Person

Rome, David, 1910-1996

1910-1996

David Rome was born on August 10, 1910, in Lithuania.

He was a historian, archivist, editor, author, and lifelong advocate of improving relations between anglophone Jews and Quebec francophones. He arrived in Vancouver (via Halifax) in 1921. As a young man he studied English literature at the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington in Seattle. He later obtained degrees in Library Science and English Literature from McGill University and Université de Montréal. Before coming to Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) as the organization's first press officer in 1942, Rome was the English editor of the Vancouver Jewish Western Bulletin, the Toronto Hebrew Journal, as well as the first national director of the Labour Zionist Organization. Later he became known to most of Montreal's Jews as the director of the Jewish Public Library before returning to CJC as archivist in 1972. From his earliest days in Montreal, Rome showed a deep concern with creating a dialogue and spirit of communality between Jews and the French-Canadian population of Quebec. In 1942, he served as secretary to the Congress committee for Jewish French-Canadian relations, and in the early 1950s, he founded the Cercle Juif de la Langue Française, the first Francophone Jewish cultural group in Canada. He also served on the Council of Arts for the Government of Quebec and the Comité Judeo Catholique established by Archbishop Paul Grégoire in 1971. He was the co-author, with Father Jacques Langlais, of two books about Jewish-French Quebec relations: “Juifs et québécois français: 200 ans d'histoire commune” (1986, English version 1991) and “Les Pierres qui parlent/ The Stones that Speak” (1992). In 1987, he co-founded the Institut Québécois d'études sur la culture juive to further research and publications in this field. In recognition of his ceaseless efforts along these lines, Rome was named Knight of the Order of Quebec in 1987, and in 1991, he received the Prix d'Excellence from the Quebec Government Ministry of Cultural Communities and Immigration, the province's highest award for fostering intercultural relations. He published over 60 volumes on Canadian Jewish history and literature, the majority under the auspices of the Canadian Jewish Archives new series produced by the CJC National Archives. In 1991, Montreal's Concordia University awarded him an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

He died on January 16, 1996, in Montreal, Quebec.