{{Short description|Hospital strike over hiring a Jewish intern}} The '''Days of Shame''' was an antisemitic June 1934 doctors' strike at the Hôpital Notre-Dame in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.<ref>{{cite news|title=Une bien sale histoire|first=Frédéric|last=Bérard|date=18 November 2020|url=https://journalmetro.com/actualites/national/2580874/une-bien-sale-histoire/|language=fr|newspaper=Journal Métro|access-date=3 August 2021}}</ref> For four days, all interns at the hospital walked off the job to protest the hiring of a Jewish senior intern, Dr. Samuel Rabinovitch. The strike ended when Rabinovitch resigned his position.<ref>{{cite news|title=Montreal Internes Strike|newspaper=The New York Times|date=17 June 1934|page=16|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1934/06/17/archives/montreal-internes-strike.html|access-date=3 August 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Hospital Strike Spreads; Internes of Four Montreal Institutions Join Protest|newspaper=The New York Times|date=18 June 1934|page=5|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1934/06/18/archives/hospital-strike-spreads-internes-of-four-montreal-institutions-join.html|access-date=3 August 2021}}</ref>
== Background == Samuel Rabinovitch (1909–2010), a young physician from a family of Jewish doctors, had been the highest ranking graduate of his class from the Université de Montréal. Following his graduation, he was offered a senior internship at several hospitals in both Canada and the United States, eventually accepting the offer from Hôpital Notre-Dame in his hometown of Montreal. He was the first Jewish intern to be hired at a French Canadian hospital in history.<ref name="2021-07-18-aish">{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Yvette Alt |title=Montreal's Days of Shame: When 75 Doctors Went on Strike until a Jewish Doctor Resigned |url=https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Montreals-Days-of-Shame-When-75-Doctors-Went-on-Strike-until-a-Jewish-Doctor-Resigned.html |access-date=21 July 2021 |work=Aish.com |date=18 July 2021 |language=en}}</ref> All applications from French Canadian graduates that year were also accepted.<ref>{{cite web|first=Claude|last=Bélanger|title= Chronology of the Notre-Dame Hospital|date=23 August 2000|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723190838/http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/QuebecHistory/chronos/strike.htm|archive-date=23 July 2021|url=http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/QuebecHistory/chronos/strike.htm|website=Quebec History|publisher=Marianopolis College}}</ref>
== Days of Shame == Rabinovitch's appointment was immediately met with backlash. Members of the public in Quebec sent letters to the hospital claiming that Catholics were being replaced by Jews, that the French Canadian population had been abused under the banner of tolerance, and declaring that they had a right to refuse to be treated by openly Jewish doctors.<ref>{{cite journal|title='We Do Not Want Him Because He Is a Jew': The Montreal Interns' Strike of 1934|first=Edward C.|last=Halperin|doi=10.7326/M20-7121|journal=Annals of Internal Medicine|date=June 2021|volume=174|issue=6|pages=852–857|pmid=34126016 |s2cid=235438458 }}</ref> In early June 1934 a petition signed by doctors and interns of Notre-Dame was submitted to the hospitals board, requesting that the contract between the Hospital and Rabinovitch be rescinded. After a lengthy deliberation by the hospital board it was decided to uphold the contract and hire Rabinovitch.<ref name="Canada's Jews: A People's Journey">{{cite book |last1=Tulchinsky |first1=Gerald |title=Canada's Jews: A People's Journey|location=Toronto|date=2008 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-9386-8}}</ref>
At midnight on 14 June 1934, thirty-two resident doctors at the hospital walked off the job rather than work with Rabinovich, refusing even to treat patients in critical condition. By 17 June the strike had expanded to include interns from five other Montreal hospitals, with interns at a further three hospitals signing a petition in support of the strike, and with several hundred nurses threatening to join the strike.
