By JANICE ARNOLD, Staff Reporter (
CJN)
MONTREAL ? Quebec Jewish Congress (QJC) is warning the government opposition, unions and media not to make a small number of chassidic schools the lightning rod for
what is promising to be an anguished debate over the province's ?identity' and how that can be reconciled with accommodation of religious minorities.
Adam Atlas
?We do not want the Quebec identity debated on the backs of a handful of schools in Outremont,? said QJC president Adam Atlas. ?It's a mistake to make Jews the centrepiece of this debate.?
He said Education Minister Michelle Courchesne's proposed reform of the school year calendar is ?an important step forward' because it may make it possible for these six schools to, at last,
fully teach the mandatory curriculum, while maintaining their traditional religious instruction.
At the same time, the change can benefit the entire school system, perhaps even reduce the province's high dropout rate, he said.
Atlas suggested that those worried that this modification of the law threatens the goal of state neutrality might better consider removing the crucifix from the National Assembly, the cross from
Mount Royal or eliminating statutory Christian holidays. However, he added, QJC is not advocating any of these moves.
Fears that accommodation of the chassidic schools by the government will somehow open the door to the creation of more religious schools are unfounded, in Atlas's opinion.
?I don't think this is going to change anything'and may go some way to help [chassidim] integrate into Quebec society.?
QJC has not been directly involved in the talks between the chassidic schools and the ministry, which have been going on for a couple of years.
Courchesne's decree, deposited Feb. 3, would base the minimum length of the school year on the total number of hours, rather than days, which means schools could fulfil that time on weekends and
in summer.
The chassidim could extend their teaching time into Sunday. The change would also allow flexibility with regard to holidays taken.
Forty-five days of consultation are required before the decree becomes law.
Although the modification affects all schools, public or private, critics maintain Courchesne's main motivation was resolving the chassidic schools issue, in effect, catering to a tiny group that
has defied the law for many years ? and, in most cases, continued to receive public funding.
She has been derided in a couple of French papers as ?Rabbi Courchesne' and caricatured as a chassid.
Two of the schools, however, have reportedly informed the minister that they will not be complying, even after the calendar change: the Rabbinical College of the Tash community in Boisbriand and
the Satmar community's Yeshiva Toras Moshe in Mile End.
B'nai Brith Canada also decried turning the school calendar modification into a Jewish issue and placing these six schools at the eye of a storm. Moïse Moghrabi, Quebec chair of B'nai Brith's
League for Human Rights, said, ?it is wrong to claim that these changes open the door to a return to confessional schools. Religious education is a right that private schools, Jewish or not, have
and currently exercise.?
Quebec's public schools, historically either Catholic or Protestant, have been non-denominational since 1998.
?The proposed modification to the school calendar is simply a question of giving a larger margin of flexibility to schools to realize specific projects such as sports, arts, internships and
vocational training. Accordingly, this is not at all an issue of ?unreasonable' accommodation,? he stated.
Courchesne said little about the negotiations with the schools until last April when she issued an ultimatum that they must comply with the law by this past September, or face legal action.
The communities themselves have said even less.
Max Lieberman, a spokesperson for the Jewish Orthodox Community Council, declined to answer any questions from The CJN. ?We are not interested in engaging in any discussion, it would not do us
any good.?
Even the schools involved have not been made public by the ministry, but the Belz, Skver, Satmar and Tash communities have been identified in the media.
The Parti Québécois (PQ) has called for the repeal of Courchesne's decree and charged that she erred in making a secret deal with these schools and undertaking such a transformation of the school
system without public consultation. The PQ says it will pave the way for the ?reconfessionalization' of the province's schools.
The major unions, the Centrale des syndicats du Québec and the Fédération des syndicats de l'enseignement, the big teachers' union, have also demanded that the plan be dropped.
The issue of ?illegal' Jewish schools has been the focus of intense French-language media scrutiny for more than three years, even though these six schools and others associated with the
chassidic communities have been around for a long time, some more than five decades. Most receive government funding, although not all. It also is not clear if all even have permits.
Until the media scrutiny, successive governments have generally turned a blind eye to the situation.
The problem appears to be confined to the boys' schools, especially at the high school level, which are said to not be sufficiently teaching the required secular subjects. For the most part,
these students do not write the provincial exams or receive high school leaving certificates.
Since 2006, Federation CJA has taken the position that the schools must conform to the law. The schools in questions are not affiliated with the federation agency, the Association of Jewish Day
Schools.
The furor over Courchesne's attempt to resolve the ?illegal' schools issue is reminiscent of the backlash that erupted over the Charest government's plan to provide 100 per cent, rather than 60
per cent, funding of the secular curriculum of mainstream Jewish schools, which had to be aborted in five years ago.
In a Feb. 15 article in Le Devoir, Courchesne, in her first major comment on the issue, wrote: ?It was made clear to the schools of this community that if they do not conform to the rules of the
Quebec school, they would see their funding suspended and their permit would not be renewed. As for the two schools that persist in continuing their activities without a permit. They will find
themselves before the courts.?
She also said that it is wrong to claim that permitting Jewish schools to teach religion on Sunday would open the door to a return to religion in schools generally. ?This is a right private
schools, Jewish or not, are exercising already.?
Courchesne received some unexpected support last week from former PQ premier Lucien Bouchard who said he did not like the tone the party is taking.
He said he believes PQ founder René Lévesque, still a revered figure among nationalists, had a lot of respect for minorities. ?René Lévesque was a man of generosity. He didn't ask questions like
that. He didn't think our identity was threatened.?
