ShareThisBy INGRID PERITZ
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Last spring, a local YMCA in Montreal installed four frosted windows in one of its exercise rooms to accommodate a neighboring Hasidic synagogue and religious school. Its devout members complained that their teenage boys were being distracted by the exposed flesh of women doing their Pilates, aerobics and other activities.
But now the windows have opened up a rift over whether the institution went too far to accommodate a minority. Some Y members have circulated a petition demanding the opaque windows be removed because they not only deprive the room of light, but allow a religious group to impose its ways on the majority.
"It's like getting us to wear a veil. Since we represent temptation, we're being asked to hide," Renee Lavaillante, who started the petition, said this week. "We shouldn't have to hide in order to exercise in Quebec. We're a secular state, and shouldn't hide ourselves for religious reasons."
The exercise room, located on the first story of the Y, faces the back of the Yetev Lev synagogue and school, from which it is separated by an alley. The Jewish institutions also installed tinted windows on their buildings but members say they haven't been able to stop people from opening them or heading outside during breaks.
The Hasidic community says it is not out to stop women from exercising the way they like. Members just want to find a way to maintain their strict traditions in a secular world, and felt the windows _ for which the congregation footed the $3,500 bill _ were a reasonable solution.
"We don't want our kids to be tempted by today's society," community spokesman Mayer Feig said as he stood outside the synagogue, wearing the long black coat and sidelocks that are typical of his sect. As he spoke, a Hasidic woman pushing a baby stroller walked by in a below-the-knee skirt, thick stockings and wig.
"We have a belief in being dressed modestly, and we want our kids to see women dressed modestly," Weig said. In summertime, Hasidic children head off to a camp in the Laurentians to avoid seeing scantily dressed females on the street, he said. And televisions are banned from Hasidic households. "There's too much violence and sexuality today, and our religious beliefs don't want us to see those things. We believe in protecting our culture and religion."
The Yetev Lev synagogue serves about 300 families from the Satmar sect. The religious school, or yeshiva, educates about 120 boys 16 to 19 years old. About half of them, nearly all from New York, board at the school.
Serge St-Andre, director of the YMCA branch, said the Hasidim's request had been submitted to an advisory committee, which judged it to be reasonable. The Y had rejected a separate request by the Hasidic community to rent the Y pool but use only lifeguards of the same sex as the bathers.
"We are geographically at the junction of several communities, and the YMCA has to take on the colors of those communities," he said as he walked through the Y branch, located at the boundary between the affluent residents of Outremont on one side and the widely diverse neighbourhood of bagel bakeries, souvlaki shops and Italian cafes of the Mile End district on the other. "We try to be responsive to the requests of the community. It's a challenge to satisfy everyone."
As. St-Andre discussed the issue inside the weight room, a Y member walked up to say he objected to the windows.
"We can't let ourselves be imposed upon by extremist religious groups. What's next? Separate gyms for women and for men? Wearing long pants and long sleeves to exercise?" Outremont resident Robert Dolbec asked. "They [the Hasidim] should cover their own windows. I respect their right to practice their religion, but not their right to impose their religion on us."
