On a visit to Montreal this weekend to visit my family, I had coffee with an old friend and I mentioned to him that, anecdotally at least, I found that the city's Jewish community felt a lot more conservative than Toronto's -- they cling to tradition more (the eating of bagels and smoked meat), they're most wistful about "the good old days" (Outremont, Mordecai Richler, The Montreal Star, Expo 67), and they're much more likely to vote for Stephen Harper (Mount Royal, the most Jewish federal riding in Quebec, once solidly Pierre Trudeau's riding, nearly went Conservative in the last election).
My friend agreed, then explained it all with one word: besieged.
Montreal's Jewish community, predominantly anglophone, mostly older, feels besieged by the francophone tsunami around it. This is nothing new, of course. Ever since the separatist Parti Québécois was elected in 1977, ever since it passed strict anti-English language laws (or pro-French, depending on your point of view), ever since the first sovereignty referendum and the second and Jacques Parizeau's drunken racist comments -- after which I left the province, English-speaking Quebecers have felt unwelcome in their own home. They have felt besieged, and rightfully so.
There's bitter irony here. Because it's French Quebecers' own justifiable feelings of being besieged by the English-speaking world around them, both in the rest of Canada and the United States, that led to laws and often xenophobic attitudes that now, in turn, make Quebec anglophones in general and Jews in particular feel under siege.
Jews in Toronto don't quite feel this. Sure we're still a minority, sure there are conservative Jews. Sure there are the occasional anti-Jewish slurs, but for the most part Toronto's Jewish community is more integrated and accepted in pluralistic anglophone Toronto. Religion and ethnicity are powerful connectors but language may be the most powerful of all because we use it every day, all around us. I could pass as Québécois if I stood silently in a Montreal bar, but the moment I open my mouth, I'm clearly not.
I remember, before I moved away 17 years ago, anytime I walked up to a retail counter or sat in a restaurant in Montreal, I had to begin calculating the chances that the person about to serve me was francophone or anglophone, and deciding what language to use so as to not offend. It always stressed me out. Those calculations simply evaporated once I was in Toronto.
I often wonder what I'd be like today had I stayed in Montreal. Would I be as conservative as my parents or my brother? Probably. I like to think my world view is a function of my personality and all I've read, but I'm certain it's in large part due to the luxury, over nearly two decades, of not feeling besieged by the world around me.
I tend to always find an Israeli/Palestinian angle in my musings and there is certainly one here. (My bad.) Even if I don't agree with their policies, I can understand why right-wing Israelis exist, why they feel the Arabs and Muslims are out to get them -- they've given Israelis ample reason to think so. They've felt besieged, inside and out, for nearly 100 years. But the same, of course, is true for Palestinians. Imagine living in a world where nearly everyone you know is Arab, Muslim. Then one day these "foreigners" arrive, start buying up land, begin building towns and cities, and proclaim a home for Jews on the land you and your family have always called home. Aren't Palestinians right to feel under siege?
In the end, no one holds a monopoly on fear. We all feel it in different ways. And lessening it can only come with understanding of the other and recognition that those you fear most feel it too.
Recent Comments