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In 1976, the beloved Ukrainian Catholic Canadian painter created a suite of 16 paintings depicting Jewish life in Canada. What was William Kurelek's version of Canadian Jewish history? And what does a reconsideration of these paintings, nearly 50 years after their creation, signify about the intersection of Jewish history and art history in Canada?

His suite of paintings titled Jewish Life in Canada was made to honour his friendship with the Toronto art dealer Avrom Isaacs, who offered the artist a framing job at his gallery before discovering his employee’s remarkable creative gifts. A devout Roman Catholic, Kurelek intended this as a gesture across the cultural divide, implicitly demonstrating his open-mindedness toward Canadians of cultural and religious backgrounds different from his own.

David S. Koffman is the J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry, and an associate professor in the Department of History at York University, teaching courses on Canadian Jewish history, religion in American life, the meanings of money, genealogy as history, modern antisemitism, and religion & capitalism. He serves as the editor-in-chief of the journal Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, and is the associate director of York's Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies. He is the author of, the editor of and a contributor to several books and journals.