The Chronicle Review, an independent Jewish weekly published here and in Toronto, carries a front-page editorial in its current issue charging that “the Government of Quebec is not giving the Jews of Montreal a fair deal in permitting a state of affairs in which Jewish parents and taxpayers are denied a vote in school board elections.”
The editorial, signed by Max Melamet, the paper’s editor in chief, and published under a five column banner, “Quebec Government Unfair,” said there was “no absence of goodwill or decency” on the part of the authorities but it indicated that necessary reforms in the school situation that would give Jewish taxpayers a direct voice in the administration of the schools their children attend were being held up by those “who fear for their vested interests.” The editorial demanded that “justice must not be sacrificed to expediency.”
Most Jewish children in Greater Montreal attend the Protestant schools. Jews in Ville St. Laurent filed action earlier this year to require the local Protestant School Board to put Jews on the voters list. Similar actions are pending in other districts. The Protestant School Boards of Greater Montreal have proposed an amendment to the Provincial Education Act to give the Jews voting rights. The Canadian Jewish Congress and the legal counsel for the school boards have been discussing the Jewish demand that Jewish voters be inscribed on the lists without awaiting legislative action on the proposed amendment.
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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.
