The Editorial Board

Start of a bumpy ride

A clip from the vintage TV show Golden Girls has been making the rounds recently, in which the adorable dolt Rose Nylund, played by Betty White, champions the idea of solving the Middle East conflict by moving the Palestinians to Greenland.

Fast forward to the 47th president of the United States, who last week stunned the world with a proposal that he take over the Gaza Strip and, apparently viewing the war-ravaged territory as a real estate opportunity, promised to turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump said Israel would hand over the Gaza Strip to the United States, the two million Palestinians there would be relocated, and the US would then “level the site” before presumably constructing a sort of Levant Vegas. Some have begun referring to the enclave as the MAGA Strip.

Donald Trump is a grifter whose lengthy CV is filled mostly with hucksterism and bankruptcy. In so far as he has intellectual tricks up his sleeve, his modus operandi is to distract his patsies with one hand while snatching their valuables with the other and offering spoils to his sycophantic gaggle of oligarchs.

This is to take nothing away from his skill. He is, it seems, outstanding at grifting. For his audience, however, the current reboot of the Trump show has the potential for less reality TV circus fun than train wreck tragedy.

Having dabbled with daddy’s money in the suburban New York real estate market and a few adventures into higher stakes insolvency – even successfully bankrupting a casino, which seems a feat of special skill – he is now (again) gambling at the highest levels imaginable. Only this time, he is gambling with the lives of Palestinians and Israelis, and possibly with the safety and security of people (including Jews) around the world.

The line between maniac and genius often seems perilously trifling, something we are reminded of not only watching the president, but also his newest billionaire tech bro sidekick (or is that side-president?) Elon Musk. Both share the habit of making wildly impolitic remarks (or gestures) that leave observers arguing over whether they have witnessed a policy balloon, the start of Nazi-style fascism, or some sort of sophomoric trolling. Are they serious, we ask ourselves, or is this another bait-and-switch in which one of them pulls a rabbit out of the hat over here so you don’t see the other one pilfering through pockets over there? More likely, it is both.

In other words, is this bizarre Gazababble a serious proposition? And, if not, what is he trying to distract us from?

Among the eye-popping phenomena we’ve seen in the days since the president’s remarks during his visit with Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have been the reactions from media and other public figures. The guy is, after all, the president of the United States. Media have to report his ramblings as though they are serious ideas to be weighed against alternative options like, say, not annexing one of the world’s most troubled strips of land and evicting (aka ethnically cleansing) the millions of people who live there, causing upheaval in a region already in turmoil, alongside increasing global hostility and potential for danger for the world’s only Jewish state and the world’s Jews.

Global media have reported Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian leaders declaring Trump’s idea out-of-bounds which, by their very seriousness in rejecting it, seems to grant it some in-bounds validity.

Democrats in the United States and other observers are still poking through the entrails of last November’s election to understand why Americans rejected Kamala Harris’s mantra about “not going back.” There may be a million reasons why Trump won but high among them is the determination by many voters that they didn’t like the status quo. Trump is a disrupter. Whether you like or dislike disruption is irrelevant – no one, regardless of political persuasion, can deny this fact.

If you subscribe to the definition of insanity as repetition while anticipating a different outcome, the world’s approach to the conflict seems kooky. What we’ve been doing hasn’t brought peace closer but has seemed to push it further away. Peace and coexistence have rarely seemed so remote.

But, while doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome may be the definition of insanity, inverting the equation to its exact opposite does not guarantee success. Disruptive ideas are not in and of themselves dangerous, but what are the disruptive ideas that would bring both Israelis and Palestinians peace, security and dignity?

Clearly, something needs to change and fresh ideas are needed. Those are the ideas we should be considering. It is, presumably, possible to redirect a wayward train onto a different siding without derailing it entirely. How much more true when the disruption impacts millions of people’s lives, destroys communities, and would be a moral stain.

To carry on the metaphor, we are only days into the (presumably) four-year journey on this Trump train. The only thing that seems predictable is that it is going to be a bumpy ride. We must consider what each of us will do to ensure the bumps are not catastrophic.

Choose your next PM

By the time Justin Trudeau emerged from the front door of Rideau Cottage last week to announce his intention to end almost a decade as Canada’s prime minister, any element of surprise had evaporated. His future was sealed – and not by his choice.

