Around 2009, a number of churches were dealing with sex abuse allegations in a number of cities. One of those cities was Cornwall in Ontario, Canada. As details of the scandal involving the Roman Catholic diocese of Cornwall came to light, there were calls for a provincial inquiry to be held on the matter. One of the first issues that needed to be addressed was whether or not it was appropriate for the provincial government to investigate a religious body. After all, Canada has the separation of church and state, just as the USA does. But, what does any of this have to do with Jewish libraries? My access to legal documents is limited during the current lockdown / stay-at-home order. However, Google is sometimes adequate for legal research. Volume 12 of The Cornwall Public Inquiry may be found at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/cornwall/en/hearings/transcripts/Mar-28-06/cornwall12mar2806.pdf__;!!KGKeukY!hnd_AD3SKblcoIV9_gI6huKvqymBXD0mjeZNA_NdPycpvxgN16dRXJyZiHsDtGv9VYk$ If you skip ahead to page 29, it says this :
"Over at the next page, there is referred to the case of the Jewish Library Association in the City of Toronto, the same thing applies. If you look at the language of the excerpt, this approach was taken by Stewart J, in the Corporation of the City of Toronto and Toronto Jewish Library Association considered that a library containing 5,000 books was a public institution, and he considered public access to the facilities in the extent to which it was actually used by persons beyond the Jewish community. The point here is the Jewish Community Association Library wasn't a public institution at large because of the phrase "other public institution" but only because of that phrase as modified and informed by the expression of the antecedent public library and those things that followed it, literary and scientific. In other words, it's a repository of knowledge, it has library-like facilities. The things that are in there are probably literary or scientific, et cetera. You don't take this thing in a vacuum, which is urged on you by my friends. " Despite its name, the Jewish Library Association was not a chapter of our Association of Jewish Libraries. It was the name used by what became the Board of the Jewish Public Library of Toronto. I don't know anything about why there was a court case involving the City of Toronto or what the issue was. It seems that one of the questions discussed was whether the "Jewish Public Library" can (or should) be considered a "public" institution or a "private" institution. Aside from the use of the word "Public" in its name, the fact that the Library was serving Gentiles as well as Jews seemed to be a factor that was discussed. Does anyone else know of any court cases involving a Judaica library? Steven M. Bergson, EditorJewish Comics AnthologyToronto, Canada
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