Premier Dalton McGuinty is learning that when he offends religious groups, they

don't necessarily turn the other cheek.

Jewish organizations have responded bluntly that the premier has insulted them, trampled rights, ignored history, rammed government into their places of worship and made a tragic mistake.

They are annoyed because McGuinty is pushing through a law under which Ontario will no longer enforce rulings made by faith-based courts on family law issues such as division of property and child custody.

McGuinty brought it in mainly because of concern sharia family law used in the expanding Muslim community favours men, but it also will not recognize adjudications by rabbinical courts used by Jews for many years.

Concern at the proposed law's impact on Jews has dominated hearings by an MPPs' committee. Rows between a premier and Jews also are rare, because politicians usually avoid offending this influential group.

As one example, scores of MPPs have expressed support for Israel, but only one has ever said Arabs have a case because Jews occupy their land.

The battle in the committee has gone virtually unreported. Representatives of Orthodox Jews said that community unanimously wants to keep rabbinical courts, which they claim have operated without problems.

New Democrat committee member MPP Peter Kormos pointed to a concern of many that it is difficult to know whether faith-based courts are fair, because they operate in secret.

Complaints that rabbinical courts discriminate against women also have been made.

The Jewish spokespersons offered some glimpse into this little-known world. They claimed rabbinical courts follow the most desirable principles in family law, trying first counseling and then mediation to save marriages in a system that dates back to Moses. They said only a handful of cases reach the stage where they have to go to arbitration to settle property and child issues.

Rabbinical courts also were said to share property between husband and wife similarly to Ontario courts, but the method of calculation may not be exactly the same. However, financial disclosure is always required.

Rabbinical courts also look at children's best interests and assure privacy, which Orthodox Jewish women demand in delicate family matters. These women were said to prefer rabbinical courts because they are familiar and comfortable with their language and view them as a tenet of their faith as important as the Ten Commandments.

A spokesman praised rabbinical court judges as "highly educated gentlemen," but it would have been more assuring if he could have said men and women. He added melodramatically that government has no business in the synagogues of the nation.

The influential Canadian Jewish Congress, which opposes McGuinty's law, said some people, including women, have less power than others and rabbinical courts provide safeguards to ensure those using them do so voluntarily and are fully protected during the process.

A suggestion by a former for the CJC, that the province continue to allow faith-based courts to make decisions but stipulate they must be compatible with Ontario law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, won some support among Progressive Conservatives.

The head of a shelter for abused women argued that the faith-based tribunals cannot easily identify intimidation, because they look for large physical signs and fail to note them in the look on a man's face or way he moves his head or pushes back his chair.

A Muslim who has criticized sharia said he has been threatened physically on the streets, and others said women often are coerced into sharia arbitration and awarded little financial support, and that their children are taken by the father and sent to be raised in his country of origin so that they never see them again.

The hearings probably will reinforce McGuinty in his refusal to recognize Muslims' sharia law. He may see more merit in Jews' claims, but he will find it difficult to give one religion something that he has denied to another.