Mira Sucharov – Jewish Independent

Active Jewish millennials

If the occupation is going to end with the help of North American Jews, it will be owing to the growing force of millennials who stand up not only for their own rights, but the rights of others.

One of these individuals has taken to social media via a series of parody videos to get her message across. As Avi Does the Holy Land prepares to launch its second video-log season, I’ve been thinking about its creator, Calgary-raised Aviva Zimmerman. When I was first alerted to “Avi’s” Facebook page, I admit I was fooled. “Arab workers literally BUILDING the Tel Aviv boardwalk. And they call us a racist country?!! #TelAviv #coexistence,” she wrote. I nearly shot back in anger to the mutual friend who had acquainted us, before taking a closer look. Satire is supposed to cut close to the bone, and that’s certainly what Avi Does the Holy Land does.

In the v-log’s first season, “Avi,” a sexed-up Canadian Jew who “went on a Birthright trip and fell in love with Israel,” skewers Israeli treatment of liberal Zionist critics, Israel’s shoddy treatment of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, Tel Aviv’s party scene as counterterrorism policy and Israeli LGBTQ policy as used in the government’s PR campaigns. A successful Indiegogo campaign for season 2 has now expanded to raising funds for a live show.

“Avi” is one type of millennial Jew – though, of course, a larger-than-life version. The differences in opinion and action among millennials regarding Israel, however, are real, ranging from those trying to burnish Israel’s image abroad via an uncritical look at the country to those trying to tarnish every image of the country. But there is a healthy cadre of young Jews deploying a sense of solidarity with their own, as well as with the oppressed.

Some young Jews are gravitating to Open Hillel, to encourage a more pluralistic discourse about Israel on North American campuses, or to the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence, which takes young Jews to the West Bank for projects in solidarity with Palestinians resisting settler encroachment. At the University of British Columbia, there’s the Progressive Jewish Alliance, which bills itself as “a group of progressive Jews committed to creating a new, vibrant, independent Jewish space.”

And there’s IfNotNow, whose anti-occupation mission has expanded into resisting the many moves of Trump’s administration. IfNotNow declares on its website, “Just as Moses was commanded to return to Egypt and fight for the liberation of his people, we, too, feel called to take responsibility for the future of our community. We know the liberation of our Jewish community is bound up in the liberation of all people, particularly those in Israel and Palestine.” Recently, IfNotNow created a hashtag called #ResistAIPAC. “When the Trump Administration Goes to AIPAC, the Jewish resistance will be there to meet them,” the site says.

With the message of Passover soon upon us again, we might best consider how to raise children whose connection to Israel can be transformed into one pushing for rights and freedom for all.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications.

More crucial issues at hand

Islamophobia and antisemitism have again reared their ugly heads this year, including with mosque burnings and desecrations of Jewish cemeteries in the United States. In response to the attacks on the St. Louis cemetery, Muslim-American activist Linda Sarsour helped launch a crowdfunding campaign to help rebuild. A few days out from its March 20 closing, launchgood.com had raised more than $160,000 – its goal was $20,000.

Sadly, some in the Jewish community – in both the United States and Canada – have sought to discredit Sarsour and her gesture of solidarity. I have seen accusations of Sarsour being an antisemite and of supporting Hamas, so I’ve been spending time trying to dig up the proof. But no one who levies these charges seems to be able to produce a shred of evidence.

Here’s what I did see: a two-minute video circulating in the right-wing blogosphere, which is meant to incriminate Sarsour. But there was nothing incriminating in the video. Sarsour even mentions Israel’s “right to exist,” something that landed her in hot water, ironically, with some in the Palestine solidarity movement. As Haaretz reported, she has actively told her followers to avoid using antisemitic language when criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza, calling that kind of discourse “unacceptable.”

She is accused of shilling for Sharia law. I have seen her make tongue-in-cheek remarks about Sharia, pining for better maternity leave in America and forgiven credit card debt. It seems right-wingers could use a sharper irony sensor.

Finally, I have seen a photo showing her posing in a group with someone who apparently had ties to Hamas. She herself has denied Hamas ties. It’s tough to accuse someone of supporting a group when she denies all links. She doesn’t sound like a very loyal or helpful supporter to me.

Now, she is certainly no Zionist. In 2012, she tweeted, “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.” She supports BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction of Israel) and a one-state solution. If that’s the full and entire body of actual evidence linking Sarsour to the unsavoury views of which she’s accused, then we need to focus on that alone.

