Events | Babel: Jews and Neighbours in the Mile End

Thursday, September 8th at 7:00 p.m.

The Mile End Chavurah Salon Series in  partnership with ShtetlMontreal.com is very excited to present BABEL: Jews and Neighbours in the Mile End.

This past June, a small Hasidic synagogue on Hutchison St. saw its expansion plans rejected in an unprecedented referendum. The vote underlined the uneasy relationship between the Hasidic community of Outremont/Mile End and its secular neighbours. It also galvanized the Friends of Hutchison St., a neighbourhood movement aimed at creating spaces for dialogue and exchange with the Hasidic community.

BABEL: Jews and Neighbours in the Mile End is a salon developed around questions of shared spaces and community identities.

What does it mean for a group like the Mile End Chavurah to be building a progressive Jewish community in a neighbourhood where the long-established Hasidim represent Jews and Judaism in the eyes of the public? What are the implications of sharing our Jewishness with communities with which we rarely, if ever, interact? How are we perceived by the Hasidim, and how do we perceive them? What are our responsibilities to each other by virtue of being neighbours?

Panelists include:
 Shauna van Praagh, associate professor in the Faculty of Law at McGill University, whose current research areas include legal education, religion and law, and children in the law of civil wrongs; author of numerous articles including “Identity’s Importance: Reflections of – and on – Diversity” and “The Chutzpah of Chasidism”;  Mayer Feig, spokesperson for the Gate David synagogue on Hutchison St. which was the object of the June referendum, and, Mireille Silcoff, founding editor of Guilt & Pleasure Quarterly, a magazine of new Jewish writing and ideas; National Post columnist and contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, and the Walrus; founder of a string of Jewish discussion salons in several American and Canadian cities; and volunteer tutor and “big sister” to underprivileged children in the Hasidic community of Montreal.
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Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door, and include complementary kosher refreshments.  
Please reserve your tickets by clicking on this easy Paypal donate button. We look forward to hearing about your perspectives and experiences.