A Quebec candidate says she regrets comments she made two years ago calling for an end to circumcision and “Jewish” to be removed from a Montreal hospital. The comments made by the ruling Parti Quebecois’ Tania Longpre, then a blogger for Journal de Montreal, in a Facebook exchange were made public this week. Along with…
Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital says it plans to defy Quebec’s controversial Charter of Secular Values. The proposed law, known as Bill 60, is “patently discriminatory,” the hospital said in a statement Nov. 13. The bill, proposed by the governing Parti Quebecois to establish what it has called religious neutrality and gender equality, would ban all…
A quarter of respondents in a major survey of Jews from nine European countries said they avoid visiting places and wearing symbols that identify them as Jews for fear of anti-Semitism. Fear of wearing a kippah and other identifiably Jewish items was especially strong in Sweden, where 49 percent of 800 respondents said they refrained…
(JTA) — Battered and bruised by decades of separatist governments, restrictive language laws and a modern-day exodus, the Jewish community of Quebec may finally have something to celebrate. A new analysis of figures culled from the 2011 Canadian census, known as the National Household Survey, found that Quebec’s Jewish population had not dipped below the…
A motion introduced by a Jewish legislator in Ontario to reaffirm the Canadian province’s commitment to religious freedom passed unanimously. The motion introduced by Monte Kwinter, a veteran Liberal Member of the Provincial Parliament was specifically meant to distinguish Ontario from neighboring Quebec’s proposed ban on religious symbols in the workplace. The proposed Charter of…
Quebec’s separatist government is betting on broad popular support with a proposal that prohibits public workers from wearing headscarves, skullcaps and other religious symbols, yet it is dividing the movement that advocates independence from Canada. The proposal, unveiled by the ruling Parti Quebecois last week, plays with the explosive issue of minority rights in a…
OTTAWA – The separatist Bloc Quebecois kicked one of its five members of Parliament out of its caucus on Thursday after she took a strong stand against a proposal by Quebec’s separatist government to ban public workers from wearing most religious symbols. Demonstrating how the controversial proposal has caused divisions even among those who want…
In 1738, a young Catholic man named Jacques La Fargue came to New France. Jacques La Fargue turned out to be Esther Brandeau, a young Jewish woman who had disguised herself to come to the new world. When she refused to convert, she was sent back to France. Jews were officially allowed to settle in…
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