A plaque commemorating Ezekiel Hart in Trois-Rivières
Photo Credit : Daniel Robert
Image pulled from The Jew in Canada.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library - Archives
Facsimiles of Notes issued by Hart’s Bank.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library - Archives
News clipping about Ezekiel Hart, one of the first generation of Jewish Canadians, and the first Jew to be elected to public office in the British Empire.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library - Archives
1767 - 1843
Ezekiel Hart
Ezekiel (Ezechiel) Hart – son of Canada’s first Jewish settler, Aaron Hart – was an entrepreneur and politician, known for being the first Jew in the British Empire to be elected to political office.
Hart was born and raised in Trois-Rivières. Like his father, he was a prominent merchant. He ran a brewery with his brothers, Moses and Benjamin, and owned a general store. He was also a shareholder at the Bank of Montreal. Hart went on to be elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in an1807 by-election. However, when he was being sworn in with the phrase “on the true faith of a Christian,” he substituted the word “Christian” for “Jew,” as was customary for Jews to do in court. Attorney general Jonathan Sewell and runner-up Thomas Coffin argued that this made him ineligible for the House of Assembly, and Hart was prevented from taking office. In 1808, L’Affaire Hart continued when Hart was re-elected, took the Christian oath without alterations, and was expelled once again.
In 1830, Hart’s son, Samuel Bécancour Hart, ran for magistrate of Trois-Rivières and was, like his father, met with strong opposition. However, Speaker of the House Louis-Joseph Papineau—who had voted for Ezekiel Hart’s expulsion in 1809—had a change of heart and was moved to enact the 1832 Act to Grant Equal Rights and Privileges to Persons of the Jewish Religion. This law granted the right to vote (but not eligibility to vote) to Jews equal to Catholics, a quarter century before these rights were granted elsewhere in the British Empire. Samuel Bécancour Hart finally became a magistrate in 1833. In 1837, Ezekiel Hart’s younger brother, Benjamin Hart, became justice of the peace in Montreal, as soon as he was no longer required to take a Christian oath.
Although antagonism towards Jews was undoubtedly a factor in L’Affaire Hart, most historians now stress that anti-Semitism was employed instrumentally, in attempts to shift the balance of power between the English and the French in Quebec.
Ezekiel Hart died in Trois-Rivières in 1843; he is buried in the Shearith Israel synagogue section of Mont Royal cemetery.
Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal.
