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May 12, 2006
Speaking out against hate
Toronto business leaders to address Federation AGM.
PAT JOHNSON
In 2004, when Toronto was suffering a sharp spike in anti-Semitic
incidents, Elizabeth Comper was lying in bed watching television.
Following a community meeting addressing the incidents, the media
interviewed two young Jewish Torontonians.
"All of a sudden I became fixated on these kids," Comper
told the Independent this week. "I wanted these children
to know that we care, that non-Jews really care about them, and
that this was an important thing to us. It was my problem too."
The next morning, the kids still on her mind, Comper raised the
issue with her husband, Tony, the president and CEO of BMO Financial
Group.
"I banged on the bathroom door and said to Tony, 'You've got
to help me, we've got to do something. We've got to send a message
out. The children have to know that we care about them and that
they are not isolated,' " she said. "It took two years
from the time I knocked on the bathroom door to the time we launched
FAST."
FAST – Fighting Anti-Semitism Together – is dedicated
to speaking out against "the oldest hatred in human history"
and to funding education and other projects to combat anti-Semitism.
FAST's mandate is to ensure that non-Jews take a lead in fighting
discrimination against Jews.
The group's first project, Choose your Voice, is an educational
curriculum for students in grades 6, 7 and 8. It was produced by
Canadian Jewish Congress for FAST and is a kit that gives teachers
the tools to help students learn about the dangers of hatred and
stereotypes, and to find the voice to combat them. It encourages
students not to be bystanders or perpetrators but heroes by speaking
out, according to FAST's website (www.fightingantisemitism.com).
Elizabeth and Tony Comper joined together and recruited a long list
of leaders in Canada's business and financial sectors to support
their cause.
"That's the only thing I knew," said Elizabeth Comper.
"That's what I'm familiar with."
She saw the business community as providing hope to Jewish children
in Canada who will view the public statements of business leaders
as proof that Canada is a welcoming environment where nothing will
stand in the way of personal fulfilment.
"If we can't do this [in Canada], then, I believe, no country
in the world can do this," she said. "We want Canada to
be a model of how to attack this problem.... We can show great leadership
with all the ugly 'isms,' as I call it. It's up to us to show the
world how to lead and how to do this."
The response from the business community has been universally enthusiastic,
she said.
"With the fund-raising that we do with business leaders, we
didn't have any rejection," said Comper. "We are fund-raising
in Quebec now and we've had no rejection.
"We're working very hard on a French-language version [of Choose
your Voice] and we're going into Quebec to launch it in September,"
she said.
The couple are also travelling to Haifa next year to be honored
for their efforts with a doctorate from the University of Haifa.
They are also travelling Canada, speaking with Jewish and non-Jewish
groups. The Compers will be guest speakers at the annual general
meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver on May 29,
at 7:30 p.m., in the Wosk Auditorium of the Jewish Community Centre
of Greater Vancouver.
"We are just beginning to travel," said Elizabeth Comper.
"We've had a lot of invitations and we're just beginning to
move through them."
The honors bestowed upon them have been an unexpected pleasure,
she added.
"Tony and I shake ourselves, because we can believe it,"
she said.
The Compers have long been fixtures of the Ontario philanthropic
community.
"Each of us has been devoted to our own little passions,"
Comper said. "For me, it has been the theatre and the Chinese
community in Toronto and Tony has been very active in St. Michael's
Hospital and the University of Toronto. We do have our separate
passions."
But they came together on this project because they shared a sense
of urgency and mission. It is the culmination of a partnership that
has had its unexpected turns.
"I was brought up in the West End of Toronto," she said.
"[Tony] was brought up in the East End. I'm Protestant, he
is Catholic. At that time, everything was against us."
Their shared passion for the Jewish community was sparked in significant
measure by one of Elizabeth Comper's first teaching jobs –
at Montreal's Beth Rivka school for girls.
"I had never known a Jewish person," she said, chuckling.
"At that time, Toronto was – I think the word is –
'white bread.' I saw this advertisement in the [Montreal] newspaper
and I went along to Decarie Boulevard. I met the rabbi and he hired
me. I really do go back to that experience for Tony and myself,
because it was a very, very rich, rewarding experience. To this
day, I love the Montreal Jewish community. I have so much admiration
and respect for them, and we learned so much together."
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest, www.mvox.ca.
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