On Monday, citizens of Quebec will go to the polls to vote for a new provincial government. Two main players are facing off in this year’s elections: the Parti Quebecois (PQ), Quebec’s nationalist party currently ruling as a minority government and led by Premier Pauline Marois, against Quebec’s Liberal Party, ousted from power in 2012…
A candidate in Quebec’s provincial election accused of spreading views seen as anti-Semitic, but a leading Jewish group rejected the apology. On Saturday, Louise Mailloux, a Parti Quebecois candidate running in a Montreal district, said her past statements that baptism and circumcision amounted to “rape” and that kosher products are a hidden “tax” intended to…
The premier of Quebec is defending a candidate in next month’s election who is accused of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda. At a news conference in Montreal today, Premier Pauline Marois said she stands by Parti Quebecois candidate Louise Mailloux, and said her party is not anti-Semitic. In previous writings, Mailloux, who teaches philosophy at a Montreal…
Jewish groups across the religious spectrum praised Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on accommodating religious attire in the workplace. The guidelines published Thursday are for “employers with at least 15 employees (including private sector, state, and local government employers), as well as employment agencies, unions, and federal government agencies.” These employers “must make exceptions to…
Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital warned that complying with Quebec’s so-called Charter of Values means it will be forbidden from serving kosher food. In a 37-page brief presented at public hearings into the controversial legislation, which includes a ban on the wearing of religious headgear by public-sector employees, the hospital said it would be prohibited from…
Israel’s soccer association suspended its ban on wearing kippot for its minor leagues following protests by athletes and politicians. The regulation had been handed down by the Union of Soccer Referees in recent weeks, according to a report Friday by Army Radio. The union said it was hewing to the rules of the FIFA International…
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…
A proposed law that would ban all religious attire from the public sector has Jews in Quebec on edge. One rabbi has found a clever way to fight the dreaded kippah ban: he stamped his head covering with the blue-and-white Fleur-de-lys — the province’s flag. “I think protests are great,” Rabbi Yisroel Bernath said in…
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