Quebec – A display ad in yesterday’s Gazette seeking an exemption for Jewish schools from a major aspect of Quebec’s new religion course does not represent the community position, officials said yesterday.

The large ad, covering one-third of Page A3, was placed by a group calling itself the Council of Jewish Education in Quebec, created and run by Rabbi Shalom Spira of Montreal. (An ad of this size costs about $6,000-$7,000.)

Although he describes his group as “a grass roots organization,” officials at the Association of Jewish Day Schools and Jewish Community Council say it is not a representative or recognized group.

Spira is the spiritual leader of the Kol Yehuda Congregation, located in a duplex on Baily Rd. in Côte St. Luc.

The ad’s essential message, however, deals with an issue that is important for some Orthodox Jewish families, as well as parents in at least two Catholic high schools.

The ad asks that the new ethics and religious cultural program that Quebec’s Education Department has made mandatory in all state-supported schools be amended so teachers can “pass value judgments on the beliefs being studied.”

Parents of students who are boycotting the course are in court in Drummondville and a majority of parents at Montreal’s Loyola High School have asked that their sons be exempted.

The courses teach about Catholicism and Protestantism in Quebec culture, the contributions of Judaism and aboriginal spiritualities and elements of other religious faiths that are now part of Quebec’s spiritual tapestry.

Teachers have been told not to bring in elements of their own beliefs when teaching the program, making it, Spira contends, “not presently teachable in Orthodox Jewish schools.”

“The program requires significant improvement … before it can ever be applied in practice,” he said in an email.

Charley Levy, director general of the association representing 14 Jewish schools, but not the more rigorously Orthodox and Hasidic ones, said Spira is voicing a personal opinion.

“He certainly does not represent anybody in the school network,” Levy said.

The course is being taught in Jewish high schools “within the parameters of the program,” he said.

When a teacher at a Jewish school deals with issues of doctrine in other religions, “the best you could do is have a neutral voice,” he continued, but conceded it is not easy.

“When you’re talking about things that are so fundamental and so close to things that we cling to as a society for a long time, it is quite difficult to become neutral.”

Hasidic schools and those that are more Orthodox are lobbying separately from the 14-member association about how to teach the course. The outcome of the two court cases, however, is expected to affect how the issue is resolved.

(Source: Gazette)