Page 4- The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, December 16, 1982
World-National
New book from former Star editor
■ By JANICE ARNOLD
MONTREAL —
If you had Jast about given up on hearing anything good about the future/of Quebec,-; and particularly Montreal, from an anglophone, Gerald Clark's latest book, Montreal: The New Citej will come as a breath of fresh air.
Clark, editor of The Montreal Star from 1968 until it ceased publication in 1979, interviewed more than 200 Montreal-ers from the worlds of business, politics, technology, sports, the arts and others — francophones and anglophones — who together form a picture of a Montreal that is not fast sinking into the St. Lawrence but is actually on the verge of renewed prosperity.
^^Montreal is not a decaying city," writes Clark. *'It lis a resh^ied city: a reflection of the. province of Quebec, dominated by a fresh wave of French rather than English Canadians. This is a substantial' development that should be regarded in an affirmative sense." .
Clark shows how the city has ^continued to thrive in spite of, and probably because of. Bill 101. the controversial language legislation, Clark believes, has removed much of the emo- . tional appeal of separat-. ism.'- ■.' ;
Young or fra n co -phones are taking over. as the captains of industry and anglophones who have staiyed in Quebec are .adapting to the change — quite happily, it would appear.
"It is a growing acceptance of two cultures working, riot alongside,; but with one anqther,'' says Clark. '
TREES TALK:
They sii y "Coii^ratulat ions", ••Tiiank You": ••Bon Vby-ag't-'."'; ''Sorry" or whatever you want them to say to y() u r Tr i e r 1 d s'a n d I o V ed p li es. Wc will plant trees in'israel and.send .a- |vahdsbme certificate tcii tliose you-wish to rcnieliiber. Trees (S 5; each).
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Montreal: The New Cite is more than seinti-mentality or wishful thinking. Although born (in 1918) and educated in Montreal, Clark notes that his career as a journalist has taken him abroad for many years. For several years he was the Star's chief European correspondent and has reported from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. His past books include Impatient Giant: Red China Today, and The Coming Explosion in Latin America.
"I approach my own city with some kind of objectivity, as though it were a foreign city," he says.
One of the book's chapters is entitled The Jewish Presence.
Here Clark tells the long history of the Jews
in this city~ largely through the rags-to-riches tales of three of the best known families: the Steinbergs, Pascals and Reitmans, who have stayed and continue to prosper in Quebec.
of Jews
Some memorable quotes ifrom the chapter:
"The Jews have come through so many calami-, ties in their history that the fittest have survived. Many, many more adjust to language than anglophones generally. So they are going to emerge
as .part of a flexible society." — Pierre Robi-taille, managing partner of the chartered accountants Ernst & Whinney. "I've taken a position
— and it's a personal position — that we came here with very Uttle, and this country and this province have been good to us. When things looked hard, and people were leaving under the Parti Quebecois, I felt that we, as an important Jewish family, had a special responsibility to stay."
— Arthur Pascal.
"To compare the situation in Quebec to Nazi Germany is to defile the memory of the Holocaust. It is also a slander on Quebec." — anonymous Holpcaust survivor.
"Anti-semitism? When you've worked and studied in France, as
I have, you know what anti-semitism is. There is none here." — Ralph Lallouz, originally from Morocco, now senior represent at i v e for foreign investment at Montreal Trust.
Others interviewed in the chapter include author Naim Kattan, Maurice Schouela, member of a prominent Se-phardi family, industrialists Jack Cummings and Charles Bronfman, Rabbi Harry J. Stern, former Canadian Jewish Congress Quebec region director Jack Kantro-witz, and Mitzi Dobrin, head of the Miracle Mart section of the Steinberg operations!
Thebr general contentment in Quebec, Clark writes, reflects positively on francophones. The recent "searing period of self-analysis and social
Gerald Qark
and political revolution" may have had its cost for the non-French community as a whole but not to the Jews in particular. "In historic terms this is virtually unprecedented."
At least a dozen other Jewish Montrealers are cited elsewhere in the book, all examples of how non-francophones
have adapted to tR^^-political and cultura|lp changes in the province^^;. They include the welfe-;-^ known (Eric Maldoff,^: president of , Alliancelp; j Quebec, Leo Kolber ofjpj,.. CEMP Investments, |>;/-Maurice Podbrey, artis-tic director of the ' Centaur Theatre) to the more obscure, but never- Ig-; ^ theless successful (office leasing specialist Stephen Leopold and Peerless Clothing Manu-facturing president Alvin Segal). ■ .
Toronto's Jewish community may for the first time be bigger than that of Montreal's, but the exodus had leveled off with the young remaining now as long as there are jobs and the wealthy and established are determined to keep the community alive arid important, says Clark.