From the JI – Page 25

Teaching our hearts

Today, Nov. 9, is the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Seen by some historians as the moment when the Nazis’ legalized discrimination against Jews turned irreversibly toward genocide, the date has been marked by the Vancouver Jewish community for several decades.

Jews view the present and the future through a lens of the past. This has its advantages and disadvantages. Unable to see the future clearly, a keen awareness of the past can lead us to reasonably project expectations. But the memory of Kristallnacht and what came after it instils a rightful and necessary caution in interpreting current events. History tells us that vigilance is crucial and that complacency can be fatal.

Of course, no two moments in history are identical. Are we overreacting by drawing too instructive an historical parallel when we experience traumas like the mass murder at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27? We can’t be certain. It is probably wise to err on the side of caution and respond with vigilance.

The reaction from so many faith groups and other allies, including at a “solidarity Shabbat” last weekend that filled synagogue seats throughout Metro Vancouver and across North America, is not only a reassuring phenomenon. These demonstrations of intercommunal friendship are underpinned by the awareness that, while some might dismiss the events in Pittsburgh as the deranged act of a single madman, historical consciousness places the terrible act within a larger context.

History is important, too, because we live busy lives and a lot of things are slammed into our consciousness every day. Stepping back and placing contemporary events in a larger context helps us assimilate our place in society, individually and collectively. This is being demonstrated particularly well this week, as Remembrance Day (Nov. 11) approaches.

The Government of Canada’s apology for the 1939 refusal to accept the imperiled Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis comes as part of a long line of apologies for historic wrongs. A cynic could look at the litany of regret and see political expediency. We prefer to look at it as a progressive, healthy way of not only addressing the past but of improving the future.

The journey of the MS St. Louis saw just 29 of the 937 passengers allowed to disembark in Cuba, the intended destination and presumed final refuge for the passengers fleeing the imminent Holocaust. The ship then sailed to the United States and on to Canada, where, in both places, xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes among the general public and the governing elites prevented the asylum-seekers from disembarking. Forced to return to Europe, 254 of the passengers would be murdered in the ensuing genocide.

At a time when many Jews are looking at the news with trepidation, the prime minister’s statement represents the voice of a country facing the antisemitism of its past and, more importantly, committing to face and combat similar sentiments today and in future.

Presaging the prime minister’s formal apology this week, Canada’s ambassador to Israel, Deborah Lyons, speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America last month (see “Interdependent communities” and “GA pitches softballs at Bibi”) spoke movingly about the importance of applying historical knowledge to the present. She quoted a 17-year-old from Hamilton, Ont., who, after completing the March of the Living, observed that, “as our hearts were breaking, our hearts were also growing.”

Said Lyons: “We need to acknowledge these difficulties, we need to acknowledge these injustices. It may break our hearts, but it will teach our hearts to love again and to grow.”

Exercise your right to vote

(news.gov.bc.ca)

British Columbians have been tasked, once again, with voting on whether or not to change our electoral system.

Until Nov. 30, we are being asked to choose what voting system we should use for provincial elections, whether to keep the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system or switch to one of three proportional representation (PR) voting systems offered on the ballot. This is our third referendum on electoral reform, the 2005 and 2009 votes having chosen the status quo rather than change to a single transferable vote system. While the STV forms a component of one of our choices this time around, it is not one of the systems being proposed.

The 24-page voter’s guide from Elections BC describes our current system, FPTP: “the province is divided into electoral districts and each district is represented by one member of the legislative assembly (MLA). Voters mark their ballot for one candidate. The candidate with the most votes in the district wins and represents the district in the legislature. The number of seats a party gets in the legislature equals the number of districts its candidates win.”

In PR, however, “the share of seats a political party wins in the legislative assembly is about the same as the party’s share of the popular vote. So, if a party receives 40 percent of the popular vote, they are likely to have about 40 percent of the seats in the legislature. There are many different voting systems that are designed to produce proportional results.”