Is it beyond the pale to oppose Zionism? And is BDS antisemitic? According to the U.S. State Department’s definition of antisemitism – which relies on the “3 Ds” definition: demonization, delegitimization and double standards when it comes to Israel – one could argue that, in its opposition to Zionism (which, in its current manifestation, precludes Palestinian refugee return), it is. The trouble is, the 3 Ds definition of antisemitism is hugely problematic. It implies that opposing a particular ideology – even one that strains under its own weight to maintain ethnic privilege within a democratic framework – means that one is promulgating hatred of Jews. The logic just doesn’t hold up.

So, without actual evidence for Sarsour’s so-called antisemitism, I smell a toxic brew of Islamophobia and misogyny. A strong, vocal Muslim-American woman with a Brooklyn accent who stands at the podium of the half-a-million-strong Women’s March on Washington (which she co-chaired) and mentions that she’s her occupied-territories-residing grandmother’s “wildest dream” might just be a bit much for those who think Muslims deserve to be taken down a notch or that Palestinians living under occupation are not deserving of basic rights.

If that’s what it is – Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian prejudice – then I wish they would just say so. It would give me more time to devote to other matters rather than asking for evidence where none exists.

Speaking of antisemitism, we should be asking why President Donald Trump took so long to condemn recent antisemitic incidents, humiliated a Jewish reporter who politely challenged him on this, and appointed a top advisor – Steve Bannon – who is linked to trafficking in antisemitism and other forms of racism. And we must ask why the forces of antisemitism and Islamophobia have been so rapidly unleashed. We must stand together against all forms of antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism, as Sarsour would have us do.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications. A version of this article was originally published by CJN.

These times call for solidarity

When a multicultural country like Canada faces a stark rise in hatred targeting one ethnic group, its social and ethical solidarity is put to the test. The question for Canada’s Jewish establishment is, how will it respond to the shocking spike in hatred targeting the Muslim community?

On the heels of the Quebec City mosque shooting, which left six worshippers dead, and then a hate-filled protest outside of a Toronto mosque, a private member’s motion to condemn Islamophobia was introduced in Parliament. Regrettably, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) is opposing the motion, at least in its current form.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid introduced the non-binding motion (M-103) urging the government to “better reflect” the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by “quell[ing] the increasing public climate of hate and fear,” while “condemn[ing] Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.” Her motion also asks Parliament to convene a study to address these issues and “to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities.”

As the motion – intended to express the will of Parliament but falling short of having any legal force – acknowledges, there are already Charter provisions for opposing racism and discrimination. And Section 319 of the Criminal Code already outlaws “communicating statements in any public place, incit[ing] hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace.” But, sometimes, the law is not enough to signal collective revulsion.

The demonstrators outside the downtown Toronto mosque held signs such as “Ban Islam” and “Muslims are terrorists.” Interviewed on camera, one of the protesters makes the following chilling observation: “They [she presumably means Muslims] start out friendly and, before you know it, they grow so much in population that they take over.” The interviewer challenges her: “This is sounding a lot like what people said about Jews at one time,” to which the protester replies: “There’s no comparison. Jews were not evil.”

For its part, CIJA calls M-103 “flawed.” As CIJA head Shimon Koffler Fogel writes, the motion “requires us to silence legitimate concerns or suppress a public conversation about those strains of Islam that pose a real and imminent threat to Jews around the world,” adding that the motion “denies space and opportunity within the Muslim community to confront those strains of Islam that do indeed exist and do indeed cause harm to the majority of Muslims who do not subscribe to an extremist ideology.” For these reasons, CIJA is urging lawmakers to oppose it.

It’s not the first time a private member’s motion has been introduced to focus Canada’s attention on a specific form of hatred. In 2015, Conservative MP James Bezan asked “all members [of Parliament] and all Canadians [to] join me in denouncing antisemitism.” In 2015, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler asked the “House [to] condemn the alarming development of a new antisemitism….” And then, of course, there’s the 2010 Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism, which convened parliamentary representatives from an array of countries to call out antisemitism.

CIJA director of communications Martin Sampson shared with me the amended text of the motion CIJA proposed to Khaled, including trying to add a clause that would “recognize that criticism and condemnation of any and all forms of extremism is not only acceptable but necessary in a free and democratic society; and tasking the proposed study to define ‘Islamophobia in Canada.’”

Bernie Farber, former head of Canadian Jewish Congress and now head of the Toronto-based Mosaic Institute, a diversity, peace and justice organization, said he is “baffled and stunned” by CIJA’s opposition to the motion.

Is the lack of explicit acknowledgment of the legitimacy of criticizing religion a problem, as CIJA is suggesting? No. Parliamentary motions have no legislative force. The existing Criminal Code – including laws governing freedom of expression – will remain unaffected. Fogel’s claim that the motion will silence criticism by force of law is simply wrong. It may serve to dampen enthusiasm for the kind of hateful anti-Muslim demonstrations we saw in Toronto, but that is the point.

