politics – Page 3

Surveying Canadian Jews

“Canada’s Jewish community is divided over Israeli and domestic Canadian politics, even though rising antisemitism and war seem to have increased the emotional attachment of Canada’s Jews to Israel,” writes sociologist Robert Brym in the executive summary of Arguments for the Sake of Heaven: A Jewish Community Divided. The report imparts the results of a poll sponsored by the New Israel Fund of Canada, JSpaceCanada, and Canadian Friends of Peace Now.

From Aug. 28 to Sept. 16, 2024, the polling firm Leger surveyed 588 Canadian Jews. The sample “was drawn from a large online panel of Canadian adults. It was weighted by characteristics of the Canadian Jewish population based on the 2021 Census of Canada and the 2018 Survey of Jews in Canada,” which was prepared by Brym, Keith Neuman and Rhonda Lenton for the Environics Institute, University of Toronto, and York University. The composition of the sample “is believed to be broadly representative of Canadian Jewry.”

“We undertook this survey in response to conservative establishment Jewish institutions and anti-Zionist Jewish groups co-creating a polarized, black-and-white public debate that didn’t reflect the diverse, nuanced Jewish community we know and love,” write Maytal Kowalski, JSpaceCanada executive director, Gabriella Goliger, national chair of Canadian Friends of Peace Now, and Ben Murane, executive director of NIF Canada, in the introduction to the report, which was released last month.

“Our research confirms that there is no such thing as ‘the Jewish community’s opinion’ as a monolith, nor can any segment of the community (or any institution) claim to speak for all others. In many cases, we see no majority opinion as well as high levels of uncertainty. Therefore, not only are claims of monolithic support misrepresentations of Canadian Jewish diversity, they also erase the spirited nature of Jewish life in Canada.”

Explaining the report’s title, they note: “One of the noblest ideals in Judaism is ‘arguments for the sake of heaven’ – that disagreement and debate are in fact coveted and celebrated as long as the disagreement is ‘for the sake of heaven,’ meaning an argument that seeks to uncover truth.”

They call upon “Jewish communal leaders to uphold and support the variety of opinions and ideas held by Canadian Jews – and to foster arguments for the sake of heaven,” and warn that “Canadian political leaders must engage all of Canada’s Jewish communities and not stereotype us based on a false monolith.”

Brym lists the poll’s highlights, which include that “Canadian Jews express stronger emotional attachment to Israel than in four previous surveys dating back to 2018. Specifically, 84% of Canada’s Jews say they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ emotionally attached to Israel [compared to 79% in 2018]. Ninety-four percent support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.”

Brym notes, “Just 3% say Israel lacks that right, while another 3% say they don’t know or don’t answer the question. Belief in Israel’s right to exist does not vary significantly by gender, educational attainment, income or denomination. It does vary significantly by age and political party support. Ninety-eight percent of those over the age of 34 say Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, compared to 81% of those under the age of 35. Ninety-seven percent of Conservative and Liberal party supporters say that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. Some 79% of NDP supporters concur, although the number of NDP supporters in the sample is too small to provide a highly reliable estimate.”

When asked “Do you consider yourself a Zionist?” however, 51% of respondents said yes, 15% claimed ambivalence, 27% said no and 7% said they didn’t know, or didn’t answer the question.

“Given their strong emotional attachment to Israel and their nearly universal belief that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, one might be tempted to speculate that more Canadian Jews do not consider themselves Zionists because they confuse Zionism with certain policies of the Netanyahu government that they find objectionable,” writes Brym. “Future research needs to probe this issue.”

When asked whether continued building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank helped, harmed or didn’t make a difference to the security of Israel, 34% of respondents said it hurts Israel’s security while 27% said it helps, 22% thought it made no difference and 18% didn’t know or didn’t answer.

Half of respondents favoured a two-state solution, while 25% wanted an Israeli state (the annexation of West Bank and Gaza), while 8% believe that “the best resolution to the conflict is a single, secular, binational state that favours equal rights for Jews and Palestinians.”

“When asked whether Canadian politicians should increase pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to engage in a meaningful peace process, 55% of Canadian Jews agree and 23% disagree,” summarizes Brym. “When asked whether politicians should sanction Jewish West Bank settlers who engage in acts of vigilante violence against Palestinian civilians, 35% of Canadian Jews agree and 41% disagree. When asked whether politicians should recognize a Palestinian state in the near future, 21% of Canadian Jews agree and 53% disagree. When asked whether Canadian politicians should impose an embargo on the arms trade with Israel, 69% of Canadian Jews say no and 10% say yes.”

The survey also asked respondents to rank, in view of an upcoming federal election, their priorities among 11 different issues. From most to least important were cost of living, antisemitism, health care, housing, Israel-Palestine conflict, climate change and environment, crime and public safety, immigration, threats posed by China and Russia, discrimination against Indigenous people, and Islamophobia.

The question was asked, “Which political party did you vote for in the last (2021) federal election?” and also “If a Canadian federal election were held tomorrow, which party, if any, would you vote for?”

“Among decided voters, support for the New Democratic Party remained steady at about 9% between 2021 and 2024,” writes Brym. “Support for the Liberal party fell from 39% to 26%. And support for the Conservative party increased from 36% to 55%. These trends are similar to those in the general population, but the decline in Liberal support and increase in Conservative support is more pronounced among Jews.”

The whole report can be found at jspacecanada.ca/arguments_sake_of_heaven. It includes much more data – including more analysis of responses according to age, gender, level of education, household income, denominational identification and political party support – as well as commentary and recommendations from the survey’s three sponsoring organizations.

The complexities of humanity

Mitch and Murray Productions’ presentation of Heroes of the Fourth Turning co-stars, left to right, Jennifer Clement, David Kaye, Elizabeth Barrett, Aaron Craven and Nyiri Karakas. (Shimon Photo)

This is a story about the interesting and intersecting balance of faith, peace, politics, sex, sexuality, deceit, forgiveness and mysticism with the modern world. How do we grapple with the changing self, while clasping hands with those we no longer align with, but feel we must commune?” said Mitch and Murray Productions’ Kate Craven about Will Arbery’s play Heroes of the Fourth Turning, which has its Western Canadian premiere Jan. 31-Feb.9 at Studio 16.

