Edmonton Sun | 08Mar2010 | Orest Slepokura
How far accommodation?
RE: “How much are we willing to accommodate?” Mindelle Jacobs, March 5,
2010.
Mindy Jacobs’s story of the outrageous drama queen in a niquab reminds
me of when I taught in a Hassidic boys’ middle school in north-end
Montreal. One hot day in June, my class was visited by a school
inspector, a middle-aged lady wearing a sleeveless dress. To avoid
looking at her, some of the boys put their faces down on their desks
and closed their eyes, others ostentatiously turned their desks toward
the wall. An impressive display of misogyny! By then, mind you, I was
already well-acquainted with their virulent bigotry toward gentiles and
secular Jews. Still, seeing such kneejerk contempt for outsiders in
11-and 12-year boys does, I admit, take a while to process.
Orest Slepokura
(Orthodoxies eventually
moderate or become irrelevant.)