As is so typical in our polarized times, Trudeau’s reign has been neither as masterful as his PR flaks suggest nor as disastrous as the monster truck crowds with their “[Expletive] Trudeau” stickers would have us believe. The truth lies somewhere in between. Despite the apocalyptic rhetoric of some opposition figures depicting Canada as a failed state in line with Somalia or Haiti, we remain arguably the most fortunate people on the planet and any commentary to the contrary is either self-serving propaganda or the worst example of First World ingratitude.

Among those who are glad to see Trudeau go there is a prevailing crankiness that he waited too long. True, abandoning ship days before our greatest trading partner and rather obtrusive (at the best of times) neighbour is set to (re)inaugurate an unpredictable kook as their head of state does raise some concerns. But let’s get some perspective.

Canadians are sleeping with an elephant, as the current prime minister’s late father, Pierre Trudeau, famously quipped. “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Under the incoming US president, that country seems destined to become twitchier and gruntier.

Trump is proposing an Anschluss in which Canada becomes the 51st state. Why 51st, we have to wonder? Why not the 51st to, at a minimum, the 61st? How do Lilliputian Vermont and Rhode Island and the practically unpeopled Wyoming justify statehood, two senators each and the assorted benefits of statehood but our 3.8 million square miles is mooted to get a single state and a measly two senators? Canada’s 40 million people exceed the combined populations of the 21 smallest US states so excuse us for being a little miffed at the idea that our landmass and people deserve an American presence equivalent to Arkansas or New Mexico. But perhaps we’re getting ahead of negotiations here.

We josh, of course. But this much is deadly serious: were an American president to genuinely promote annexation – either militarily or through the economic bullying Trump suggested last week – Canadians would have little defence but throwing Timbits and snowballs at the invading forces. There is plenty of comedic fodder around this subject but laughing has a tendency to stop abruptly when an underestimated madman gets his hands on the levers of power.

The idea that who occupies 24 Sussex Drive makes a whit of difference in the circumstance is an exercise in national self-delusion. In the event of an American invasion of Canada, Greenland or Panama, who ya gonna call for backup? Perhaps China or Russia might be willing to come to our aid. There’s a cheery idea – although not entirely out of the realm, given evidence that both these countries have already had their fingers in our democratic processes, and geopolitical and economic interests in the Arctic landmass.

The Liberal party is now charged with finding a new leader to pull it back from an apparent electoral abyss. In most instances, we would argue that this is an internal party matter for partisans to decide. The added wrinkle of our constitutional conventions, in which the leader of the party in power effectively automatically becomes PM, adds gravitas to the current situation.

Whether or not one is a Liberal partisan, it may be worth participating in the process. In the last bun toss, in which Trudeau was selected, it was an effective free-for-all in which, without even coughing up a membership fee, anyone was pretty much welcome to cast a vote – sort of like a “no purchase necessary” cereal box contest for a balsa-wood airplane.

We are in a challenging political environment right now, where single-interest groups are flexing their disruptive muscles – anti-Israel activists, for example, are trying to cancel Christmas, they are disrupting public events, have shut down theatre performances and generally are making their small numbers have outsized impacts. While there is not on the horizon, at this point, a standard-bearer for the hate-Israel demographic, count on the myopic activists to inject this issue into the contest, likely to the detriment of the Jewish community’s safety and interests and, we would argue, to Israelis and Palestinians.

Those who believe in a multiculturalism where Jews are welcome, a world where both Israelis and Palestinians are safe, and a body politic where dialogue trumps flag-burning should really pay attention to the process the Liberal party is about to adopt to select their next leader – who will be our next prime minister – and ensure that our views and interests are at least as well represented as the regressive mobs, be they on one side or the other of the issues we care most deeply about.

Coffee and sympathy

In Startup Nation, Dan Senor and Saul Singer’s 2009 book about Israel’s successes in innovation and entrepreneurship, the authors credit the hothouse environment created by the country’s many challenges not as a barrier but as a catapult to its accomplishments.

For example, mandatory military service, made necessary by Israel’s tough neighbourhood, has helped cultivate leadership, teamwork, technical skills and adaptability under pressure. Put simply, young people who have made life-and-death decisions for themselves and their unit while still in their teens may be less daunted than other people when confronted with the risks required to succeed in business or other life challenges.