Quebec nationalist groups and media such as the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society and ''Le Devoir'' quickly backed the striking interns, with the latter publishing stories referring to Rabinovich as "the foreign physician" and alleging that he had links to "high finance."<ref name="Canada's Jews: A People's Journey"/> The strike also spread to target other Jewish doctors, such as Abram Stillman, a postdoctoral urologist at Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. Stillman's supervisor, Oscar Mercier, barely defended him, merely stating that he was "just a visitor" who could not be taking a job from a French Canadian as he was "not occupying an official position."<ref name="2021-07-18-aish"/> Only a handful of French Canadians publicly supported Rabinovitch, notably ''{{ill|Le Canada|fr|Le Canada (journal)}}'' editors Olivar Asselin and Edmond Turcotte, who decried the antisemitic conspiracies that were spread on front-page headlines by the press.<ref>{{cite news|title= De l'antisémitisme à l'islamophobie: de la grève de 1934 à la loi 21|date=29 April 2019|first=Francis|last=Dupuis-Déri|author-link1=Francis Dupuis-Déri|language=fr |url=https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/553137/de-l-antisemitisme-a-l-islamophobie-de-la-greve-de-1934-a-la-loi-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190429063452/https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/553137/de-l-antisemitisme-a-l-islamophobie-de-la-greve-de-1934-a-la-loi-21|archive-date=29 April 2019}}</ref>
On 18 June, after efforts from Montreal's Jewish community to solve the situation came short, Rabinovitch formally resigned from his position. His letter of resignation, which was published publicly in several newspapers, stated that he "bemoaned the fact that so many French Canadian physicians, namely graduates, should have ignored the first duty of their oath," but that the "distressing, serious and dangerous condition to which the patients of the Nôtre-Dame and other hospitals have been exposed" left him with no choice.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Days of shame, Montreal, 1934|first=Peter|last=Wilton|journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal|date=9 December 2003|volume=169|issue=12|page=1329|pmid=14662683 |pmc=280601 |url=http://www.cmaj.ca/content/169/12/1329}}</ref>
Following Rabinovitch's resignation, the striking doctors returned to work at 7:30 PM on 19 June 1934. None of them would face any disciplinary sanctions for their actions. On 22 June 1934, an interview with three of the strikers was published in ''L’Ordre'' in which the strikers denied being motivated by antisemitism, stating instead that they had legitimate concerns about competition between Jewish and Catholic doctors for limited internships, and about Catholic interns being forced to spend an entire year practicing alongside a Jew.<ref>{{cite journal|title=« Maîtres chez eux »: La grève des internes de 1934 revisitée|language=fr|first=Ira|last=Robinson|url=https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/globe/2015-v18-n1-globe02707/1037882ar/|doi=10.7202/1037882ar|journal=Globe: Revue internationale d'études québécoises|volume=18|number=1|date=2015|pages=153–168|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
== Aftermath == After his resignation, Rabinovitch left Canada to take up an internship in St. Louis, Missouri, specialising in internal medicine. He would remain there until his return to Montreal in 1940.<ref name="2010-11-25-cjn">{{cite news |last1=Lazarus |first1=David |title=Doctor was central figure in 1934 hospital strike |url=https://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/doctor-central-figure-1934-hospital-strike |access-date=21 July 2021 |work=Canadian Jewish News|date=25 November 2010}}</ref> The Université de Montréal increased its restrictions on the admission of Jewish students after the Days of Shame.<ref name="imjm">{{cite web |title=Dr. Sam Rabinovitch and the Notre-Dame Hospital Strike |url=http://imjm.ca/location/2395 |website=Museum of Jewish Montreal |access-date=21 July 2021 |language=en|archive-date=9 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609182140/http://imjm.ca/location/2395}}</ref>
The impact of the Days of Shame, along with other antisemitic events, led the Jewish community in Quebec to establish their own hospital, the Jewish General Hospital. Funds for the new hospital were obtained through charitable drives headed by Allan Bronfman, Sir Mortimer Davis and J. W. McConnell.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fong |first1=William |title=J.W. McConnell: Financier, Philanthropist, Patriot |year=2008 |url=https://archive.org/details/jwmcconnellfinan0000fong |url-access=registration |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press |isbn=978-0-7735-7468-7}}</ref>
==See also== * List of incidents of civil unrest in Canada * Timeline of labour issues and events in Canada
== References == {{reflist}}
Category:Canada in the world wars and interwar period Category:1934 labor disputes and strikes Category:1934 in Quebec Category:Antisemitism in Quebec Category:Health and medical strikes Category:1930s in Montreal Category:Labour disputes in Quebec Category:Race and health Category:June 1934 in Canada