“It’s about letting go of preconceived notions,” she said. “It’s about being wrong, even when convinced otherwise. It’s complex and startling and astonishing and I truly think it is one of the great plays of this generation.”

Heroes of the Fourth Turning has won multiple awards and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In it, reads the synopsis, “four young conservatives have gathered to toast the newly inducted president of their tiny Catholic college – one week after the Charlottesville riots in 2017. Their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, becoming less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood.”

“The play’s title is a take on the book The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe, which hypothesizes the cycles of history and attempts to teach us how to live through these cycles via examples from past generations,” explained Craven, who is the theatre company’s board chair and operations manager. “They base their hypothesis on the past 500 years of American history and uncover what they deem as a distinct pattern: that modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life and each composed of four times 20-year eras, aka ‘turnings’ that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth – maturation, entropy and rebirth. Otherwise broken down as the High, a period of confident expansion, followed by the Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion. Then, the Unraveling, in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Finally, the Crisis (the Fourth Turning), when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history, a specific time that requires a generation of heroes to rise up, resolve crisis and reset imbalances created in prior turnings.

“The Fourth Turning was written in 1997, at the tipping point between Gen X and the Millennial generation,” said Craven. “It references the Fourth Turning being in line with the coming of age of Millennials, a generation which three of the play’s characters fit into.”

One of those characters is played by Jewish community member David Kaye.

“I play a Catholic man in his late 20s named Kevin who is currently experiencing tremendous crises of identity and faith while struggling with alcohol abuse,” Kaye told the Independent. “A graduate of the Transfiguration College of Wyoming, Kevin received wilderness training, learned to scale mountains, ride horses, build igloos, memorize poetry and speak conversational Latin. Initially believing that he was being groomed to become ‘a leader of the world,’ Kevin has realized that he was woefully underprepared to actually live in the real world.”

While the character is drunk for most of the show, he is the only one asking questions, said Kaye. “He is often the butt of the joke but, ultimately, I think Kevin is the wise fool. Kevin wants so badly to connect with other people, regardless of their political leanings or religious affiliations. He wants to have hard conversations and expand his mind and is open to new ideas; unfortunately, he is not the greatest conversationalist.”

The role has certainly expanded Kaye’s mind. Having attended Vancouver Talmud Torah and King David High School growing up, the actor said “all of the knowledge of Catholicism I have is from pop culture, so building my character’s world has involved quite a lot of reading in theology and philosophy that I was completely unfamiliar with. As far as being a Jewish actor in the context of this play, I think that Kevin is actually the easiest character for me to identify with because he is constantly questioning things, and that was a core part of my Jewish education and exploration.”

Craven, who is also Jewish, “had the unique experience of growing up in a bi-faith family, one half Jewish, the other Pentecostal Christian.”

“It’s a difficult thing to belong to a family unit which falls on both sides of the faith divide and subsequently (often) political divide,” she said. “Perhaps this prepared me for a play like Heroes of the Fourth Turning. I find myself reaching for empathy for these often confused, sometimes wildly misguided characters and that makes this play very uncomplicated and uniquely human.”

She added that it feels like Arbery, the playwright, “is managing a perilous dance between faith, violence, truth and real-world events as his characters evolve and devolve in front of us. It feels much less about faith, religion and belief than it does about the crisis of being human. That’s relatable no matter who you are or which people you belong to.”

“This show can be viewed through many different lenses and each one will have a different takeaway,” said Kaye. The play will “ruffle some feathers,” he said. “But, if you are open to it, this is a show that will provoke thought, challenge perceptions, and might make you question the world around you.”

For Kaye, that is one of the main things he has learned from the character he is portraying – “that it is OK to question everything you have ever known to be true. It may be ugly and uncomfortable, but challenging your beliefs can lead to more authentic connections and a more fulfilling life.”

Craven said Mitch and Murray Productions’ goal has always been to present “bold, smart pieces that require the audience to be willing participants in the discourse and discussion. Our hope is that our productions showcase what it is to be a complex, imperfect human, as opposed to being a human who fits into a specific political, religious or cultural box, the aftermath of which potentially opens us up to empathy and understanding instead of division and despair.”

Set in rural Wyoming, Heroes of the Fourth Turning references hunting, there is a prop rifle on stage and gunshots are heard throughout the play. Other warnings include the use of coarse language and “heavy political debates which cover a range of difficult topics,” said Craven. “With this in mind,” she encourages people to come to the play with “a spirit of open-mindedness and an attitude of willingness – to see, hear and learn. All of which hearkens back to what I mentioned earlier about the plays Mitch and Murray attempts to produce – stories about a conflicted and imperfect humanity. We may not be able to see ourselves uniquely and specifically reflected in these characters, but there is certainly a reflection of humanity that is profound and deeply moving.”

Stories, she said, have “the capacity, when told well, to move and shape our molecules in a unique way. If we can be even a small part of creating compassionate debate, then we’re doing our job.”

For tickets ($15-$37) to Heroes of the Fourth Turning, visit mitchandmurrayproductions.com.

Robinson kicks off book fest

The JCC Jewish Book Festival opens Feb. 22 with Selina Robinson talking about her memoir, Truth Be Told. (photo from JCC Jewish Book Festival)

This year’s JCC Jewish Book Festival opens Feb. 22 with Selina Robinson talking about her recently published memoir, Truth Be Told.

Most Jewish Independent readers will be familiar with the events that propelled Robinson to write this book. The first chapter, called “Four Fateful Words,” starts at what some people may think is the beginning – when, during a Jan. 30, 2024, webinar, Robinson said the state of Israel was reestablished on a “crappy piece of land.” But she believes she had been targeted for months.

“It was sloppy language, nothing more, but it provided the Gotcha! for anti-Israel extremists to build a case that I was racist, Islamophobic, intolerant and an evil monster that needed to be canceled,” she writes.

