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November 12, 2004
Rallying against anti-Semitism
Christian Zionists and Jewish community members show their support.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
Several hundred Christian Zionists and members of the Jewish community
gathered outside the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday in a show of unity
against recent anti-Semitic outbursts in Canada.
Sparked by the comments of a Vancouver imam who equated Jews with
swine and monkeys, as well as a national Muslim leader who legitimized
the killing of Israeli civilians, the Jewish and Christian Action
Committee called for the event. Dubbed Solidarity with our Jewish
Neighbors, it drew about 400 participants on a dreary but dry afternoon.
Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue told the crowd
that the comments by the Vancouver imam, Sheik Younus Kathrada,
were outside the norms of Canadian values.
"The sheik has said these statements were taken out of context,"
Rosenblatt said. "I couldn't agree more." The rabbi contended
that the comments were far outside the context of Canadian values
of tolerance and respect for diversity.
Rita Akselrod, a Holocaust survivor who spoke, declared: "Mr.
Kathrada, your hatred will not succeed." Though she lamented
the silence of the world in the face of the Holocaust, Akselrod
expressed the hope that rallies like this were a sign that good
people would not stand idly while events turned grisly again.
That promise was affirmed by Betty-Lou Loewen, one of the Christian
organizers of the rally, who noted that Christian communities had
let down Jews in the past.
"We want things to be different and we promise that they will
be different," said Loewen. "We will not be silent again."
Pastor Walter Gamble declared Israel's control over Jerusalem a
biblical right. A thousand years before the birth of Muhammad, he
claimed, divine law gave Jerusalem to the Jewish people.
"God gave us the right to this city," said the pastor,
citing the book of Nehemiah. Contemporary Israelis, Gamble said,
face the same ridicule, intimidation and terror faced by those who
sought to reconstruct the destroyed Temple of Solomon more than
two millennia ago.
"I stand unapologetically for the Jewish people," the
Christian leader said, carefully adding that his friendship comes
"without strings attached or hidden agendas." Some Jews
worry that some Christian support for Israel comes with theological
caveats, such as an explicit or implicit wish to convert Jews to
Christianity or as part of a world view that sees the victory of
Israel as an apocalyptic precondition to the second coming of Jesus.
"It's a legitimate suspicion," Gamble told the Bulletin
after the rally. "Some over-aggressive Christians have taken
advantage of the friendship."
Russ Hiebert, a Conservative member of Parliament, and Howard Jampolsky,
a candidate for a provincial Liberal nomination, also spoke.
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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