Or perhaps the vagueness of the term Islamophobia is a problem. Sampson calls the word “politically charged and imprecise.” Cotler, for instance, is suggesting that M-103 be amended to say “anti-Muslim bigotry.”

But, like homophobia, Islamophobia is simply the term that exists to denote this form of bigotry. When I asked historian of language Liora Halperin why the term got saddled with the more clinical “phobia” suffix instead of acquiring the more straightforward “anti” prefix, she acknowledges that phobias are psychiatric diagnoses, not ideologies. But, she adds, “in practice, fear is indeed part of racism.”

The term antisemitism – which, ironically, was coined by a German antisemite – captures the unique phenomenon of Jew hatred. Similarly, Farber argues, “hatred of Muslims needs its own specific word to get people to understand the importance of what this kind of hatred of Muslims can do. And we’ve seen it, sadly, right here in Canada.”

These times call for solidarity in the face of rising tides of antisemitism, Islamophobia and all other forms of racism. In the wake of the mosque massacre and the hateful protests on Toronto’s usually peaceful streets, coupled with the shadow of U.S. President Donald Trump’s xenophobic policies, the time is now for Canadians to stand together against Islamophobia. That’s the word we have, that’s the member’s motion being proposed, and that’s the wave of hatred – one prominent wave among many, sadly – that we urgently need to address.

Bibi’s visit to Washington

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House generated more buzz than policy direction. But there’s nearly as much to be gleaned from what he and U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t say as from what they did. Here are some takeaways.

Trump is eerily out of touch with antisemitism. Given the apparent spike in antisemitic incidents across the United States, including 60 bomb threats to Jewish community centres across North America in January alone, one reporter asked Trump what he planned to “say to those among the Jewish community in the States and in Israel, and maybe around the world, who believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones.” In response, Trump opened bizarrely with a reference to the number of Electoral College votes he received. Then he deployed the classic “some of my best friends are Jewish” evasion by mentioning his Jewish daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren. He concluded by saying, “you’re going to see a lot of love.” On the heels of omitting the mention of Jews from the White House statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day – though his opening remarks mentioned “survival in the face of genocide” – this evasion continues the chill.

Does Trump know what a one-state solution means? Trump seemed to roll back the longstanding U.S. commitment to two states by saying, “So I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.”

It’s not clear that Trump is aware of what he means by a “one-state” solution, particularly since people tend to use it very differently. The Israeli right-wing has, in recent years, spoken of a one-state solution involving various forms of West Bank annexation. In this scenario, it’s unlikely that Palestinians would be given full rights. However, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has recently called for annexing the West Bank and providing full voting rights to Palestinians. On the left, the one-state solution has certainly meant a single, democratic state. In that scenario, refugees would likely be given full rights of return and the culture and identities of both national peoples would be elevated. It’s unlikely that Israel would accept such a situation. But, given the extent of settlement entrenchment in the remaining territory, which would have been allocated for a Palestinian state under a two-state scenario, all of these ideas need to be explored.

As for settlements, Trump was more critical of Israeli settlements than one might have expected, given his settlement-supporting pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. “I’d like to see you hold back on settlements for a little bit,” he told Bibi.

A Jewish state is not what it seems. Bibi has done a masterful job over the last several years in pointing the world’s attention to the fact that the Palestinian Authority has not recognized Israel as a “Jewish state.” No less than five times in

Netanyahu’s remarks at the Washington press conference did he declare that Palestinians must recognize “the Jewish state.” At the same time, he hid the fact that the Palestinians have, in fact, recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security. On Sept. 10, 1993, the day before the Oslo Agreement was signed, Palestine Liberation Organization head Yasser Arafat wrote to Israel’s then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin that the PLO “recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist in peace and security.” Bibi need not look far for the texts of these letters of mutual recognition. They are on Israel’s own Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

As for Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel specifically as a “Jewish” state, observers realize that this is code for denying Palestinian refugees the right of return. This is a contentious issue and will have to be part of the final status negotiations. In sum, it is not up to the Palestinians to recognize

Israel’s Jewish character; that is an internal matter. It’s up to the Palestinians to recognize Israel’s existence, entailing safety and security – and that, they already have done.

What’s the substance? Skilled orator that he is, Bibi stressed he wanted to deal with “substance,” not “labels,” uttering the word “substance” five times. By substance, he made clear he wanted the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” (see above) and wanted Israel to retain security control in the eastern part of the West Bank. Wouldn’t it be something if, by “substance,” Bibi meant that everyone in the areas currently under Israeli control is entitled to basic civil rights and human rights? Maybe that’s too substantive. One can dream, though.

