J. D. B. News Letter

The appointment of a Jewish School Commission to solve the problem of Jewish education on the island of Montreal has closed an important chapter in the long struggle for the recognition of Jewish school rights in the Province of Quebec.

The commission, which consists of seven representative members, is vested with the power to negotiate with the Protestants for an understanding whereby the Jewish children will continue receiving their education in the Protestant Schools, failing which the same commission will have the right to establish separate Jewish schools and the alliance with the Protestants will be a thing of the past. This understanding must be reached within one year.

The bill creating the Jewish school commission was a result of much litigation undertaken to solve a vexing problem for many years. The question of the status of the Jewish children attending the Montreal Protestant schools was submitted first to the Quebec Court of Appeals, next to the Supreme Court of Canada and finally to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. The Province of Quebec differs from its sister provinces and its American neighbor in that it has a system of Confessional Schools, guaranteed by the laws of Confederation. The Public school system had to make way for religious French Catholic schools and religious English Protestant schools, because the Constitution gave both races the right to carry on separate religious and cultural activities.

At the birth of the Canadian nation no thought was given to the future necessity of establishing a Jewish religious school system, because the Jewish community was then very small. Jews sent children to Protestant or Catholic schools but in 1903 the Protestants and Jews came to an understanding where by the former undertook to educate Jewish children in return for Jewish taxes. Jews were classified as Protestants for school purposes and this anomaly prevailed until the decision of the Privy Council declared the act of 1903 ultra vires. Although a conscience clause excused Jewish children from taking scripture this clause was not always observed and Jewish girls found very few openings on the teaching staffs of the Protestant schools even when some of the schools have nearly a hundred per cent Jews.

Such a situation aroused dissatisfaction among the Jews who began to see the wrong of taxation without representation whilst the more nationalistic element saw in separate Jewish schools the only way to solve the vexing problem. The Protestants also made things more difficult by incessant demands for larger grants to cover so-called deficits for Jewish education and threats to close the doors of their schools for Jewish children. The government found it necessary to interefere and after much discussion, haggling and compromises, owing to certain antagonism on the part of the Catholics, it has succeeded in passing a bill which gives the Jews the right to create a school system of their own.

Whether this step is to be made depends on the Jewish School Commission. True, there are many difficulties in the way, and the majority of the Jewish commissioners are not favorably inclined toward such a bold move, but much depends on the attitude of the Protestants. The future developments in the Montreal Jewish School question will be worth while watching.