“In an ideal world, it would have been the extremists who were dismissed, not me. In an ideal world, we would be blessed with leaders who can differentiate between right and wrong.”

Truth Be Told covers the fallout from her comments. Premier David Eby initially seemed prepared to stand by Robinson, but the political pressure – including from a group of Muslim clergy who threatened the NDP’s access to Muslim voters unless Robinson was dismissed – soon led to him firing her from cabinet, though he never used the word.

“I told the premier that if he wanted my resignation, I would give it to him, but he needed to ask for it,” writes Robinson.

“In the end, he didn’t fire me and I didn’t resign, although the undeniable conclusion of the call was that I was no longer in cabinet.”

After taking some time to absorb the situation, Robinson rallied.

“As part of my t’shuvah [repentance], the premier asked that I make a series of calls to Muslim community leaders,” she shares. “I began to think: What if I could engage with these groups and bring the Jewish community and the Arab and Muslim communities together in some way? These two heartbroken communities, both fearful for their families overseas and feeling powerless to effect change, could find commonality in that shared experience, at the very least. Action is always an antidote to hopelessness and helplessness. I could do this as part of my role as an MLA and the government could take credit for doing something meaningful that makes a positive difference for both these aching communities. For me, this would be a profound form of redemption, of t’shuvah, and also of tikkun olam [repair of the world].”

But this ray of light was soon extinguished, the idea being deemed “too political.”

“I knew in that moment that this was no longer my place, no longer my government, no longer my political party,” writes Robinson. “A place and a party where I belonged would recognize the opportunity for someone who was seen to have transgressed to do some good. My place, my party, would recognize the value of bringing people together. A place where I belonged would not be afraid to try something unique and potentially powerful.”

Robinson quit the NDP and finished her term as an MLA as an independent. She was going to retire anyway, but this was not how she wanted her political career to end.

And it was quite a career. With a master’s degree in counseling psychology, Robinson spent most of her working life as a family counselor and in senior roles in various social service agencies.

“I never planned to enter politics,” she writes. “The first real engagement I had was speaking to Coquitlam City Council, my hands shaking, in support of an emergency cold weather refuge for homeless people proposed by a church in my neighbourhood.”

One of the councilors suggested she run for council, and she did. She was elected to Coquitlam City Council in 2008 and reelected in 2011. Truth Be Told gives readers a glimpse of what that experience was like, what Robinson accomplished as a councilor, and more. We find out how and why she made the leap to provincial politics in 2013 – a decision in which the late John Horgan played a pivotal role. The memoir is dedicated to Horgan, for whom Robinson had great respect and a close relationship. As premier, Horgan was the one who appointed Robinson minister of finance after the 2020 election that gave the NDP a majority government. She held that position through COVID, the government managing to file budget surpluses despite the challenges the pandemic brought.

“What saddens me right now is that people are losing faith in government,” writes Robinson. “That is especially distressing because if anything should have renewed people’s faith in government, it was the collective response to the pandemic.”

When Horgan stepped down as premier in 2022 because of the toll his cancer treatments were taking on him, Robinson began to more seriously reflect on her own future. She had been in public service for so long, she wanted to spend more time with her family. In Truth Be Told, we learn more of her own fight against cancer – a fight that started in 2006, a fight she seems to have won, finding out on Oct. 6, 2023, that her cancer had disappeared. The celebration was short-lived. That evening, news started coming in of Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel.

Robinson’s ambivalence about running for reelection was one of the reasons she didn’t pursue the party leadership vacancy Horgan’s departure opened. Other candidates bowed out, and Eby was anointed the new leader of the BC NDP and became premier in November 2022.

Robinson calls herself an “eternal optimist,” and that attitude has served her well. Despite being effectively demoted by Eby after he became premier, Robinson threw herself into the position of post-secondary education and future skills minister. It is interesting to read about some of the issues in that sector, and of the other portfolios Robinson held, as well as get some insider knowledge of how politics works and about the personalities of the people who represent us.

The crux of Truth Be Told is Robinson’s “four fateful words,” the reactions to them, and what was said and done – or, more importantly, what was not said and what was not done. Many of her colleagues were “quiet allies,” not willing to speak out.

“There are lessons from my experience that transcend my personal story,” she writes. “There are lessons for our democracy about the necessity to stand up to coercion from interest groups and harassment from mobs. There are lessons for leaders about how to act (and how not to act) when presented with choices between what is easy but wrong and difficult but right. There are lessons about speaking up rather than remaining silent.”

Truth Be Told is about a person doing what they passionately believe in, a person living their values – some of which were instilled at Camp Miriam, where Robinson was a counselor in her youth – and trying to make what they feel are positive contributions to the world.

Given what happened to her, Robinson could be forgiven for giving up and going quietly into obscure retirement. But that’s not who she is. She asks Canadians to have the courage to speak up, while recognizing that we should not “kid ourselves that a millennia-old problem will be resolved in a day.” She ends her book with calls to action, suggestions of what we each can do to counter antisemitism, as Jews (for example, don’t hide, “engage respectfully or not at all” and don’t give up) and non-Jews (speak up and engage with Jews, among other things), and as a society (for instance, protect students and nurture real inclusion). She includes some resources for readers wanting to explore various topics more.

In the “Final Reflections” chapter, Robinson writes, “We will never be perfect. The world will never be faultless. But repairing the world must always be our guiding star. Our reach must always exceed our grasp.”

Profits from the sale of Truth Be Told will be donated to the Parents Circle-Families Forum (theparentscircle.org/en) and Upstanders Canada (upstanderscanada.com).

The JCC Jewish Book Festival runs Feb. 22-27. For the full list of events and participating authors, visit jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Standing up to the PM

MK Dan Illouz opposes legislation that would enshrine the exemption of Haredim from military service. (photo from Knesset)

Dan Illouz, a Montreal-born Likud rookie member of the Knesset, is making a name for himself in Israel’s Parliament by speaking against his own party’s policy of opposing the draft of Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) into the Israel Defence Forces.