Come together, right now

Canadians – and concerned citizens worldwide – are reeling from the horrific attack on a Quebec City mosque (the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec) on Jan. 29 that left six dead and others wounded. Amid the revulsion and grieving, here are some possible lessons.

We can’t ignore the Trump factor. While Islamophobia has long preceded U.S. President Donald Trump, by all indicators, Trump’s hatefulness – capped by his wide-reaching travel ban – has unleashed additional hatred against Muslims and other minorities.

Since the election, the Southern Poverty Law Centre has recorded more than 700 incidents of “hateful harassment” across the United States. Despite our ingrained public ethic of multiculturalism, Canada is clearly not immune.

Price-tag-style attacks might have come to Canada. What West Bank Palestinians are tragically used to, Canadians might be now experiencing as well. It is probably no coincidence that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped forward to declare his government’s intention to take in refugees barred by Trump’s executive order. But Trudeau’s welcoming pledge might also have unleashed more hatred in dark corners of Canada against anyone who can too easily be “othered.”

West Bank Palestinians are all too often the target of this kind of retribution. Whenever the Israeli government appears to retract support for the settlement enterprise – in the form of evacuations of illegal outposts, for example, violent settlers enact what they call “price-tag” attacks against Palestinian life, limb and property. These, too, of course, are terrorist attacks.

Some Israelis have created a counter movement – rather than price tag (tag mechir), they enact acts of kindness and solidarity (tag me’ir, light tag). The many Women’s Marches in Canadian cities countrywide to coincide with the Women’s Marches in the United States were an example of this approach. So was the vigil at Ottawa’s Parliament Hill the day after the murders, to stand in solidarity with the victims of the mosque attack. We will need many more moments of connection in the weeks and months to come.

Quebec has a fraught history with multiculturalism. Is it a coincidence that the attack occurred in Quebec rather than in a different province? Maybe. But just maybe this hateful violence stems from the province’s difficult relationship to multiculturalism. While Canada enshrined multiculturalism into law in 1971 – the first country to do so – Quebec’s history with multicultural policies, probably owing to the province’s concern with maintaining its own minority-language identity, is much more fraught.

In 2013, Quebec attempted to enact a failed Charter of Values (Charte de la laïcité), which sought to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols from being worn by public sector employees. A decade ago, the town of Hérouxville, also in Quebec, issued its own “code of conduct,” widely seen as a dig at immigrants.

Said one storeowner in 2013 interviewed for the Globe and Mail, “Immigrants are welcome to come to Quebec, but when they come, they have to adapt to our ways.”

Banning religious symbols – as the province had sought to do in 2013 – is not the same as murdering people in cold blood, of course. But this kind of flat intolerance against religious expression can all too easily become twisted in the mind of a hateful and violence-prone individual to commit the unthinkable.

It is terrorism. Despite the bigoted propensity by some to use the word terrorist to delegitimize and dehumanize certain ethnic or religious groups, this term does have a clear definition and we should use it when warranted, if only to make sure we keep using it correctly. Simply put, terrorism is violence for political ends.

An attack on a centre of worship is intended to instil fear in society around that target group – the worst kind of collective dehumanization. This is politics of the ugliest and most hateful kind.

Misinformation unleashes further hatred. On the Monday morning after the attack, the media were reporting the names of two supposed suspects, one of whom was apparently of Moroccan origin. Some right-wing news outlets made hay from this, circulating the information even once the media clarified that he was apparently a witness, not a suspect. As of now, the sole suspect is 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, who has since been charged with six counts of murder.

Come together, right now. In a statement following the attack, Trudeau said it is “heart-wrenching to see such senseless violence. Diversity is our strength and religious tolerance is a value that we, as Canadians, hold dear.”

While I hesitate to use the kinds of binaries that have arguably led the world to this point, I am tempted to say that the coming days and weeks will reveal two types of people on this continent: ones who are here to support one another against the forces of hatred, Islamophobia, antisemitism, misogyny and xenophobia; and ones who are aiding and abetting those terrible forces. Among those who stand on the side of goodness and compassion, the time is now for solidarity across every fissure.

Importance of transparency

Stav Daron’s application to the Island School of Building Arts was initially rejected because he is Israeli. After public pressure, the school reversed its decision and apologized. (photo from facebook.com/stav.daron)

Now that the sawdust has settled on the controversy around the Gabriola Island-based Island School of Building Arts’ initial rejection of an Israeli applicant based on his nationality, we can assess the implications. According to various reports, the school’s manager had responded to a prospective Israeli applicant, telling him that they are “not accepting applications from Israel” owing to “the conflict and illegal settlement activity in the region.” After pressure from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and B’nai Brith Canada, the school reversed its decision and issued an apology on its website.

