New year, new hope

Editorial

Perhaps every year begins with this sense of novelty that we forget by the time the year comes to a close. But this Rosh Hashanah certainly feels like a time of new beginnings.

As it has for millennia now, the Jewish New Year hastens introspection and repentance, a recommitment to our values and a fresh start. But around the world, this year, it feels especially fresh and new, if not entirely positive. Some things certainly stay the same and others seem to be getting worse. Violence continues in Israel and economic turbulence threatens to sweep across the planet.

Predictably unpredictable, Israeli politics is headed for change. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose whole tenure has seemed to be on borrowed time, finally gave his notice and Israel may have its second female prime minister in Tzipi Livni, assuming she can muster a working coalition. Barring that, it may be back to the future for Israeli politics, as opinion polls suggest an election would usher in the return of Binyamin Netanyahu.

Here in Canada, elections abound. The federal Conservatives, incapable of goading the Liberals into bringing down their minority government, eventually had to do the deed themselves and call an election for Oct. 14, which happens to be Sukkot. (On page 10 of this issue, Canadian Jewish Congress informs Independent readers of the opportunities to vote in advance.)

Polls suggest the election will bring more of the same, but two weeks is several lifetimes in politics. In ways that it has not in a long time, the Jewish community is being courted as Liberals (warily) and Conservatives (optimistically), who see this community's votes as more mobile than they have been in years.

The Conservatives' unequivocal defence of Israel's need to survive and defend itself has convinced many Jewish voters that it is Stephen Harper's party that understands our aspirations, after decades of assuming that the Liberal heritage of multiculturalism presented us with a natural political home. We have said here before that Jewish voters using Israel as a litmus test is not simply a matter of foreign policy, but something deeper and perhaps largely unconscious: a recognition that concern for the well-being of the Jews of Israel is the best predictor our community has that a politician or party will demonstrate concern for the well-being of Jews here or anywhere in the world, should the need arise.

In trying to win back community members to the Liberal side, local candidates are stressing that the Liberal party has always been a strong, if sometimes critical, friend of Israel and that Harper's unequivocal stance has put Canada at a disadvantage in possibly aiding any Mideast peace process. As well, Liberal candidates are asking the Jewish community to consider the wide range of national issues on which Liberal values and policies differ from those of the Conservatives.

Municipalities around British Columbia will also elect new mayors and councils in a few weeks. In Vancouver, that necessarily means a new mayor after Sam Sullivan, who narrowly won three years ago with substantial Jewish support, failed to win his own party's nomination this year.

And, next spring, thanks to the provincial Liberal government's set election date legislation, we know we will elect a new legislature. (Fixed election date legislation, similarly brought in at the federal level by Harper's Conservatives, did nothing to prevent the prime minister from doing precisely what that legislation was intended to prevent: self-interested, politically motivated election timing.)

Perhaps most impactful election of all will be one in which most of us cannot vote. The end of the Bush era will leave either Barack Obama or John McCain with the worst economic inheritance since Herbert Hoover and a country desperately in need of healing.

Politics aside, this time of year puts us in mind of other serious pursuits. The soul-searching and self-correction required during the High Holy Days are an important part of what makes us who we are as individuals and as a people.

It definitely seems right that the Jewish New Year and the new school year begin around the same time (at least in Canada), given the centrality of learning in our tradition. The fluffy reading of summer gives way to more weighty reading in the longer, darker evenings of autumn and winter. The Jewish community, too, revives itself at this time of year, after a summer of limited communal activity, with so many of the community's major events slated for the weeks between September and December, slotted in around the many holy days.

Experience and common sense tell us that each year brings triumph and tragedy, success and failure. We begin with hopefulness and cling to it as the year delivers its inevitable disappointments and surprises. And, as we do every year, we wish, hope and pray for peace.

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