Ontario Jews Appeal Against Religious Education in Schools

An appeal to the Ontario Provincial Government to reconsider its policy on permitting religious education in the public schools was adopted at the conference of the Central Region of the Canadian Jewish Congress held at St. Catherines.

The more than 100 delegates from Toronto and 13 other Ontario communities also asked the government to place administration of the Fair Employment Practices Legislation and the Fair Accommodations Act in the hands of a separate department which would be responsible for an educational program in behalf of the principles of the legislation.

The parley pledged further financial aid to Israel and called on Ontario communities to increase their contributions to the United Jewish Relief Agencies or the United Jewish Appeal campaigns to help care for and make self-supporting recent immigrants to the Dominion.

Jewish communities were urged to maintain and expand their Jewish education programs and the conference pledged the Canadian Jewish Congress’ assistance in the standardization of courses, texts and equipment. The communities were advised to study the possibilities of hiring mobile teachers for Jewish courses for neighboring communities which could not each support its own instructor.