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Nov. 4, 2005
Winnipeg youth meet
Jewish and aboriginal students to share traditions.
SHARON MELNICER
Dozens of Winnipeg Jewish and aboriginal high school students will
exchange visits several times this school year, in a new program
aimed at increasing mutual understanding.
According to Shelley Faintuch, community relations co-ordinator
for the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, each school will participate
in four half-day "hands-on" workshops in each other's
cultural environment.
Details are still being worked out by teachers from the Gray Academy
of Jewish Education and Southeast College, an aboriginal, residential
high school located in Winnipeg, to facilitate the visits. The Jewish-aboriginal
educational initiative is said to be the first of its kind in Canada.
The program is a result of the anti-Semitic statements made by David
Ahenakew, a former national aboriginal leader, in his comments at
a public gathering in Saskatoon in December 2002. Former governor
general Adrienne Clarkson stripped Ahenakew of his membership in
the Order of Canada after he was convicted of wilfully promoting
hatred.
Ahenakew was granted the Order of Canada in 1978 for his work on
native issues. In his speech, the 71-year-old referred to Jews as
"a disease" and justified the Holocaust. During a follow-up
interview with a newspaper reporter, he said, "The Jews damn
near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That's how Hitler came
in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over
Germany or Europe."
Not long afterward, Ahenakew's hateful remarks were supported and
defended by Terry Nelson, a First Nations chief from Roseau River
in southern Manitoba. Nelson said he he was not aware of any anti-Semitic
content to his remarks, but he continued to suggest that Jews were
somehow implicated in an alleged media conspiracy against aboriginals.
"Is it anti-Semitic of me to challenge Jews who attack First
Nations?" Nelson asked in the Winnpeg Free Press last
spring. "If it is, then I am anti-Semitic, and there is nothing
I can do about it because I have no intention of letting anyone,
Jew or otherwise, attack my people."
"Things really began happening after the Chief Terry Nelson
episode," said Faintuch. "That was when members of the
Manitoba Southern Chiefs Organization approached us. They offered
to co-sponsor a travelling exhibit called Anne Frank in the World,
which draws attention to the dangers of racial and religious intolerance."
At the same time, Angela Busch, a teacher with Southeast College,
which is run by the Southern Chiefs Organization, decided to bring
some of her students over to the Asper Jewish Community Campus in
order for them to learn more about Judaism and anti-Semitism. They
visited Gray Academy students and spent the day with them.
Following this field trip, Busch and her principal set up a meeting
with Faintuch and the Judaics director of Gray Academy, Shaul Wachsstock.
The purpose of the meeting was to set up a more comprehensive, long-range
project. Senior Three (Grade 11) students were selected for the
project and the groundwork was laid for four half-day sessions to
be held during the coming school year.
In October, Led Rudner, national director of community relations
for Canadian Jewish Congress, met with Faintuch, other Jewish community
officials and members of the Southern Chiefs Organization to map
out the workshops. Rudner declared that he thought there was tremendous
value in the Jewish Federation-aboriginal education project, because
his own experience with racism had taught him "that it grows
most quickly in the soil of ignorance."
He mentioned a body of materials he had previously helped introduce
into Ontario schools, called Fighting Anti-Semitism Together (FAST).
According to Rudner, "These materials were first generated
by a non-Jewish Toronto couple who worked to put together an organization
of people intent upon educating students to recognize not only anti-Semitism,
but all forms of racism, and to challenge others making racist remarks."
He expressed the hope that the new Jewish Federation-aboriginal
exchange program in Winnipeg would emphasize students' commonalities,
rather than underline their differences.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Rudner and Faintuch were deeply
moved and honored when Chris Henderson, Grand Chief of the Southern
Chiefs Organization, presented them with a blade of sweet grass.
Its uncanny resemblance to the lulavim waved in the synagogue during
Sukkot didn't escape their notice.
"Now we've seen sweet grass and held it," said Rudner.
"It's an example of what each other's communities can teach
us, if only we give them the opportunity to share."
Sharon Melnicer is a Jewish writer, artist and teacher
living in Winnipeg.
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