Jodie Shupac CJN

Figuring out family holidays

Adam Brody played Seth Cohen in the show The O.C. and celebrated “Chrismukkah.” (photo from cookiesandsangria.files.wordpress.com)

If nothing else, The O.C., the popular 2003-07 American television show that featured the overblown dramas of hyper-privileged Orange County teens and their self-obsessed parents, can be credited with making a household name of “Chrismukkah” – the handy portmanteau that character Seth Cohen used to describe his interfaith family’s fusing of Christmas and Chanukah.

With intermarriage on the rise, many Jews in Canada and the United States are partnered or raising children with spouses of Christian backgrounds. Jewish Federations of Canada-United Israel Appeal’s 2011 National Household Survey found that the intermarriage rate in this country is 25%, about half the rate in the United States.

With Christmas being the centrepiece of the Christian calendar in the West – even for the increasing number of North Americans who celebrate Jesus’ birthday only culturally – many intermarried Jews find themselves in a quandary: should they embrace “Chrismukkah,” observe Christmas and Chanukah separately, or focus on creating an exclusively Jewish home by just celebrating the Festival of Lights.

While every family’s situation is different, it seems that many interfaith couples are finding ways to mark both holidays, but with the emphasis on each one’s cultural value.

This lines up with findings from the Pew Research Centre’s 2013 study A Portrait of Jewish Americans, which notes that younger generations of American Jews – 32% among Jewish millennials – often identify themselves as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture rather than religion. This matched the broader U.S. public’s shift away from religious affiliation, which is particularly prevalent among those in the 18-to-29 age range.

As for “Chrismukkah,” the Pew report found that about one-third of Jews surveyed said they’d had a Christmas tree in their home the year prior. Among those married to non-Jews, that number was 71%.

Tyler Irving isn’t Jewish, but his wife is, and the couple had their first child last year.

“So far, I’ve found it pretty easy to celebrate both sets of holidays,” he said. “We’ve been thinking about holidays as chances to reflect on culture, spend time with family and build strong bonds, and putting less emphasis on the religious aspects.”

Because Christmas is when they visit Irving’s parents, who live in the country, he expects that his own kids will view Christmas as a time to “be with Grandma and Grandpa,” while Chanukah will be “the chance to go to spend time with Bubbie and Zaide.”

Arielle Piat-Sauvé grew up in Quebec with a Jewish mother and a Catholic father.

“We always celebrated both holidays,” she said. “We went to my dad’s family for Christmas, though we did have a tree and did gifts at our own home. On Chanukah, we’d light the candles and do something with my [maternal] grandma and cousins. When I was younger, I’d get a gift for each night, but that wore off.”

If the two holidays coincided, her family would first light the Chanukah candles and then go to her grandparents’ for Christmas dinner. She stressed that neither holiday celebration focused on their religious components, but tradition and family time.

“Often, it’s easier for families to add than subtract,” said Rabbi Jordan Helfman of Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple, a Reform synagogue that has among its members quite a few interfaith couples.

Interfaith families with children enrolled in Holy Blossom’s supplementary religious school are asked not to celebrate Christmas in their own homes, but going to a non-Jewish relative’s place for Christmas is OK, Helfman explained.

“My experience is it’s not hard for children to make that distinction, especially when the parents are clear about, ‘This is what we do in our house, and this is what Grandma does in her house.’ Kids are smarter than we give them credit for,” he said.

Rabbi Tina Grimberg of Congregation Darchei Noam, Toronto’s Reconstructionist synagogue, said her congregation has a number of interfaith families, many of whom get involved in the shul’s Chanukah festivities, or who light candles in their own homes.

“Do I go into people’s homes and see Christmas trees? Not often at all. Do trees come up in [interfaith congregants’] homes on Dec. 24? Most likely not … though if people do celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah, they don’t tell me,” she said.

Just because a non-Jewish partner hasn’t converted doesn’t mean Christmas is central in their life, she emphasized. And, ultimately, when addressing interfaith families’ practice of Judaism, there’s a larger conversation at play.

“It’s about how to live life in a Jewish context when you have deep roots in another reality. It’s not about, ‘I’m Jewish because I don’t celebrate Christmas.’ It’s ‘How many Jewish things do I do … do I do Shabbat, go to synagogue, have a seder, do mitzvot, say Shema in the morning?’” she said. “Some people will still have a tree, because it honors their grandma, while others feel they have enough of a rich Jewish life that they no longer need it.”

Rabbi Jillian Cameron is director of the Boston chapter of InterfaithFamily, a U.S. organization that supports interfaith couples exploring Jewish life. It provides families with educational materials and connections to inclusive organizations, programs and local clergy.

She stressed that, while she doesn’t see a single trend with regard to how families led by intermarried couples approach the holidays, at this time of year, many of them are focused on figuring out how to be respectful of both Chanukah and Christmas, whether they celebrate the holidays in their own home or that of an extended family member.

While Christmas can be tough to give up for many who are raised with it, Cameron said, the religious element is secondary to “the family connections, the music, the smells, the tree … there’s a big pull to the sensory nature of Christmas.”

She added that this speaks to the wider trend of younger people finding value in tradition, but focusing on things outside of the theological realm.

While families with one Jewish and one Christian parent observe the holidays at this time of year in all sorts of incarnations, it’s clear that many, as in the general population, are most concerned about preserving tradition and a sense of family togetherness.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com

NDP drops candidate

Three federal NDP candidates are under intense scrutiny – and one has resigned – for controversial comments each made about Israel.

