Some bad blood and hateful words spilled over in the Montreal borough of Outremont this week after a handful of Francophone residents turned up at the local council meeting on Monday wearing yellow badges on their clothes to protest the local Hasidic community’s use of school buses.
For many the badges evoked horrific memories of the yellow stars European Jews were forced to wear under the Nazis and some attending the meeting were shocked by the protest.
Hasidic Jews walk along Bernard Street in Outremont in November 2016 prior to vote in a referendum on whether to overturn a bylaw banning places of worship on Bernard Avenue, a busy and colourful street in the borough of Outremont. The bylaw was upheld. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz)
When told it might be a good idea to remove the badges, the eight-to-nine protesters, who included Ginette Chartre, refused.
“(The Jews) always bring up their painful past,” she told the Canadian Press news agency the following day.
“They do it to muzzle us. We’re wearing the yellow square because the school buses are yellow.
“We’ll march down the street wearing them, banging pots and pans if we have to.”
The Hasidics, who make up about 20 percent of Outremont’s 25,000 residents, use school buses to transport their children and members of the community around their neighbourhood–far too often, according to Chartre.
“On just one residential, one-way street there are fourteen buses in one hour. That’s not reasonable,” she said.
A Hasidic Jew crosses Montreal’s Parc Avenue near the eastern edge of Outremont. The Hasidic community makes up about 20 per cent of Outremont’s population of just under 25,000. (CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson)
Members of Hasidic community appeared more saddened and resigned than irate about the incident.
In a separate interview, Alex Werzberger, an Hasidic Jew who has lived in Outremont since 1950, asked “Should we just go away? Just vanish?
“The Jewish people for millennia have been exposed to this stuff, some worse, some better, and it’s almost part of our existence, part of our being.”
The incident was the latest turn in a long-simmering dispute between members of the ultra-conservative sect and some local residents–mainly French-Canadian–who believe the Jewish community is taking up too much space and making too little effort to integrate.
In November of 2016, Outremont citizens voted against allowing Hasidic Jews to open more synagogues on Bernard Ave., one of the borough’s main thoroughfares.
Other contentious and emotional incidents have blown hot-and-cold over the years.
For some perspective on this week’s events, I spoke by phone with Montreal filmmaker Eric Scott.
He is currently completing a documentary on relations between the two communities.
ListenWith files from Canadian Press, CBC, Journal de Montreal, Montreal Gazette
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