The rejection of the student was a move that not only likely contravened the B.C. Human Rights Code – which forbids service-providers to deny services to clients based on national origin, among many other things – but served to embarrass the school. But there are some deeper layers that deserve examination here.

First, we need to ask what the role of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel) is in all of this. Many would interpret the school’s move as an instance of BDS. In one sense, they would be right; in another, they would be wrong. BDS entails commercial, academic and cultural boycotts, in addition to calling for divestment from companies helping the occupation and, in the most unlikely scenario, getting other countries to institute sanctions against Israel. Importantly, the academic boycott aspect of BDS does not call for targeting individuals unless, like deans or university presidents, they are representing an Israeli academic institution in an official capacity.

While it’s not clear to me whether the Island School is an accredited academic institution or a private business, I will discuss it in the context of the academic boycott since that’s what probably comes to mind for most readers.

Though detailed BDS guidelines exist, not all would-be BDS activists are necessarily aware of them. And, even if they are aware of them, they might end up applying their own standards. There is anecdotal evidence that individual Israeli academics are indeed harmed or even directly targeted by BDS. My interview with a BDS activist at Syracuse University, for an article I published in Haaretz, pointed to this kind of slippage. All this is to say that BDS may have a spillover effect – and a chill factor – far beyond its intended boundaries.

On the other hand, while the decision was ill-conceived, this same spotlight enabled a light to be shone on problematic Israeli policies. This won’t persuade groups for whom Israel can do no wrong, but the school’s initial action – which the school’s representative said was intended to stay in line with the school’s “moral compass” – may have served its aim, as clunky as the action was.

We can also ask what the role of public shaming is in propelling international change. Scholars have noted that countries can be shamed into compliance – whether to adhere to international law, to ante up humanitarian aid in the wake of a disaster or to offer debt relief. These kinds of dynamics work best when it is governments being targeted. To focus political action on an individual outside the context of any national representation, which is what Island School did, is deeply problematic. Here, I would point to the controversy around the Egyptian judo athlete rejecting his Israeli opponent’s handshake at the 2016 Olympics as a grey area. The Olympics ideally take place outside of politics but athletes are, of course, representing their country and there may be political theatre playing out on some stages, however disappointing it may be. But this was not the case with the Israeli applicant to the Island School who was representing no one but himself.

Finally, the brazenness of the act enabled Jewish groups in Canada to take swift action. The school could have quietly rejected the applicant with little fanfare, but the manager’s honest and forthright emails left no doubt as to what motivated the decision. This meant that the full story circulated quickly on media and social media, and pressure from national Jewish groups succeeded in quickly getting the decision reversed. This means that, perhaps, as painful as it was, we can be glad when actions are taken in a transparent way, making strategies around pressure and counter-pressure much more straightforward. This is ultimately a good thing for buttressing an active civil society, even if we don’t all agree on the policies being protested.

Thoughts on Oakridge exhibit

Staging a parade on Laurel Street, circa 1960. An image from the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia’s online exhibit, Oakridge. (photo from Gail Dodek Wenner via jewishmuseum.ca)

The oral history exhibit recently launched by the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia on the postwar Jewish community of Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood struck a chord and gave me pause. This is the area where my mom grew up – she was 13 when the shopping centre opened, the mall where my high school friends and I would later hold part-time jobs – and where my grandparents’ family home remained until a few years ago. And, it gave me pause because it reminded me that a little history can shake one’s sense of complacency.

Spending my teen years in Vancouver in the late 1980s, I sometimes wondered why the Jewish community didn’t live more north or more west – in short, closer to the beach, and in reach of sea and mountain views. Surely, part of the Jewish community’s move southward had to do with the wider lots and newer homes available as the city sprawled outward. But another important – and, to me, overlooked – part of the story is the legacy of racism and antisemitism that had infected the buying and selling of property in Vancouver.

One of the interviewees in the exhibit recalls a real estate agent telling her father, in reference to a house on King Edward Avenue between Oak and Granville streets, “This is a good neighbourhood because no Jews or Chinese are allowed.” By the fifties and sixties, however, Jews felt welcome and comfortable in the south Vancouver area, bounded by Oak and Cambie.

Times were different for my generation, growing up as multiculturalism was taking hold in a serious way and antisemitism and racism were increasingly seen as unmannered, even if they never fully went away.

In the mid-1980s, I recall accompanying my grandmother to an annual general meeting at the Richmond Country Club, where she regularly played tennis. I recall a discussion that evening about whether Jewish membership should be privileged. (An interview with the club’s current general manager, Mark Strong, confirms that, while the club’s written charter states that no member will be denied admission based on race, colour or creed, in practice, during that era, the club promoted Jewish membership.) After the meeting, I was outspoken in my criticism. To my 12-year-old sensibilities, trying to stack the membership of a recreational club with any particular religion or ethnicity seemed parochial and antiquated at best, and prejudiced and discriminatory at worst.