Hans Marotte, the NDP candidate in Quebec’s Saint-Jean riding; Morgan Wheeldon, who was, until stepping aside Aug. 9, running in the Nova Scotia riding of Kings-Hants; and David McLaren, running in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, were among the NDP candidates featured, alongside past comments they made, on a Conservative Party of Canada’s attack website titled “Meet the NDP.”

Marotte, a lawyer and well-known former separatist, is flagged on the site for a statement he made in his 1990 book Un Pays à Faire (A Country to Make): “When a Palestinian comes to ask me to sign his declaration of support for the intifada, and tells me how happy he is to have my name on his list, I see how important it is that we not close in on ourselves.”

photo - Until he stepped aside, Morgan Wheeldon was running in the Nova Scotia riding of Kings-Hants — Until he stepped aside, Morgan Wheeldon was running in the Nova Scotia riding of Kings-Hants. *(photo from Facebook via cjnews.com)*

Wheeldon, whose website has been wiped of all content, is featured on the Conservative site for a comment in an August 2014 Facebook post, made in the context of a discussion about British MP George Galloway, who had been physically attacked in London allegedly for his anti-Israel views.

The quote reads: “One could argue that Israel’s intention was always to ethnically cleanse the region – there are direct quotations proving this to be the case. Guess we just swept that under the rug. A minority of Palestinians are bombing buses in response to what appears to be a calculated effort to commit a war crime.”

McLaren, meanwhile, is quoted as saying it isn’t principled to take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it is like picking a side in “a telephone booth packed with dynamite.”

In a statement to the Canadian Jewish News, the NDP’s senior campaign adviser, Brad Lavigne, said the party’s “position on the conflict in the Middle East is clear, as [leader] Tom Mulcair expressed clearly in [the recently televised Maclean’s] debate. Mr. Wheeldon’s comments are not in line with that policy, and he is no longer our candidate. We were made aware of some information that had not previously been disclosed. When we approached Mr. Wheeldon with this information, he submitted his resignation.”

The NDP did not offer a comment on Marotte’s or McLaren’s statements.

Wheeldon himself told the CJN via Twitter that his Facebook statement “referred to how information sources affect framing of the conflict. I also attacked terrorism and said neither side was solely at fault, but pointed out the alternate perspective. I said ‘one could argue.…’ I’ve been called an antisemite, and it’s pretty upsetting for me and my family.”

Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, said that it was appropriate for Wheeldon to offer his resignation following his “libelous smears against the Jewish state.”

“Israel is a democracy where all its citizens enjoy rights and freedoms unimaginable anywhere else in the Middle East,” said Mostyn. “Mr. Wheeldon should use some of his newfound free time to advocate against actual ethnic cleansing taking place on a daily basis in the terrorist Islamic State, which continues to massacre Christians, Yazidis, gays and other minorities.”

Mostyn also noted that B’nai Brith is trying to track down a copy of Marotte’s book, and reach out to him to verify the accuracy of the quote and whether his opinion has changed over the 25 years since he wrote the book.

He added that “the quote in question displays a certain naiveté about the fact that one does not sign a petition to support an intifada, jihad or any other extremist act of violence. Seeking to promote a pluralistic society in Canada does not translate to supporting calls for violence against innocent civilians.”

Joe Oliver, the Tory MP for the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, also condemned the remarks.

“These radical anti-Israeli comments are just another example of the NDP’s troubling lack of support for a democratic friend and ally,” Oliver said. “They stand in stark contrast to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s unwavering support for Israel’s security and right to defend itself against international terrorism. Reckless comments on matters of international relations make it abundantly clear how inexperienced and risky the NDP would be for Canada’s future and its standing in the world.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Parents’ silence hurts

Hundreds of thousands came out to watch Toronto’s Pride Parade on June 28 despite the inclement weather. (photo by Najin Lin via facebook.com/pridetoronto)

Years ago, at a particularly low point, Chaim Silver (not his real name) was so desperate to be straight that he ingested a white powder that a naturopath had sent to him by mail, claiming it had “cured” a lesbian of her same-sex desires.

“I actually took it,” Silver laughed over the phone. “It was before anthrax, before 9/11.”

Silver is Modern Orthodox and came out to his parents when he was in his late 20s. While they’ve never explicitly rejected him, he said their approach has always been, “We can fix this.”

Over the years, they’ve oscillated between encouraging Silver to marry a woman and presuming he’ll accept a life of celibacy. “They’ve said to me, ‘You’ll just make your life about your siblings’ kids,’” said Silver, who is now in his 40s.

They’ve also suggested he try reparative therapy, a controversial practice that aims to make a homosexual person heterosexual. But, more than anything, Silver’s sexual identity is something about which his parents, plus many people at the Orthodox synagogue he attends in Toronto – most of whom, Silver believes, know about his sexuality – say nothing.

He once went away on a trip with a non-Jewish boyfriend, he noted, and nobody in his family acknowledged it.

“At synagogue, if I’m single, celibate and alone … I don’t think anyone actually cares … they’ll give me aliyot. But if I’m going to have a partner and want a life that’s celebrated, I don’t think that can happen in orthodoxy.”

