Feb 28: Celebration of the centenary of Montreal’s Aberdeen School Strike

Concordia University's Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies is pleased to co-sponsor a celebration of the centenary of Montreal’s Aberdeen School Strike. 100 years ago, several hundred Jewish elementary students went on strike in protest over an anti-Semitic statement made by a Protestant teacher. Sandwiched between the violent tailors’ strike of 1912 and the Plamondon libel case, the students’ actions revealed the growing class and ethnic tensions in Montreal. The strike proved a catalyst for change within both the city’s Jewish community and Quebec’s education system.

Date

February 28, 2013
17h00/5pm – 19h00/7pm

Location

Atrium, Samuel Bronfman Building (SB), Concordia University
1590 Docteur Penfield Ave.

Information: 514 398-4400, #089463
RSVP: archives@cjcc.ca (514) 931-7531, #2

Program

Keynote address on the historical significance of youth activism speaker:
Tamara Myers, Dept. of History, UBC.

Dramatic reading

A short play depicting a key scene in the Aberdeen School strike
Writer: Alexis Diamond
Director: Emma Tibaldo

Launch of the Graphic Novel

Kids on Strike at Montreal’s Aberdeen School, 1913
Writers: Rod MacLeod & Mary Anne Poutanen
Artist: Derek Broad

Organized by

Roderick MacLeod & Mary Anne Poutanen
Authors, “Little Fists for Social Justice: Anti-Semitism, Community, and Montreal’s Aberdeen School Strike, 1913” Labour/Le Travail (Fall /automne 2012)