The Montreal Chassidic Community: Community Boundaries and the Maintenance of Ethnic Identity

Abstract

Note:This thesis is a study of the Montreal Chassidic community and employs as a frame of reference a symbolic interactionist perspective. The main argument is that the Chassidic community may be regarded as stigmatized and that consequently strategies are adopted by Chassidic groups tooffset the social psychological consequences of the responses of others. While isolation from the larger community is characteristic of all the Chassidic groups, certain practises of the Lubavitcher Chassidim are initiated primarily to increase contact between themselves and the rest of the Jewish community