Aerial photo of York University, Toronto, in 2010. / City of Toronto The ongoing dilemma of accommodating religious beliefs in a liberal and multicultural society is again glaringly apparent. News reports reveal that at York University, a large, publicly-funded post-secondary institution in Toronto, a student in a sociology course requested that he be exempt from…
A Toronto lawyer whose newspaper columns have been critical of Palestinian leaders and the United Nations will be Canada’s next ambassador to Israel. Vivian Bercovici, who studied at Hebrew University and was an adjunct law professor at the University of Toronto, was appointed Wednesday to the position by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. In her…
A classmate setting a Jewish girl’s hair on fire was not an act of anti-Semitism, a Canadian court ruled. In a Jan. 2 decision, the judge in Winnipeg agreed with prosecutors that the assailant had been a “jerk and bully” but said the “totally vulgar and inappropriate” incident in November 2011 was impulsive, unplanned and…
The Charter of Values seeks to ban conspicuous religious symbols. / Government of Quebec Do you remember the Quebec government’s Charter of Values, the proposed legislation that would bar public workers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols — like the kippah, hijab or turban — on the job? Of course you do. Have you been biting…
Two children seized by Canadian authorities from an extremist haredi Orthodox sect were returned to their parents with strict conditions. The parents, members of the Lev Tahor sect, agreed to scheduled and random visits from children’s aid workers and said they would not leave the Chatham-Kent region, in southwest Ontario, or use “physical discipline,” among…
Child-protection authorities in Ontario have taken two children into protective custody from the reclusive Jewish sect Lev Tahor. A lawyer for the group told The Toronto Star on Monday that officials with the Chatham-Kent Children’s Services in southwest Ontario seized the two children from one family on Dec. 12. The circumstances surrounding the seizure are…
A former leader of the ultranationalist Jobbik party in Hungary was sent out of Canada prior to a speaking engagement in Montreal. On Sunday, Canadian immigration officials ordered Csanad Szegedi on a plane back to Budapest just before he was slated to address a Chabad group. Approximately 200 people who came out to hear Szegedi,…
Canada’s largest Protestant church launched a campaign to boycott goods made in the West Bank. The United Church of Canada campaign, dubbed “Unsettling Goods: Choose Peace in Palestine and Israel,” encourages “economic action” against three Israeli companies: Keter Plastic Ltd., SodaStream and Ahava, which all have factories in the West Bank. “With these efforts, we…
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