Mile End group tries to smooth ruffled feathers
A woman from the Hasidic community writes in Rover Arts about what it’s like to live here, where a small minority of angry people clearly hate people like her.
She links to the Friends of Hutchison Facebook page. They’re having a get-together today from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Mile End library (5434 Park Avenue, in the old church), hoping to bring together Hasidim and non-Hasidim for a friendly meeting. The Mirror has some background.
qatzelok 19:20 on 2012/05/06 Permalink
I love reading about the “need for conversation” from people who have never bothered to learn French after living in Quebec for decades. Very sincere.
Kate 20:25 on 2012/05/06 Permalink
That’s unimaginative of you. This woman’s already bilingual – Yiddish and English – and in her regular life is able to manage fine with those 2 languages. If you think that means that those Outremont yahoos are right to condemn and harass her – well, I feel sorry for you.
There’s such a weird thing in Quebec about how you have to conform to certain expectations before it can be reasonable to expect people to respect you. I think we need to be more open-minded about the needs and balances in people’s lives.
qatzelok 23:02 on 2012/05/06 Permalink
@ Kate: “in her regular life is able to manage fine with those 2 languages”
Some people get by without ever talking to a Quebecois or visiting their neighborhoods. Her actions demonstrate no pressing need for a conversation with francophones whatsoever. Her call for one is pure opportunism. You can’t make both claims simultaneously; a need, and no need for a conversation.
Ian 05:03 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Here’s some food for thought – Everyone outside Quebec thinks of bagels, smoked meat, Leonard Cohen and Mordecai Richler when they think of Montreal. Now,the Hasidim account for about 25% of the population of Outremont. We have no problem calling the Park strip “the Greek part of town” or the lower Plateau around Saint-Laurent “the Portugese” area… when are we going to start calling Outremont “the Jewish neighbourhood”? Oh that’s right, we won’t – because somehow Jews have always been Montreal’s dirty little secret, as we can see by how the city ignores the contribution of the Jews to the Plateau even though they have done more to make this city internationally known than pretty much any other ethnic group… ask people outside Quebec about Montreal’s French culture, and besides speaking French and having excellent croissants most people will be pretty stumped. The Jews are an asset to Montreal, not a hindrance – and a greater asset than the dominant cultures seem willing to recognize.
Kate 06:04 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
How is she going to start having this conversation unless she gets out and starts talking to francophones who are willing to talk to her first? You’re not seeing the picture here at all, qatzelok. Hasidim live in their enclave, speaking Yiddish among themselves. They visit other enclaves in Brooklyn and the Laurentians, and for getting around they mostly use English. That recent report in the Journal noted that some of them do speak French here. These are people with a very strong tradition for study and you can be sure that if they need to learn something, they will know how. But few people will put their minds to learning an entire language if they have no pressing use for it, and (whether you or other nationalists like it) not everyone in the Hasidic community needs French to get by.
What I’m hearing in your hectoring tone is more of the same treatment the Hasids and, to a lesser extent, Jews in general, have received everywhere over the centuries: why can’t they make more of an effort to integrate? But integration has to offer something. Are you of all people surprised that most Hasids may not see much point in integrating into the mainstream western society they see around them right now?
(Also, there’s a funny attitude in Quebec sometimes that sounds like “You could speak French if only you made a little effort” when actually no, it’s an entire language, you don’t get there by making a little push like lifting a few extra pounds of groceries. The situation has to be there, the reasons for acquiring and using another language are complex and it is not someone’s fault if that situation has not arisen in their life to this point.)
qatzelok 09:34 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
About never having learned the language of Quebec in a few generations, Kate wrote: “it is not someone’s fault if that situation has not arisen”
So Kate, what you’re saying is that there is no need for a conversation with the francophones of Quebec, except in an emergency? Can you blame local francophones for fearing this exclusive and superstitious group of people who have snubbed them for so many years? The 13 colonies were full of “religious” gangs who snubbed the local cultures, and eventually, wiped them out.
Ian 10:11 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
You do realize there were people in Quebec before it was colonized by the French, right? http://www.indianamarketing.com/nations/nations.html How long do people of any given ethnic group need to live in Quebec before they’re considered “from” here, or is that a designation only available to francophones of European ancestry?
qatzelok 13:28 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
You’re right, Ian. And likewise, there were people living in Palestine before the Palestinians. Why learn Arabic?
