Wee Kiddies on Picket Duty
| Type of resource | |
|---|---|
| Author/collaborator |
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| Title |
Wee Kiddies on Picket Duty
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| Abstract |
In February 1913, when a sixth-grade teacher at Montreal's Aberdeen School made disparaging remarks about her Jewish pupils, five boys (Harry Singer, Frank Sherman, Joe Orenstein, Moses Skibelsky, and Moses Margolis ) called for a strike. Even though there were several Montreal Protestant schools where Jewish students were in the majority, there were no Jewish teachers working in the public system. Hundreds of Aberdeen Jewish students congregated in St. Louis Square across from the school where they appointed strike leaders, established a negotiating committee, and resolved not to return to class until the teacher apologized. Lawyer Samuel Jacobs and Rabbi Herman Abramovitz intervened on behalf of the students and met with school officials. The matter was resolved over the course of several backroom discussions between Abramovitz, Jacobs, and the chair of the school board, Herbert Symonds. One of the outcomes of the strike was that the school board began to accept non-Protestant applications for teaching positions.
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| Publication |
Quebec Heritage News
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| Volume |
Vol. 7
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| Issue |
no. 1
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| Date |
Winter 2013
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| Pages |
3-4
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| Language |
en
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| URL | |
| Notes |
For a more fulsome account of the strike, see Rod MacLeod and Mary Anne Poutanen, "Little Fists for Social Justice : Anti-Semitism, Community, and Montreal's Aberdeen School Strike, 1913."Labour/Le Travail, Vol. 70, no. 1 (December 2012): 61-99. http://www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/view/5657/6520 |
| Citation |
MacLeod, Rod. “Wee Kiddies on Picket Duty.” Quebec Heritage News, Winter 2013. http://qahn.org/files/quebecanglophoneheritagenetwork/documents/qhn/qhn_winter_2013_layout_1_reduced.pdf.
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