Montreal, Canada – Newspaper Cartoon Portrays Education Minister As Chasidic Over Sunday School for Jews

Montreal, Canada – An editorial cartoon yesterday in one of Montreal’s main daily newspapers, La Presse, portrayed Quebec Education Minister Michelle Courchesne as a Hasidic man, with earlocks, a round fur hat and long black coat. The headline above a column in the tabloid Journal de Montreal referred to the minister, who is not Jewish, as “Rabbi Courchesne.” On the all-news network RDI, a Parti Quebecois member of the legislature complained of the Jewish community’s “terribly effective” lobbying effort of the Liberal government.

The commentary was provoked by Ms. Courchesne’s plan to change the school calendar so a handful of private, ultra-orthodox Jewish schools can open on Sundays. The extra time will allow the schools to teach the obligatory provincial curriculum as well as their religious courses. The uproar that the move has provoked shows that, after a brief period of calm, Quebec’s debate over the “reasonable accommodation” of religious and ethnic minorities is raging again.

Three years ago, Quebec media were filled with reports of perceived threats to mainstream Quebec values — for example, a sugar shack that made pork-free pea soup for Muslims and a gym that frosted its windows so young Hasidic men in a school next door would not be distracted by exercising women. In the 2007 election, the Action democratique du Quebec rode the issue of protecting the Quebec identity to official opposition status, and a spooked Premier Jean Charest appointed two respected thinkers — Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard — to study the question.

The Bouchard-Taylor commission’s hearings and 2008 final report calmed things down for a time, and the ADQ has been almost wiped out. But Mr. Charest’s government has not acted on most of the commission’s key recommendations. One recommendation, the removal of the crucifix hanging in the legislature, was rejected by all parties before the ink on the report was dry.

In the past year, the PQ has moved to fill the vacuum left by the ADQ , championing Quebec identity at every turn. Le Soleil reported last week that the separatist party, inspired by the French, is planning to take a stand against the wearing of the burka. The newspaper noted that it would be a symbolic stand “because wearing of burkas is a practically non-existent phenomenon in Quebec.”

Adam Atlas, president of the Quebec Jewish Congress, expressed concern yesterday that the Jewish community is another target in the push for a secular society. “The Jewish community in Quebec unfortunately takes up a disproportionate amount of ink in the French media,” he said.

He said many of those advocating secularism in fact want to preserve vestiges of Christian traditions.

“It’s sort of secularism for the minorities, but the majority Christian population will still have government-mandated Christian holidays, and a cross in the National Assembly and a cross on Mount Royal,” he said. “It’s almost humorous, really, how they cannot see the irony in their somewhat Christian secularism.”

The proposed regulatory changes follow an agreement reached last fall between the Education Department and seven private Jewish schools. Under that agreement, the schools would teach the obligatory courses and be eligible to receive the government subsidy provided to all private schools. Two other schools, one in Montreal and one in Boisbriand, are still refusing to incorporate the official curriculum and are facing legal action from the government, an aide to Ms. Courchesne said yesterday.

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