The Problems of Canadian Jewish Youth
I am a member of a race that, in all parts of the world has been persecuted and oppressed because of misunderstanding and this can be corrected only by mingling with each other and by a frank discussion of each other's problems. A child fears the dark because it is afraid of what might be present there. So does one nation fear another, if they do not understand each other. The imagined evils overshadow the truth but a little tolerance and understanding brings peace and security.
We have, in Vancouver, a Jewish youth organization that might be compared to your Y.M.C.A. inasmuch as we take young Jewish boys and girls into our ranks and make of them good Canadian citizens and also good Jews. This is the Vancouver Young Judaea organization and is comprised of two groups. One for children up to the age of sixteen from which they automatically enter into the other for adolescent youth up to the age of twenty-two. They come to us from environments of every type; from well-to-do homes, from middle class homes and from the hovels of the poor. These boys and girls elect their own officers, as do adult organizations, they conduct their meetings in accordance with the strictest parliamentary procedure and are taught to rely on themselves as much as possible. They are even self supporting and are rarely subsidized financially. Physical recreation is encouraged. Whenever finances permit, a gym is rented and the youngsters enjoy their physical drill and basketball. The sports chairman arranges hikes and swimming parties. Each summer this group has sponsored a softball team. Educationally, they participate in debating and public speaking. At each meeting of the Junior group, two or three beginners are given topics to prepare on which they speak two or three minutes. In a period of three years we find they are able to hold their own in discussions and debates. Several of our boys, particularly, have been prominent in the high schools. Last year two of our members won their way into the finals of the inter-high school debates in opposing sides. Each year a series of lectures is given to the senior club by some prominent person in the community on suitable topics. Aside from the local plans for education, the groups also obtain a large amount of material from the Canadian Young Judaean Federation at Montreal, with which the group is afliliated. The material coming from this Head Office, in addition to encouraging the children to take pride in their Judaism, also spends a large amount of its energy in teaching the British principles of life and the respect of the Canadian citizenship and all it implies. In January of this year the children were sent out to sell these calendars. The money so raised was sent to Palestine and is to be used for planting a forest there in the name of King George V. On the calendars were the following inscriptions . . . Here is a magazine, the Judaea, which is published monthly and sent to all the registered members. In this the February issue, is printed an editorial lamenting the death of our late King.   It reads as
follows.....These examples give you an
idea of the work that is being done in teaching
0   By Myer Freedman
Editor's Note:
*
Mr. Myer Freedman is a local boy who has always taken an active and studious interest in Jewish affairs. This article was first delivered as an address before the Y.M.C.A. Business Men's Club : where it was enthusiastically received.
We believe this type of missionary work of Jew to Gentile to be very valuable in these times in making for better understanding between these groups.
our growing Jewish generation a real appreciation of Canadian citizenship. In addition to this the Head Office conducts an Eastern and a Western Conference each year, and a nationwide convention annually. We have been participating in the Western conference and last year sent three delegates to Edmonton.
But this work is very easily done. There are several organizations. The Y.M.C.A., the Tuxis, the Oddfellows, etc., that function in a similar manner. The leaders of our organization, however, are faced with much more difficulty than one would imagine, in bringing up the present generation of young Jewish boys and girls. This is the first generation of Canadian-born Jews. You have all seen the fathers of these children. Men who have come to this country from the cities and ghettos of Eastern Europe. Old bearded Jews who speak with broad foreign accents and wear the oddest clothes. Bearded Jews who drive their horses and wagons through the alley ways and streets of this city with the old familiar cry on their lips "Any Junk, any bottles, any rags" or who operate stores dealing in second-hand clothes, furniture and stoves. But these are the pioneers of Canadian Jewry. These are our pilgrim fathers and their peddlers carts are our "Mayflowers." For these Jews sacrificed prestige and position in the countries of Eastern Europe and came here for the sake of their children. They came to this country so that their children would not have to undergo the persecution and social degradation that has been heaped on the Jews of Poland, Roumania and Germany. They had been born into and had adopted the European type of life. Practically all of these men spent their early years till the age of 2i at their studies and then took their places among the intellectual leaders of the countries in which they lived* But picture the plight of these men when they arrived in Canada with their families. Hungry mouths must be fed and in the process of providing for growing families there is no time to become acclimatized, to learn the language and customs of the country. So these men had to swallow their pride and turn to any
vocation that would give them a living. With the lack of an English education and of finance they could not enter into the average business life of the nation and they were forced to enter the lower class business life. These men are unable to cast off their Eastern European culture at their age and without the proper facilities, and we find that they always remain aliens in a foreign land. But they have not yet made all the sacrifice that is to be demanded of them. When their children grow up; going to our Canadian schools and Universities, they grow up without any apreciation of what their parents have done for them. They are taught the beauty of the English language and the culture of the English-speaking people and their own parents are fbrieign to them. It is here that those old bearded Jews make the supreme sacrifice when they give upthe love of their children because of their love for their. children.
We now find the children going to school and, seemingly, being subjected to culture and influences that all the other children are. But this is far from being so. It is now that they find that the accident of birth by "which they have been born Jews has condemned them to a life of discrimination even in this most liberal of countries, Canada, and in this most cosmopolitan of cities, Vancouver. Let me give you a few examples of how this comes about. Every high school in British Columbia has included in its English course, Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice." In this play one of the leading characters is Shylock, a rich, Jewish money lender, whom Shakespeare pictures as an evil, vindictive, despicable person who plots against the life of the hero. I do not say that the teachers deliberately attempt to shame the Jewish students, but when the class is taught that this hated character was typical of the Jews of that period the teachers are driving self-hatred into the hearts of the descendants of that race who cannot help but hate the Shy-lock of Shakespeare's play. I would like to stop here for a moment and express my views on this particular play. In view of the fact that Shylock was a fictitious character and dees not truly portray the Jew of that period; in view of the fact that Shakespeare never came into contact with Jews, as Jews were not permitted to live in England for 300 years prior to and during Shakespeare's time; and in view of the fact that Shakespeare created this character purely out of his mind, in accordance with what the English, who knew no Jews, imagined them to be like, and did not have any basis from real life for the same; I feel that this play should not he taught in the schools unless the true facts are made known. Many colleges in the Eastern states have stopped teaching this play and only recently a company of actors in New Britain, Connecticut, dropped it from their schedule. To come back to the point, there is no doubt that during the time this play is taught Jewish students are made to feel very uncomfortable. Later when they leave high school and start to plan their advanced education they find further barriers. In Toronto, non-Jewish lawyers have openly refused to article Jewish law students. At the present time an investigation is being held regarding anti-Jewish discrimination in the medical college of the University of Manitoba. There are 14,000 peopde who annually make application to enter the 46 reputable medical schools of the U.S.A. Although 50% of the applicants are Jewish the figures show that only 17% are admitted. If they pick up the newspapers they invariably find reports of persecution and Jew hatred in some parts of the world.  In 1933 we read that signs were posted
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The Jewish Western Bulletin, April 7th, 1936
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