“Exempting such a large group of people from their obligation to serve in the IDF at such a critical time is anti-Zionist,” the freshman lawmaker tweeted recently on X.

Responding to the challenge to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s leadership, the Likud has taken steps to clamp down on internal dissent by party lawmakers opposed to legislation that would enshrine the exemption of members of the ultra-Orthodox community from military service.

The IDF’s personnel shortage has become acute in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israeli cities and kibbutzim ringing the Gaza Strip, followed by Hezbollah’s rocket campaign against the Galilee and Central Israel that began the next day. Reservists, called miluimnikim in Hebrew, have been repeatedly called up for months at a time. But, Netanyahu must balance his party’s stability in government with military personnel considerations, not to mention growing casualties.

In a move widely seen as linked to then-defence minister Yoav Gallant’s opposition to the controversial military draft exemption legislation – which has been demanded by ultra-Orthodox coalition partners whose support Likud needs to stay in power – Netanyahu fired Gallant last month and appointed Israel Katz in his stead. The prime minister then pushed for party discipline against dissenters like Illouz, who holds the rank of captain in the IDF reserves.

Coalition whip Ofir Katz informed Illouz that he was being removed from the Knesset’s economic affairs committee and foreign affairs and defence committee due to his “statements regarding coalition discipline and his conduct in recent days,” a spokesperson for Katz said.

In a further slap on the wrist, Illouz was barred from submitting private bills for six weeks.

Illouz has long spoken out against efforts to pass new legislation regulating exemptions for yeshivah students following a High Court ruling in June that they must enlist in the IDF unless a new bill is passed.

Digging in recently, Illouz announced his opposition to the coalition’s Daycare Bill, which seeks to circumvent a High Court ruling preventing state-funded daycare subsidies from going to the children of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.

“Exempting such a large group from the duty to serve in the IDF in such a critical period is a non-Zionist act that is unworthy of us as a nation – whether it be called ‘the enlistment law’ or ‘the daycare law,’ whose purpose is to cancel the daycares sanction and restore the funding,” Illouz declared.

The Daycare Bill was removed from the Knesset agenda last month after it failed to garner sufficient coalition support.

A member of the Quebec and Israeli bar associations, and a former legislative adviser to the Knesset’s coalition chair, Illouz previously served in a legal capacity at Israel’s Foreign Ministry. He is a graduate of McGill University Law School and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s master’s program in public policy.

Drawing on his legal expertise, Illouz co-authored a law banning any Israeli interaction with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), due to some of its members’ being involved with Hamas in general and in the Oct. 7 massacre in particular.

Humanitarian aid and services to the two million people in Gaza must now be based on alternative agencies such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund and the World Food Organization, said Illouz. (More than 200,000 Gazans have fled to Egypt and elsewhere since war broke out in their coastal enclave 15 months ago.)

Born in Canada to Moroccan immigrants, Illouz made aliyah in 2009 after completing his law studies. Like all newly elected MKs holding foreign citizenship, he was required to surrender his second passport before being sworn in as a member of Israel’s Parliament.

Illouz continues to serve as the chair of the Knesset delegation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and be a member of the Knesset delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international body that brings together parliamentarians from 180 countries.

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

הסכנה הגדולה של ישראל היא הפילוג הפנימי

ישראל נמצאת כיום במצב בטחוני מסובך ביותר כולל חזיתות רבות. הצבא ומערכת הביטחון נקראים כל העת לפעול לביטחונה של המדינה ובמקביל להכות באיומים מכל הכיוונים

למרות זאת הסכנה הגדולה ביותר שמאיימת על קיומה היא הפילוג הפנימי הגדול שלא ניתן לאחותו עוד. ישראל מחולקת כיום בברור לשני מחנותשמתנגדים אחד לשני: מחנה המרכז-ליברלים-שמאל ומולו מחנה הימין-דתיים-משיחיים

ראש הממשלה הנצחי של ישראל בנימין נתניהו, הוא הנושא באחריות העיקרי ליצירת שני מחנות ניצים אלה. אחדשמתנגד לו ואחד שתומך בו. במדיניות הפרד ומשול נתניהו שולט ביד רמה בישראל, שהפכה לבובת הסמרטוטים שלו

שוחחתי עם אשתו של חבר ותיק שגר בירושלים והיא אמרה לי מפורשות כי הפילוג הפנימי היא הסכנה הגדולה ביותר המאיימת על קיומה של מדינת ישראל. או במילותיה: מדינת יהודה מול מדינת ישראל. לדבריה היום רבים הולכים ונוטים ימינה אך במקביל ההתנגדות לנתניהו ושלטונו גם היא צוברת תאוצה

כבר זמן מה שאני שומע ישראלים שמתבטאים בצורה דומה ורואים איך המדינה שלהם מחולקת כבר לשני חלקים: מדינת יהודה ומדינת ישראל. ולרבים רבים ברור כי כבר לא ניתן לחבר בין שני המחנות והשינאה ביניהם הולכת ומתגברת. נתניהו מעצימה כדי שיוכל להמשיך ולשבת על כיסא המלך, למרות שהוא ראש הממשלה פחות ממלכתי שישראל ידעה מעולם

מספיק לראות את התנהגותם של תומכי נתניהו ממדינת יהודה שלא בוחלים בשום דרך להביע את עמדתם הניצית, ומנסים לפגוע בכל דרך במתנגדים שלהם. הם אלו שרוצים בהפיכה המשפטית כדי למלט את נתניהו הנוכל מגזרות בית המשפט נגדו, ולאפשר לו לשלוט עוד שנים רבות, תוך שהוא הופך את קופת המדינה לכיסו הפרטי

זה מביש לראות את ממשלת נתניהו המושחתת שממשיכה לנהל את ענייניה כאילו לא התרחש אסון השבעה באוקטובר, כאשר בכיריה לא לוקחים אחריות על המחדל הגדול, מתפטרים ונעלמים מעין הציבור. אחד האפסים הגדול ביותר באופוזיציה לנתניהו, גדעון סער, שטען כי אסור לראש הממשלה הזה להמשיך בתפקידו, חזר על ארבע לממשלתו. זה מביש איך זה שטען שהוא בעל ערכים העדיף את ערך הכיסא על ערך האופוזיציה לראש הממשלה הגרוע בתולדות ישראל. סער ודומיו רק ממשיכים לחזק ולתדלק את נתניהו, שממשיך לצחוק כל הדרך לבנק

