contacts with other Islamic communities. Each Muslim community has a hakem who leads the community and the mosque, an imam who leads the prayers, and a bilal who calls the faithful to the daily prayers. The peninsula of Chrouy Changvar near Phnom Penh is considered the spiritual center of the Cham, and several high Muslim officials reside there. Each year some of the Cham go to study the Qur'an at Kelantan in Malaysia, and some go on to study in, or make a pilgrimage to, Mecca. According to figures from the late 1950s, about 7 percent of the Cham had completed the pilgrimage and could wear the fez or turban as a sign of their accomplishment.
The traditional Cham retain many ancient Muslim or pre-Muslim traditions and rites. They consider Allah as the all-powerful God, but they also recognize other non-Islamic practices. They are closer, in many respects, to the Cham of coastal Vietnam than they are to other Muslims. The religious dignitaries of the traditional Cham (and of the Cham in Vietnam) dress completely in white, and they shave their heads and faces. These Cham believe in the power of magic and sorcery, and they attach great importance to magical practices in order to avoid sickness or slow or violent death. They believe in many supernatural powers. Although they show little interest in the pilgrimage to Mecca and in the five daily prayers, the traditional Cham do celebrate many Muslim festivals and rituals.
The orthodox Cham have adopted a more conformist religion largely because of their close contacts with, and intermarriages with, the Malay community. In fact, the orthodox Cham have adopted Malay customs and family organization, and many speak the Malay language. They send pilgrims to Mecca, and they attend international Islamic conferences. Conflicts between the traditional and the orthodox Cham increased between 1954 and 1975. For example, the two groups polarized the population of one village, and each group eventually had its own mosque and separate religious organization.
Persecution.
Persecution of the Cham in Cambodia took place mainly during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. The Khmer Rouge gained had control over the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) after defeating the Khmer Republic forces in 1975. Under its leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge – formally known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) – set to redefine the policies of the Democratic Kampuchea through its agrarian and inward-looking economic-political outlook. This resulted in the massive relocation of the masses from urban areas to the countryside where they were forced to work in the fields every day with little food and rest. On top of that, the Khmer Rouge regime began to systematically dismantle the socioeconomic structures of the people and screen them based on their political, religious, and ethnic backgrounds in order to maintain socio-political order based on Pol Pot’s communist ideals. Buddhism, which was then the dominant faith group in Cambodian society, was repressed; the monks were made to be defrocked and sent to work in the fields. Scholars and historians have differed in the definite number of victims, but have estimated that nearly one-third of the Cambodian population than were estimated to have been killed by the regime or died out of starvation and disease - bringing the total number to be between the ranges of 1.05 million to 2.2 million lives. The Cham were also not spared from persecution, torture, and death under the hands of the regime.
David Chandler opined that, although ethnic minorities fell victim to the Khmer Rouge regime, they were not targeted specifically because of their ethnic backgrounds, but rather because they were mostly enemies of the revolution (Kiernan, 2002:252; see also the footnote on Chandler’s "The Tragedy of Cambodian History", pp. 4, 263-65, 285). Furthermore, Chandler also rejects the use of the terms “chauvinism” and “genocide” just to avoid drawing possible parallels to Hitler. This indicates that Chandler does not believe in the argument of charging the Khmer Rouge regime with the crime of genocide. Similarly, Michael Vickery holds a similar position to Chandler’s, and refuses to acknowledge the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime as genocide; Vickery regarded the Khmer Rouge a “chauvinist” regime, due to its anti-Vietnam and anti-religion policies (Kiernan, 2002:252; see Vickery’s "Cambodia 1975-1982", pp. 181–82, 255, 258, 264-65). Stephen Heder also conceded that the Khmer Rouge were not guilty of genocide, stating that the atrocities of the regime were not motivated by race (Kiernan, 2002:252; see Heder’s "From Pol Pot to Pen Sovan to the Villages", p. 1).
Ben Kiernan makes the argument that it was indeed genocide and disagrees with the three scholars, by bringing forth examples from the history of the Cham people in Cambodia, as did an international tribunal finding Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty 92 and 87 counts of said crime respectively
Today.
Islam is an officially recognised religion in the country. Muslims practice their religion normally and out in the open. This commenced in the People Republic of Kampuchea era where religions were restored and allowed to be practiced again. The Chams also enjoy democratic rights like all Khmer citizens, with the right to vote and be elected as politicians. The government also sponsors annual "iftar" gatherings during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan. In 2018, the leader of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called Cambodia a ‘beacon for Muslim coexistence.’


