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March 12, 2004
Live from Wosk Auditorium
Rabbi Tovia Singer entertains, educates, energizes Israel supporters.
JANNETTE EDMONDS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
The music was loud, the jokes funny, the applause a roar and no,
this wasn't a nightclub act but rather, Townhall Meeting number
9, presented by the Israel Action Committee. And with Israeli talk
show host Rabbi Tovia Singer at the helm, it was a townhall meeting
like none other.
Deftly juggling audience questions, online live phone-in questions
and interviews on stage, not to mention news breaks in the evening's
live broadcast for Israel National Radio, Singer lives up to his
billing as "Jackie Mason, Jerry Seinfeld and brilliant Jewish
scholar all rolled into one." What was left out in the billing
though, is that this man and his weekly radio program, The Tovia
Singer Show, pack a punch. Singer mixes entertainment with sobering
facts and passionate pleas about Israel and leaves his audiences
stunned, not knowing what hit them.
Singer brought his travelling megahertz show to the packed Jewish
Community Centre of Greater Vancouver Wosk Auditorium March 2. He
invited Eyal Lichtmann, executive director of Hillel House at the
University of British Columbia, Jean Bergeron, co-chair of the Jewish-Christian
Friendship Circle, and special guest Israel Ambassador Haim Divon
along for the ride.
The live, call-in program, broadcast on www.israelnationalnews.com,
is driven by the dynamic style and compelling insights of its host.
Singer is a well-known public speaker and author of the book Let's
Get Biblical.
Divon joined the meeting fresh from a thwarted speech at Langara
College earlier in the day. Pro-Palestinian activists managed to
prevent his speech, organized by Hillel, in a confrontation that
shocked organizers and which Divon called "very ugly, very
upsetting."
"They didn't mince words, they were cursing and using foul
language. But it demonstrated to me the importance of being everywhere,
and not being intimidated," said Divon. "In the universities
today are the future leaders of Canada and they should be able to
listen to others' opinions. I will raise my voice and go wherever
I am invited."
Raising one's voice was the recurring theme throughout the meeting.
"Never allow your tongue to be silent," Singer implored
his rapt audience. "Many people feel like they are powerless
to respond, but you do have a voice. Raise your voice. Some day
your grandchildren will ask you what you did while people were dying."
Singer urged people to speak up if what they read in the paper slanders
Israel. "The reason that the passion is so great is because
we are not dealing with issues that can be remedied. We are not
talking about issues of what Canadians think, or gay rights. These
are issues about life and death. If information is put on the page
of newspapers incorrectly, people die in the Holy Land."
Singer also spoke fervently about the need to visit Israel: "If
one packed 747 goes to Israel, it creates 15 permanent jobs for
people in Israel. And make sure you buy things made in Israel. It
puts chickens in the ovens of people in the Holy Land."
Singer described the fear of going to Israel as being something
concocted and enlarged by the media. "When a stone is thrown
in Israel, it is covered by all the major media and it creates a
message that Israel is a dangerous place.... There is no land that
is more nummy, more delicious than the land of Israel."
Standing up in support of the land of Israel is not an easy thing
to do on university campuses these days. Singer asked Lichtmann
his views on the Langara event.
"It was a very unfortunate situation," Lichtmann responded.
"It is a constant theme in campuses in North America and around
the world.... They do not want any pro-Israel speakers talking anywhere.
Myself and the students feel incredibly violated because the university
is supposed to be a place for open discourse.
"Most of what is occurring on campus is propaganda and propaganda
elicits emotion," he continued. "Our role is to stop the
spread of the wildfire."
Singer had plenty to say about stopping what he considers lies.
He is an advocate of education and informing people about the facts.
One piece of information he attacked was the idea that Israel is
the obstacle to peace.
"If the obstacle to peace is the Jewish presence," said
Singer, "I want to know why it was that, from 1948 to 1967,
when the Arabs controlled these lands of Judea and Samaria, or the
West Bank as the western press call them, no Arabs demanded a Palestinian
state. Nor did the Jordanians offer them one, nor the Egyptians.
Now, if this is the obstacle to peace, why did Nasser [the Egyptian
president] go to war and say they were going to push the Jews into
the sea. They had Judea and Samaria! Why didn't they form a Palestinian
state then?"
This comment elicited applause from the audience that mixed with
the canned applause of the radio program. After another break for
a live news report from Israel, one of the most controversial undertakings
of Israel was discussed: the "wall."
"It is a fence, not a wall," said Divon. "It is there
to protect. If there would have been no terror there, [there] would
have been no wall, as simple as that. We have a fence between Israel
and Gaza and no single suicide bomber has penetrated through that
fence.
"We don't like it," he continued. "It is ugly, it
is expensive, it causes so much inconvenience, we know. But we didn't
have any other alternative. Remember, we were urging the international
community to ask the Palestinian Authority to deal with the terrorists,
the radical groups. They didn't. We asked the PA themselves to do
it. It didn't happen. It didn't leave us any other choice.
"It is much easier to dismantle the fence than to dismantle
the infrastructure of terror," added Divon. "In the last
three and a half years, there have been 19,000 acts of violence
against Israelis. Nineteen thousand! Who can fathom! And they didn't
leave us any choice. This is the last resort."
With all the enemies Israel has, some of its friends came out to
help fill the auditorium. To the Christian Zionists in the audience,
Singer expressed his appreciation.
"I didn't know folks like you existed when I was a little boy
walking the streets of Brooklyn with a yarmulke on my head,"
he said. "I was always told that I killed Jesus. Even though
I insisted I wasn't in the neighborhood at the time!
"The children of Israel will never forget your kindness. We
have a very long memory. Genesis 12 says the nations will receive
their blessing by blessing Israel."
Singer asked Bergeron why she felt she must stand by Israel even
if it meant being hated. "I believe God has put that love in
my heart," she replied. "I encourage my congregation to
support Israel and to study the Hebraic roots of the Christian faith."
The evening's program coming to an end, Singer challenged his audience.
"Which one-mile walk would you rather take as a clearly identifiable
religious Jew? Today in Hebron or Ramallah, or in 1939 Nazi Germany?
"I don't know why we are at this juncture of history. Are we
any better than our grandparents or great-grandparents? I don't
think so. But for whatever reason we are here, [so] never let your
tongue be still. Educate. If you don't know history, study it like
you've never studied anything in your life."
As the broadcast ended, loud music boomed over the speakers in pep-rally
fashion. The lyrics were "You've got the power." Yes you
do, Singer told his radio and townhall audiences. And we left, believing
him.
Jannette Edmonds is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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