One thing you can say about Blanche. When we make a mistake, we own up to it. For the past two weeks or so, we have heard daily about pockets of the Jewish community ignoring social distancing rules or not quarantining when they should be. Well dearies, it turns out that we were not told the entire story.
It appears that parks in the east end of Montreal, where the population is predominately French Canadian and they live densely, one on top of the other, have been congregating in very large numbers in Lafontaine Park and Mount Royal among the main places.
And who is there? Mostly young people. Not Orthodox Jews.
The question is why are we only hearing about this now while the Jews have been singled out relentlessly for the past three weeks?
Yes, they did dumb things. Making weddings with hundreds of people was not only idiotic, it was also in-your-face and sadly, all the families are paying a dear price as many have contracted the virus. Lionel Perez not thinking that if he hired a one-man band his neighbours would not start to congregate was short-sighted to put it mildly.
But to pretend the rest of the city is lily white and following all the rules? And hiding this information?
We are all going to pay a price for those congregating in parks in large numbers as the police have now been given extraordinary powers. That’s fine as long as it equally policed in every community.
We missed an important story yesterday and will put it out there now. The Canadian Jewish News is folding. Kaput. Over. No print or online version.
The CJN has grown over the years to be a decent paper. More than that however, it united Jews all over Canada. Montrealers knew what was happening in Toronto, Ottawa and across Canada.
It behooves those who are able to do so, to resurrect the paper – permanently. This is be a service to the Jewish people in Canada. It will not be a money-maker. If you know anyone who is able to help with this, we suggest you contact them and have them reach out to the CJN. It should not be allowed to fail.
Good Shabbos