A Kabbalist in Montreal - by Ira Robinson (Paperback)

About the Book

This biography of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg highlights Orthodoxy as an agent of Jewish modernity. Examining his literary output nuances the line between Jewish "secular" and "traditional" literature. His kabbalistic works shed light on the revival of kabbala in the twentieth century.

Book Synopsis

This biography of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg highlights Orthodoxy as an agent of Jewish modernity. Examining his literary output nuances the line between Jewish "secular" and "traditional" literature. His kabbalistic works shed light on the revival of kabbala in the twentieth century.

Review Quotes

"Ira Robinson's new biography paints a rich and extensively researched portrait of Yudel Rosenberg, the deeply learned but highly eccentric chief rabbi of Montreal, who moonlighted as a faith healer, magical amulet salesman, oracle, halakhic innovator, Hasidic storyteller, and the most aggressively enterprising kosher chicken slaughterhouse supervisor in Canadian Jewish history. ... The book's biographical narrative is followed by insightful chapters focusing respectively on Rosenberg's unique approach to rabbinical jurisprudence and inimitable skills as a storyteller, preacher, healer, and kabbalist."

- Allan Nadler, Jewish Review of Books

"[T]he ears of our hearts and minds should be inspired anew by this remarkable book by scholar Ira Robinson... Robinson's scholarship allows readers to encounter not only the urgent issues faced by Orthodox Judaism in the modern era by relating the life and times of Yudel Rosenberg but by way of a thorough scholarly analysis of Rosenberg's rabbinic activities, readers will be surprised by a singular portrait of Jewish Orthodoxy that serves as both agent and opposer of modernity. ... Robinson's thorough scholarship enables readers to appreciate why Yudel Rosenberg's peripatetic rabbinic career in Canada stands in relief as a remarkable counterpoint to the clichéeacute; that the mystical pietism of Hasidism really had no influence upon the development of (North) American Judaism at the turn of the twentieth century. With his inimitable nuance and scholarly humility and acumen, Robinson makes the case of a lasting influence and legacy found in archives researched from Savannah, Georgia to Jerusalem back to the Jewish Public Library of Montreal."

- Aubrey L. Glazer, Religious Studies Review 47, no. 3 (September 2021)

"While Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg may not be a household name, his literary creations are. The famous legends of the Maharal of Prague and the golem come from his Sefer Nifla'ot Maharal mi-Prag im ha-Golem, a great work of either folklore, literature, or forgery, depending on one's perspective. But if one approaches this biography expecting the legendary golem to be the focus, they have so much more in store for them... [Rosenberg's] wide-ranging interests and concerns make his biography a nexus of the issues surrounding North American Orthodox Judaism in the 20th century. Highly recommended."

--Daniel Scheide, Florida Atlantic University, AJL Reviews (September / October 2021)

"[A Kabbalist in Montreal is one biography that offers] important contributions to our understanding of the rabbinic experience in North America while simultaneously teaching ... readers about the exhilarating successes and the sobering challenges of rabbinic leadership. Historian Ira Robinson's biography of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1860-1935) represents an important contribution to the field... Explaining how some of the most unmodern Orthodox men, knowingly or not, participated in Jewish modernity is probably Robinson's most important insight. Certainly, Rosenberg would not have described himself as "Modern Orthodox," if the term had been coined (as it is used today) during his lifetime. Yet, Rosenberg's intellectual activities, Robinson argues, are especially "modern"... The [volume] is a fine work of transatlantic history, exploring the intellectual and cultural forces that Rosenberg encountered during his sinuous rabbinical career."

--Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff, President of Gratz College, Tradition

"After decades of meticulous archival research, Professor Ira R

About the Author

Ira Robinson is Chair in Quebec and Canadian Jewish Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, where has taught since 1979. He has written, edited, and translated seventeen books, including Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, which won the Kenneth Smilen Award for Judaica non-fiction; Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century, which won a Toronto Jewish Book Award; Moses Cordovero's Introduction to Kabbala: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne'erav; Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930, which won a J.I. Segal Prize; A History of Antisemitism in Canada; History, Memory, and Jewish Identity, and, most recently, Les Juifs Hassidiques de Montréal (2019). He is president of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, and past president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. He is the 2013 winner of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.