Opposition to a local Hasidic community’s attempts to build a second synagogue in the largely French-Canadian Outremond neighborhood of Montreal has led to charges of anti-Semitism against a major newspaper.
La Presse, the largest French language newspaper in North America, was accused of playing to racial prejudices and fears in a front-page story Sept. 13, headlined “Outremond Discovers a Jewish Problem.”
The article, written by Roch Cote, defined the problem less in terms of the so far unsuccessful attempts by the Hasidim to obtain a zoning variance than by their appearance and large families.
Use of the phrase “Jewish problem,” moreover, has ugly connotations for Jews here because of its Nazi coinage in the 1930s. Michael Crelinsen, executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, called the article “the most serious example of hostility against Jews in years.”
Cote was quoted later as saying he described the situation as a “Jewish problem” in order to inject a touch of “humor into an important local story.” The story was accompanied by color photos of Hasidic women and children.
Cote described the Hasidic Jews as “this bizarre minority with its men in pigtails, all in black like bogeymen, its women dressed like onions.
“Now Outremond is discovering that its minority has made little ones and with their families of often 10 or more — they really make babies these peoples — they will keep taking up more space,” he wrote.
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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.
