Quebec Jews Weigh Demand for State Aid for Day Schools

The position of Jews in the Quebec public educational system was questioned Sunday, for the first time in 30 years at the Eastern Canadian conference of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Under Quebec provincial law, public tax money goes to both the Protestant public school system and Catholic parochial educational institutions. However, none of these taxes goes to Jewish day schools.

At the Congress conference, it was pointed out that Protestants save a million dollars annually by Jewish day schools which educate 4, 000 children. Moshe Meyerson said that a question of subvention to Jewish day schools had arisen in Quebec province. According to Mr. Myerson, Jews had an inherent right under the Quebec constitution to a separate Jewish school system and the present “humiliating position of school taxation without representation should be corrected.”

Joseph Cohen suggested a reconstitution of the Jewish School Commission of 30 years ago and a presentation of a brief to the Royal Commission on Education being set up by the Quebec Government.

Last week, the Canadian Jewish Congress submitted a brief to the Board of Education of North York, in Ontario, opposing the teaching of the Protestant religion in the public schools.

In the brief, the CJC stated that it was not opposed to the teaching of religion in the public schools, but was opposed to the “teaching of one religion, particularly as it is prescribed in Ontario, by way of indoctrinating children in the particular tenets of a variety of Protestant Christianity.”

The CJC suggested a course “in the future of religion or comparative religion” to be taught in the senior grades.