Pierre Anctil

Pierre Anctil is a Canadian historian. He is specialist of the Jewish community of Montreal, of Yiddish literature and of the poetic work of Jacob-Isaac Segal. He also published on the history of immigration to Canada. He translated a dozen Yiddish books into French. Anctil was born in Quebec City. He graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in social anthropology at the New School for Social Research in New York City in 1980. After being active for eight years at the Quebec institute for cultural research (IQRC), he carried out a post-doctorate in Jewish studies at McGill University (1988–1991), where he led the program of French-Canadian studies. Since 1991, he is holding various positions in the Quebec public service, among others, in the Ministry of Relations with citizens and immigration, all while continuing his research about the Jewish community in Montreal. From 1989 until 2000, he participated regularly in the Dialogue Saint-Urbain (St. Urban Dialog), an organization founded by Jacques Langlais and David Rome which promoted a better understanding between the Jews and the francophone majority in Quebec, and in which several intellectuals, writers and artists participate including Victor Goldbloom, Naim Kattan, Pierre Nepveu and Agnès Gruda. From 1999 to 2000, he was a visiting scholar to Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Montreal, where he carried out the exhibitions "Saint-Laurent: Montréal's Main" (2002) and "Archaeology and the Bible – From King David to the Dead Sea Scrolls" (2003). From 2002 to 2003 he was President of the Quebec Intercultural Relations Council He was an associate professor at UQAM's Department of History from 1996 to 2004. In 2004 he became the director of the Institute of Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa and professor in the History Department at the same university. He was a visiting professor at the Ernst-Moritz Universität (Greifswald, Germany) (2007), University of Zagreb, Croatia (2007) and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2012).