Upscale Montreal Borough Bans Purim Treat Buses
Hasidic Jews in the tony Montreal borough of Outremont could get penalized again this Purim for driving through its streets with kids on buses handing out traditional mishloach manot treats.
Since 2013, police have slapped tickets totaling hundreds of dollars on the bus company hired by the Hasidim, for breaking a borough bylaw barring buses on residential streets.
But human rights activists say the bylaw violates Canadian human rights charters and deliberately targets Hasidic Jews.
Although on the borough’s books since 2003, the bylaw was first enforced against Hasidim three years ago.
The bylaw also has an exemption for “special events,” but the municipality has refused to grant it to Hasidim, adding to long-existing tensions with Outremont’s French-speaking majority.
Last month, a municipal court judge cancelled the ticket fines from 2014 and 2015 because of a lack of street signs explaining the bylaw.
“The question is what happens now,” Fo Niemi, director of Research-Action on Race Relations, told The Canadian Jewish News. “Will the police stop issuing the fines this Purim, or will the borough put up signs before then?”
“This is not over yet. The bylaw is still on the books,” Niemi said.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO