Reacting Vehemently

People take offence seeing other people forming exclusionary groups which distinguish themselves by their types of communion that run counter to societal norms. People, for example, steeped in religion, particularly of a noticeable fundamentalist type, who stand out as being different in many respects from the surrounding population.

It is seen as insulting to others to be reflected as being so different; garbed in distinctive ways, with habits not seen in the general population.

Those visible differences seem to mask the obvious, that people are really endowed with more in common as human beings wishing to live in peace and to be able to get on with their lives, than the exterior surface differences that appear to set them apart as 'different', as 'strange' as somehow threatening to the normal lives of others who don't engage in cultural/religious rites.

But this is a country that celebrates its willingness to respect other peoples' beliefs. We do expect, as Canadians, that our own way of life will be similarly respected. Mostly we can get along well together. Sometimes, we don't. And when something like that happens, we're all at a loss to try to understand why and how things went so wrong.

And that's the dilemma being faced in Montreal by Hasidic Jews who form a 60-year-old congregation on a street shared by non-Jews, and where their synagogue has been existence for all those years. It's a very small building, described as dilapidated. There is a washroom for the use of the congregants, located in the basement. In the winter months, freezing temperatures enter the main prayer room when the front door is opened.

The congregation had plans to expand into their own backyard, to extend the current building ten feet back to enable a ground floor washroom and a cloakroom to be added. A modest enough proposal, adding roughly 400 square feet to the existing building - on its own property. The building is in dire need of renovation. So what's the problem?

The municipality approved the renovation plan. But a nearby resident, who is not Jewish, embarked on a mission to collect enough local signatures to effectively defeat the extension. About 200 congregants live within walking distance of their synagogue, Gate David. The local vote was 243 to 212. Neighbours living next door to the synagogue themselves were fine with the renovation.

But another neighbour, Pierre Lacerte, writes a blog in which he describes his hostility toward the congregation and their "slum" of a synagogue. He contends that the Hasidim 'break the law' in various ways. And he was dead set against those renovations taking place. He roams the neighbourhood with a camera so he can document anything untoward that the Hasidim create.

He insists he isn't anti-Semitic, but has no problem agreeing that his campaign draws the attention and co-operation of those who are anti-Semitic. In fact the white supremacist website Stormfront features links to some of his blog entries about the synagogue's proposed expansion. He is, then, happily guilty of communicating and spreading discriminatory opprobrium against
the small congregation.

One non-Jewish neighbour who campaigned in favour of the zoning change that would enable the synagogue's expansion to proceed in a spirit of good neighbourly relations, expressed her disappointment at the outcome and her distress at the clear divisions in support/non-support within her community.

In the words of a lawyer who has represented the interests of the Hasidic community in the past: "...the majority should ask itself, 'Why are we reacting so vehemently?'"