Govt. Asks Legislation to Ensure Entry of Jewish Students to Protestant Schools

Jewish school children in the city of Outremont, in Quebec Province, would continue to be educated in schools run by the Protestant ## of School Trustees for the next five years under a bill introduced in the provincial legislature by the government.

The legislation seeks to solve the problem created by the decision last year of the Outrement Protestant trustees to bar Jewish children from further attendance at their schools, because, they asserted, the funds contributed by the Jewish community in taxes were insufficient to defray the costs of educating the Jewish students. A bill passed by the legislature last Spring provided that the Outremont schools continue to accept Jewish students in the 1946-47 school year, ending this June 30. The new legislation would extend the period through June, 1952.

The problem arose as a result of the parochial education system in Quebec province. Schools are operated either by the Catholic or Protestant communities, with the government furnishing subsidies. Since most Jewish parents do nto wish to have their children attend Catholic schools, where they would receive religious instruction, Jewish students have been sent to the Protestant schools.

In a statement issued here in connection with introduction of the new bill, Michael Garber, president of the Eastern Division of the Canadian Jewish Congress, disclosed that the Congress had made representations to the government concerning the ## situation. It asked the following:

“Provisions for equal treatment, no segregation of Jewish children from Protestant children; Jewish students shall not be compelled to study any religious subjects outside their own faith; they shall be excused from attendance on specified Jewish religious festivals and the board shall consider Jewish teachers eligible for appointment to the teaching staff.” The committee further stressed “the desirability of having the Outremont agreement coterminous with that of the Montreal School ## which runs until 1955 and that there be no differentiation between Jewish and Protestant proprietors in matters of taxation.”