éditorial - In the chart accompanying your Jan. 22 article "Canada's population is more people diverse than it's ever been: stats" on the ethnic origins of Montrealers, the total population is comprised of people of various ethnic backgrounds, including French, Italian, Irish, Greek, Chinese, Scottish and Jewish. To report "Jewish" as a nationality is the equivalent of reporting "Christian," "Hindu" or "Muslim" as nationalities. "Jewish" refers to a religious background, not a nationality.

This renders some of the census figures inaccurate because the people who are reported to be of "Jewish" nationality might be immigrants, but of what country? Statistics Canada wants us to know that its census found that there are 3,380,645 new immigrants in Canada from a variety of different countries and 80,390 of them are Jewish, so their actual country of origin, the focus of this part of the census, is irrelevant.

It is easy to determine the country of origin for such nationalities as Chinese or Irish. The same cannot be said of someone whose stated nationality is "Jewish." Chinese people are from China, and Irish people are from Ireland. Are "Jewish" people from "Jewland"? One possible response is that Jewish people are from Israel. However, while many Israelis are Jewish, most Jews are not Israeli. Furthermore, Jews living outside the state of Israel maintain nationalities that are in no way related to their religion.

It is alarming that the Canadian government would choose to identify one religious population when reporting on ethnic origins. It also begs the question, why identify Jews and not Hindus, Muslims or some other religious group? What is more alarming is that news organizations are perpetuating these biases.

This type of identification is wrong. It is interesting to think back 100 years to the roots of modern Zionism. The feeling among Jewish people then was that they could not assimilate into society because of the inevitability of being cast out. History is a renewing phenomenon, and it certainly is interesting to note the similarities that exist today.

One would think that the government bodies of a country such as Canada, known for its ethnic diversity and tolerance, would have more intelligence than to be reporting on the status of one religious group in the context of a completely different subject.

Josh Zangwill

Montreal