Welcome back to the Deep Dive. So I want to start
today by asking you to put yourself in a very
specific and honestly somewhat uncomfortable
scenario. Okay, I'm ready. Imagine it's 1950.
You are a parent living in Montreal. You're a
law -abiding citizen. You, you know, pay your
property taxes on time and you send your kids
to the local public school right down the street.
Sounds pretty normal so far. Right. Everything
looks totally normal on the surface. But every
single morning when your child actually walks
through those school doors, the government -like,
the legal system itself, classifies them as something
they are fundamentally undeniably not. It sounds
like a clerical error, doesn't it? Like someone
in the basement of City Hall just checked the
wrong box on a form and nobody noticed? Exactly.
But imagine it's not an error. Imagine it is
the actual law. Imagine the entire educational
infrastructure of your city has decided that
because your child is Jewish, they must, just
for the purposes of learning math and geography,
be a Protestant. Wow. Not just like a Protestant.
But legally classified as one. That is the bizarre
and frankly fascinating reality we are unpacking
today. We're looking at a book titled Honorary
Protestants, the Jewish school question in Montreal,
1867 to 1997. And that's by David Frazier. Yes.
Written by David Frazier and published by the
University of Toronto Press. And just to be completely
clear. For everyone listening, we aren't just
looking at the history here. We're looking at
the fight over that history. Which is always
where things get interesting. Oh, absolutely.
We've got the book itself, which is this massive
deep dive into the legal archives. But we also
have a stack of academic reviews that are...
Well, let's just say they really don't all agree
on whether Fraser actually get a good job. Which
is often where the best insights come from, honestly.
When scholars start arguing, you know you've
hit a nerve. It usually means the topic is just
complex enough that there isn't one single right
way to look at it. So our mission today is to
figure out how a community navigates a system
that literally wasn't built for them. We're talking
about legal fictions, these honorary identities,
and the huge difference between just getting
into a school building and actually having a
say in how that school is run. It's a classic
case of square pegs and round holes, but happening
on a constitutional level. And it went on for
over a century. 130 years. Let's start with the
architect of this deep dive, the author David
Frazier. Usually when we cover history books
on this show, the author is, you know, a historian.
Right. But that is not the case here, is it?
No, and that distinction is absolutely vital
for understanding this whole book. If you miss
this, you miss the entire point of the academic
debate we're going to talk about later. David
Frazier is a professor at the University of Nottingham,
but his background is in law and social theory.
Law and social theory. I mean, that sounds impressive,
but can we break that down a bit? What does that
lens actually change about how he tells a story
compared to a standard historian? Well, a traditional
social historian might focus a lot on the narrative
arc. They'd look for personal diaries, the emotional
highs and lows of the families, the texture of
daily life. You know, they want to put you right
in the shoes of the people. The ground level
view. Exactly. But a scholar of law and social
theory like Frazier, he's looking at the mechanisms.
The machinery of it all. Yes, the machinery.
He's interested in how statutes, court rulings,
and bureaucratic classifications actually construct
our reality. He's looking at how the law creates
categories, like the category of Protestant,
and what happens when the real world doesn't
neatly fit into those categories. Okay, so it's
like he's looking at the blueprints of the house,
not necessarily the family dinner happening inside
the dining room. That is a perfect analogy. He
is analyzing the structure that contained these
people. And speaking of structure, we really
need to set the stage for Montreal between 1867
and 1997, because I think most people, when they
think of Montreal, schools today, they instantly
think about language. Right. French schools versus
English schools. That's the big political divide
everyone knows about. Exactly. That's the modern
dynamic, especially since the 1970s. But for
the vast majority of the 130 years Fraser is
covering, the primary divide in Montreal wasn't
language at all. It was religion. You had a dual
confessional system. Confessional meaning? Meaning
based on religious confession or faith. The school
districts were literally drawn along religious
lines. You had a Catholic school board and you
had a Protestant school board. Those were your
two options. It was a binary system permanently
enshrined in the law of Quebec. OK, but life
isn't binary. especially in a major port city
like Montreal, which has always been incredibly
diverse. Precisely. And that right there is the
honorary dilemma. If you were Catholic, great,
you go to the Catholic board schools. If you
were Protestant, you go to the Protestant board
schools. But if you were Jewish, where do you
go? The law literally didn't have a box for option
C. So they just, did they pick one or were they
forced into one? Essentially, yes. Fraser explains
that by custom, and that word is really important
here, custom. Jewish students attended the Protestant
schools. Even though they obviously weren't Protestant.