In what may be an unanticipated twist on this resilience and adaptability, a chain of cafés has emerged in Israel with a very specific clientele. Restaurateur Tamir Barelko launched Café Otef, a chain with two outlets and plans for more. Otef refers to the Gaza “envelope” area where the Oct. 7 invasion took place.

A Jewish Telegraphic Agency article last week on the coffee shops tells the story of Israelis’ sometimes unconventional approaches to resilience and recovery.

The cafés, staffed entirely by survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern kibbutzim, feature products from affected communities: cheeses from Kibbutz Be’eri, honey from Kibbutz Erez and other foods and products, like T-shirts, aprons and water bottles, sourced from entrepreneurs affected by the tragedy.

The first such storefront, Café Otef-Re’im, named after the kibbutz adjacent to the Nova festival site and where seven residents were murdered and four taken hostage, is owned and run by Reut Karp. Her former husband, Dvir Karp, was murdered in front of their three children. Dvir was a chocolatier and his recipes are enjoyed by café customers.

Karp and other staff credit the cafés with getting them out of bed in the mornings. One displaced kibbutznik who experienced culture shock in Tel Aviv finds the clientele can appreciate his dark humour in ways locals cannot.

Karp emphasizes that the café’s association with the tragedy is not a “gimmick.” While Tel Aviv is sometimes derided as a “bubble” removed from the realities faced by Israelis in other parts of the country, the central location, she explains, is a benefit that allows displaced residents from the country’s north and south to meet and share experiences.

Comfortable Canadians can hardly imagine either the inescapable grief of Israelis directly affected by Oct. 7 or the daily challenges of living with the memories. Enjoying coffee and chocolate in an environment explicitly created for working through the pain of that day and its aftermath might seem counterintuitive to those who have never experienced anything remotely similar. It may be a distinctly Israeli response to face the realities head-on.

At the same time, Karp acknowledges that her café does not push the tragedy in customers’ faces. One could drop in, stay awhile and leave without ever knowing the motive behind the place. One unavoidable sign, however, is a work of art made up of text messages sent on the tragic day.

Two new cafés are planned for the near future, including Café Otef-Sderot, named for the southern town that has always been on the frontline of Gaza rockets, and Café Otef-Kiryat Shmona, honouring evacuees from the northern town, which is in the Vancouver Jewish community’s partnership region. Barelko, the café’s founder, aims to recruit wounded soldiers from the ongoing war as the chain expands.

Canadian Jews, like Jews worldwide, are confronting a changed environment. Having the good fortune of comparative comfort for generations, we have not had to develop the mechanisms for coping with disasters like our Israeli cousins have been forced to cultivate. Of course, history has always presented Jews with challenges and Israelis, we might say, are a concentrated embodiment of Jewish resilience and constructive response to challenges. Café Otef is one small example of that response and an example for others facing challenges. As we conclude 2024, a year of continuing tests for our people, we should take a moment of reflection and pride in how we have adapted and responded since Oct. 7, 2023.

Many Canadian Jews feel overwhelmed and struggle to find positivity in the current moment. This is completely understandable. Nevertheless, our community has responded to changed circumstances with determination and toughness. This should be a source of immense pride. We should also focus on the extraordinary strength of Israelis as a model for facing our own difficult moments. The potent unity of Jews worldwide in the past year is a testament to kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, all Jews are responsible for one another. The solidarity showed by diaspora communities has inspired and strengthened Israelis. We should not miss the opportunity to be inspired by their resolve as we confront on own very different but related troubles.

Small glimmer of hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope for best outcomes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UNRWA faces deadline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the winner is …

The recent British Columbia provincial election was one of the closest in history – so close that the result is not yet certain. By press time, the incumbent New Democratic party was leading or elected in 46 seats, the Conservative party in 45 seats and the Green party held two. While 47 seats are needed for a majority government, that number would represent a very precarious situation from which to govern.

Recounts are taking place, as is the counting of 49,000 absentee ballots that have not yet been tabulated. With several ridings featuring races divided by just dozens of votes, it remains possible that either the NDP or the Conservatives could form government when the dust settles.

The likeliest scenario echoes the tight 2017 election, which resulted in a minority government. A supply and confidence agreement between the Green party and John Horgan’s New Democrats made Horgan premier and allowed him to govern for more than three years as if he had a majority.

