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Montreal's Jewish People's and Peretz School

KEEP THE "JEWISH" IN JPPS

By Beryl Wajsman

Monday, august 28, 2006

"What profiteth a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his own soul."

~ The Gospel of Mark

"This is a story written in blood and not in ink"

~ Song of the Partisans

It was disclosed last week that Montreal's Jewish People's and Peretz School was considering removing its name from its building and just leaving the initials JPPS because of "the situation in Israel". as Canadian citizens, this should make us all sad at the worn fabric of our society; as Canadian members of the family of free peoples fighting a new fascism, it should make us angry at the fear that gnaws away at our vigor and resolve. It is one of those defining moments that will be seen as a clarion call on the quality of our  national conscience.

Over the past several weeks there has been denunciation after denunciation of the suggestion by several opposition MPs that Canada begin talking to Hezbollah and perhaps taking it off our terrorist watch list. The reason for the revulsion to that suggestion was clear. We do not give in to terror. We cannot be seen to be sending a message that if murderous theocratic thugs sever enough limbs; bomb enough cities; cut off enough heads; then we will capitulate. What was all that for if any of our own citizens succumb to fear?

It is not enough in a free society for the political leadership to be brave. as important, is the necessity for an engaged, defiant and courageous citizenry. The directors of the school said that the security of its students is the first priority. They are wrong. It is insufficient for schools, at any level, merely to produce pods carrying knowledge about accounting or computers or engineering. Schools must instill character. Schools are the crucible in which civilized values are passed on from generation to generation. Schools do not exist merely to facilitate their students' ability to earn a living. They are the existential foundation of a culture. No school should ever forget that. But particularly not this school.

JPPS was founded by activists of the Jewish socialist labour movement. These brave men and women did not succumb to fear. Nor to lionizing parochial particularities over  common universalities. They celebrated human dignity. Even when that meant having to fight. The perpetuation of that legacy, and those values, is as vital – to this nation not just to the students - as any knowledge the school may have to pass on.

The members of the movement that founded JPPS were leaders in the birth of Canadian social democracy participating in everything from the Winnipeg General Strike through the founding of the CCF. Their European counterparts led partisan fighters in the forests of Europe against the Nazis. Other members drained the swamps of Israel and created the only free nation in the Middle Rim of this small planet from the borders of Pakistan to the Moroccan atlantic coast. In 1950's Quebec they fought shoulder to shoulder at the side of trade union leaders whose courage brought to an end decades of retrograde government. Each page in their glorious history was written, as the line in the "Song of the Partisans" says, "in blood and not in ink". are the heirs to that noble tradition of service and sacrifice now going to betray that patrimony?

It is not for fidelity to any notion of exclusion that this school should keep its identity visible and clear. It is precisely for fidelity to Canada's culture of inclusion that it needs to do so. To prove to the enemies of freedom that if Canada stands for anything, it stands for the faith that diversities can thrive within a national culture of liberalism and pluralism. That contrary to the doctrines of demonization that are perpetuated by the theocratic tyrants we now fight - and this school's directors fear - we Canadians will not be moved from our determination to assure the survival and success of liberty.

Do the officials of JPPS think that lowering their heads and cowering in fright will really protect anyone? I can assure them it will not. It will only help to further corrode the very foundations of this free society in which that school, and so many others of so many creeds, have flourished for so long. If the tolerant be weak and the intolerant strong then  who will win in the end?

This episode reminds me of the situation at Concordia University several years ago when that school cancelled a speaking engagement by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on the pretext that it did not have enough security guards to protect its students from possible rioting. as President of the Institute for Public affairs of Montreal I offered support to Terry Corcoran, one of the Institute's advisory Council members and a Concordia grad, to supply 50 more guards to the University free of charge. The University still refused to allow the speech to go on with some of its officials telling us that the security of its students was more important than any possible principle compromised by the cancellation of Barak's speech. The speech was cancelled. The rioting was not. Concordia was wrong then as JPPS is wrong now.

The price of security and peace can never be purchased through prejudice to our most cherished beliefs. Beliefs for which tens of thousands of Canadians have fought and died for and now lay buried row on row in battlefields around the globe. The Gospel of Mark makes it plain. "What profiteth a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul." The students of JPPS will be ill served if their instructors do not make it as plain. "Never again" is not just about physical survival. It is just as much about the triumph of the human spirit.


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