Morton Weinfeld

Do Children Cope Better Than Adults with Potentially Traumatic Stress? A 40-Year Follow-Up of Holocaust Survivors

Abstract Anecdotal reports suggest that child survivors of the Nazi persecution are functioning well as adults. Ratings of their parents by a randomly selected community sample of young adult Ashkenazi Jews on a scale that measured Schizoid, Paranoid, Depressive/Masochistic and Type A/Normal Aggressive symptoms permitted verification of these reports. Among the parents were groups who were children, adolescents, or young adults in 1945, at the end of World War II. Child-survivor parents did not differ from native-born parents on these measures 40 years later, whereas, consistent with the empirical findings of others, survivors who were adolescents or young adults at the end of the war manifested more paranoid and depressive/masochistic symptoms than native-born parents. To explain this possible greater long-term resilience among those who were child survivors, reference is made to later caretakers, endowment, cognitive and social development, and psychodynamics.

The Jews in Canada

This work contains much of the best new research on Canadian-Jewish society, politics, and history by leading scholars in these areas. By examining the achievement of the community and the challenges it faces, this clarifies not only the evolution of Jewish people, but the evolution of ethnicity in Canadian society. The authors compare and contrast modern Canadian Jewry with their own past and their counterparts in the United States. They explore the sources for similarities and differences. The book also studies the sources and dimensions of the challenges that the Canadian Jewish community faces in attempt to survive the exigencies of modern life.

Entry and Exit: Canadian Immigration Policy in Context

Immigration and the multicultural population that results from it are contentious issues in contemporary Canada. Canada accepts more than twice as many immigrants per capita as does the United States, and a majority of immigrants now comes from nontraditional sources in Asia, the Caribbean, and Central America. Critics of a liberal immigration policy charge that these newcomers threaten Canadas social harmony and challenge its cultural identity and that the country faces unprecedented economic and security problems because of uncontrolled immigration. Historical and contemporary evidence suggests, however, that the situation is neither unprecedented nor a crisis. Canada needs immigrants for the compelling reasons it has always sought them: for economic growth and to replace population lost by emigration to the United States. By any comparative yardstick, the Canadian experiments in immigration and multiculturalism have been a resounding success.

The Demography of Canadian Jewry, the “Census” of 2011: Challenges and Results

This chapter has three purposes. The first purpose is to examine the Canadian census instrument in general, and uses of census data for a range of objectives relating to Jews. In particular, this involves a critical analysis of the questions on religion and ethnic origin. The second purpose is to focus on the specific change of method in the 2011 census and local concerns of the leadership of the Canadian Jewish community. In 2011, the questions on religion and ethnic origin were no longer mandatory and were instead posed on a voluntary National Household Survey (NHS). The third purpose is to introduce a “Revised Jewish Definition” as a broader construct for estimating the Canadian Jewish population and to present counts for 2011. This chapter thus updates and explicates the recent treatment of estimates of Canadian Jewish population using the National Household Survey by DellaPergola (2014, pp. 316–318).

Stability of coping style 3 3 years after prolonged exposure to extreme stress

ABSTRACT Respondents who were in hiding or in the armed resistance movement in Nazi occupied Europe are assumed to have had avoidant and confronting coping styles, respectively. Responses to questionnaire items tapping behavior, attitudes and perceptions were examined in the two groups for the persistence of these same traits 33 years after World War II, in a study of randomly selected community sample of Jews. Taken as a whole, but not individually, responses to the questionnaire items suggested that the traits did persist (P < 0.001). The results highlight the importance of distinguishing individual differences in coping style when studying the long‐term effects of prolonged, stressful experiences.

Overview of Canadian Jewry

This chapter presents an overview and analysis of the Canadian Jewish experience. It presents a short history of Canadian Jewry and explores distinctive issues of this community, with comparative reference to the American case. It profiles the community in terms of a variety of demographic, socio-economic, cultural, religious, regional, and political characteristics, and refers to the general concerns with assimilation as well as various forms of anti-Semitism. The chapter includes a substantial bibliography.

Immigration Canada: Evolving Realities and Emerging Challenges in a Postnational World:

ing with humanitarian exceptionalism, however. If the task was really to explain the crimes against aid workers, it would seem that—precisely because of Fast’s argument—we would need to do more to complement an analysis that discusses crimes against aid workers largely in the context of other crimes against aid workers with an analysis that discusses crimes against aid workers in the context of other crimes in the same area, for example. In order to push the recontextualization of humanitarianism, crimes against humanitarians, and humanitarians’ security response that Fast herself calls for, we might also ask which other books to read alongside this book. Fast presents her analysis largely as an intervention into discussions among experts on humanitarianism. While she draws on a range of relevant resources, in sociology and in other disciplines, in order to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of crimes against aid workers, she does not really explain her case as a case among others to social scientists. We could read the book alongside theoretical work in criminology and violence; we could read it alongside work on specific regional contexts, such as the Middle East or East Africa. While Fast discusses the rise of professional security services in terms of neo-institutional work on fields, we could discuss it alongside work on organizations and professions more broadly or work on audit society and risk management in other sectors more narrowly.

A sub-economy in Montreal

This paper explores the size and socio-demographic characteristics of a Jewish sub-economy found in Montreal in the late 1970s and 1980s, along with other features of Jewish economic activity in Canadian cities. It is found that there is a much higher than expected degree of intra-group economic activity found linking Jewish entrepreneurs, employers, workers, suppliers, and customers. This activity can not readily be explained by factors like recent immigration, socio-economic gains, religiosity, or fear of discrimination. It is suggested that factors like inertia, pre-existing networks, and cultural preferences may play a role.

National survival in dependent societies : social change in Canada and Poland

Both Quebec and Poland have undergone considerable change in the past few decades, change that can be described as a quiet revolution. This collection of essays by Polish and Canadian sociologists provides comparative analyses of the two societies and highlights institutional, political, cultural and socio-economic changes.