Many Jewish voters took special interest in this election. Provincial and municipal elections have not generally carried the same level of interest around specifically “Jewish issues” as a federal election, but that is less true now. While Jews obviously share the same policy interests as other British Columbians, and have the full diversity of opinions as other voters, current events added gravity to this campaign.

There has been an alarming increase in antisemitic rhetoric and incidents. This has magnified attention on issues that fall at least partially under provincial jurisdiction, like public security, police enforcement and prosecution of hate laws, education and public sensitization around multiculturalism and intercultural harmony, and a host of other topics.

Regardless of who forms government, both parties have expressed commitment to the implementation of mandatory Holocaust education, something that was announced by the last NDP government.

Some Jewish British Columbians felt a sense of betrayal by the treatment of former NDP cabinet minister Selina Robinson, who was fired from cabinet after referring to pre-state Israel as a “crappy piece of land.”

The election of Nina Krieger, the NDP candidate in the riding of Victoria-Swan Lake, will certainly reassure Jewish voters that they have a voice if the New Democrats form government. Krieger is a member of the community and was a longtime executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Her expertise will be invaluable as the province operationalizes the Holocaust education curriculum and as a liaison with the Jewish community.

The new Conservative caucus also has many vocal allies, including Claire Rattée, in the far northwestern BC riding of Skeena, who is Jewish, and many others who have made efforts to connect with the Jewish community over the past year especially.

Both Krieger and Rattée were profiled in the last issue of the Independent.

All parties made the right noises toward the Jewish community during the election campaign. Politicians, of course, are generally good at making the right noises. Follow-through is what matters.

We are encouraged that, during the campaign, the Jewish community and the Middle East conflict were not exploited as wedge issues by any party, a tendency we have occasionally seen at the federal level.

The apparent lack of polarization around issues important to Jewish people is a bright light in a deeply polarized province. With the collapse of BC United, the erstwhile BC Liberal party, the centre of the political spectrum became something of a vacuum. Not only did the Oct. 19 election indicate a stark binary between left and right in the province – not a particularly new phenomenon here – but urban/rural divisions have rarely been more pronounced. To look at a map of the province after the election is to see an ocean of blue, with the Conservatives having won almost every rural seat. New Democrats won all but a single seat in the city of Vancouver and the rest of their caucus is almost entirely from urban centres and the close-in suburbs.

There is an adage that has rarely been more apt: “In the Maritimes, politics is a pastime, in Quebec a religion, in Ontario a business, on the Prairies a cause and, in British Columbia, entertainment.”

By the time you read this, perhaps we will know who the premier will be. Perhaps not. In times of uncertainty, we can guarantee this: expect no dull moments.

A lesson learned anew

In the late 1990s, the collective Jewish community organizations in North America acknowledged a crisis. What had been increasingly evident anecdotally was being confirmed by statistics, research, published works and commentary. Affiliation with Jewish communities and agencies was declining precipitously – to the extent that the very future of the Jewish community, by some estimates, was in doubt.

Assimilation, intermarriage and declining religious observance were seen as factors in this decline. Counterintuitively, the almost complete disappearance of systemic antisemitism and the sidelining of social antisemitism meant that this opposition force no longer had the pull it once did to enforce cohesion among North American Jews.

This realization, and the debate it launched, were among the reasons that Jewish federations, synagogues, Hillels and other agencies engaged in a redoubling of efforts to reach Jews where they are. For example, to destigmatize intermarriage and welcome mixed families, and to entice largely assimilated Jews into Jewish community centres and synagogues and Jewish spaces on campuses, through the development of innovative programs.

But the core “problem” facing Jews in this narrative – a decline in the defensive, if unifying, force of antisemitism in Western societies – took care of itself just three years later.

Conflict in the Middle East always results in a conflict over the conflict around the world. The launch of the Second Intifada, in September 2000, saw an upsurge in anti-Israel and antisemitic (not exactly the same; not unrelated) activities on campuses and elsewhere around the world.

By various measures, the first two decades of the 21st century saw some successes in terms of sustained engagement and growth in aspects of the community. This was a result of a confluence of events – the debate that began in earnest in the 1990s; the investment in outreach undertaken across the Jewish community; and, not at all incidentally, the rise in global antisemitism that coincided with the growing conflict in the Middle East.

Then came Oct. 7, 2023.

