École Maïmonide

École Maïmonide
בית ספר הרמב״ם‎
Address
Map
Parkhaven Campus:
5615 Parkhaven Road
Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec, H4W 1X3

Jacob Safra Campus:
1900 Bourdon Road
Saint-Laurent, Quebec, H4M 2X7
Information
TypePrivate Jewish day school
Religious affiliation(s)Judaism
Established1969; 55 years ago (1969)
PresidentEsther Krauze
GradesK–11
LanguageFrench, Hebrew
AffiliationFEEP, AJDS
Websiteecolemaimonide.org

École Maïmonide (Hebrew: בֵּית סֵפֶר הַרַמְבַּ״ם) is a French-language Jewish day school located in Montreal, Quebec. The school has two campuses: the Parkhaven Campus in Côte Saint-Luc and the Jacob Safra Campus in Saint-Laurent.

History

The years between 1950 and 1980 saw the departure of nearly the entire Jewish community from Morocco, mostly to Israel and France, as Arab nationalism and tension between Israel and its neighbours led them to seek refuge elsewhere.[1][2] Several thousand Moroccan Jews emigrated to Quebec, with immigration reaching its peak between 1965 and 1967 as Canada relaxed its quotas for North African Jews, and Quebec's immigration laws began favouring francophones.[3]

At the time of their arrival, Quebec's confessional school system prohibited Jews from attending French-language Catholic schools, relegating them to the English-language Protestant public school system.[4] The existing Jewish community, which had historically associated with the anglophone minority, had no French institutions to offer the new immigrants.[5]

At its fifteenth plenary session in May 1968, the Canadian Jewish Congress committed to assisting the Association séfarade francophone (the main organization of the francophone Jewish community) in creating a French-language Jewish school in Montreal. A committee representing both groups met with the Ministry of Education to discuss implementation of the plan. The project was approved, and École Maïmonide founded in 1969, initially operating in a wing of the Catholic Saint Antonin School. The costs were shared by the Montreal Catholic School Commission, Allied Jewish Community Services, and the United Jewish Relief Agencies of Canada.[6][7] In 1972, the school moved to its own premises in Côte Saint-Luc.

In 1990, the school opened its second campus in Saint-Laurent.[8]

Academics

In the 2018 Fraser Institute Quebec secondary school rankings, the Jacob Safra Campus was ranked 44th in the province, while the Parkhaven Campus was ranked 194th (out of 452).[9]

References

  1. ^ Cohen, Yolande (2011). "The Migrations of Moroccan Jews to Montreal: Memory, (Oral) History and Historical Narrative". Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. 10 (2): 245–262. doi:10.1080/14725886.2011.580984. ISSN 1472-5894. S2CID 144474620.
  2. ^ Masis, Julie (August 26, 2017). "Take a walk through Sephardic Montreal's illustrious history on a new urban tour". The Times of Israel. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  3. ^ Cohen, Yolande; Schwartz, Stephanie Tara (Fall 2016). "Scholarship on Moroccan Jews in Canada: Multidisciplinary, Multilingual, and Diasporic". Journal of Canadian Studies. 50 (3): 592–612. doi:10.3138/jcs.50.3.592. S2CID 149383524. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  4. ^ "L'école Maïmonide de Montréal, la première école juive francophone du Canada". Radio-Canada (in French). October 24, 2018. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved November 25, 2018.
  5. ^ Chevalier-Caron, Christine (December 20, 2022). "L'héritage des activités de l'Alliance israélite universelle dans les relations entre accueillants.es et accueillis.es à Montréal et en France des années 1950 aux années 1980: le cas des migrations d'origine marocaine". Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes. 34: 112–129. Archived from the original on May 1, 2024. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
  6. ^ Langlais, David; Rome, Barbara (2006). Jews and French Quebecers: Two Hundred Years of Shared History Jacques. Translated by Young, Barbara. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-0-88920-998-5. Archived from the original on May 20, 2021. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  7. ^ Pinsky, Marian. "École Maïmonide". Museum of Jewish Montreal. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
  8. ^ "Histoire de l'école". École Maïmonide. Archived from the original on November 25, 2018. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
  9. ^ Cowley, Peter; Labrie, Yanick (2018). "Quebec secondary school rankings 2018" (PDF). Fraser Institute. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 26, 2018. Retrieved November 25, 2018.

45°28′2″N 73°39′42″W / 45.46722°N 73.66167°W / 45.46722; -73.66167