On the whole, Silver said he’s grown pessimistic about the notion – touted by activists such as Rabbi Steven Greenberg, dubbed the only openly gay Orthodox rabbi in North America – that Orthodox Judaism can make space for homosexual people. “The two seem incongruous to me. [Being gay is] this innate thing that’s felt to be prohibited,” Silver said. “Not everything can be fixed in life. As you get older, you realize that some things just suck.”

Silver’s cynicism and his parents’ denial are arguably more acute because of Orthodox Judaism’s strict adherence to Torah, but anecdotal evidence shows that many Jewish parents from more liberal denominations are also uncomfortable having an LGBTQ kid and default to silence on the matter.

Justine Apple, executive director of Kulanu Toronto, a Jewish LGBTQ social and cultural group, said Jewish parents, ranging from secular to Modern Orthodox, have reached out to her, seeking counsel about their children’s sexual orientation. “People who are Orthodox tend to have a harder time dealing with this but, at the end of the day, it’s an individual process,” she said. “There are still so many parents in the community who know their kids are gay but are very secretive about it.”

Apple said when she herself first came out, her family, who have since made huge strides, didn’t want to hear about her personal life, making her feel “invisible.”

Many parents won’t ask their LGBTQ children about their romantic lives due to internalized homophobia and ignorance about what it means to be gay, she said. “A lot of parents equate being gay with what happens in the bedroom. But queer Jews, like any Jews, connect to their loved ones on multiple levels – emotional, spiritual, intellectual.”

Parents should recognize that being gay isn’t a choice and doesn’t negate that “we still have Jewish values, we’re still connected to family, community,” Apple said. “It’s important for parents to give kids support, make them feel part of family gatherings and ask them what’s happening in their personal lives.”

Apple said she reached out to several LGBTQ Jewish colleagues and friends to see if their parents would speak to the CJN about their experiences of their children coming out, but all of the parents declined. “It seems to be a sensitive topic for parents, more so than for their children,” she noted.

Maya Benaim (not her real name) came out a decade ago to her parents, who belong to a Conservative synagogue. She joked that she wishes they had taken some kind of course. “They didn’t understand it, and I wasn’t the person who could explain. It was too personal for me,” she said.

Over the years, her parents have rarely inquired about her partners and haven’t known how to act when one of her relationships ended. “I learned not to mention stuff.… I’d be going through tremendous pain from a breakup and would have to hide it from them,” she said.

Benaim, 30, said she’d be happy for her parents to seek external support – “anything that would contribute to understanding and de-stigmatizing and improve our relationship” – but she’s adamant that the onus not be on her to “hold their hands” through the process. “I’m already in pain enough from them not understanding,” she said. “I’d really appreciate if the community stepped in for that sort of thing. I think that’s what being an ally is about – doing that work so the people who are the victims of misunderstanding or hate don’t have to.”

Toronto social worker Elsia La Caria works with adolescents and young adults. She said for someone who’s come out, negative reactions from parents typically aggravate existing issues. “The person is often already struggling with feelings of not being accepted, so when the people closest to them don’t provide the right support, this can exacerbate their feelings of loneliness, sadness and feeling excluded,” she said.

Regarding parents’ silence about a child’s sexuality, she said, “this can reinforce the idea that they’re different in a bad way, that they don’t belong anywhere.”

Rabbi Michael Dolgin is senior rabbi of Toronto’s Reform Temple Sinai Congregation, where he and associate Rabbi Daniel Mikelberg officiate at same-sex weddings.

Canada’s legalization of same-sex marriage has helped affirm that “same-sex life is consistent with a focus on family, continuity and other Jewish values that I think, in the past … people assumed [LGBTQ people] were breaking with,” Dolgin said.

While parents of LGBTQ kids occasionally seek his guidance, Dolgin said young people nowadays generally seem more comfortable “being out,” and the North American Federation of Temple Youth, the youth group affiliated with the Reform movement, is widely considered a safe space for LGBTQ youth to participate without “the stress of having to choose between being Jewish and being homosexual.” The best response to a child who has come out is to love them, to listen and to work toward “an open, understanding relationship in which they can express their feelings,” he added.

Apple stressed that parents have a responsibility to educate themselves about what it means to be gay and Jewish. Kulanu’s doors are open to those seeking a safe space to discuss this, she said, but support is offered on more of an informal basis and she may refer families to Jewish Family and Child Service, and non-Jewish organizations such as PFLAG Canada and the 519, a Toronto agency that “respond[s] to the evolving needs of the LGBTQ community, from counseling services and queer parenting resources to coming out groups, trans programming and seniors support.”

“Right now, our goal is primarily to run events for the LGBTQ community and its allies,” said Apple.

Resources geared to Jewish families in this situation are only available in Canada “in pockets,” and are less abundant than in the United States, she acknowledged.

There’s a need in the community for more “open forums [for parents] to share their fears and concerns,” Apple said, adding that she sees future opportunities for Kulanu to develop a network to help parents who are struggling.

Indeed, Silver’s sense of hopelessness is tied, at least in part, to location. Toronto’s Jewish community is quite religiously conservative, unlike New York’s, where a Friday-night minyan of Orthodox LGBTQ Jews launched last year, he said.

Dating has been tough as it is – a secular Jewish partner couldn’t understand why Silver wanted to belong to a world that didn’t accept him, while a non-Jewish boyfriend wouldn’t give up Christmas – without the added problem that many in his position have left the Orthodox community or remain in hiding. “Many of us have simply disappeared,” he said, “so it’s not an issue the Orthodox community feels they have to face.”