Exactly. They had different holidays, different
traditions, totally different beliefs. But the
state had an obligation to educate them. And
the Protestant system was sort of the least worst
fit, or perhaps just the one that was more open
to taking them in at the time. So for administrative
purposes, they were treated as Protestants. Hence
the title of the book, Honorary Protestants.
Right. Though, and this is a really interesting
detail that will come up later, Fraser notes
that the phrase itself actually comes from an
earlier work. It's from a book called A Meeting
of Man, it feels incredibly dismissive when you
say it like that. It's almost like the government
saying, we don't know what you are, and we honestly
don't care enough to make a new category for
you, so we'll just call you this because it makes
our paperwork easier. It is dismissive. It completely
erases identity. But what Frazier's deep dive
shows, and remember, this is 14 chapters of extremely
detailed analysis, is that the Jewish community
didn't just sit back and accept this label passively.
They didn't just say, OK, sure, we're Protestants
now. Far from it. They actively negotiated the
K through 12 environment. When you say negotiated,
what does that actually look like on the ground?
Are we talking about parents arguing with principals
about homework or is it something bigger than
that? Much, much bigger. We are talking about
a massive structural struggle for rights. And
this is where we have to make a really clear
distinction between simply attending a school
and actually participating in the school system.
Break that down for me. What's the difference?
OK, so the Jewish students were allowed in the
building. They could sit at the desks. They could
learn the curriculum. That is attendance. But
think about how a public school system is actually
run. Who hires the teachers? Who sets the curriculum?
Who decides which holidays are observed? Who
decides where the tax money goes? That would
be the school board, the trustees. Exactly. And
for a huge chunk of this history, the Jewish
community, despite paying their property taxes
directly into the Protestant system, was completely
excluded from the boards of trustees. Oh, wow.
That sounds remarkably like taxation without
representation. That is exactly what it was.
And that is the core conflict driving Fraser's
book. He documents these constant grueling battles
to get representation on those boards. It wasn't
just about let our kids in the building. It was
about. Let us decide how the building is run.
Going back to your house analogy, it's the difference
between being a guest in a house and being one
of the owners. That's a great way to put it.
Being an honorary Protestant meant you were basically
a permanent guest. You could stay there, you
could sleep in the guest room, but you absolutely
couldn't touch the thermostat, you couldn't rearrange
the furniture, and you certainly couldn't decide
what was for dinner. And in this case, dinner
is what your children are being taught about
their own history or religion. Precisely. Frazier
tracks this specific struggle over 130 years.
It is a dense, highly detailed account of legal
battles, petitions, court cases, and the slow,
grinding work of trying to change a very rigid
institution from the inside out. He really shows
how the community used the law to try to pry
open those doors of power. So we have a book.
That is heavy on legal analysis, covering a massive
time span, dealing with really complex issues
of identity, governance and minority rights.
It honestly sounds like a goldmine for researchers.
It is. But I hear a butt in your voice. I knew
there was a butt coming. Well, whenever a book
takes a very specific academic approach like
this law and social theory lens we talked about.
It is inevitably going to alienate some people
while absolutely delighting others. The critical
reception to honorary Protestants was, let's
just call it divided. I love a good academic
brawl. Let's start with the fans. Who thought
Frasier nailed it? The legal scholars really,
really appreciated it. They saw it as a masterclass
in legal history. For instance, there is a review
by Jory Binder. Binder is a Juris Doctor candidate
at Osgoode Hall Law School. Now, Osgoode is a
top tier law school in Canada. So Binder is coming
at this with a very specific, highly legalistic
mindset. What specifically did Binder like about
it? Because let's be honest, legal texts can
be incredibly dry. Feiner praised Frazier's contextual
stance on the rule of law. OK, contextual stance
on the rule of law. That is a bit of a mouthful.