מבישה ביותר התנהגות פעילי הרחוב של נתניהו שמתקיפים פיזית את משפחות החטופים, יורקים עליהם, מרביצים להם מכות, מנסים לדרוס אותם ועוד. במדינת ישראל של פעם היו ערכים בסיסיים והכל נתנו כבוד למשפחות של חטופים וחללים, ואף אחד לא ניסה לפגוע בהם ולטעון שהם אנשי שמאל אשכנזים שמתנגדים לנתניהו. לא ראינו שנתניהו יוצא להגנת המשפחות של החטופים ומבקר את פעיליו שפוגעים בהם. כל עוד זה משרת את מטרתו להמשיך ולשלוט אז הם יכולים להמשיך ולבזות את המדינה וערכיה

נתניהו ומשפחתו ממשיכה להפעיל את מכונת הרעל הכוללת תעמולה שקרית, כדי להמשיך ולחזק את עמידתה בראש המדינה. לא נראה שאכפת למשפחת המלוכה החולנית הזו כי המדינה – שהם אחראים עליה – הולכת ומתפרקת מנכסיה. הם לא מבינים כי המשבר החברתי-פוליטי הגדול הזה ועוד בזמן של מתיחות ביטחונית נוראית, עוזר להחלשת המדינה והנצחת הפילוג. לא פלא שישראלים רבים נוטשים את המדינה ורבים אחרים נערכים לעשות זאת בעתיד הנראה לעין

אני מציע לישראלים שחושבים שהם חווים רק באיום בטחוני מהשכנים, וכי השבעה באוקטובר הוא עונש מאלוהים להתעורר ולקלוט שהעונש הוא נתניהו

Small glimmer of hope

The tyrannical regime in Syria has collapsed, and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has fled to Russia. We can hope this represents the end of the catastrophic Syrian civil war that has cost perhaps 600,000 lives, maybe more, and displaced half the country’s population.

The only thing that seems certain, however, is that the Assad regime is over. What comes next is largely unknown.

The forces that undid Assad, whose family has ruled the country with an iron fist for five decades, are a mix of ideological and theological entities, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group that sprang from the Islamic State and has links to al-Qaeda, as well as Western-aligned Kurdish nationalists, deserters from the regime’s military, and forces aligned with a vast array of foreign actors, including Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the United States. These are not likely to coalesce into a comfortable new government.

Regardless of what happens next, Israeli and American leaders were happy to take some credit for Assad’s fall.

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said the outcome “is the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad’s main supporters.”

“For years,” said US President Joe Biden, “the main backers of Assad have been Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. But, over the last week, their support collapsed – from all three of them – because all three of them are far weaker today than they were when I took office.”

Israel has created a buffer zone in the Golan Heights to protect its territory in the event of continued unrest.

Meanwhile, there were US airstrikes on Sunday against the Islamic State, which operates in parts of Syria, an act intended to hamper that extremist group’s ability to fill the vacuum left by Assad’s toppling. But the United States is now just weeks away from the transition to a new president – a president who was elected partly on the promise to avoid foreign military entanglements.

At the same time, Donald Trump’s approach on issues has tended to be unpredictable. In characteristic all caps, Trump posted about Syria on the weekend, “This is not our fight.” Just days earlier, he promised “all hell to pay” if the Israeli hostages held by Hamas are not released by the time he becomes president. Whether the new Trump regime is isolationist or belligerent may depend on the mood the president wakes up in or what cable news channel he last binged.

One thing that seems certain and hopeful is that the collapse of Assad is part of a broader series of setbacks to the Iranian-based web of international terror. Israel has massively undermined Hezbollah, killing many of its top leaders and destroying much of its capabilities. The war against Hamas in Gaza, protracted, horrific and with no apparent end in sight, is nonetheless on the trajectory it set out on, more than a year ago, to eliminate Hamas as a force.

Assad’s collapse, while leaving a vacuum, is unequivocally the end of something terrible. Whether it is the beginning of something better is a question.

In one of the most encouraging signs, some commentators are suggesting that the multi-front failure despite billions of dollars in Iranian funds funneled to its proxies could even endanger the fundamentalist regime in Iran itself.

This is no time to celebrate. It is always, however, worth seeking out reasons for hope. That is especially true for Jews in the season of Hanukkah.

The collapse of the Syrian regime, the immense weakening of Hezbollah and Hamas and, to some extent Iran, are glimmers of light in a place and time of much darkness. It would be profoundly naïve, however, to assume that what comes next for Syria (and, as a result, for the region) will be either quick or entirely positive.

For the sake of the Syrian people, we hope for something resembling stability, as well as human rights and social and economic reconstruction. For the larger region, we hope for stability and that multi-front conflicts resolve in ways that advance mutual well-being.

For the sake of Israelis, who have known far too much war and violence, and whose borders and neighbourhood have been notoriously dangerous for 76 years, may the latest developments prove, when history is written, a step toward lasting peace.

Hope for best outcomes

Every election leaves a portion of the electorate thrilled and another group disappointed. The more polarized the electorate, the more intense these emotions. Two elections recently were certainly examples of this – and they were elections that could hardly have been closer.

The British Columbia provincial election returned the New Democrats under Premier David Eby to office – but just barely. A single seat assured a majority government but that is a most precarious victory. Eby will need to be vigilant to ensure not a single member of his caucus steps out of line on a confidence vote or becomes disgruntled enough to bolt the party. This is almost certainly part of the reason Eby gave every member of his caucus a special title (along with added pay for the responsibilities).

Eby has a reputation for centralizing power in his office – to be fair, almost every leader in our parliamentary system does, but apparently Eby is a master at micromanaging – and this is a double-edged sword. He does not lack the skills to keep potentially wayward sheep in line, but excessive domination tends to incite rebellion.

