Sidney Green, Minister of Mines and Resources of the province of Manitoba, has resigned his Cabinet portfolio over the issue of public aid to private and parochial schools. The Jewish official also gave up his other post as Minister of Urban Affairs. The resignation of the key minister a week before the start of the 1972 session of the Manitoba legislature brings into the open, says the Toronto Globe and Mail, a deep rift in the Cabinet and the New Democratic caucus, causing speculation that the Province may be heading for a general election.
Green, 42, said in an interview with the Globe and Mail that he felt it was the only way he could maintain the principle of opposition to public aid to private and parochial schools. Manitoba has no separate school system and religious-oriented schools have to find their own finances while their supporters contribute through taxes to the public school system.
It is known that Premier Ed Schreyer, head of the New Democratic government of the Province, favors such aid. Some of his followers, both inside and out of the Cabinet, oppose it. In the past, two other Jewish Cabinet members–Saul Cherniack and Saul Miller–have been among the opponents of government aid. While most of the schools involved would be Catholic, there are two Jewish institutions in Winnipeg–the Peretz Shule and the Talmud Torah–as well as several synagogue day schools that would gain from such aid.
The second volume of David Ben-Gurion’s memoirs, covering the years 1933-35, has been published in Tel Aviv.
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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.