In response, early indications suggest, some Jews have prudently covered up Magen David necklaces, put caps over their kippot and otherwise reduced their visibility in public. This is a superficial response, but it is based on reasonable principles of safety.

Here is what Jews overwhelmingly have not done: abandoned Judaism and the broader Jewish identity that draws the hostility of haters.

On the contrary. Synagogues, Jewish advocacy organizations, Hillels and other Jewish groups are seeing spikes in engagement unknown in recent memory.

Many Jews whose lives have been comfortably lived with only tangential connections to the broader Jewish peoplehood found themselves suddenly and profoundly isolated in their various communities after Oct. 7. Some Jews who had concluded that they did not need the benefits of collective engagement found, perhaps to their dismay, that they do.

This fact (or its observation) should not be seen as an “I told you so.” It is merely a recognition that antisemitism exists and, throughout history, it has been a cyclical phenomenon that rises and falls in waves.

Let us not pretend that there are silver linings in the horrors we have experienced collectively in the past year. No one would choose this trade-off. What we are suggesting is that, in the face of this new reality, Jews are doing what Jews have always done: returned to the teachings, core values and simple togetherness that have sustained our people and traditions for millennia, realizing, as generations before have done, that these ancient assets are no less valuable today than in eras past.

We cannot foresee the future. Things may get worse before they get better. But when this cycle finally recedes, we hope we will be a stronger people. Those who had dismissed their own parents’ warnings around cyclical bigotry are conveying to their own kids the lessons they had disdained. There are reports of record synagogue attendance at High Holiday services this year, established and new ad hoc advocacy programs and organizations have been enriched by an influx of people and talent. Innovative organizations have popped up to support many non-affiliated or disaffected Jews in spiritual exploration, with racialized identities, or those who want to advocate for peace and dialogue outside of established communal structures. On campuses, Jewish students are learning advocacy and skills that will empower our community for decades to come.

This is not, to be clear, an instance of Jewishness being defined by negatives, driven by its opposites. It is a constructive, positive, heartening phenomenon in which people who did not even know that they needed community reach out, find one and, in the process, empower both themselves and the larger people.

Again, this is not a silver lining in a terrible time. This is simply an ancient lesson learned anew.

A different new year

The experience of the Jewish calendar is ever-changing because, while the week’s parshah is the same every year, the people experiencing it have changed. This seems especially true for the year just passed.

Pesach held stark resonance this spring, as Jews worldwide held in our hearts the captives in Gaza and pain around the ongoing war. Every happy moment in the calendar was darkened by the shadow of Oct. 7. Every solemn moment seemed laden with deeper significance.

It is a rare Jew whose life has not changed dramatically since that day. Israelis and Jews had ripped from us a sense of historical, collective and personal security that the Jewish state was supposed to provide. While 75 years of conflict and insurrection have reminded us that Jews have never been entirely free from the hatred of others, the collective defence embodied in the state of Israel massively reduced the vulnerability experienced by previous generations. We also understand that this security has come at a cost and that the last 75 years have also been a source of suffering for our Palestinian neighbours and cousins. This is a juxtaposition we struggle with daily.

And then Oct. 7 ripped away our sense of communal security in a profound way. For Jews worldwide, it provoked what can be considered significant intergenerational trauma, recalling times when soldiers and their civilian collaborators could enter Jewish homes, perpetrate atrocities, annihilate families, separate us from our loved ones, loot our possessions, force conversions, exile and expel us, and take us captive.

Worldwide today, Jews have experienced a different, related trauma. In too many cases, Jews in Canada and elsewhere have been betrayed by our neighbours, let down by our ostensible friends and had our awareness wrenched open to the potential for abrupt changes in political climates.

This will be the first Rosh Hashanah since Oct. 7. It will be followed by the anniversary of the terror attacks, a commemoration that will be added to the black dates of Jewish history over millennia.

Day after day we hope for the return of the captives, and it will be a joyous moment when surviving hostages come back home. Between this writing and your reading, may that dream have become real. If not by then, let us hope for their redemption by the new year or certainly before the calendar turns on a full annual cycle since their capture. Every moment is a moment too long for their captivity. And every moment is a moment too long for continued war, and the destruction experienced by innocent Palestinians who are caught in it.