What I didn’t sufficiently appreciate then was the legacy of Jews being barred from many country clubs and, indeed, the Richmond Country Club had been founded by a group of Jewish businessmen and professionals in 1951 for that reason. If the club’s policies seemed antiquated to my 12-year-old ears, there was more resonance to it than I then realized. While I was trying to afflict the comfortable, these club members likely still felt the sting of affliction requiring comfort.

Today, the Richmond Country Club has a Magen David in its logo, and states on its website that “the spirit of inclusion remains one of our core values.” (I will leave aside the separate though partially related question of whether any country club can be economically inclusive.)

What does it mean to have grown up in what felt like a post-antisemitism era? I admit that, until recently, I have been suspicious of those who seek to find antisemitism at every turn. Not long ago, an older relative clipped a real estate ad for a cottage near Lake Winnipeg that stated it was in a “restricted” area. My relative took this to mean no Jews allowed. I did a little research and soon learned that, in this particular cottage zone, “restricted” meant something very different – no cars allowed. When I showed my relative what I’d found, he turned angry. It’s easy to get locked into patterns of victimhood.

But now my comfortable post-antisemitism bubble seems to be bursting. The Trump era has unleashed a torrent of hateful, xenophobic and bigoted discourse. Swastikas and racist graffiti have popped up on various houses of worship – including four Jewish institutions where I live, in Ottawa. Trump has appointed as chief counsel Steve Bannon, a man accused of trafficking in antisemitism via his website, Breitbart News.

Modern liberal polities require a constant sense of balance between comfort and vigilance. Too much comfort, and one risks complacency – for oneself and others. Too much vigilance, and one veers into paranoia. At the very least, we mustn’t forget history. Narratives of the past help explain collective fears, while suggesting what is necessary to make possible the kinds of societies that are worth fighting for.

Reflecting on election

In the last federal election, Mira Oreck was the NDP candidate for the riding of Vancouver Granville. (photo from Mira Oreck)

Nearly one year after the Canadian federal election, I had a chance to sit down with Mira Oreck (by phone), the NDP candidate for the riding of Vancouver Granville. I had knocked on doors with Mira during the early days of the campaign while I was visiting Vancouver that summer and I was eager to hear her reflections, particularly from a Jewish community standpoint.

Mira’s Jewish community affiliations run deep. She attended Beth Israel Hebrew School and Camp Ramah, she was president of her United Synagogue Youth region and served on the USY international board. She later went on to serve as regional director of Canadian Jewish Congress. Today, she is a member of Or Shalom Synagogue. Mira recalled being “overwhelmed” by how “members of the Jewish community connected with the campaign. People were genuinely curious and excited by the idea that someone from our community could be in Parliament.”

Unlike many other Canadian ridings, Mira said, the riding of Vancouver Granville was “primed for the conversation” around Jewish and Israel issues. And, since she already knew many Jewish community members and leaders personally, she said didn’t need to make cold calls to introduce herself. So, she was intrigued by a snippet of advice she heard someone give to one of her opponents who would indeed be making those rounds. The advice? The candidate should never mention the word “peace.” Apparently, to more conservative Jewish ears, “peace” is code word for being anti-Israel.

It’s a fascinating tidbit to me, since my reference point in academic circles is the reverse: many on the “far left” of the Israel-Palestine debate understand peace to be problematically “pro-Israel,” which is to say representing a complacent adherence to the status quo, without the hard work needed to challenge injustice. Whatever the correct referent is, this suggests how loaded is the discourse around Israel. It’s hard for candidates to speak their mind, knowing that every phrase could be a landmine.

But, on Israel, Mira insisted she kept her message consistent: against BDS, pro two-state solution. Her goal, as she put it to voters, was to “see peace in my lifetime … and not try to perpetuate ingrained ideas of the ‘other.’”

As much as she didn’t shy away from using the term “Zionist” to describe herself – despite some on her campaign preferring she not – Mira tried to emphasize that single-issue voting (for example, on Israel) has its limits. “I would say to voters that we are having an election in Canada and, first and foremost, my role as MP is to be concerned with the country we are governing.” For that matter, Mira said there were not “distinguishable differences on party platforms regarding Israel and Palestine. I wanted to know from [voters] what they thought the significant differences were; often people couldn’t name any.” Still, the topic of Israel came up “a lot less” than she expected. Instead, people in the Jewish community, she said, talked “about Bill C-51, refugees, climate change, child care … overwhelmingly more than I heard them talk about Israel.” The campaign, she said, “was a really good reminder” that “our community is not at all homogeneous.”