Rabbi Noah Cheses, assistant rabbi at Shaarei Shomayim Congregation, one of Toronto’s largest Modern Orthodox shuls, said that supporting young people and their parents as the former share their sexual orientation with family and friends is an issue he cares deeply about. “But I try to take a line that distinguishes between supporting and endorsing. It’s a fine line. I can support an individual with the struggles he or she has, but I’m reluctant to endorse a lifestyle or culture that runs in opposition to a verse in the Torah, though I understand that being gay is not a choice,” he said.

Having recently moved to Toronto from Connecticut, he said he knows of several groups and online networks that support LGBTQ Orthodox people and their families there, but he isn’t aware of similar organizations in the Toronto area.

“On many different social and gender-related issues, my sense is Toronto has been not as advanced as many modern Orthodox communities in the States,” he said.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Are Jews, blacks still allies?

Rabbi Susan Talve at an NAACP march in Ferguson, Mo., with recent bar mitzvah boy Terel Wooten Jr. (photo by Philip Deitch)

Though the relationship has at times been conflicted, throughout the 20th century, particularly in the 1950s and ’60s, the alliance between Jews and African-Americans was strong. This alliance was evident in the Jewish role in the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909, and in Jewish leaders joining black leaders to push through the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of the 1960s.

At the height of the Civil Rights era, Jewish figures projected spiritual meaning on to the struggle for social justice. After marching alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1965 march on Selma, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was quoted as saying, “I felt my feet were praying.” Jack Greenberg, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defence Fund, likened his early days arguing civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court to being in synagogue.

While demographics and history have played out differently in Canada, from the 1950s to the early 2000s, Canadian Jewish Congress engaged in dialogue with other groups representing minorities, including the Jamaican Canadian Association and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.

Now, some argue these ties have dissipated and that North American Jews no longer have the same appetite for social justice or feel the same level of kinship with other minority groups.

Yavilah McCoy, the African-American Jewish founder of Ayecha, a nonprofit that advocates for Jews of color in the United States, wrote in Tikkun magazine last January about what appeared to her to be “a great silence among many of the white Jewish social activists I know,” in the wake of the 2012 killing of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida and the acquittal of his killer.

Bernie Farber, a social activist and former head of CJC, said Canadian Jews have strayed from their duty to support other minority groups. “Working with the Canadian black community was once part and parcel of what we believed was necessary to create a climate of tolerance,” he said. “Somehow, we’ve slipped away from that.”

In light of the August killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., and of the grand jury’s decision last month not to indict him, as well as the recent decision to not indict a white police officer for the choke-hold death of Eric Garner, a black man from Staten Island, as North American Jews, we might ask ourselves, do we have an obligation to fight for the rights of marginalized groups around us? If not, why not?

The weakened coalition between blacks and Jews can, McCoy argued, be partially attributed to the Black Power movement of the late ’60s, which saw black activists shift from King’s racially integrated approach to an ethos of “self-determination, self-defence tactics and racial pride.”

Though this was “crucial to the evolution of black consciousness and identity in America,” it left many Jewish activists “with little input in the black community, and an anti-racism movement that seemed to be moving on without them.”

She also cites dwindling antisemitism in the United States, compared to sustained anti-black racism, and the growing class division between Jews and African-Americans as additional factors.

Farber said that in his opinion the gulf between Jews and blacks resulted not from class disparity, but from North American Jews – particularly Canadian Jews – becoming more inwardly focused, fixated on self-preservation.

About a decade ago, he said, angst about Israel caused Canadian Jews to place their focus on Israel advocacy, downplaying associations with groups of color.

“Canadian Jews have become more parochial,” he said. “Issues of social justice have taken second position…. But by giving up on the social justice agenda, we do ourselves an incredible amount of harm … we’ve lost a lot of who we were.”

In Canada, the Jewish response to Ferguson has been fairly quiet, but some leaders are voicing concern.

“The killing of Michael Brown should deeply disturb us and offend our sense of Jewish moral values,” said Rabbi Aaron Levy of the Toronto congregation Makom. “There’s a strong history of part of the Jewish community identifying with the political left. Where that has gone is a good question.”

Avrum Rosensweig, president of Ve’ahavta, said the “deep scars between the white and black communities” in the United States are “deeply troubling.”

“We see that in Canada with our aboriginal community…. Like Michael Brown, they are seemingly invisible, judged differently because of the color of their skin.”

While Jews on both sides of the border may be less involved in activism, there are certainly exceptions: some American Jewish groups have thrown their support behind demonstrators in Ferguson. In October, nearly 30 rabbis from across the country joined 200 interfaith clergy in peaceful demonstrations, asking police to repent.

The New York-based group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), which coordinated protest groups after Martin’s killing, is running a campaign for greater police accountability.

T’ruah, a multi-denominational network of rabbis and Jewish communities that works for human rights in North America and Israel, has expressed staunch solidarity with the Ferguson protesters and is in the midst of launching a prison reform campaign.

“Torah teaches us we shouldn’t stand idly by the suffering of our neighbors,” said Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, T’ruah’s director of programs. “Policing and mass incarceration disproportionately affect this one part of our population, and we feel obligated to speak out.”

Rabbi Susan Talve of the Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis, near Ferguson, has long worked to alleviate racism and poverty, developing relationships with African-American and Muslim groups.