Alfathi

Alfathi (lit. "New Possibilities") is a brand name used by Nortura on its halal meat distributed in Norway. The meat is approved by the Islamic Council Norway. There has traditionally been a disharmony between the Norwegian food traditions and availability of halal meat, the latter often only being provided for Middle Eastern cuisine. Alfathi was created by Gilde Norsk Kjøtt in 2001 to produce typical Norwegian foods which could meet the strict slaughter restrictions within Islam. Among the products available are pizza, hamburger, meat slices and wieners. Products are of course not made from prohibited species, such as pigs and carnivores.
The halal slaughter procedure used by Nortura meets all requirements both set by the Qur'an and the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. This includes such requirements as that the slaughterer must be a Muslim, that the animal's head must face the Qibla, and the animal is blessed at the time of slaughter. Norwegian law requires that the animal is stunned before slaughter. This does not break halal rules, but is not the traditional method used by Muslims. The time between the stunning of the animal and the slaughter is about 20 seconds. The killing of the animal is done by cutting the two main arteries in the neck and immediately draining the animal of blood. After slaughter, the halal meat has a separate value chain until distribution.
Controversy.
In July 2007 a number of Islamic groups encouraged a boycott of the chicken halal brands in Norway, since about 10% of chickens died after stunning but without being bled. The halal rules state that the animal must be alive when its throat is cut to be slaughtered properly, so animals that died when stunned are not halal.


Eshin Nishimura

Eshin Nishimura (西村 惠信; born 1933) is a Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhist priest, the former president of Hanazono University in Kyoto, Japan, and also a major modern scholar in the Kyoto School of thought. A current professor of the Department of Buddhism at Hanazono University, he has lectured at universities throughout the world on the subject of Zen Buddhism. The author of many books, most written in the Japanese language, Nishimura has been a participant in many dialogues on the relationship of Zen to Christianity and Western philosophy.
Biography.
Eshin Nishimura was born the youngest child of six siblings to a family of Rinzai practitioners. According to his own account, "Blessed with a profound karmic relationship with the Buddha, I entered the priesthood at age two and left my parents to live in a Zen temple as a priestling." Nishimura graduated from Hanazono University from their Department of Buddhist Studies in 1956. In 1969 he came to Oberlin College to give talks on Zen, and in 1970 and 1971 he taught a course for ten weeks on Zen at Carleton College and another course at Carleton on Keiji Nishitani's "Religion and Nothingness" in 1989.


Gunnar Rosendal

Gunnar Rosendal (4 April 1897, Grevie parish – 26 December 1988, Kristianstad) was a Swedish Lutheran priest, Doctor of Theology, and parish priest of Osby. Through his books promoting High Church Lutheran theology and spirituality, especially "Kyrklig förnyelse" (1935), he became a leading and disputed figure of the Catholic movement in the Church of Sweden.
Early life.
Rosendal was born in Grevie, Skåne, the son of Andreas and Teolinda Rosendal. His mother died early and his father moved to the United States so he and his sister were raised by an aunt. After graduating from Lunds Privata Elementarskola he began his theological studies at Lund University in 1918. He was ordained on 25 May 1922 by bishop Gottfrid Billing and moved to Väsby to begin his work as a priest.
International contacts.
Rosendal had many contacts to the liturgical movement in the Roman Catholic church, especially in Benedictine monasteries, and knew personally many theologians of the liturgical and ecumenical movement, such as Pius Parsch and Paul Couturier. He also had plenty of contacts with Anglo-Catholicism in the Church of England, e.g. to Dom Gregory Dix, and was member of Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius. Rosendal often liked to show himself as catholic as possible, but he was also rooted in the theology of 17th century Lutheran orthodoxy, which he knew well. By the recommendation of Bo Giertz he started to read books of Carl Olof Rosenius, which made a lasting impression. Rosendal himself used the neo-thomistic paradigm and resisted all kinds of liberal theology as well as the dialectical theology of Karl Barth. Rosendal was one of the theologians that worked for the foundation of the International League for Apostolic Faith and Order (ILAFO).
Legacy.
In Sweden his influence can be seen in the foundation of the high church organization "arbetsgemenskapen Kyrklig Förnyelse" (aKF), which was inspired by his book, "Kyrklig förnyelse".