What does that mean in plain English for our
listeners? It basically means Binder liked that
Frazier didn't just list the laws in chronological
order like a timeline. He explained how the law
functioned within the actual context of the society
at the time. He showed how the legal system wasn't
just a set of dry rules written on paper, but
a living, breathing machine that was actively
shaping people's lives, sometimes in very messy,
contradictory ways. Binder felt Frazier skillfully
explained these historical developments. So if
you want to understand the actual machinery of
how a government and excludes people, Binder
is saying this book is the manual. Exactly. And
Anthony Damascio from Bishops University also
weighed in, calling it a valuable new contribution
to the field. And David S. Kaufman from York
University went even further. He described the
scholarship as meticulous and unassailable. Unassailable.
That is incredibly high praise in academia. That
basically translates to I tried to find a mistake
in your footnotes. I tried to find a hole in
your logic and I couldn't do it. It really does.
Now, Kaufman did have a few small critiques.
He wished the book covered some other related
aspects, which is pretty standard reviewer feedback.
You always want more. But on the core research,
the legal tracking of this history, he felt Frazier
was rock solid. So the verdict from the legal
and political science crowd is meticulous, valuable,
skillful. They love the blueprints. But you mentioned
a divide. Who is on the other side of the ring?
The historians, specifically a historian named
Roderick McLeod. Now, wait a second. That name
rings a bell. Didn't you say earlier that the
phrase honorary Protestants came from another
book? You have a sharp memory. Yes. Roderick
McLeod co -wrote A Meeting of the People, the
very book where that term originated. So he isn't
just a random academic reviewer. He is arguably
the world expert on this specific historical
topic. He claimed the term Frazier is using as
his main title. Oh, that adds a fantastic layer
of drama. So you have the guy who basically invented
the term reviewing the book that uses the term.
What did the expert think of Frazier's take?
He was not impressed. In fact, he was quite critical.
Cloud wrote a review in Canadian Jewish Studies
where he argued the book has a real shortcoming.
And that shortcoming, in his words, is a lack
of a sense of human agency. Agency. That is a
buzzword we hear a lot in sociology and history.
Let's unpack that. In this context, is he saying
Frazier just forgot about the actual people?
Essentially, yes. McLeod is directly criticizing
that structural approach we talked about. He's
saying, OK, David Frazier, you have told us all
about the laws, the school boards, the statutes
and the legal negotiations. You have mapped the
maze perfectly. But where are the people inside
the maze? Right. Where are the parents? Where
are the students? How did they feel? How did
they act on a personal day to day level? It goes
right back to that difference between the machinery
and the ghost in the machine. McCloud wants the
ghost. He wants the human heartbeat of the story.
Right. He feels that by focusing so heavily on
the legal structure, Frazier turned the Jewish
community into abstract figures on a chessboard
rather than flesh -and -blood human beings struggling
for dignity. He thinks the book is too cold,
too far removed from the lived experience. That
is a really tough critique. It is almost like
saying, you wrote a book about a school, but
you didn't include any of the children. And it
gets more personal than that. McLeod also took
issue with the title itself. He felt Frazier
used honorary Protestants, sarcastically. Sarcastically.
But isn't the situation inherently absurd? It
is ridiculous that they were legally called that.
It is absurd. But McLeod felt that Frazier was
using the term to intentionally mock the past
or to apply a modern, ironic detachment to it.
He felt it was a form of tone policing, looking
back at history and sort of sneering at it, rather
than trying to understand the genuine custom
that... the term originally described in its
historical moment. That is fascinating. So McLeod,
who used the term descriptively as in this is
historically what we called it, thinks Frazier
is using it ironically, like look how dumb this
whole system was. Exactly. McLeod is saying we
use this term to neutrally explain a legal reality.
You are using it to point out how ridiculous
everyone was. He feels Frazier is judging the
past rather than just objectively explaining
it. And did McLeod have any substantial critiques
beyond just the tone and the focus on structure?
He did. He actually claimed there were errors
and confusing passages, which is a direct head
-on contradiction to Kaufman calling the scholarship
unassailable. So we literally have one scholar
saying this is meticulous and unassailable and
another scholar saying this is confusing and
has errors. That is a massive gap in interpretation.
How do we even reconcile that as readers? It
is a massive gap, but I think it actually helps
us fundamentally understand what this book is.
