Synagogues and schools in Quebec are finding it is taking longer than it did in the past to hire rabbis to fill vacant posts. There are fewer candidates available, and in some cases the language requirements imposed by Bill 96, add another layer of difficulty.
Bill 96, which enacts even more restrictive measures on the use of languages other than French than the landmark 1977 Charter of the French Language, was passed by the National Assembly one year ago. Some of its provisions are coming into effect now.
Under the new law, rabbis can apply for only a two-year exemption for their school-aged children, which is not renewable, said B’nai Brith League for Human Rights national director Marvin Rotrand.
The organization is reiterating its request for a modification of the law that would reinstate the previous system whereby rabbis from outside Canada could enroll their children in English schools under a three-year exemption that was renewable up to several times.
Congregation Beth Tikvah Ahavat Shalom Nusach Hoari, an Orthodox congregation in Dollard des Ormeaux recently hired a new senior rabbi after a lengthy search.
Its cantor, Hank Topas, who is also B’nai Brith’s Quebec regional director, said Bill 96 was not a direct factor in the time it took or the choice, but “we were fortunate to find someone who no longer has children in school.”
Topas does think that there might have been a greater number of candidates who could have been considered if Bill 96 did not exist.
Rabbi Marc Mandel, a New York native, was selected a few months ago and will take up his new position in a couple of weeks, Topas said. Rabbi Mandel was most recently senior rabbi at Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I., where he served for a decade.
He replaces Rabbi Mark Fishman who made aliyah over a year ago, after serving Beth Tikvah for 12 years.
Topas said the major factor in choosing a new rabbi was reaching “universal buy-in” from the congregation, which has over 600 members, that this was the right person for the post.
Last year, B’nai Brith made a formal request to the Coalition Avenir Québec government to alter Bill 96 so that the former regulation remained in place.
Rotrand said that over the decades he is not aware of any abuse of this leniency which removed a significant impediment to the Montreal Jewish community’s ability to attract and retain spiritual leaders and educators, many of whom come from the United States or other English-speaking countries.
According to Rotrand’s information, a similar exemption afforded foreign investors in Quebec has not changed with the new law.
Without the exemption, foreign rabbis’ children will have to go to French-language schools, and while these exist in the Jewish system their orientation may not be suitable for some families, Rotrand said.
A month before Bill 96 was adopted in June 2022 B’nai Brith made the government aware of the problems the law would create for the Jewish community which already had difficulty competing with other communities worldwide for rabbis, of which there is a shortage especially among certain denominations, Rotrand said.
The organization proposed an amendment that would enshrine an exception to the law for all religious clergy, including rabbis.
“We got absolutely nowhere,” Rotrand said of his letters to Benoit Charette, then minister responsible for combating racism, and Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister of justice and the French language. “No one got back to us.”
Rotrand has now written to Christopher Skeete, the current anti-racism minister.
“Our consultation over the past weeks with the community has demonstrated that our fears were not exaggerated,” said Rotrand. “Schools and synagogues have confirmed to us that qualified candidates from outside Canada are hesitant to accept offers in Quebec. We’re thus again asking that the law be amended to address this issue.”
While B’nai Brith has severely criticized Bill 96 as violating the Canadian Constitution’s protection of minority language rights, it has chosen to not join the legal challenges now before the courts at this time, said Rotrand, “preferring to engage with the government.” (Almost two dozen municipalities with bilingual status, led by Cote-St.-Luc, are taking the provincial government to court to challenge parts of the French-language law.)
Rotrand stressed that the new law, in the long term, will have a detrimental effect on the community in general, not only its synagogues and schools.
“If Bill 96 continues to impede the ability of Quebec’s Jewish community to recruit talent from abroad, our once-vibrant community will continue to atrophy,” he said, noting that in 1971 it numbered more than 120,00, compared today’s 90,000.
As an example of the effect the law is already having, Rotrand pointed to the Rabbinical College of Canada – the Lubavitcher yeshivah. Two vacancies for religious teachers had to be filled by young single men from New York City who could not commit for more than probably a year, he said,
“While not casting any judgment on these men’s competence, the school would have preferred—as it usually does—older men with families who would stay for longer periods.”
The problem mainstream Jewish institutions are having finding religious officials is illustrated by the experience of Shaare Zion-Beth-El Congregation, the flagship of Conservative Judaism in Montreal, founded in 1924.
The congregation has just hired a permanent senior rabbi after an almost two-year search. Rabbi Adam Rubin, a California native, fills the post left vacant with the departure in July 2021 after three years of Rabbi Aubrey Glazer, originally from Toronto, who is now serving a congregation in Dayton, Ohio.
However, Shaare Zion-Beth-El president Gilla Geiger doubts the new language legislation was a major reason for the time it took to find a replacement.
“I do believe that the shortage of Conservative rabbis was more of a factor than Bill 96 in finding a rabbi,” she said, referring to the widely reported paucity of available spiritual leaders in that stream.
“You are well aware, I’m sure, that our Jewish day schools, at both the primary and high school levels have robust Section Française programs. These schools help the children to integrate slowly into their French curriculum.
“In this way, the children do not need to go to English schools.”
Rabbi Rubin and his wife Judith Schleyer have two daughters aged 12 and 9. A U.S. citizen for many years, Schleyer was born and raised in France and attended Concordia University in Montreal.
Rabbi Rubin has been serving Beth Tivkah Congregation in Richmond, B.C., since 2017, and their younger child attended French immersion school while there. The family have been permanent residents of Canada since 2020.
He holds a PhD in modern Jewish history from the University of California and was on the Hebrew Union College faculty in Los Angeles for a decade before becoming a pulpit rabbi.
He graduated from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles in 2014, and served American congregations before moving to British Columbia.