A fixture at the Ferguson protests, Talve laments that the Jewish community has become less engaged in social justice. “We’ve gotten pretty complacent in America, as white people,” she said, “but [events in Ferguson] have been a real wake-up call to the Jewish community to stand up for people who don’t have a voice…. That’s certainly what Torah calls us to do.”

Rabbi Michael Adam Latz, senior rabbi at Minneapolis’ progressive Shir Tikvah Congregation, said he, too, felt compelled to protest in Ferguson. “It wasn’t too long ago that it was Jews getting beaten in the streets. I think that we who have suffered have the obligation to stand with people who continue to suffer.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

CIJA-UJA host Toronto mayoral debate

At the debate are, from left, John Tory, Ari Goldkind, Doug Ford and Olivia Chow. (photo from cjnews.com)

There wasn’t much focus on Jewish issues at the CIJA-UJA-hosted mayoral debate Sunday night, but Ari Goldkind, the race’s sole Jewish candidate, arguably stole the show with his caustic barbs directed at fellow candidate Doug Ford, particularly when he confronted the councilor on his brother’s past use of an antisemitic slur.

The debate, held at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto’s Wilmington campus and attended by several hundred people, featured fringe candidate Goldkind debating alongside leading contenders Ford, John Tory and Olivia Chow.

The debate was moderated by National Post columnist Chris Selley, who gave each candidate several minutes to respond to questions on transit, taxes, community safety and conduct in city council.

Goldkind, a defence lawyer and the fourth-place mayoral contender, had the audience chuckling with one-liners such as “What does Ford stand for? Falsify. Overstate. Repeat. Deny” and “This campaign has turned into a reality show. It’s like the Kardashian show.”

He later took Ford to task for what he said was the former’s failure to apologize for an antisemitic slur uttered by his brother, Mayor Rob Ford – who made a conspicuous appearance partway through the debate – last March.

“Mayor Rob Ford called Jews the ‘K’ word,” Goldkind said. “And then he has the chutzpah to come in here tonight. He might get a free pass from the others on this stage, but not me. When you insult a whole people, you are not setting an example for the city.”

As the audience laughed and booed, Ford responded, “I have a Jewish doctor and a Jewish dentist … my family has the utmost respect for the Jewish community…. We look forward to working with the Jewish community, as we have for the last four years.”

He then added that he had already apologized on behalf of his brother for the remark, adding, “I’ve told [Rob] clearly that those comments were unacceptable.”

On the subject of funding proposed transit projects, Goldkind said, “I’m the only one on stage who’s open in saying we have to talk about taxes. If you believe Tory’s Smart Track plan is going to be free, or Ford’s ‘subways, subways, subways’ will be, or that Chow’s proposed tax increase [to fund transit] will only be on the wealthy, if you accept that math, they’ll earn your vote,” he said sarcastically.

He added: “I will ask each household in the city to pay 50 cents extra per day … then … instead of going to the provincial and federal governments with our hands empty, go to them and say, ‘the people of Toronto have spoken and we have a transit plan worth investing in.’”

Invectives aside, the four took turns laying out their respective visions for transit, with poll-leader Tory emphasizing Smart Track, his London, England-modeled surface rail subway plan. Meanwhile, Chow endorsed building light rail transit (LRT) and a downtown subway relief line, Ford called for subway expansion and Goldkind advocated for a downtown relief line, new LRT lines and replacement of the Scarborough subway line with LRT.

Regarding taxation, Ford and Tory both pledged to privatize garbage collection in the city’s east end.

Ford trumpeted his brother’s administration’s slashing of the vehicle registration tax. Chow said she would increase the land transfer tax for houses valued at more than $2 million and raise property taxes around the rate of inflation, and Goldkind suggested congestion fees and road tolls on certain highways to help pay for infrastructure improvements, as well as raising the land transfer tax on homes valued at over $1.1 million.

The candidates also addressed community safety and the recent spike in antisemitic incidents in Toronto.

Chow said the Toronto Police Service hate crimes unit could use more support and training to be able to better work with people, including those with mental health issues. She suggested that her plan to beef up after-school activities across the city could be a good antidote against “young people who get into trouble and get recruited by people who are full of hate.”

Tory brought up the need for better education for “the young and less young,” including more training for police and interfaith initiatives in the community.

Ford said that under his brother’s administration, the city hired more police officers and reallocated a number of officers to the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy. He said the city needs more mentors for young people.

The Toronto mayoral election will take place on Oct. 27.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Liberal Zionism still critical

Israel Defence Forces soldiers debrief during the Israel-Hamas conflict. New Israel Fund of Canada’s president Joan Garson discussed the painful war of this past summer and the ongoing responsibility of liberal Zionists in Canada to push for Israel to be a model of democracy, pluralism and tolerance. (photo from IDF via Ashernet)

The Jewish state won’t survive without a Zionism that’s liberal and a liberalism that’s Zionist. Such was the recurrent assertion of Haaretz reporter and columnist Ari Shavit at the New Israel Fund of Canada’s (NIFC’s) annual symposium, held on Sept. 14.

Entitled The Future of Israel Starts Here and held at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, the free event drew almost 1,000 people and marked the fourth annual symposium for NIFC, an organization founded 29 years ago that describes itself as being committed to fostering the development of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state “as envisioned in her Declaration of Independence.”

The symposium was moderated by Joseph Rosen, who recently wrote an article called “The Israel taboo” in an issue of the Canadian magazine The Walrus.