Jewish voters especially will be watching a few things. The new mandatory curriculum for Holocaust education is to be rolled out next year. Given behaviours of the BC Teachers Federation and the potential for individual instructors to go rogue, the possibility exists for this curriculum to be weaponized against Jewish people. There are already dispiriting anecdotes about anti-Israel activism among some teachers. The introduction of mandatory Holocaust education could open the door to reactionary activism among those who think the Holocaust should not be privileged over other human catastrophes, as well as conversations that could turn in inappropriate directions because they lack the language or support for context. We hope that the province’s curriculum experts have anticipated this potential and worry that it is a nearly impossible task to monitor. We should be looking for various types of evaluation to guide these educational programs.

The back-from-the-grave BC Conservative Party, now the official opposition, has promised to introduce adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism among its first acts in the new Legislature. This will put the Jewish community and our issues in the centre of political drama immediately – not a welcome or comfortable situation for our minuscule demographic; the debate is sure to engender opposition and recriminations.

In the broader scope of 2024 history, though, our provincial election will be a footnote next to the election that took place a few days later. The reelection of once and now future US president Donald Trump will almost certainly have exponentially more dramatic effects.

The reelection of Trump turned out to be not as close as every poll suggested, but also not as commanding as some commentators say it was. He won the popular vote this time by about 2.5 million votes, which, in terms of the raw vote margin, is the fifth-lowest since 1960 – but, compared to having lost the popular vote by almost three million votes when first elected in 2016, the 2024 margin points to a swing in the electorate that cannot be ignored.

Trump’s recent election seems to have been met by opponents with a fatalistic sense of déjà vu. His choices of cabinet appointees suggest his second term will be no less a circus than his first and quite possibly more damaging in many ways.

According to exit polls, Jewish voters in the United States supported the Democrat, Vice-President Kamala Harris, over Trump by a margin of almost four-to-one. (Israeli voters, if they could have voted, would have backed Trump by almost mirror-image landslide margins, according to at least one poll, a disparity that deserves discussion some other time.)

Support for Trump’s stated pro-Israel positions is premised on the presumption that what he says is what he will do. This is true for all politicians of course, but it is especially true for an individual as volatile and unpredictable as this one. (Whether his positions are actually good for Israel and Jews is also a topic for further analysis and discussion.)

Whichever parties or candidates we support, all of us should hope for the best outcomes. Much depends on it, if in significantly different magnitudes – the government of BC does not, for example, have nuclear weapons – but polarized partisanship does not serve the majority well.

As a Jewish prayer for elected officials says, “May they be guided with wisdom and understanding to serve all its inhabitants with justice and compassion. Strengthen their resolve to protect freedom and promote peace, so that harmony and tranquility prevail among all who dwell here.”

Book a cautionary tale

Selina Robinson will release her memoir, Truth Be Told, in a special launch event on Dec. 18. Robinson, who served in senior cabinet portfolios in British Columbia’s government, was fired earlier this year after offhand remarks about the land on which Israel was founded.

In Truth Be Told, Robinson tells the behind-the-scenes story of what happened as she worked with the Jewish community to confront the antisemitism that erupted after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel. Dubbing herself the “Jew in the Crew,” Robinson was the voice of the BC Jewish community in government.

Then, when anti-Israel protesters and a group of Muslim clergy threatened the government unless Robinson was fired, Premier David Eby called a meeting of the entire New Democrat caucus – except for Robinson herself – and immediately afterwards she was told that she needed to resign.

The book is a cautionary story of the dangers to ethnocultural communities, multiculturalism and democracy itself when leaders stay silent – or worse, capitulate – in the face of coercion and place expediency ahead of principles.

Robinson will launch the book in conversation with Global BC legislative reporter Richard Zussman at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 18, in Vancouver. The specific location will be shared the morning of the event for security reasons.

There is no charge to attend the event, but registration is required at selinarobinson.ca. Copies of the book can be reserved on the website and will also be on sale at the event, with Robinson on hand to sign copies.

– Courtesy Pat Johnson

Security through peace

Noa in conversation with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz at Temple Sholom Oct. 30. (screenshot)

Israeli singer/songwriter and peace activist Achinoam Nini (Noa) was in British Columbia recently to do a Vipassana meditation. While here, she stopped at Temple Sholom Oct. 30 for a conversation with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz (which is on YouTube) and at Congregation Emanu-El Nov. 4 for a talk with Rabbi Harry Brechner.

Noa was born in Israel in 1969. She’s the fifth generation of her family in Israel, their presence dating back to the mid-1800s. They immigrated from Yemen.

“They came because they were persecuted at the time and they came to the only place they knew, that their heart drew them to, and that was Jerusalem and the Kinneret,” she said. “That was the two places. They walked across the desert and took boats and were smuggled by Bedouins. It’s a very dramatic story, how the family made it to the Holy Land.”

Noa’s father got a scholarship to study at the University of Rochester, so she spent the first couple of years of her life in Rochester, NY.

“When I went into first grade, my family moved to the Bronx, NY. My dad was now doing his PhD in Columbia University. And my parents decided to send my brother and I to yeshivah…. I was the only dark-skinned kid in the school, the only Israeli kid in the school, the only family that didn’t live in something that looked like a mansion.

“My way of dealing was in two ways,” said Noa. “First, fortunately, I was a gifted student, so I had a scholarship to school that helped my parents…. And music. I started writing songs at a very young age…. I was interested in physics and mathematics, I loved history. I wanted to go to Harvard and do a PhD in physics and history, but that didn’t happen, obviously. Music … chose me.”

At age 17, on a summer vacation in Israel, Noa met a soldier on leave.

“I went back home,” she said. “I told my parents, I’m making aliyah. I said, you raised me to be a Zionist. We love Israel. I want to live in Israel.”

To this day, Noa is married to that man (Asher Barak, now a medical specialist and entrepreneur), and they have three children, two of whom are in the Israel Defence Forces, one in service, the other in the reserves.

