This book illuminates important issues faced by Orthodox Judaism in the modern era by relating the life and times of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935). In  presenting Yudel Rosenberg's rabbinic activities, this book aims to show that Jewish Orthodoxy could serve as an agent of modernity no less than its opponents. Yudel Rosenberg's considerable literary output will demonstrate that the line between "secular" and "traditional" literature was not always sharp and distinct. Rabbi Rosenberg's kabbalistic works will shed light on the revival of kabbala study in the twentieth century. Yudel Rosenberg's career in Canada will serve as a counter-example to the often-expressed idea that Hasidism exercised no significant influence on the development of American Judaism at the turn of the twentieth century.

"Concordia University professor Ira Robinson's new biography A Kabbalist in Montreal: The Life and Times of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg, for the first time, provides a well-researched scholarly treatment of this Hasidic maverick. ... While the quality of Rosenberg's voluminous oeuvre can be debated today, Robinson contends that he is exemplary for his creative and ceaseless attempts to reconcile fundamental Orthodox Judaism with modernity when its future was very much in doubt."

-Janice Arnold, The Canadian Jewish News

"Part biography, part oeuvre survey, A Kabbalist in Montreal limns the mystical and practical aspects of a fascinating Hasidic sage physically transplanted from eastern Europe into the New World while spiritually aspiring after supernal planes. Robinson's accessible account depicts the formidable Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg as an ambitious but embattled communal leader keen to establish himself as a rabbinical authority and hopeful for opportunities to secure a more stable professional and financial situation. ... Readers interested in kabbalah or in the popularization of notions and narratives will welcome [this] informative and insightful new [work]."

-Brandon Marlon, The Jerusalem Report

Ira Robinson is Chair in Quebec and Canadian Jewish Studies in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, where has taught since 1979. He has written, edited, and translated seventeen books, including Cyrus Adler: Selected Letters, which won the Kenneth Smilen Award for Judaica non-fiction; Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century, which won a Toronto Jewish Book Award; Moses Cordovero's Introduction to Kabbala: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne'erav; Rabbis and Their Community: Studies in the Eastern European Orthodox Rabbinate in Montreal, 1896-1930, which won a J.I. Segal Prize; A History of Antisemitism in Canada;  History, Memory, and Jewish Identity, and, most recently, Les Juifs Hassidiques de Montréal (2019). He is president of the Canadian Society for Jewish Studies, and past president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. He is the 2013 winner of the Louis Rosenberg Canadian Jewish Studies Distinguished Service Award of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.