The event featured Rosen interviewing Shavit via Skype, as well facilitating a lively discussion between Shavit and Akiva Eldar, chief political columnist at the online magazine Al-Monitor, who attended in person. NIFC president Joan Garson also spoke.

photo - Ari Shavit — Ari Shavit *(photo by Sharon Bareket)*

Shavit spoke passionately about how the Zionist community needs to “talk seriously and honestly about our own mistakes” and to acknowledge where the government of Israel has committed wrongs both on a moral and political level, such as with ongoing settlement building in the West Bank. He argued this must be frozen to give the Palestinians space economically and geographically and “to move toward a two-state solution.”

It’s imperative that Zionists stop treating Israel as being above criticism, he stressed. Zionists must look its sins in the face, address the arguments made on the other side of the conflict and “limit injustice to Palestinians as much as possible.”

Further, Shavit spoke about restoring Israel to its former “state of wonder,” its promise to serve as a refuge for Jews – “a home for our homeless” – and to be as just as possible.

“What happened in 1948 [when thousands of Arabs ran from or were driven from their homes and villages during the country’s founding] was in the context of the brutal history of the 1940s,” he said. “But after that, after we secured our existence at a terrible human cost for us and for them [the Palestinians], to go into the other 22 percent of the land and to try to co-opt it [through occupation and settlement building] is a huge mistake.”

But Shavit also argued that it’s unacceptable to exclusively demonize Israel for its injustices, as its critics often do, or to use the history of its founding to delegitimize it.

“Some of the world’s best democracies were founded on the terrible treatment of indigenous people. Israel can’t be singled out,” he said. “But let us remember our democratic past and try to build a future for the Palestinians.”

Garson discussed the painful war of this past summer and the ongoing responsibility of liberal Zionists in Canada to push for Israel to be a model of democracy, pluralism and tolerance.

“As liberals, we are activists,” she said. “We think it’s our job not just to sit on the sidelines, but to engage … to make Israel the country of its founders dreams…. When we see [Israeli] policies in need of change, we speak and we act.”

She added: “We must be honest with ourselves, our children and our congregations … to bring intelligence and clear thinking to Israel as we do to other issues … and to commit to telling the truth about the country to ensure there will be another generation of lovers of Israel.”

Rosen subsequently posed questions to Eldar and Shavit about whether liberal Zionism is “dead” and about the position of Israeli left-wing “peaceniks.”

Eldar, who described himself as a “radical peacenik,” argued that liberal Zionism is crucial to the future of Israel, but that it can’t coexist with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

It’s not enough to decry the settlements, he said, “we have to do something about it and call on every government in the world to do something.”

Eldar explained that he, therefore, does not buy products made in the settlements.

“If, God forbid, one of your friends was about to commit suicide, you would do everything to stop it,” he said “This [settlement expansion] is a suicidal project.”

Shavit later spoke about how many Israelis feel that Israeli “peaceniks” don’t care about them, that they’re more concerned with the well-being of the Palestinians than that of their own countrymen.

“We Israelis who advocate for peace need to love all our people, to go out and canvas and tell them why their future is connected to peace,” he said.

Eldar said the central problem is that fear seems to have become more effective than hope in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We on the left are trying to sell hope,” he said. “I’m upset that people are trying to sell fear. Why not look at the glass half full? Look, for example, at how Egypt has worked with us [in the latest ceasefire negotiation between Israel and Hamas] instead of injecting more fear and saying we don’t have partners for peace in the region?”

He said that Israel needs to withdraw from the settlements, but not unilaterally. “We need to do it by making peace.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Harper nomination criticized

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion Airport with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and wife Laureen. (photo by Ashernet)

A petition calling on the adjudicating committee of the Nobel Peace Prize to reject B’nai Brith Canada outgoing CEO Frank Dimant’s planned nomination of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the honor says accepting the nomination “would be a disgrace and insult to [the] prestigious award.”

Dimant’s intent to nominate Harper for the 2015 prize – to mark the prime minister’s “moral leadership in the world … especially when it comes to standing up to radical Islamist terrorism” – has garnered considerable backlash, including the online petition, created by Calgary resident Edward Tanas, on the website change.org. As of Sept. 15, the petition had amassed more than 29,500 signatures.

The nomination idea has also drawn criticism from the Vancouver-based Canada Palestine Association (CPA), whose chairperson, Hanna Kawas, was quoted in the Vancouver Observer Sept. 1 as saying “with nominating [Harper], you don’t know whether to laugh or cry … it’s outrageous.”

Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay and the official opposition critic for ethics, also spoke out against the nomination, tweeting on Aug. 31, “Nominating Stephen Harper for the Nobel Peace Prize is like nominating [Sun News contributor Ezra] Levant for the Pulitzer Prize. Sorry, Steve, you’re no [Lester] Pearson.”

He later told CJN: “My comment was more sardonic than anything else. I don’t think anyone’s going to pay much more attention to this nomination. The role Canada’s traditionally played internationally is trying to bring parties back to the table, to de-escalate. Mr. Harper hasn’t shown that … we haven’t seen that kind of leadership from this leader.”

Dimant, who, in his capacity as professor of modern Israel studies at Canada Christian College, qualifies as a nominator under Nobel rules, said he viewed the nomination as an opportunity to help restore prestige to an award he believes has been diminished in stature of late.