Noa did her army service in a military entertainment unit, then started her music career. While at the Rimon School of Music, she met Gil Dor, who was one of her teachers. “He’s an extraordinary and amazing, brilliant musician and we’ve been working together now for 34 years,” said Noa.

They caught the attention of guitarist Pat Metheny, who produced Noa’s first album and brought it to David Geffen, who then signed Noa at Geffen Records.

“I started performing abroad and foreign journalists started asking me my opinion about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and I’m like, I’m an artist, I don’t speak about things like that, don’t ask me questions like that.”

But she didn’t feel good about not responding. “And so, I started learning more and reading more and I became more and more depressed,” she said. “And then came Yitzchak Rabin and he started talking about peace. And I was like, yes, this is great!”

A believer in the Oslo Accords, Noa was the only leading Israeli musician to agree to perform at the peace rally where Rabin was murdered.

“I saw Rabin and I hugged him … and I walked down the stairs. Ten minutes later, he walked down the stairs and was killed…. I remember the rush and the cry and everybody running, and panic, and myself running and pushing to see what had happened,” Noa shared. “It was a trauma. I haven’t recovered, absolutely not. I haven’t recovered – and neither has Israel.”

At that moment, said Noa, “I said, OK, well, if this guy just paid with his life for our future, the future of Israel, the future of my children, then I, too, can do something. And then, maybe, I’ll pay a price and that’ll be OK because it’s the right thing to do. And that’s when I started becoming an activist for peace.”

There were two other life-changing events for Noa in the 1990s. She was invited to sing at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II and she was asked to write the lyrics and sing the theme song of the film Life is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella), which won an Oscar.

Among her many achievements, Noa represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009. She did so with Palestinian-Israeli singer/songwriter Mira Awad. “I wrote a song called ‘There Must Be Another Way,’ and we sang it in English, Hebrew and Arabic,” said Noa. “It made a lot of waves around the world and I have to say that, until today, it is taught in schools around the world.”

She related a story about that experience.

“Mira, her mother is from Bulgaria and her father is Palestinian. She’s quite fair-skinned, with green eyes. My family is from Yemen…. I’m an Arabic Jew. And so, when we sat in front of media, I remember there was one day where they had BBC Iran, they had Al Jazeera, they had all kinds of media…. All the Arab media immediately came up to me in Arabic and to her in English, [assuming] she’s the Jew. And so, I told them, you see, that is the role of art – our role is to shake you up a little. You think you understand everything. Maybe you don’t. Maybe there’s another way of looking at it…. You can’t think that you understand everything about everything. No, it’s not black and white. And that’s, of course, very relevant to where we are today.”

That said, there has been progress towards peace, she contended.

“There’s a huge polemic about whether there should be or there shouldn’t be a Palestinian state,” she admitted, “but there is a conversation being had about it…. In the past, it was not even talked about at all. It was underground.”

She also pointed to the many organizations that work with and/or are staffed by Arabs and Jews. Noa is on the boards of the Arava Institute and the Umm el-Fahem Museum of Art, for example. She’s also involved with the Parents Circle – Families Forum.

“The world in general is not a great place for people who believe in peace right now,” she acknowledged. “I think that we are under attack by forces, if you like, forces of darkness from everywhere. But, like I always say, that’s not reason enough not to continue raising the voice…. I believe in peace. I don’t see any other way to live. Has the peace camp changed? It has transformed in many ways.”

She gave the example of a WhatsApp group called Voices of Solidarity. She said a lot of young people are doing things – “it’s either art, it’s underground theatre, it’s alternative music.” She mentioned the organization Standing Together.

“Yitzhak Rabin, when he started talking to [Yasser] Arafat, the terrorist, everyone was like, what, no way, forget it. Seventy-five percent of the Israeli public were against any kind of interaction with Palestinians but then he came [along] with his charisma and his leadership and his integrity and his honesty and his track record, and he started saying, we’re going to be doing this and this is the right thing and this is for Israel’s future, for our children, we’ve made enough wars…. And then, it was like a month later, the entire public opinion, it shifted towards being positive about the chances for peace.”

That could happen again. A change in circumstances, a particular leader’s personality, the right timing, she said.

For Noa, Israel is in a worse situation now than immediately after Oct. 7.

“The hostage situation … is a nightmare beyond words. I go every week, sometimes I go twice a week, three times a week, to stand with them [the families and others calling for the hostages to be brought home]…. They’re desperate. I don’t know how they are still sane…. And the fact that that their children are still there [in Gaza], that they haven’t been brought back, that not everything has been done to bring them back, is not anything that Israel will ever recover from.”

She is appalled that the government is still in power.

“Not only did they not resign,” she said, “they then turned around to blame everybody that saved Israel, including Brothers and Sisters in Arms, including all the organizations that volunteered, [and] to blame the hostage families for daring to want their children back…. It’s beyond words.”

She advised diaspora Jews to distance themselves from the government: “separate the Israeli government from the Israeli people, it’s not the same thing,” she said.

“If you are going to look at a lot of consistent polls, you’ll see that people – even people that voted for the present government – feel betrayed by what the government has eventually done. They don’t understand how the government is not taking responsibility. They don’t understand how the dictatorship coup keeps moving forward when we’re in such a stressful situation. They don’t understand how our relationship with the entire world has come to a complete collapse under the auspices of this government. The Israeli government right now is the enemy of the Israeli people. And you can say that…. We support the Israeli people, we support the country of Israel, but we do not support the government of Israel.”

She warned of the dangers extremists pose in any country, and asked people to “strengthen the moderates in civil society in any way you can.”

She added, “Throughout history, countries have fallen into terrible situations of leadership. Italy, my favourite country in the world after Israel, became a fascist country at some point, with Mussolini, and there was Franco [in Spain] and there were other people, other countries that came into [similar] situations. Does that delegitimize the country? No. It means that a certain combination of events led to the fact that a country was now held hostage by leadership that did not work in her benefit. That is what is happening right now to Israel, and we have to work through it together with the help of our friends, and you are our friends.”

