The SPVM has given in and totally admitted that Mamadi Camara is innocent of any involvement with the attack on Sanjay Vig, and police chief Caron has offered an apology.
This followed the Police Brotherhood accusing the mayor of political interference when she challenged the force to deal with racial profiling. Who, if not the mayor of a city, is fairly entitled to give direction to a city’s police force?
Police are now investigating a stolen car that may have been involved in the incident.
Actor Christopher Plummer has died. He was born in Toronto but, as his Wikipedia bio notes, was brought up in Senneville and went to the High School of Montreal, in the building later used by FACE.
I watched “Silent Partner” in December, a Canadian film about a bank robbery. Christopher Plummer plays the bad guy, cheated out of his robbery by Elliott Gould. The bad guy is vicious, an uncharacteristic role, I think.
Plummer did play a Star Trek villain, too.
Other than the Sound of Music, I was not familiar with his earlier work. But he really seemed to hit his stride with a number of notable American film roles in his elder years. Enjoyed his work in Beginners, Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and thought he was just splendid in Knives Out.
Yes, seconded on The Silent Partner, great Canadian heist movie.
I had the good fortune to see Plummer in his one-man show Barrymore off-Broadway. For the first ten minutes I was just sort of basking in watching Christopher Plummer but soon he just disappeared into the role and you completely forgot it was him. Amazing. I wish I could see it again to better appreciate it now that I am older.
The rabbit hole of Wikipedia also tells me that John Abbot was his great grand pa .. I find such trivia fascinating!
Azrhey, Twitter tells me Plummer was also related to Norman Bethune. “John Bethune (1751-1815), who founded Montreal’s first Presbyterian church, was great-great grandfather to Norman, and great-great-great-grandfather to Plummer.”
He scared the be@#& out of me in ‘Silent Partner’. You could tell he was really relishing the role.
‘The Silent Partner’ was already in my watchlist on the Criterion Channel, but it’s now Priority No. 1.
I gotta say, this streaming service has been a godsend.
Best Plummer story from his autobiography. ” I was playing the piano at Montreal High and a young kid asked me if he could play after I said sure, it was the last time I played there. Oscar Peterson was the young kid.”
The Globe and Mail ran their usual great obit in this morning’s paper edition. By Elizabeth Renzetti of all people. Nicely illustrated too.
While police interpreted Quebec’s guidelines to mean religious gatherings were limited to 10 people per building, the Hasids took them to mean 10 people per distinct room inside a building, and Superior Court has agreed with them. Now this seems to imply police must watch as any number of people file into a synagogue and, I suppose, trust them to break up into separate rooms limited to 10 each.
Please don’t refer to people as Hasids.
would you say: “the chasidic communities in outremont” or “chasidic leaderships in outremont” is better?
I see the group referred to as Hasidim on various sites belonging to the Jewish community, so I assumed the term isn’t felt to be derogatory.
Hasidim is fine. Hasids seems to be often used in a derogatory way, though I don’t think you did it that way, and is probably related to why calling people “Jews” is often done and/or read maliciously.
The more encompassing term is actually Haredi. Hassid (Hassidim) is actually a subgroup.
Haredi comes from the word that means pious, but also fearful or trembling at the word of G-d. Hassid comes from the word that mean pious, but also benevolence. Hassids go back to the Baal Shem Tov (Israel Ben Eliezer) and generally excludes the Lithuanian groups and definitely excludes the Mizrachi (ie the Sephardic) ultra-orthodox.
The other term used in Israel is Dossim and my guess is that they consider it pejorative, because it is based on the Hebrew word Dattim, but with their mispronunciation of the letter Taf as an S instead of a T. Which is why they say Shabbos instead of Shabbat.
Saying “Hasids” is fine. They (the group in question) also refer to themselves as Hasids.
Marco: That logic doesn’t always work. I call myself an idiot but someone else saying it is something else entirely.
This reminds me of that 30 Rock episode where Alec Baldwin asks Salma Hayek what he should call her people/ethnicity, and she says ‘Puerto Rican’ and he says “I know that’s what you people call yourselves but what do I call you?” and she’s like “Puerto Rican!?”
Adding “im” to the end of a word in Hebrew makes it plural (most of the time; Hebrew is gendered, like French, so “im” is added to masculine words and “ot” is added to feminine words. The default, like French, is masculine). So “Hasidim” is Hebrew for “more than one Hasid.”
Hasid, as Ephraim points out, means “pious one.” I think jeather’s point is valid – if you want to refer to a group of Hassidic people, the term “Hasidim” is more respectful than “Hasids,” since it is effectively “their” term, coming from their language/culture (which, technically I guess, is Yiddish for everyday language, but Yiddish is sort of a melange of Hebrew and German, so I digress). We can infer that one who says “Hasidim” is perhaps a little more knowledgable of Hasidic culture/language/experience than one who says “Hasids.”
Anyway, I don’t think it’s a big deal. As Paulie Walnuts said, “Hasidim but I don’t believe ’em.”
