Honorary Protestants: The Jewish School Question in Montreal, 1867-1997

‘With the appearance of Fraser’s Honorary Protestants, I can refer to a full legal history of the topic that is exhaustive in its attention to detail. The book is extensively researched and forcefully argued.’

Roderick MacLeod, Canadian Jewish Studies vol 24:2016

‘Honorary Protestants is an impeccably researched history of the tensions, contexts, and meanings of the struggles to delineate how, in what manner, and with which accommodations Jewish children were schooled in the Montreal public school system.’

David S. Koffman, University of Toronto Quarterly vol 86:03:2017

"Honorary Protestants is a valuable new contribution to educational history that should appeal to all historians in Canada interested in understanding the intricate links between law, policy, and the social realities of public schooling. Fraser’s study is a welcome addition to educational history, and has set new standards for research into the legal underpinnings of mass schooling. It will serve students and senior scholars well in the years to come."

Anthony Di Mascio, Bishop's University, History of Intellectual Culture, vol 11 1

“The story of the ‘Jewish School Question’ has never before been told in such compelling detail, nor within the context of a learned discussion of ‘rights,’ ‘citizenship,’ and ‘identity.’ ‘Honorary Protestants’ constitutes an exceedingly important contribution to the history of Canadian education, the social politics of the Montreal Jewish community, and the relationships between the Jewish, Protestant, and Roman Catholic constituencies in the province of Quebec.”

Gerald Tulchinsky, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Queen's University

“‘Honorary Protestants’ presents an important corrective to the twentieth-century focus of much of the history of civil liberties in Quebec and Canada. As David Fraser demonstrates, fundamental rights and liberties were being debated already in the nineteenth century, long before conscription crises, the Red Scares, and Duplessis’s guerre sans merci of the 1930s and 1940s.”

Eric H. Reiter, Department of History, Concordia University