We can all well remember the holy days of just a few years ago when a global pandemic kept us from celebrating in person with our loved ones. For most of us, that forced separation has passed. That togetherness is reason enough to celebrate. Even so, it is precisely the idea of togetherness – when we know that so many families have been torn apart either temporarily or permanently – that adds sad resonance to our own sense of unity.

While we mourn those who will never again celebrate with their loved ones and we hope and pray for the return of the hostages so that they can rejoice in freedom with those they love, we should also take special appreciation for the gifts of those with whom we gather.

In Jewish fashion, the changed reality in which we find ourselves is already being woven into a sort of makeshift liturgy, as more than one article in this special issue of the paper describes. Thoughtful people have developed ways to memorialize and hold spiritual space for the hostages and all affected by this historical moment.

As we complete another cycle of the calendar, the immutable foundations of our tradition provide strength and familiarity. At the same time, as individuals and as a people, we are profoundly changed.

Education a key issue

Students across British Columbia have returned to the classroom. On university campuses, the activism that had roiled those spaces during the last academic year has returned to a boil. Jewish students are facing more of the horrible same.

Even public high schools are not immune, with reports of harassment of Jewish students and inappropriate comments by teachers and other students.

About a year ago, the government of British Columbia announced that Holocaust education would become a mandatory part of the Grade 10 curriculum. This came as a surprise to many people, who were shocked that it is still possible for a student to graduate from the public education system in this province without encountering anything about the Holocaust. To be clear, this is probably not usually the case, but what a student learns about that dark history has been left to the discretion of teachers.

Starting next year, that will no longer be the case. Students will have to study the Shoah. This is a positive development in many ways. Holocaust education is an entry-point to critical discussions about human rights, dignity, oppression, genocide, totalitarianism and a vast range of crucial topics.

From a Jewish perspective, at a time of increasing antisemitism, this is especially welcome. The dangerous potential of unchecked antisemitism is, of course, the ultimate and unique lesson of the Holocaust. Sensitizing young citizens to this message is an important part of addressing anti-Jewish racism.

The curriculum is still in development and we trust that educating about the Holocaust will be done in the context of a larger history of antisemitism. It would be a mistake to let students conclude that antisemitism is a product exclusively of a different place (Germany) and time (1933 to 1945). The Holocaust, students must understand, was part of a much longer trajectory of anti-Jewish racism and it must not be seen as anomalous in this larger context.

While there was much satisfaction at the announcement that this history would become mandatory in the curriculum, there is cause for concern.

When dealing with issues of extraordinary sensitivity – gender, race, sexuality, religion, treatment of historical events – parents, elected officials and the broader society depend on the ability and integrity of teachers to deliver this content in appropriate ways. This is where we have reasonable apprehensions.

While it is the government that mandates curriculum content, it is obviously teachers who deliver it. The teachers’ union, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, has a long history of disseminating anti-Israel materials and adopting biased approaches to the issues of Israel, Palestine and the conflict there.

This year, a group of (mostly Jewish) educators applied to the BC Teachers’ Federation to create a specialist group to help equip teachers to educate on the Holocaust. Astonishingly, the BCTF rejected the application for recognition – a recognition that is, apparently, almost rubberstamped for most other topic areas – without any suitable explanation. Given the history of the BCTF on this subject, many people have understandably come to their own conclusions about what was behind this rejection.

By the nature of their roles, teachers have a vast amount of leeway in transmitting information. The government will set out learning outcomes and expectations for this component, but the potential for inappropriate messaging in individual circumstances is great. Off the top of our heads, for example, we can imagine teachers equating the Holocaust to contemporary events and universalizing beyond the edges of what is reasonable given the uniqueness of the Holocaust in the context of antisemitism throughout the ages.

Not only does the government need to create a curriculum for the subject matter, it might do well to consider a curriculum for teachers to address appropriate and inappropriate ways of addressing the topics raised, including comments from students who have seen the inescapable propaganda accusing Israel of “genocide” and equating Israelis with Nazis.

In just over a month, British Columbians will elect a new government. Whichever party forms government will necessarily have to find a way to work with British Columbia’s teachers to ensure the useful delivery of this curriculum material.

When candidates call or knock on your door, it would be good to remind them that Holocaust education is an important issue for you (as are many other issues, addressed in the story here). Let them know that ensuring this new component of the curriculum is handled appropriately is something you will be watching for as a new government – NDP, Conservative or, given the bizarre upheavals in politics recently, some other group – sets course on this important initiative.