Noa doesn’t just fault the Israeli government. “In my opinion,” she said, “everybody in the region is to blame for the horrible situation we’re in. Nobody made the efforts. The leadership did not make efforts to make peace, not Israeli leadership, definitely not Palestinian leadership.”

She believes Israel had to defend itself after Oct. 7.

“What were we supposed to do? Sit around [twiddling our thumbs] while our kids were being massacred and our women were being raped? Yes, Israel needed to go in. The war was legitimate. But – it was legitimate to the extent that there was a plan. There needs to be a plan. Say, we have to fight, but now, let’s see, we’ve attacked, we’ve retaliated, we’ve done this, we’ve shown that, we’re there for our people. But we have to bring the hostages back…. Second, we have to see, who are our allies? We’re a small country, we’re nine million people – whoa, we want to attack the entire world? No. Who are our allies? Who are our friends? How can we start progressing towards a solution to this? Not endless warfare. Who are the people that want to talk to us? The UAE, the Saudis, the Americans, the Europeans, let’s reach out to them. This is what the Israeli government should have done immediately.”

While acknowledging that Israel needs a strong army, Noa said, “at the same time, parallel institutions need to come in and do their job, the diplomatic job, to reach out to our friends … and make sure that Israel is secure. Our security will come with peace, only with peace, and we have to look at this as an opportunity to make peace. And are there partners? There are.”

She said, “As a woman who lives in Israel, loves Israel and sends her kids to the army…. We need to be able to look forward to a time when we will not be sending our children to the army. Is it possible? Yes.”

UNRWA faces deadline

Last week, the Israeli government announced that it would ban the operation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency from operating in Israel, including in East Jerusalem.

For Arab citizens in East Jerusalem, this would mean an end to civic services like garbage pickup, three UNRWA-operated schools, and some health care and social services.

The laws passed by the Knesset would not preclude UNRWA from operating in Palestinian territories, but they would impede their work substantially. And they would eliminate any privileges or assistance UNRWA staff receive from the Israeli government, including easy passage across borders and through checkpoints.

UNRWA is a problematic organization. Begun in 1949, it has been criticized for perpetuating the Palestinian refugee crisis it was ostensibly created to resolve. By preventing Palestinian refugees from being resettled in host countries, UNRWA ensures that the refugees stand as living testament to the presumed injustice of Israel’s founding – the original sin in the anti-Israel narrative.

Through permissions granted by a bloc of Arab, Muslim and nonaligned states at the United Nations, UNRWA has expanded seemingly beyond the control of its larger parent body.

In the most illuminating example of UNRWA exceptionalism, the organization changed the definition of “refugee,” so it applies to Palestinians in ways it applies to no other people on earth. Palestinian refugee status is a heritable right, meaning descendants of the original refugees – now down to the third and fourth generations – are designated refugees when they may never have set foot in their ancestral homeland and may be second- or third-generation, for example, Jordanian- or Lebanese-born non-citizen residents. The objective of this strategy is clear: make the problem grow. The approximately 700,000 refugees of the 1948 war have grown exponentially, to 5.9 million people.

Operating in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, UNRWA operates more than 700 schools, teaching about 500,000 Palestinian students. UNRWA clinics provide primary health care, mental health support and referrals to specialized medical services. The agency provides food assistance, welfare and other forms of support. During times of war and other crises, UNRWA provides emergency food, shelter and medical services to affected populations. They respond to needs created by violence, displacement and natural disasters. UNRWA is responsible for the most fundamental services in the refugee camps where generations of Palestinians live, including sanitation, water supply and housing.

So why is Israel banning this agency that is so clearly a lifeline to the Palestinian people – especially in a time of catastrophic war?

Israel has provided to the United Nations evidence that some of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attacks and have collaborated with the terrorists before and after that dark day.

There are also older, systemic complaints. For decades, Israelis and others, including the European Union, have complained that the UNRWA-operated Palestinian education system is as much about inculcating antisemitism and a radical political agenda as it is inculcating the three Rs.

As a politicized arm of the United Nations, UNRWA is both a weapon in the decades-long global campaign against Israel and an agency that provides desperately needed services to Palestinian civilians, never more than in a war that is wreaking destruction and death on the people of Gaza.

Israel’s move looks punitive and vindictive in a moment when the world sees the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. This is a bad PR move on the part of a country with a bad PR history. But PR should be among the last concerns in situations where thousands are dying. Banning UNRWA could have disastrous consequences on some of the most vulnerable people.

The Knesset’s vote to ban the organization is set to take place in 90 days. That is not a long time, certainly, but it is a window during which UNRWA and the larger UN apparatus has an opportunity

to demonstrate goodwill. To date, they have effectively ignored Israel’s decades-long protestations that UNRWA is, for whatever necessary social services it provides, also a provocative source of incitement that promotes dependency rather than initiative and fosters antisemitic and anti-Israel activism and even terrorism.

After years of Israeli complaints and warnings, the Knesset finally put a time-limited threat to their concerns. The UN, NGOs, commentators and much of the world are up in arms over the announcement. Instead, they could be diverting those substantial energies into cleaning up the mess at UNRWA.

Perhaps the Knesset vote is an empty threat. Or rather, it could be an empty threat, if it’s primarily intended to make the larger UN body and the world take seriously the systemic problems UNRWA has exhibited through its long and troubled history.

If UNRWA demonstrates it is willing to take seriously the rot at the heart of its operation, we hope that Israel will not enact the ban. No one can clean up the panoramic mess in three months, but we hope that evidence of goodwill would be met with flexibility on Israel’s side.

If, in the worst case scenario, the UN does not do what it should have done long ago, Israel has an obligation – humanitarian, moral and legal – to ensure that the necessities of life are provided to the people in territories it occupies. In the absence of the UN behaving responsibly, Israel must. And Israel should absolutely be able to call upon a community of humanitarian nations to assist in that process. The world’s leaders have had a great deal to say about the well-being of Palestinian civilians in the past year. This would be a moment for them to put their money where their mouths are.