The organization, composed of elected officials, set out to represent all of Canadian Jewry on its major political, national and international affairs.

While there, they were addressed by the Solicitor General of Canada, and were entertained at Montreal City Hall, where a large Zionist flag was draped over the Mayor's chair.

Cohen's friend and close colleague, Samuel William Jacobs, a prominent Jewish leader and Member of Parliament, became the revived Congress' first president.

[9] In 1938, the Canadian Jewish Congress partnered with B'nai Brith Canada to create the Joint Public Relations Committee, with the goal of developing a strategy to combat discrimination and find allies within other minority groups.

[10] The CJC was active before and during World War II in lobbying the government (with limited success) to open the borders to Jewish refugees fleeing Europe.

Along with the efforts of Senator Arthur Roebuck and Rabbi Avraham Aharon Price, the CJC helped obtain the release of young, Jewish refugees from internment camps, bringing them to study in Toronto.

The organization also provided addresses for Jews living in Arab and Soviet Bloc countries as well as Jewish prisoners who were put in contact with others in the same situation.

The CJC actively opposed Quebec separatism in the 1990s and formed a national coalition of Canada's Italian, Greek and Jewish communities during the debate on the Charlottetown Accord.