Ian 13:41 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
My point is that for all that the Québecois love to criticise Quebeckers for having a “colonialist” attitude, they are no less colonialist themselves. The first synagogue was built in Montreal in 1760. The Jews are an integral part of Montreal’s society whether they speak French or not. Even the Hasidim first started showing up en masse right after WWII. we’re talking our grandparents’ generation – pretty much everyone alive in Montreal now has grown up in a Montreal that included a pretty notable Hasidim population, and still we talk about “reasonable accommodation” and suchlike. This, a city made internationally famous by Jews.
Anto 13:54 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Ian: Their culture is anglophone, and so it has been exported successfully to English speaking countries. If you ask people from France about Montreal, they won’t talk about bagels and smoked meat. Nor will they talk about croissants. They will talk about its french speaking culture. If croissants are the only thing you can come up with when thinking about french Montreal, you are as much in need of opening your mind about it as we all do to the Hasidim.
Kate 14:09 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Anto, the Hasidic culture is not anglophone. It’s Yiddish-speaking. And it is inward-looking, I’m not denying that. qatzelok, you’re demanding of a woman who stays at home with her kids that she be trilingual, otherwise it is correct for people to shun her and her people and act against them?
Anto 14:12 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Kate: I was not talking about the Hasidic culture in my first sentence, I was answering Ian’s comment about the Jewish community in Montreal.
Kate 14:52 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
OK Anto. But even the non-Hasidic Jewish community is not an Anglo monobloc. Some speak Hebrew, some speak French. It is much more diverse than you seem to think.
Do you think the French talk about our French culture? Again, my impression is different, and this is from talking to Europeans: North Americans are fascinated by European urban culture – the cafés, museums, the architecture, the history. Europeans, by and large, are fascinated by our wide open spaces, not so much by the ways in which our culture echoes and mimics theirs. I generalize, but the French are probably more fascinated by “le Far-West” than the fact that someone in Montreal has performed a Molière role. British people don’t go to America to see Shakespeare either.
Anto 15:52 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Kate: I was talking about the examples brought by Ian: Leonard Cohen, Mordecai Richler, which couldn’t have enjoyed the success they had if they had used a different language than English. However, French speaking countries, like France, will mostly have heard about the French speaking culture of Montreal and Québec: its singers, writers, actors, humorists… Sorry if it has little to do with the subject at hand, I just wanted to let Ian know Montreal’s french culture has more to offer the world than croissants.
Kevin 16:21 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
You know, there are Jewish people in France…
Ian 16:21 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
I assure you Anto, I am well aware of it – but I get a very distinct impression that the rest of the world isn’t. Most of the French people I’ve spoken with who aren’t from here think of us as quite provincial, generally. Personally, I think Montreal is the greatest city in Canada and one of the greatest in North America – but that doesn’t make a Parisian perk up their ears when Montreal’s name comes up in conversation. You know, since we’re dealing in broad stereotypes and all. It’s funny how upset people that identify with francophone culture get when the exclusiveness of culture politics gets inverted.
Ian 16:24 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
This is true, but we’re talking specifically about Montreal & how apparently “certain kinds of Jews” aren’t really “from” here so they should assimilate more to blend in… if that’s not oblique racism, I have no idea what is.
qatzelok 22:15 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
@ Ian “Here’s some food for thought – Everyone outside Quebec thinks of bagels, smoked meat, Leonard Cohen and Mordecai Richler when they think of Montreal.”
Could this be because they get their information from a media that only promotes their own tribe? I didn’t know much about French Montreal either when I used to read about it in our tribal-owned commercial media. The fact that Jewish writers/media outlets snubbed all the non-Jewish institutions demonstrates why there was no conversation. Conversation includes more than one voice.
Ian 23:07 on 2012/05/07 Permalink
Ah, there we go. I knew I could count on you for some open anti-semitism in the end. Well played!
qatzelok 13:05 on 2012/05/08 Permalink
Ian, accusing people of having cooties is a great way to end (or prevent) a conversation. Bravo! Three thumbs up.
Kid A 16:03 on 2012/05/08 Permalink
@qatzelok It’s not about ending or preventing discourse. A lot of what you post here has an anti-semitic tone, whether it’s explicit or covert. And that has NO place in ANY conversation.
Kate 20:55 on 2012/05/08 Permalink
qatzelok sometimes offers interesting insights, but this sure as hell is not one of them, and I’m afraid it rather taints the rest of what he has to say.