A long history of unreasonableness in Outremont

The latest spat between Outremont residents over Jewish community school buses is a sad reminder that culture clashes remain unresolved in the very community where Quebec’s modern “reasonable accommodation” crisis was born.

The Hérouxville scandal of 2007 may have been the most politically consequential event (a small Mauricie town’s council passed a xenophobic code of conduct aimed at hypothetical immigrants). In that year’s election, the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) rose to first Opposition after a campaign relying heavily on divisive rhetoric of the sort.

But the first controversy in this wave of nationalist cultural panic is rooted in Montreal’s otherwise elegant Outremont borough, historically home to premiers, magnates and much of Quebec’s political class.

In late 2006, the Parc Ave. YMCA, technically situated a few feet outside Outremont, succumbed to pressure from leaders of a Hasidic Jewish congregation, frosting its windows to shield young worshippers from the sight of women wearing activewear. Even within much of the broader Jewish community, the decision was seen as an unreasonable accommodation, but would certainly not justify the discriminatory rhetoric that would follow over the next 11 years.

A lack of leadership by local politicians at the time gave licence to Outremont municipal hobbyists to open a floodgate of criticism aimed mostly at Hasidic Jews, boosted by Montreal’s most nationalistic media outlets.

The borough went so far as to pass a bylaw limiting new places of worship in 2016, the target of which was obvious. It is also home to a small but organized protest movement led in part by Accommodements Outremont blogger Pierre Lacerte, who has repeatedly clashed with Hasidic Jewish leaders in court.

The latest campaign scolding a quarter of the borough’s population revolves around a petty gripe about school buses. Too many of them clog narrow streets, some residents complained at this month’s borough council meeting.

A handful wore yellow badges to the meeting, reminiscent of the yellow star Jews were forced to wear in Nazi-era Europe and other distinguishing signs imposed by various authoritarian regimes worldwide for more than a millennium.

Similar disputes in recent years involved objections to the prolonged use of harvest season huts (sukkahs) on private property and assorted traffic issues that should have been easily dealt with by proper authorities. But for lower Outremont’s orthodox secularists, even the most non-invasive religious accommodations make for political scandal.

Outremont’s unreasonableness when it comes to matters involving its Jewish residents pre-dates the modern “reasonable accommodation” era. In 2001, an Outremont bylaw banning the eruv — a virtual fence that includes threads tied to telephone poles, invisible to the naked eye, symbolically enclosing Jewish homes and institutions for Sabbath activities — was struck down in court.

Hutchison Ave., straddling Outremont and the Mile End, was for decades the epicentre of Jewish immigration in Quebec, and remains a hotspot for culture clashes. Both my immigrant parents were raised on Hutchison and nearby Outremont streets; popular neighbourhoods because of their high density, affordable family dwellings. The mainstream Jewish community quickly sought greener pastures to the west and, decades later, has all but vanished from Outremont.

Hasidic Jews live in peace in regional Quebec communities frequently caricatured as less sophisticated, but are most often subjected to political smearing in Outremont. For a place that much of the political elite calls home, this should be unacceptable.

Between a nationalistic political establishment provincially that seems hesitant to seriously examine systemic racism and an oversized municipal system that caters to handfuls of xenophobic neighbourhood watch-types, Outremont’s Jews have few allies (though grassroots groups like Friends of Hutchison have picked up some of the political slack). It is to be hoped that members of the borough’s newly elected council will show more leadership than their predecessors.

Without unequivocal, sustained condemnation of intolerance by leaders at the local level, treating xenophobia at the source of the infection, Quebec’s fruitless reasonable accommodation debates will not end. Twitter.com/DanDelmar