Vardit Lightstone

This section was inspired by the 2021 book No Better Home? Jews, Canada, and the Sense of Belonging, edited by David S. Koffman. The book is a collection of eighteen schol-arly essays that explore topics relating to home, diaspora, and belonging within the context of Canadian Jewry. Wanting to further unpack some of the themes the book raised, we asked two groups of select scholars to read and reflect on ways these topics are manifested in their own research and fields of expertise. The first group is made of six scholars who specialize in the study of other minority groups in Canada, the other group  consists  of  five scholars  of  Jewish  diaspora  communities  in  other  countries. 

Vardit Lightstone, Post-Doc fellow for Jewish Studies

Canadian Jewish Studies/ Etudes juives canadiennes vo. 36: Fall 2023

This book begins with an audacious question: Has there ever been a better home for Jews than Canada? By certain measures, Canada might be the most socially welcoming, economically secure, and religiously tolerant country for Jews in the diaspora, past or present. No Better Home? takes this question seriously, while also exploring the many contested meanings of the idea of "home."

Contributors to the volume include leading scholars of Canadian Jewish life as well as eminent Jewish scholars writing about Canada for the first time. The essays compare Canadian Jewish life with the quality of life experienced by Jews in other countries, examine Jewish and non-Jewish interactions in Canada, analyse specific historical moments and literary texts, reflect deeply personal histories, and widen the conversation about the quality and timbre of the Canadian Jewish experience. No Better Home? foregrounds Canadian Jewish life and ponders all that the Canadian experience has to teach about Jewish modernity.

Co-edited by Vardit Lightstone, Post-Doc fellow for Jewish Studies

University of Toronto Press