“When [former Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat received [the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994], it certainly diminished the very notion of what a peace prize is,” he said. “And when [U.S. President Barack] Obama was given the prize for doing nothing except the anticipation of something, it diminished it. I felt it was time to elevate the prize again to the position it held historically.”

Dimant further praised Harper for “speaking up for the people of Ukraine,” as well as for the prime minister’s vocal condemnations of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State And he gave a nod to Harper’s staunch support of Israel, saying, “Here is a man who truly understands what it means to fight for freedom, national liberation and to understand that people have a right to return to their homeland and live in security and safety.”

This past January, Dimant and a delegation of other Jewish community leaders accompanied Harper on a trip to Israel, at which time Dimant praised Harper’s “unparalleled” support for Israel and his “principled stance on issues of importance to the Jewish community.”

Angus, however, said Harper’s approach isn’t deserving of the Nobel Prize. Issues connected to the Israel-Palestine conflict, he said, “are such emotionally heavy … traumatic issues for people on all sides. We want a prime minister in Canada who says, ‘Let’s find a way to move toward peace and resolution.’” That was the role Pearson, former Canadian prime minister and Nobel winner, played in the Suez Crisis, he continued, when, in 1956, he proposed a United Nations peacekeeping force to help ease the British and French out of Egypt, “and people saw that as a role for Canada to play.”

Neither Tanas nor CPA could be reached for comment, despite multiple attempts to contact them.

The deadline for the 2015 Nobel nominations is next February. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee website, the 2014 prize has 278 candidates, the highest number on record. The nominees include Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, Edward Snowden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 2014 winner will be announced in early October.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

How LGBTQ inclusive are Toronto shuls?

Created in 1984, Holy Blossom Temple’s “rainbow chuppah” was inspired by imagery from the story of Noah’s Ark. (photo from cjnews.com)

Had they gotten engaged one year later, Orrin Wolpert and his husband, Mitchell Marcus, would have been married by the rabbi at the downtown Toronto synagogue to which they now belong, the First Narayever Congregation.

The traditional egalitarian synagogue changed its policy on allowing same-sex weddings in June 2009, 10 months after the couple planned their ceremony. At the time, Wolpert and Marcus were involved with the Narayever, but weren’t members, unwilling to belong to a shul that disallowed gay weddings. They asked a Reform rabbi they both knew to officiate at their August 2009 wedding, and subsequently joined Narayever in accordance with the synagogue’s new stance.

“I feel really strongly about the shul,” said Wolpert, who comes from a traditional background. “It’s an amazing community of passionate Jews who are very traditional in their practice yet very inclusive in their approach … the membership is very intellectual, very socially progressive … we feel totally included there.”

Wolpert worked on the Narayever’s board for two years, ran its social action committee, helped draft the language on its website and attends services with his husband and their two-year-old twins about once a month. The congregation honored them with an aufruf prior to their wedding, a brit milah for their son and a simchat bat for their daughter.

Wolpert and Marcus’ sense of total acceptance by their synagogue is not anomalous, but neither is it the norm.

Given the traditional Jewish view that homosexual sex is biblically prohibited, the issue continues to be sensitive for many synagogues and, in some cases, one that requires an overhaul of entrenched values.

Over the past decade or so, as Canadian legislation and large swathes of public opinion have come to recognize the rights of homosexual couples to marry and access attendant legal benefits, Canadian synagogues across denominations have been confronted with the expectation to assert where they stand on LGBTQ inclusion. Given the traditional Jewish view that homosexual sex is biblically prohibited, the issue continues to be sensitive for many synagogues and, in some cases, one that requires an overhaul of entrenched values.

And it’s not just the question of whether to allow same-sex marriage. Synagogues and rabbis across the board are increasingly establishing – both formally and informally – positions on their overall approaches to including LGBTQ congregants in matters such as ritual participation, educational programming and use of language.

While levels of acceptance vary widely among synagogues and rabbis – even within the bounds of a given denomination – there appears to be a general shift toward emphasizing practical inclusion of LGBTQ congregants above rigid adherence to biblical text. Reform, Reconstructionist and progressive, non-denominational synagogues across North America have generally embraced LGBTQ members as equal participants, both by officiating at same-sex weddings and offering full involvement in ritual and executive proceedings.

In 1999, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the principal association of Reform rabbis in Canada and the United States, green-lighted same-sex marriages, but left the decision whether to officiate at them up to individual rabbis. For some Reform leaders, therefore, change has been more gradual.

This past April, Rabbi Yael Splansky became senior rabbi at Toronto’s Reform Holy Blossom Temple and the first rabbi in the synagogue’s history to perform same-sex weddings. “For years here [as an associate or assistant rabbi], I wouldn’t, out of respect for my senior colleagues, officiate at same-sex weddings,” she said.

Splansky explained that Holy Blossom has long supported the LGBTQ community in other ways. The shul is an ongoing sponsor of Jewish LGBTQ group Kulanu’s Pride Parade float and it supported gay Jewish men afflicted by AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s.

While gay marriage itself remains a sticking point for a lot of rabbis, there are many who nonetheless view the welcoming of LGBTQ Jews as both an ethical and practical imperative.

The drawing of lines around “acceptable” and “unacceptable” forms of inclusion continues to be quite common among synagogues. While gay marriage itself remains a sticking point for a lot of rabbis, there are many who nonetheless view the welcoming of LGBTQ Jews as both an ethical and practical imperative.