Tou Mu Kung Temple

The Tou Mu Kung Temple is a Taoist temple situated on Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore. Worshipping the Empress Registrar of Birth or Doumu (斗母) and Nine Emperor (九皇大帝) Deities, the temple has both Taoist and Buddhist influences.
There are other temples dedicated to Tou Mu (Dou Mu) in many parts of China (e.g. on Mount Tai).
History.
The temple was built in 1921 by Ong Choo Wee. It caters to the Teochew community, and was one of two remaining temples in Singapore with a permanent wayang (Chinese opera) stage until 1998. For eight decades, Chinese opera was performed there during religious and other festivals.
The temple was gazetted as a national monument, which was deemed to be of special historic and traditional value on 14 January 2005.
Architecture.
The temple has a symmetrical floor plan with a central air-well. Behind the main hall is a two-storey pagoda. Single-storey quarters for the keepers of the temple are located at the rear of the temple.
The roof of the temple is decorated with dancing dragons. There is also a ridge decoration in the main temple hall. The centre of the ridge has a blazing pearl. Dragons and dragon fish are used to terminate the ridges. Hips are terminated by spirals. The roof trusses are typically Chinese, decorated with carvings and simple brackets. The main doors are painted with pictures of the Door Gods. Its colour scheme of light blue and brown is rather subdued when compared to other temples.
The main altar is dedicated to the main deity (Nine Emperor). To the left of the main altar is an altar to "Dou Mu" (Tou Mu), and to the right, Guan Yin. An inscription on a wall plaque above the main entrance shows the names of benefactors and the date of construction of the temple.


