NEW YORK (JTA) — Education authorities in Quebec changed the school calendar to accommodate Orthodox Jews, a Montreal daily revealed.
According to documents first published in Le Devoir, the Quebec school calendar was changed to permit classes on the weekends. The change was part of a quiet deal to permit ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, schools in the province to teach compulsory subjects on Sunday, the Globe and Mail reported.
The minister of education has confirmed the deal, which sparked a fiery debate featuring charges that the government had bent to the needs of a religious group, privileging sectarian religious needs over the province’s secular values.
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