MONTREAL — The new Quebec Jewish Congress (QJC) president, Adam Atlas, does not fit the profile of past leaders of that 90-year-old institution.

Adam Atlas

At 38, he is one of the youngest to hold the post and almost two generations younger than his predecessor Victor Goldbloom, 85. And Atlas is not a household name, either in the Jewish community or in Quebec society, as Goldbloom is. In fact, Atlas, a lawyer, is something of a late-bloomer, not only in his engagement with Jewish communal structures, but also in developing a strong personal sense of being Jewish.

Yet the greatest single influence in his life is the experience of his mother, a child survivor of the Holocaust. Lena Atlas, born in Poland in 1937, was hidden by rural Christians and left orphaned after the war. Her parents died in the Majdanek concentration camp, where her only two siblings, her brothers, are also believed to have perished.

Atlas’s father, an Englishman, was not Jewish. His parents, who were professors at Queen’s University in Kingston, divorced when he was two, and Atlas and his older brother grew up in Westmount, raised by their mother.

At 20, Atlas legally changed his surname to his mother’s maiden name.

Atlas points out that his mother lived as a Christian in her early childhood, absorbing the anti-Semitism around her, and had to make her own journey back to her Jewishness. Without grandparents, uncles and aunts, Atlas said his “family” became the other émigré Polish Jews of his mother’s generation.

“I never went to a Jewish school or a Jewish summer camp… [Getting involved in the community] was actually all new to me,” Atlas said.

He attended the private St. George’s high school and went to Saturday school at Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom.

His first involvement in Jewish affairs was at Marianopolis College. A sukkah put up by the Hillel society was vandalized, and as student council president, Atlas spoke out against anti-Semitism.

“This was a wake-up call to become involved in Jewish issues,” he said.

Because of his leadership in that cause, he was invited to attend a General Assembly of the Jewish federations in the United States.

With the pressures of finishing his studies and establishing a career, however, Atlas’s connection with the organized community fell off. But the community had not forgotten him and his leadership potential.

About seven years ago, then-Canadian Jewish Congress, Quebec region, chair Joseph Gabay invited Atlas to sit on the executive committee. Atlas was usually the youngest and least vocal around the table, but he remained, most recently serving as honorary legal counsel.

His mother’s experience made him acutely aware of the fragility of human rights and what it means to be a member of a minority.

“Because my family was deprived of all its rights, I have a much greater appreciation of the rights we have. It’s a privilege to help the community exercise those rights, and I feel a bit of an obligation to do something more than just work and family life,” Atlas said in an interview at his office in the Monkland Village, not far from the home he shares with his Israeli-born wife Michal and their children aged three and one.

He practises law on his own in the relatively new fields of electronic transaction law and biometrics law (use of such physical traits as fingerprints).

Atlas has three priorities for his two-year presidency that just began. The first is to “engage the Jewish community in the advancement of Quebec society.” Jews, as Quebecers, should contribute to the public debate on the issues of the day, and not only those that directly affect the community, he said.

The second is to “continue the rapprochement with the broader non-Jewish society, francophones and other ethnic groups.” He includes Muslims among these.

“The third is to engage our own community in the first two goals,” he said half-jokingly.

“My hope is that the average Jewish community member feels that their opinions are important to QJC and they should not hesitate to reach out to us.”

Atlas said he “supported from the beginning” the decision to change the region’s name to Quebec Jewish Congress (Congrès juif québécois, in French) this spring. Jews may be “by and large federalist, but they are nonetheless Quebecers, and it is not out of place to say who we are.

“Our role is to represent the Jewish community to government, the media and other groups in Quebec. The new name will allow us to be more effective in that role, and we already are.

“Not only did the national assembly unanimously pass an all-party resolution [of congratulations] and Le Devoir write a glowing article, but at a more down-to-earth level, the response has been very positive from academics, the media and other persons of influence in Quebec society.”

Atlas, who is fluently bilingual, also noted that up to a third of the community is French speaking, and it should be expected that they will take more of a leadership role.

On June 23, QJC officially restructured its governance, following on Bylaw 67, adopted by Canadian Jewish Congress in May 2008, authorizing the regions to do so.

Atlas heads a 25-member board of directors, the principal decision-making body, which will meet monthly. Effort has gone into making it representative of the community especially along the Ashkenazi-Sephardi and anglophone-francophone lines, as well as including young people, recent immigrants, Congress veterans and newcomers.

The first vice-president is Armand Kessous, the Federation CJA representative and a Sephardi.

The board also includes a representative of the chassidic community, Ari Rangott, and Charley Levy, executive director of the Association of Jewish Day Schools.

QJC’s most pressing issue is the status of some chassidic and other haredi schools, which the Quebec government says are not complying with the law. Education Minister Michelle Courchesne has given the schools an ultimatum to abide by the law, principally to fully teach the prescribed secular curriculum, by this September.

QJC has not taken a public position on this issue, which has received intense coverage in the French media, and has had no direct talks with the education ministry, but that is likely to change as the deadline approaches.

“Our position is that all schools should be compliant with law. However, we would not like to see schools shut down Sept. 1 because a school is short by an hour in some subject,” he said.

Generally, Atlas would like to strengthen QJC’s ties with the haredi communities. “They are often a lightning rod for our community issues,” he said.

He is sensitive to these communities because he was involved with the Belzers’ legal dispute with the Laurentian village of Val Morin a couple of years ago, and today has haredi clients in New York.

“I don’t believe in the traditional secular-religious divide. I believe we are all Jews,” he said.

The other two QJC governing bodies are the advisory council, which will meet annually, and the board of governors. Any Jew resident in Quebec, at least 18 years old and a contributor of a minimum $18 to the current Combined Jewish Appeal may attend the council and propose and vote on motions.

“These resolutions must be presented to the board of directors, but their adoption is not binding,” Atlas explained.

The governors are all past QJC presidents and the current federation president. Chaired by the immediate past Congress president, this board has no fixed mandate or schedule.

“It will act like our upper chamber at times when we are very divided or in a crisis and need a ‘sober second thought,’” he said.

The quiet-spoken Atlas is humble about his appointment to the presidency, even awestruck. “Never before have such big shoes been filled by such small feet.”