Historian Irving Abella, who co-authored a seminal book about the Canadian government’s refusal to accept Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, has died.
Abella died on Sunday, a day after his 82nd birthday, after a long illness.
He was born and raised in Toronto and completed his BA, MA and PhD at the University of Toronto.
His 1982 book, None Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, co-authored with Harold Tropper, shed light on the largely untold story of Canada’s anti-immigrant policies toward persecuted Jews and helped to persuade future governments to welcome migrants fleeing war.
Between the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933 and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Canada accepted only 5,000 Jewish refugees — a legacy that Abella and Tropper called “the worst record of any nation in the world.”
This is particularly evident in the case of MS St. Louis, which in 1939 was denied the right to disembark its passengers in Cuba and the United States. Some Canadians tried to persuade Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to allow the ship to dock in Halifax, but this was overruled by Fredric Blair, the official in charge of the government’s immigration office at the time. Abella and Tropper revealed in None Too Many that Blair had a particular dislike of Jews and was the architect of highly restrictive immigration policies made with the full support of King’s liberal government.
“Ethical Criterion”
By Abella’s own admission, None Is Too Many was never meant to be more than an academic text describing a particularly dark period in Canadian history. It has since become much more than that, not the least of which is the entry of the phrase “none too many” into the Canadian lexicon. In Abella’s own words, the book has become “an ethical yardstick against which modern government policies are measured.”
To that end, advance copies of some of the book’s chapters were sent to former immigration minister Ron Atkey in the late 1970s, just as Canadians were debating what, if anything, the country should do about the Vietnamese refugee crisis. became known as the Boat People. After reading these chapters and learning of Canada’s appalling treatment of Jews in Europe, Atki vowed not to repeat past mistakes, and Canada welcomed tens of thousands of new citizens.
The book won the National Jewish Book Award in 1983 in the Holocaust category.
Abella’s book None is too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, which he co-authored with Harold Tropper, won the 1983 National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category. (University of Toronto Press)
Abella was also heavily criticized for Canada’s post-war acceptance of thousands of Nazi collaborators and war criminals, particularly members of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, which was made up of Ukrainian nationalists and fascists.
In a 1997 interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, Abella stated that entering Canada was relatively easy for SS members because their trademark tattoo indicated they were bona fide anti-communists.
Abella is also the author of Coat of Colour: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada, an important text chronicling the history of Jews in Canada, as well as several key texts on the history of the labor movement in Canada. He spent his career teaching history at York University and held the position of Schiff Professor of Canadian Jewish History towards the end of his career.
Abella was also active outside of academia, serving as president of the Canadian Jewish Congress from 1992 to 1995 and as chairman of VisionTV, a specialty religious television channel.
“Irving Abella was a quintessential Canadian Jewish leader,” said Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress and current chair of the Canadian Network Against Hate. “He was wise, articulate, engaging, courageous and visionary. His inspirational leadership became his legacy. For me, he was my mentor and teacher. May his memory always be a blessing.”
Abella was married to Rosalie Silberman Abella, a former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada who was not only the first Jewish woman but also the first refugee to sit on that court. They have two sons – Jacob and Zachary.
Abella became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1993 and a Member of the Order of Ontario in 2014. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002.
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