{"id":13521,"date":"2015-07-03T00:06:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T07:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=13521"},"modified":"2015-07-03T09:24:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T16:24:24","slug":"montreal-can-be-the-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/07\/03\/montreal-can-be-the-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal can be the model"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre at the Jan. 11, 2015, rally in Montreal in support of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. (photo by Gerry Lauzon via commons.wikimedia.org)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A hate crimes department within the city\u2019s police force might be a good idea, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said following a meeting with Jewish community leaders from Quebec and France at Montreal\u2019s city hall on June 25.<\/p>\n

Coderre and members of his executive committee held a two-hour closed-door session to discuss what role cities can play in combating antisemitism in Montreal and globally. He underlined the frequent link between antisemitism and radicalization and its violent expression.<\/p>\n

Unlike forces in many North American cities, the Service de Police de Montr\u00e9al (SPVM) does not have a unit dedicated to investigating crimes suspected to be motivated by hatred of identifiable groups. Coderre said he will meet the SPVM to pursue the possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have good people [in the police] who are doing a good job now, but we have to look into whether we can do things a better way and learn from best practices [elsewhere],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That was the most concrete suggestion coming out of the meeting.<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s main message after the meeting was that \u201cwe have to call a spade a spade.\u2026 Antisemitism exists, here and around the world. We have to denounce it, we have to talk about it, we have to understand that clearly something is going on and we must be there to fight it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting was the fulfilment of a promise that Coderre had made to leaders of the French Jewish community when he visited Paris in February, shortly after the murderous terrorist attacks at the Charlie Hebdo<\/em> magazine office and Hyper-Cacher kosher grocery store.<\/p>\n

Present at the meeting, from France, were Serge Dahan, president of B\u2019nai B\u2019rith France, and Yonathan Arfi, vice-president of the Conseil Repr\u00e9sentatif des Institutions Juives de France, as well as leaders of Federation CJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the Communaut\u00e9 S\u00e9pharade Unifi\u00e9e du Qu\u00e9bec and B\u2019nai Brith Canada.<\/p>\n

Julien Bauer, a Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al political science professor, and Mount Royal MP and human rights activist Irwin Cotler participated as experts on antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Coderre hopes that Montreal and Paris can cooperate especially closely on strategies to combat antisemitism and make their cities safer.<\/p>\n

Coderre called antisemitism \u201cthe oldest and most persistent\u201d form of racism and warned against a tendency to \u201ctrivialize\u201d it. He also recognized that anti-Zionism often cloaks contemporary antisemitism.<\/p>\n

The meeting was also a followup to the June 10-11 Montreal Summit on Living Together, a gathering of 23 mayors from around the world convened by Coderre to examine how municipalities can prevent radicalism and ensure security, starting by promoting respect for diversity and harmony among the different cultural groups in their citizenry.<\/p>\n

The City of Montreal, also in the wake of the Paris attacks, announced plans for a new centre aimed at preventing violent radicalism. So far, it consists of a telephone hotline to report information on suspected radical activity. Coderre said that the centre can play a role in preventing antisemitism. He wants to form partnerships with the schools, civil society and others in this endeavor.<\/p>\n

Coderre said he plans to make the discussion on antisemitism an annual event, and believes that Montreal can serve as a model of how to combat racism and radicalism, while achieving \u201ca balance between openness and vigilance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more we talk about it, the more it will have a positive effect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

CIJA Quebec vice-president Luciano Del Negro applauded Coderre\u2019s commitment in taking on the \u201cchallenge\u201d of combating antisemitism.<\/p>\n

He especially appreciated that the mayor recognizes the distinctiveness of antisemitism among forms of racism, and that antisemitism is not only a phenomenon of the extreme right, but also the far left.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Cotler applauded Coderre\u2019s \u201cexemplary leadership\u201d and recognition that \u201cmunicipalities not only have a role, but a responsibility, to combat antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre at the Jan. 11, 2015, rally in Montreal in support of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. (photo by Gerry Lauzon via commons.wikimedia.org) A hate crimes department within the city\u2019s police force might be a good idea, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said following a meeting with Jewish community leaders from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[801,2904,458,4095,740,4096,4097,1774],"class_list":["post-13521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-antisemitism","tag-charlie-hebdo","tag-cija","tag-denis-coderre","tag-luciano-del-negro","tag-montreal","tag-radicalism","tag-terrorism"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}