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March 25, 2005
Legally speaking Jews
A rabbi, a judge and four lawyers talk about the law.
PAT JOHNSON
As the only clergyman on a panel filled with lawyers, Rabbi Andrew
Rosenblatt may have seemed the odd man out – or part of some
impending punchline. But the education of a rabbi and the education
of a lawyer employ the same intellectual muscles, he said.
Yeshivah training is just like law school, the rabbi told a room
of lawyers, law students and the curious Monday night at the University
of British Columbia's Hillel House. The spiritual leader of Vancouver's
Orthodox Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, who is also the head of the province's
Orthodox Rabbinical Court, was part of a powerhouse panel on Jews
in the legal profession, organized by the newly revived UBC Jewish
Law Students' Association.
"The Talmud is a series of precedents," Rosenblatt said.
The legal guidelines of the Talmud spell out the Jewish halachic
(legal) position on such issues as privacy, labor rights and other
complex problems that often end up in court. A difference, the rabbi
noted, is that "western" law often looks at things from
a rights perspective, while Jewish law looks at things from a moral
perspective. For example, conventional Canadian law might approach
the issue of privacy by saying an individual has a right to privacy.
Jewish law reverses the equation, saying an individual has a moral
obligation not to snoop into the affairs of others.
Panelists, including a provincial Supreme Court justice and some
of the country's most prominent legalists, offered diverse, personal
perspectives on the interaction between their Jewishness and their
legal careers.
"Being Jewish is an illustration of certain values that you
bring into law," said Madame Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein
of the B.C. Supreme Court. The morals and values that were bred
into her as a child are those that she carries with her onto the
bench, she said.
Like all of the other panelists, Stromberg-Stein maintained that
the days of blatant anti-Semitism in the legal profession are over.
The only incident in her career in which she encountered the old
attitude was in a business meeting of judges when another jurist,
who was responsible for hiring an orchestra for a social event,
declared that he had "really jewed them down." When confronted
over his slur, Stromberg-Stein said, "this other judge was
mortified with his own behavior." He had learned the offending
phrase as a child and hadn't made the logical connection that it
was an offensive aspersion.
"It was a learning experience for him," said Stromberg-Stein,
who seemed to warn the students that ignorance, not outright anti-Semitism,
may be behind some offensive comments.
"There is, in high places, potential for misunderstanding,
if not anti-Semitism," she said.
Things were not always thus, according to other panelists. As recently
as the 1970s, Jewish law students had serious trouble getting articling
positions upon graduation, due to entrenched anti-Semitic barriers
in the legal profession. Though those days are apparently passed,
there are specific challenges to being a Jewish lawyer, panelists
said.
Is it possible to be a young lawyer and not work on Shabbat, asked
one audience member. The answer from the experienced lawyers was
yes, with a caveat.
"So you'll work on Sunday," said Bernie Simpson, one of
the province's top injury lawyers and a former member of the B.C.
legislature. As a lawyer and a politician, Simpson was forced constantly
to choose family over career advancement on Friday nights and Saturdays,
he said.
Richard Kurland, a Vancouverite and a member of the Quebec bar who
specializes in immigration law, has represented some of the world's
most familiar names. He had the audience in hysterics with some
of his stories, but the nuggets of his messages went right to the
moral conundrums facing legal professionals. Clients will challenge
your own values, he said, and it is necessary to find a way of serving
the client and one's own sense of right and wrong. In one case,
Kurland said, he told the infamous late politician and activist
Rabbi Meir Kahane, "Rabbi, I find you to be morally repugnant."
Once that was out of the way, Kurland said, he helped the founder
of the Jewish Defence League with his specific legal issue. He said
he has even justified aiding Hezbollah members because when one
Hezbollah member strays from the flock, a cache of valuable information
becomes available to intelligence agencies.
Kurland offered the prospective lawyers in the room an inspirational
lecture about the impact a legal career can have in the world. When
the Chinese government attacked protestors in Tiananmen Square in
Beijing, in 1989, it was a result of a 5-4 split cabinet decision.
When, after the cataclysm, one of the four dissenting cabinet members
was arrested, Kurland was the lawyer who was able to shuttle the
cabinet member's close family to safety in Canada. Kurland also
represented the Israeli official whose testimony blew the lid off
the Iran-Contra scandal.
Gal Dor, an Israeli who moved to Canada seven years ago, said the
law in Canada is far less belligerent than in Israel. Statements
of claim are more formal and less confrontational here, she said.
The confluence of secular and halachic law in Israel also means
it is a rare case that does not somewhere incorporate a biblical
allusion in its argument, said Dor.
Dennis Pavlich, a vice-president of UBC and its former legal counsel,
described his life choices in the law and academia.
"If I had to repeat my career, I'd want to repeat it,"
he said, noting that his first choice – being an opera star
– was prevented by a poor singing voice.
Michael Hershfield, president of the UBC Jewish Law Students' Association,
said his group organized the panel as a part of its newly revived
activities. The group, once defunct, has recently been reactivated
on campus and is part of a national group, the Canadian Jewish Law
Students' Association, of which Hershfield is an executive member.
The panelists' recollections of the legal profession's discriminatory
past seem to be just that, said Hershfield.
"In general, Canadians are very aware of minority rights,"
he said.
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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