“If someone with an interest, commitment or curiosity about Jewish life knocks on our doors, we’ve got to let them in,” Splansky said. “Some [rabbis] do it with full pleasure, while others do it grudgingly, but everyone’s got to do it … just looking at the numbers, we can’t afford to lose anybody.”

Her comment is in reference to the 2013 Pew report on American Jewry, a survey that indicates rising rates of secularism and intermarriage. Perhaps for this reason as well, the Modern Orthodox world has also seen a shift toward shelving views on homosexuality as sin and ushering LGBTQ Jews into the fold.

In 2010, close to 200 Orthodox rabbis signed a statement of principles regarding homosexual Jews. Drafted by Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot, a member of one of the largest organizations of Orthodox rabbis, the Rabbinical Council of America, it affirms that although same-sex unions are “antithetical to Jewish law,” individuals with “homosexual inclinations should be treated with the care and concern appropriate to all human beings,” including acceptance in synagogues. It further acknowledges that homosexual Jews in the Orthodox community often face serious emotional and psychological challenges and that, especially among teenagers, the risk of suicide is greater.

Rabbi Aaron Levy, a Modern Orthodox rabbi at Makom, a non-denominational, grassroots Jewish community congregation in downtown Toronto, won’t perform gay marriages, but he said Makom is “a very queer-inclusive community,” with a number of active LGBTQ members. Last summer, Makom held a Shabbaton to honor the upcoming same-sex wedding of two members, which included an aufruf and learnings on queer issues and Judaism.

“Nature provides a minority of people whose sexuality is different, and halachah has to, at some point … come up with a credible response.”

“In terms of where I am vis-a-vis my own approach to traditional Jewish law and my understanding of where the Orthodox community is in grappling with LGBTQ issues … I don’t think I can perform a gay wedding,” said Levy. Still, he noted, “Nature provides a minority of people whose sexuality is different, and halachah has to, at some point … come up with a credible response…. Even if communities aren’t thinking as much about queer issues on the level of possible reinterpretations of halachah, they’re thinking about the social dynamic of becoming more welcoming.”

Boston-based Rabbi Steve Greenberg has garnered recognition for being the only known, openly gay Orthodox rabbi. Author of Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition and executive director of Eshel, an American organization that functions as a national support network for LGBTQ Orthodox Jews who wish to remain committed to tradition, he has performed a same-sex, halachically observant wedding for a Toronto couple and will officiate at another one in Toronto in August.

“ … it’s premature to expect the Orthodox world to sanctify or celebrate what most in it still believe is a prohibition…. I think it’s sufficient to have Orthodox rabbis support a same-sex couple’s Jewish life once they’re married.”

“I do it because, being gay myself, I feel a responsibility for young people, that there should be some way to commit in a fashion that’s real and that your family can celebrate,” Greenberg explained. “But I think it’s a mistake to presently expect [other] Orthodox rabbis to do this … it’s premature to expect the Orthodox world to sanctify or celebrate what most in it still believe is a prohibition…. I think it’s sufficient to have Orthodox rabbis support a same-sex couple’s Jewish life once they’re married.”

Greenberg emphasized that Orthodox rabbis have a responsibility not to dismiss LGBTQ individuals by telling them to pursue a heterosexual marriage or to opt for a life of celibacy. Such responses, can, particularly for young people, cause extremely harmful outcomes, such as depression, self-harm or substance abuse, he said.

“This cannot be a process by which we throw arguments at each other. We need to take a human read of what it is to discover oneself to be gay, lesbian or transsexual and figure out if the community can find ways – either within halachic norms or within a sense of responsibility to shift them – to make way for people who aren’t choosing their sexual or gender identity, but living it.” He suggested that Orthodox rabbis can instead say things such as, “God is merciful. There are 612 mitzvot you can still try to do to the best of your ability … join my shul.”

Aviva Goldberg is the ritual leader at Shir Libeynu, an unaffiliated, inclusive congregation that formed in the late 1990s in Toronto as a place for LGBTQ Jews to worship comfortably. Raised in a Modern Orthodox home, she turned to Reconstructionist Judaism as an adult and came out as a lesbian at age 38 (she’s now 65). Goldberg recalled how, two decades ago, even at a Reconstructionist synagogue, she and her partner weren’t allowed to come up for an aliyah together to mark their anniversary. While great strides have been made, she said, the community still has a way to go overall.

“I’ve heard some rabbis say, ‘Anyone can come to our shul.’ Sure, but do you talk about issues affecting LGBTQ members? Do any of your liturgies relate to them? Do you perform same-sex weddings? The answer is, of course, ‘No.’ It’s more like, ‘You can come to our shul, but leave your life behind.’”

“Toronto’s Jewish community is generally very conservative…. I’ve heard some rabbis say, ‘Anyone can come to our shul.’ Sure, but do you talk about issues affecting LGBTQ members? Do any of your liturgies relate to them? Do you perform same-sex weddings? The answer is, of course, ‘No.’ It’s more like, ‘You can come to our shul, but leave your life behind.’”

For some LGBTQ Jews, this perception sparks a rejection of “mainstream” synagogues in favor of wholly inclusive, non-denominational congregations like Shir Libeynu. For others, like Wolpert, a more traditional synagogue that accepts LGBTQ congregants, but doesn’t strictly define itself as a “gay shul” holds greater appeal.

“My gay identity is only one part of me,” he said. “The rest of me also has to be satisfied by my religious home.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.