Gerard Pelletier, Canadian Minister of State and a personal friend of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, said here yesterday that “Jews in a province with a French majority like Quebec” must help to counter the English-language linguistic “ghetto which circumstances beyond their control have helped to erect.”
The Canadian leader was addressing a gathering of 500 persons at Montreal’s Beth-El Temple on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Jewish Aid to Immigrants Society. He mentioned that since 1957, more than 4,000 Jews from French-speaking countries had entered Canada, coming from North African and Asian countries. “All these Jews,” he said, “have refused to let themselves be assimilated by the English-speaking milieu not only in Montreal but in Toronto also.”
He warned the audience that they should carefully watch new Canadian and Quebec social and cultural trends, adding, “you should identify yourselves with the fundamental trends engulfing our society.” He added that the French element in Quebec and in the rest of Canada had been acting vigorously in recent years to better protect the French cultural heritage.
“You as Diaspora Jews must understand better than anyone else this French striving for self-preservation, and (because of) the viable position you hold in a French community you must make efforts in answering this need,” he said. But, he said, “all this does not imply your abandoning your own cultural heritage. The contribution brought by your culture represents a precious enrichment of the Canadian culture.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