Last, Ephraim, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that pronouncing a Taf with an S instead of a T is a “mispronounciation” so much as a part of the Eastern European Hebrew dialect. The idea that there is one true Hebrew that is correct and the rest are pale imitations seems like a lousy endeavour for Jews to pursue. It was also a favourite pastime of my Montreal high school Hebrew/Judaica teachers, almost all of whom were recent immigrants from Israel who were quick to make clear that the “Israeli” Hebrew was superior, followed by the Hebrew spoken in parts of the world close to Israel (Morocco, like Iraq 50 years ago, Spain like 500 years ago, etc.) followed by Eastern Europe followed by North America. Real exquisite pettiness on behalf of these educators. Anyway, see here: https://jewishaction.com/humor/fighting-taf-guys/ for an argument in favour if occasionally pronouncing Tav as Sav (really Saf, I guess)…. “Somehow the fact that I call a citron an “esrog” means that I must love Israel less (because Sepharadic pronunciation has been adopted in Israel) or that I’m a fundamentalist (because those perceived to be fundamentalists often use the Ashkenazic pronunciation).”
Shabbat shalom, Jews and Gentiles alike!
@Joey – Yes, there is a well known controversy/argument over it, related to a town in the Galilee (I think it might be Tiv’on, but I’m not sure.) Anyway, the story goes that some of the people in the town mispronounced a letter in the Hebrew alphabet and were forbidden from reading out loud from the bible because of it. So, there are those who argue that you have to be very careful when reading from the Torah to not mispronounce letters.
The argument is over the simple dagesh kal, but with no actual data behind it. But there is already TWO letter in Hebrew with the S sound, why would they have needed a third? More likely, like the shin/se’en, it might have been a tet/te’eth rather than pull in a letter for a third time. The dagesh kal change in other letters move them to known changes in other alphabets… pay/fay.
Incidentally, Sephardic Jews were in the Americas a long time before Ashkenazi Jews were here. And the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language was actually an Ashkenazi endeavour.
That last point is what I used to think of when the Israeli teachers would sneer at Ashkenazi prononciation…
So apparently the ruling applies to all religions.
Let it not be said that the religious don’t get special perks in our society. You can’t get a haircut with a grand total of two people in a room, but dozens can gather to talk to their inaginary friend. Yay science-based virus policy!
Chris, I don’t know what the interior architecture of a Hasidic synagogue is like, but according to the CBC radio news, the rule says they have to practice in groups of no more than 10 in separate rooms, each with a distinct exit to the outside. How closely it’s possible to police this, I do not know. Christian churches are pretty much one big hall, and I believe mosques are as well, so they can’t really use this loophole.
Kate, the article you linked also says there has to be “un accès indépendant à la rue sans partager d’espace commun avec les autres salles”. Unless I’m missing a loophole, wouldn’t this mean the police could just watch the external entrances? If more than 10 enter any entrance, then they are in violation, no?
The Journal says it won’t be a difficult weekend for drivers.
Aéroports de Montréal estimates a $300 million loss for 2020 and is hiking its fees.
I’m taking BETS that when traffic returns, they won’t put down their fee. Anyone want to take the bet?
Nobody’s going to touch that bet, Ephraim.
SPVM chief Sylvain Caron says the arrest and six-day lockup of Mamadi Camara was not racial profiling and that the force will apologize to him at an appropriate moment (“au moment opportun”).
Police are now floating a theory that someone took revenge on Sanjay Vig, known for his zealous application of the highway code around Park Ex.
There’s to be a demo in support of Mr Camara Friday at 16:30 near Parc metro.
Update: Adding this Journal story about stresses between city hall and the SPVM. It isn’t news – I don’t think the city has had effective control over its police force for a long time, but in this case it’s blown up over the mayor wanting an inquiry and an apology from the force, while the chief still hangs onto the possibility that Camara is involved somehow in the incident.
Have they (the media and the SPVM) learned nothing about publicizing an ongoing investigation after the first go-around? All they are doing is publishing theories with nothing to substantiate. The SPVM is trying to drown out the calls for an investigation by pushing the police as a victim narrative and LaPresse going along with it for the clicks.
So far the mayor and judge have apologized to Camara and expressed empathy.
The SPVM has an opportunity to admit fault and and win back some public trust – they’re off to a great start!
Are they going to go and un-fuckover his home as well? Compensation for lost income?
He’s definitely due damages for that, and for locking him up for six days, frightening his pregnant wife, putting his studies and livelihood in jeopardy and basically dragging his name through the media.
Here’s hoping that a proficient and aggressive lawyer has reached out to him.
walkerp 20:26 on 2021-02-05 Permalink
The public and political pressure became too great, so they finally decided to abandon their stance. This now will put the focus back on the bogus attack story, which is going to fall apart as the investigation progresses.
Jack 12:21 on 2021-02-06 Permalink
The cops would get a hell of a lot more respect if they didn’t have Yvan Francoeur as their union chief. Every Village needs a Francoeur…Montreal doesn’t.