A Jewish, 17-year-old high school student has been forbidden to wear a skullcap while attending class because school officials said it was in violation of a department regulation prohibiting religious symbols in a classroom.
The incident took place at Bathurst Heights High School in North York, a suburb of Toronto. Sydney Midanik, chairman of the community relations committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and a member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, protested on behalf of the youth, Arnold Green-spoon. He took the matter to North York’s Department of Education, arguing that a skullcap is not a religious symbol.
Jewish students at the school are permitted to don skullcaps only in the cafeteria during their lunch period. Murray Chusid, a North York alderman said today: “The Board of Education is wrong, the principal is wrong, and the regulation is wrong.”
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