SEPARATE, BUT UNEQUAL
By Martin Patriquin
Maclean’s, Canada
July 23, 2007
Are Quebec’s Hasidic Jews privileged, or are they targets?
Gauging the state of so-called "reasonable accommodations" in Quebec
these days is as easy (or as hard) as parking one’s car in Montreal’s
Outremont district on a religious holiday.
Perhaps better known these days for its coffee shops and swank
boutiques, and for the trendy types who inhabit them, Outremont
is also home to many devout Catholics, to the city’s Armenian
community, and to a large population of Hasidic Jews. Of the three,
only the Hasidic Jews are allowed to park willy-nilly on some streets
during certain Jewish holidays, thanks to an agreement signed in
2000 between Outremont and the Hasidim. Now two Catholic churches,
along with Outremont’s sole Armenian congregation, are clamouring
for the same rights. Noting the advanced age and limited mobility
of many of their parishioners, church authorities want the city to
remove restrictions during Sunday mass. "Our people must often park
far away from the churches," local Catholic authorities wrote in a
letter to Outremont Mayor Stephane Harbour.
The seemingly innocuous debate is loaded with subtext surrounding
perceived "special treatment" of Outremont’s Jewish community.
Outremont mayoralty candidate Claude Gladu has labelled the Hasidim’s
religiously based parking privileges as "unreasonable accommodations,"
while others have compared them to that other seemingly innocuous
debate over the Outremont YMCA’s frosted windows, installed after
Hasidic leaders complained their youth might be corrupted by seeing
women in workout garb. (The frosted windows have since come down.)
But the parking squabble is just the exclamation point on what has
already been a hot summer, figuratively and literally, for Quebec’s
Hasidic community. One or several prolific arsonists have been
targeting houses and businesses in Val-David, a quaint rural enclave
about an hour north of Montreal–three fires have struck the large
Hasidic retreat located just outside the village.
Arsonists first attempted to burn down the house owned by Rabbi Hoffman
just before 6 a.m. on June 3 by piling furniture and garbage into
the kitchen and dousing it, as well as a mattress in the adjacent
bedroom, with motor oil. A newspaper deliverer saw the flames and
called the fire department, which extinguished the blaze before it
caused major damage. Two days later, at 2:10 a.m., the same house
burned to the ground.
The second fire at a nearby house owned by Isaac Schwartz burned so
hot it melted the vinyl siding off a neighbouring home. It isn’t the
first time houses on the retreat have gone up in flames. Val-David fire
chief Real Dufresne says one or two houses catch fire every couple of
years under mysterious circumstances. And it is practically a rite
of passage for local teenagers to use the vacant houses as a place
to party when the Hasidim aren’t around.
Though B’nai Brith says the incidents are likely hate crimes, many
Hasidim aren’t willing to go this far–because arsonists also burned
two non-Jewish businesses. "We don’t feel we are being targeted," said
Abraham Perlmutter, one of the community’s de facto spokespersons. "The
police have told us that there’s almost a 70 per cent chance that
it’s not a hate crime." As for recent vandalism–houses have had
their plumbing lines ripped out–"This is some schmuck cutting the
copper out and selling it."
The local government in nearby Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard, meanwhile,
thinks the recent purchase of a hotel by a group of Hasidic investors
will "ghettoize" the town should it become a Hasidic vacation spot,
since they rarely associate with goyim at large. Last week, the
barrier between the town’s citizens and the Hasidim became quite
literal when the latter erected a two-metre metal fence around the
property–ostensibly to keep the Hasidic children safe from road
accidents.
The reasonable accommodations debate also swept onto the pages
of several Quebec dailies recently, after meetings between Jewish
groups and ADQ leader Mario Dumont came to light in La Presse. The
paper’s cartoonist Serge Chapleau drew Dumont "grinning toothily
sporting ear locks and an oversized black fur hat," according to the
National Post. (To be fair to Mr. Chapleau, most of his characters
grin toothily.) Sherbrooke’s La Tribune published a cartoon of two
Jewish fellows, complete with kippas and hooked noses, standing in
front of Dumont, their briefcases overflowing with money.
Offensive? Probably. Certainly, it’s an indication of the kind of
high emotion and bruised sensibilities that can result in a province
where merely parking your car can be a political act.