Sometimes, aspects of how politics played out as she engaged with members of the community saddened her. She recalled talking to a group of Jewish seniors, some of whom had been her Hebrew school teachers. They were Conservative party backers. “There was no amount of knowing me, coming from the Beth Israel synagogue and my connections to Israel, that enabled them to give me a fair hearing.” It was hard, she said. “I felt like they weren’t willing to know me for who I was, or the values that I hold.”

And there were times in the campaign where Mira had conversations that alarmed her but left her feeling hopeful. When she met with students at King David High School, she was shocked by some inflammatory descriptions of Palestinians. These students said things “that didn’t make sense, but were clearly coming from a very fear-based place,” she said.

Mira stood her ground. “I was really tough with the kids; really challenging them. I wasn’t trying to win over their votes; I was trying to have a real conversation with them about issues.” Later that afternoon, Mira recounted, two kids showed up to volunteer on her campaign. “It was a reminder,” she said, “that, while there were a few loud kids with strong opinions, others were thinking critically.”

Currently on maternity leave from being director of public engagement at the Broadbent Institute, a non-partisan think tank that describes itself as “championing progressive change through the promotion of democracy, equality and sustainability,” Mira – to me – represents the best our community has to offer when it comes to the sort of critical thinking she describes, and trying to make a difference, even if the nature of the electoral game means that one doesn’t always come out on top.

Love your child as they are

The Swirsky family. Jackie Swirsky has written a children’s book, Be Yourself, which features illustrations by her eldest child, Jacob, and her sister-in-law. (photo from Jackie Swirsky)

Maybe it’s because I’m an academic, but I tend to gravitate to categories, which is why the most current discourse on gender has made me feel challenged. I am, by now, very comfortable with the increasingly understood categories of transgender and cisgender (meaning that one’s body conforms to one’s gender identity). But what about cases of individuals who identify as neither transgender nor cisgender, but operate, instead, somewhere in the middle?

Jackie Swirsky, a speech-language pathologist based in Winnipeg, is the mother of two sons, one of whom (Jacob, age 8) Swirsky describes as “gender creative.”

Swirsky is my second cousin, but we only became acquainted after she published her children’s book, Be Yourself, which features a gender creative child and focuses on acceptance. We recently spoke by phone, where I admired her eloquence and compassion and, above all, her comfort with accepting the in-between.

When Jacob was 4, he said to his parents he felt it “wasn’t fair” that he was “a boy.” That’s when we opened up a dialogue, Swirsky said. Currently, he still identifies as a boy, “but his gender expression is very feminine,” she said.

There may have been a time when, faced with a son who prefers to dress in what are conventionally thought of as “girls” clothes, a parent may have tried to force the child to change. One can imagine the emotional pain that would have enveloped those households in those generations. Instead, Swirsky puts it plainly: Jacob “is perfect the way he is.” She sees it as her job not to change her child, but rather to “educate the world” in order to “make it a happier, safer place.”

Enter her book, Be Yourself, with illustrations by Jacob and Swirsky’s sister-in-law Jaimee Appel. It can be purchased at beyourselfbook.ca.

Swirsky took her message to Camp Massad at Winnipeg Beach before camp started, as Jacob would be a camper there over the summer. Leading a workshop for counselors on how to rethink gender norms, Swirsky’s goal was to help the staff “identify their own gender stereotypes,” while encouraging them to open a dialogue with the campers – rather than scold – if they happen to encounter issues of gender stereotyping or instances of gender mocking.

And, while some camps might think of themselves as progressive on the issue of gender, given the easy availability of costumes and the playful gender-crossing that may ensue, Swirsky is clear: for Jacob, this isn’t “dress up,” it’s who he is.

Camp Massad program director Sari Waldman shared with me that, in trying to make camp as “inclusive and accessible as possible,” they are rethinking some of what they realize are overly gender-binary practices. “Simple things,” Waldman said, like do we really need to divide the chadar ochel (dining hall) along gender lines?”

They are now more sensitive to gender stereotypes when writing cabin songs. Not every boy plays sports and longs to sneak into girls’ cabins, they now realize. Waldman added that they have installed gender-neutral washrooms in various spots around camp, and would include a gender-neutral stall in the refurbished bathrooms. This year, for the first time, boys’ and girls’ cabins would no longer be on opposite sides of the field.

Other camps have taken gender-awareness on board, too. As was reported in the Washington Post, Habonim Dror camps across North America, including Camp Miriam on Gabriola Island, have created a new, gender-neutral Hebrew word for camper (chanichol) for those who identify as neither male (chanich) or female (chanicha). And they have renamed each of their age-group names with a pan-gender neologism suffix (imot) rather than the male im or the female ot. It’s a mouthful (and not traditionally grammatical), but the move has created new awareness around gender identity and the categories into which we put each other.