It really comes down to what you value in a history
book. How so? Well, think about the two different
lenses we talked about at the start. Binder and
Kaufman are looking at the system. They want
to know exactly how the law excludes people on
paper and in practice. From that specific perspective,
the book is a masterpiece. It maps the trap perfectly.
If you want to know how the law works to marginalize
a group, they are saying, read this. Right, they
want the structural breakdown. But McLeod is
a social historian. He wants to know how people
lived while inside that trap. From that perspective,
the book feels cold to him. It lacks the agency
of the actual people who navigated those school
hallways every day. He is looking for a human
story. And what he found was essentially a legal
brief. So if I am a listener trying to decide
if I should actually go out and read this, it
really depends entirely on what I am looking
for. If I want a legal thriller about school
board governance and constitutional law, this
is the book. If I want a tearjerker about a student's
first day at a Protestant school in 1920, I should
probably look elsewhere. Exactly. It is a work
of law and social theory, not narrative nonfiction.
And I think there is a really valuable lesson
in that clash between the reviewers. What's the
lesson there? It highlights that there are fundamentally
different ways to tell the truth about history.
You can tell the truth about the rules or you
can tell the truth about the experience. Frazier
chose the rules. And honestly, I think that is
deeply valuable because it exposes the sheer
absurdity of the system in a way that a single
personal story might not be able to capture.
Let's circle back to that title for a second.
Honorary Protestants. Whether it is meant sarcastically
or descriptively, I think we can all agree it
really does capture the total craziness of the
situation. It does. It highlights perfectly how
binary systems fail. The government said, you
must be A or B. The community said, we are C.
And the government responded, OK, well, C equals
B just for the sake of our paperwork. It is just
lazy governance. It is lazy, but it is also a
powerful form of control. It forced a community
to constantly negotiate their own identity. Am
I a Protestant today? Only for math class. What
about when I want to run for the school board?
Suddenly I am not a Protestant anymore. That
is the real honorary trap right there. You are
included when it is convenient for the state,
like when they need to fill a classroom or collect
your taxes. But you are totally excluded when
it involves any actual power or decision making.
That is the perfect synthesis of this entire
discussion. The honorary status was a tool of
management, not a tool of inclusion. It allowed
the system to continue functioning without actually
changing to accommodate the growing diversity
of the city. It preserved the status quo by just
creating a fake temporary category. And this
went on. Until 1997. That is startlingly recent.
I mean, we were literally listening to the Spice
Girls on the radio while this confessional system
was still technically in place. It is wild to
think about. There are people. walking around
Montreal today, probably people listening to
this deep dive right now, who actually went to
school under this exact system. This isn't some
ancient history from the 1800s. It is living
memory for a lot of people. It directly shaped
the city we see today. So to wrap this all up,
David Fraser's book, Honorary Protestants, gives
us the highly detailed blueprints of a legal
house that was completely divided against itself.
It shows us exactly how Jewish Montrealers fought
for a seat at the table in a room where they
were only technically considered guests. And
the academic reviews remind us that while blueprints
are incredibly important for understanding the
structure, they don't tell you what it actually
felt like to live in the house. You really need
both perspectives to get the full historical
picture. It makes you think about our current
systems, too. We really like to think we are
much more enlightened now that we don't have
these rigid binary boxes anymore. But are we
just doing the exact same thing under different
names? That is the million -dollar question.
Are there groups today that we are labeling honorary
something or other just to awkwardly fit them
into our existing bureaucracy? Like honorary
employees in the gig economy. Or honorary citizens
with complicated visa issues. The list could
go on and on. We often try to force new complex
realities into old, rigid legal boxes, and it
usually results in the exact same kind of structural
friction Frazier describes in this book. I want
to leave the listener with one final thought,
pivoting off McLeod's criticism about human agency.
Go for it. If the law tells one story, a story
of rigid legal categories like Catholic and Protestant,
but the people living under that law felt something
completely different in their day -to -day lives,
which history is the true one. Is history what
is officially written in the statute books, or
is it what actually happens in the hallways?
That is the ultimate tension between law and
life. The statute book says you are an honorary
Protestant. Your heart and your community say
something entirely else. History is the friction
between the two. A great place to leave it. The
friction between who the law says we are and
who we actually are. Thanks for joining us on
this deep dive into Montreal's complex history.
It was a pleasure. We will see you next time.