Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 5, 2020

A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled against a former Hasidic couple who claimed the Quebec government didn't do enough to ensure they receivedan adequate education.

In a decision issued Thursday, Justice Martin Castonguayopted against issuing a declaratory judgment against the province.

Such a judgment could have forcedthe governmentto take additional steps to oversee children attending religious schools.

Yohanan and Shifra Lowenalleged they received almost no secular education while growing up in Tash, anultra-Orthodox Hasidic community in Boisbriand, Que., a suburb north of Montreal.

Yohanan, who first launched the legal action, testified that the secular education he received as a boy was particularly limited, leaving him with no knowledge of basic subjects such as science, math or geography.

He said he was ill-equipped to get a job when he left Tash and moved to Montreal with Shifra, whose legal name isClara Wasserstein, and their four children.

In his ruling, Castonguay expressed "profound empathy" for what the Lowenswent through before and after they left Tash.

But he concluded that the problems with the schools had already been addressed with a 2017 law thatgivesthe governmentgreater powersto track children in religious schools and gives school boards the authority to oversee their secular education.

The current Coalition Avenir Qubec government further strengthened the law last year, requiringthat students learn a subject in the same year as their peers in public school and take part in mandated provincial exams.

The trial shonea spotlight on the cloistered community of Tash, which was founded in 1962 by a group of Montreal Hasidic Jews seeking to escape the influences of the city. About 3,000 people now live there.

Abraham Ekstein, the head of Quebec'sJewish Association for Homeschooling, was the sole witness called bythe lawyer defending schools in Tash, which were also named in the lawsuit.

He testified that Hasidic schools "strive to maintain our culture, to transmit our culture to our children, to survive as a people."

"I'm convinced that we are going in the right direction and that children will succeed much better," he said.

In a statement Thursday, Clara Poissant-Lesprance, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said her clients "remain concerned about the future of Hasidic children."

She said the fact that many children in Hasidic communities still attend religious schools on a full-time basis, as noted in the judgment, is a point of concern for the Lowens, "who see it as a barrier to the education of these children.

She said they will review the judgment before deciding whether to appeal.

See the original post:

Quebec judge rules against Hasidic couple in trial over secular education - CBC.ca

Category: Hasidic
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