No doubt, attending Jewish camp won’t be without its challenges for someone like Jacob. It’s hard to get around separate sleeping and showering arrangements, even if privacy is granted for changing. And, when it comes to ritual garb, Jacob doesn’t feel comfortable wearing a kippah, for example. Swirsky hoped that the staff would either let him choose whether or not to wear one, or else ask everyone – boys and girls – to cover their head.

As for school, Swirsky finds that the teachers at her son’s school are excellent in supporting Jacob where he is. She also has much praise for the Winnipeg One School Division, which recently issued a new “safe and caring policy on transgender and gender-diverse students.”

Occasionally, though, there are setbacks. One day, a substitute teacher asked the kids to divide up according to gender. Relaying the day’s events to Swirsky that evening, Jacob revealed that he didn’t know which side to stand on. “I just sort of wandered,” he said.

While Swirsky finds that some people she encounters lavish praise on her for her apparent open-mindedness, she insisted that this is basic to who she is as a parent.

“I love and accept my child for who they are; not who I expect them to be,” she said.

And, when talking with Jacob, Swirsky always makes sure to ask open-ended questions. “If you’re really listening to your kid,” Swirsky said, “you’re going to help support them to be on a path that makes them happy.”

It’s a wonderful message about love and acceptance, parenting our kids where they are, and helping society evolve to embrace diversity – even if that diversity is much more finely grained than we may have realized.

Those who came before us

I was recently in Australia, where I presented at Limmud Oz, a Jewish festival of learning. One thing – among many – that struck me about the community was that, on more than one occasion, Limmud sessions or other parlor meetings opened with a public acknowledgment of the elders of the Gadigal people (in Sydney) and the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin Nation (in Melbourne).

Similar acknowledgments are becoming more common in locales across Canada – references to the Métis Nation at events in Winnipeg; the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh in Vancouver; the Wendat, Anishewabe and Massasagua in Toronto; the Algonquin in Ottawa. But I have only heard this done once in a Jewish context – at a Jewish Voices for Peace event in Ottawa.

Ittay Flescher, a Jewish educator at Mount Scopus Memorial College, a day school in Melbourne, has been one of many educators to call for his school assemblies to open with a similar acknowledgment, and feature signs on classroom walls “acknowledging country,” in Australian parlance. His shul, Shira Hadasha, a partnership minyan, also incorporates such a statement in its Prayer for Australia.

Flescher has gone deeper in raising awareness, having introduced a Grade 9 aboriginal studies course. These students were in kindergarten when the government issued its historic 2007 apology for the Stolen Generations policies, whereby aboriginal children were taken from their parents to be raised by whites – Australia’s version of Canada’s terrible Sixties Scoop.

Named Yorta Yorta Beyachad (beyachad means “together” in Hebrew), the course is anchored in a little-known event that bound Australia’s Jewish community in Shepparton to William Cooper of the Yorta Yorta tribe. Having been one of the first to launch an aboriginal civil rights movement, in 1938, Cooper – a person with no status, no voting rights and no formal citizenship, as was the case among aboriginals in Australia at the time – turned his sights to another oppressed people. Appalled by the events of Kristallnacht, Cooper marched to the German consulate in Melbourne to present a petition denouncing “the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany,” an act of protest that stayed virtually hidden until it was discovered by a Melbourne archivist in 2002.

Each year, Flescher takes his students to Yorta Yorta country in partnership with the Australian Jewish social justice organization Stand Up. For three days, they meet with elders, learn traditional dances, discuss issues around identity, and deepen their understanding of aboriginal history. They visit Cummergunja, one of the Catholic missions where aboriginals were forcibly placed in 1889. They even visited Cooper’s grave where they recited Kaddish for the victims of the Shoah. “It was an incredibly moving and humbling experience,” Flescher said.

The Canadian Jewish community is beginning to tackle the issue as well. The CJN reported in May on a Jewish teen cultural exchange to the Nipissing First Nation Reserve. And, in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, several Jewish groups, including Ve’ahavta, the Toronto Board of Rabbis, the Canadian Council for Reform Judaism and CIJA, signed a “statement of solidarity and action.” Bernie Farber, former head of Canadian Jewish Congress and now head of Mosaic Institute, has been at the forefront of moves to advance deep and thoughtful discussion about the fate of the First Nations.

These are all encouraging. And, like the dancing of the hands before reciting the Shabbat candle blessing or the kissing of the mezuzah before entering a room, there is something powerful about a ritual-like statement at the beginning of a Jewish gathering to acknowledge who came before us and how we can help repair the wrongs inflicted – even if most of us, or our ancestors, were fleeing our own private horrors when we arrived at the shores of this great country.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications. This article was originally published in the CJN.