Religion in Greenland

The majority of the Greenlandic population is Christian and associates with the Church of Denmark via the Church of Greenland, which is Protestant in classification and Lutheran in orientation. The Church of Denmark is the established church through the Constitution of Denmark; this applies to all of the Kingdom of Denmark, except for the Faroe Islands, as the Church of the Faroe Islands became independent in 2007. But traditional Inuit spiritual beliefs remain strong in many of Greenland's remote communities.
Christianity.
Lutheranism, mostly represented by the Church of Denmark, is the predominant religious category within Christianity, followed by small communities of Baptists, Mormons, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists.
History.
Christianity was first brought to Greenland in 1000 by Norse settlers. It is not certain what happened to the Norse but they eventually disappeared, likely because of an increasingly harsh climate, decline in trade with mainland Europe, and possibly conflicts with native tribes.
By the 18th century, the Norse returned. When Norway and Denmark separated in 1814, Greenland remained Danish, though with a certain degree of autonomy necessitated by its remoteness. Today, the Church of Denmark is still the predominant religious preference in the country, but with a degree of autonomy, including its own bishop, 19 parishes divided among 3 deaneries, 40 churches or chapels, and 25 vicars or priests.
Lutheranism.
The Church of Greenland, consisting of the Diocese of Greenland is the official Lutheran church in Greenland under the leadership of the Bishop of Greenland, currently being Sofie Petersen. The Church of Greenland is semi-independent from the Church of Denmark, however, it is still considered a diocese of the Church of Denmark. Historically (before the Reformation) the Diocese of Greenland was known as the Diocese of Garðar. This ancient diocese fell into disuse in the 14th century with the death of Bishop Álfurin 1377. Nonetheless, bishops were still appointed up until 1537, though none of these ever made it to Greenland. From 1905 to 1923 Greenland was part of the now derelict Diocese of Zealand. From 1923 to 1993 it was part of the Diocese of Copenhagen. In 1980 a bishop was appointed for Greenland on behalf of the Bishop of Copenhagen. The Diocese was only re-established in 1993 when it was renamed as the Diocese of Greenland, independent from the Diocese of Copenhagen. The Church of Greenland, in common with other institutions within the territory, is governed from Denmark, but with a large measure of autonomy. The Church of Greenland consists of a single diocese, which is part of the Danish church but is moving towards full independence. In this respect, it is following the example of the Church of the Faroe Islands, which is also a single diocese and achieved full independence from the Church of Denmark in July 2007. On June 21, 2009, the Church of Greenland was taken over by the local government of Greenland, where both funding and legislation now falls under the government of Greenland as opposed to other dioceses in the Church of Denmark who fall under the authority of the Danish parliament. Nonetheless, the Church of Greenland is still a diocese of the Church of Denmark. In common with other evangelical episcopal Lutheran churches, the Church of Greenland recognises the historic three-fold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons; it acknowledges the two dominical sacraments of baptism and the eucharist; it provides liturgies for other rites including confirmation, marriage, ordination, confession, and burial; its faith is based on scripture, the ancient creeds of the Church, and the Augsburg Confession. It is in full communion with the other Lutheran churches of the Nordic and Baltic states and with the Anglican churches of the British Isles. The clergy, who work with local parish councils, but are ordained and supervised by the bishop, work in a network of seventeen parishes, with churches and chapels across Greenland. Four senior priests hold the title of 'Dean' - one as Dean of the cathedral church, and three as Area Deans for the three deaneries, an administrative structure between the level of the diocese and that of the local parishes.
Catholic Church in Greenland.
The Catholic Church in Greenland is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. There are very few Catholics in this overwhelmingly Protestant territory. There are 50 registered Catholics and only approximately 4 native Greenlander Catholics out of a population of 57,000. They are part of the only Catholic parish in Greenland, in Nuuk, Greenland's capital. The whole island is under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Copenhagen, Denmark. Catholicism was introduced to Greenland in the 11th century with the help of the King of Norway, establishing the first churches in the western hemisphere, and after much effort, the people of Greenland received a bishop. The church thrived with the Norse colony which saw its peak in the 14th century, and had an active relationship with Scandinavia and the European continent; the church also participated in the European exploration of the Americas. The abandonment of the colony around 1450 ended any church presence in Greenland and the Protestant Reformation in Denmark effectively shut Greenland from any Catholic presence until the 20th century, when freedom of religion was declared and a small permanent Catholic presence reestablished. Greenland was part of the "Apostolic Prefecture of the Arctic Pole" based in Norway from 1855 to 1868. Since that time, Greenland has been part of the Danish Catholic Church hierarchy, first the Apostolic Prefecture of Copenhagen, which was raised to a Vicariate Apostolic, and later a full Catholic Diocese. The territory was under the jurisdiction of the Vicar Apostolic of Copenhagen in the early 20th century. Catholic priests have been visiting Greenland since 1930, after the bishop of Copenhagen, Benedictine Theodore Suhr, received permission from the Vatican to ask permission of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to missionize there. Catholic priests have also served with the United States military as chaplains in the 20th century. State-enforced Lutheranism was kept in place until 1953 when religious liberty was declared. In the summer of 1980, the Little Sisters of Jesus established a fraternity in Nuuk with three sisters. Denmark has requested UNESCO to acknowledge the ruins of the episcopal residence at Gardar as part of a World Heritage Site. In 2007, a global environmental summit was held in Nuuk at their Catholic church, which was attended by Catholic, Orthodox and United Nations officials, with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI.
Islam.
As of 2013, the only known Muslim living in Greenland is Lebanese citizen Wassam Azaqeer, who lives in Nuuk, where he runs a restaurant.
Inuit spiritual beliefs.
Ethnographically 80% of the population is divided between the Inuit population and population mixed with Inuit and Danish. It is said that the Inuit population is descended from Siberians who crossed from Asia to North America on that island. Although less than 1% of the residents practice Inuit spiritual beliefs, the presence of shamanism is widespread.