Indeed, there are dozens of variations on the PR theme, and herein lies one of the problems with the 2018 referendum. British Columbians will be asked: 1) which system, FPTP or PR, should be used for provincial elections, and 2) if a PR system were to be adopted, which of three systems – mixed member, rural-urban or dual member – we would prefer. There will be no second referendum, as there was in New Zealand, asking us whether we would prefer FPTP or the majority-chosen type of PR, with its details fleshed out by a parliamentary, expert or other committee.

We are, in essence, being asked to take our best, semi-educated guess as to which of three vaguely described PR options might yield better results than FPTP. Several key factors are “to be determined” after the referendum results, if PR is chosen, such as how electoral boundaries will change, how candidate lists would be drawn up, the total number of MLAs to be elected, how coalition governments would be formed. All of these elements determine how effective a PR system will be in producing a more responsive, diverse and balanced government. And we will not have a direct say in these decisions.

There is no way in this limited amount of space that we can satisfactorily explain all of the PR systems being put forward in the referendum. Readers should go to elections.bc.ca/referendum for the basics and research as best they can. This may not yield satisfactory results, however, because only one of the referendum’s PR options is actually in use in other countries; the other two are theoretical at this point. Mixed member PR is used in New Zealand, Germany, Scotland, Mexico and other countries, while the rural-urban system combines approaches used in various countries and the dual-member version is akin to a system Prince Edward Island once used (but no longer does) and also, according to one pro-PR website, “echoes our own voting history,” as British Columbia had multi-member ridings until the 1990s.

So, what do to then if we treat this referendum as less of a choice between which PR system we prefer and more of a choice between keeping the status quo and changing to a new system?

Vote PR BC and the No BC Proportional Representation Society each received $500,000 in government funding to advocate for and against PR, respectively. However, you will find little in-depth information from these sources. Think tanks and other groups have tried to fill in the gaps of knowledge but, perhaps not surprisingly, there’s valid-sounding evidence on both sides of the issue. For each piece of evidence supporting PR – such as it will end adversarial politics and hold politicians more to account – there is an evidence-based opposite finding. How many of us will look at all the studies, check the sources and determine how rigorous and accurate the conclusions are? Likely very few of us.

For what it’s worth, among the supporters of PR, you will find the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the B.C. NDP and B.C. Green Party. Among those skeptical of it are the right-leaning Fraser Institute and the B.C. Liberals. At the end of the day, most of us will probably base our decision on the opinions of those people and organizations with whom we agree on other subjects. We also will consider what we know personally (as opposed to filtered through another researcher’s lens) of PR systems elsewhere in the world, such as in Israel – even though the specific Israeli form of PR is not one of those on the B.C. ballot, it is similar. Some of us might opt for change for change’s sake, and others will stick with the devil we know. It might comfort some voters to know that, if we choose change, there will be another referendum in two election cycles to see if we want to return to FPTP or stay the course.

Knowledge is power and we recommend that voters do the absolute best to educate themselves about the various alternatives. But don’t be discouraged if you’re still uncertain after your research. Both FPTP and PR have their strengths and weaknesses. However, a vital aspect of both FPTP and PR – and one that directly speaks to the health of our democracy no matter what the electoral system – is that people exercise their right to vote. Whatever your choice, please fill out your ballot when you get it in the mail.

Space for civil discourse

Social media is instrumental in forming and reflecting the prevalent views of our society. One sign of its importance is that leaders like U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu communicate mainly through Twitter nowadays. And, while many of us may bemoan this fact, the demand for simplistic, polarizing and aggressive political discourse seems as strong as ever.

In our own community, differences of opinion, especially on the topic of Israel, have led to divisiveness. Many Jewish community members choose to avoid the topic altogether. But, while pausing to think before we speak and refraining from saying hurtful things are to be lauded, there are issues that require discussion if we are to ever improve them, ourselves, the community, and the world. We need to create the spaces in which these conversations can safely take place. Any steps we can take to reach that goal, even incremental ones, like holding an event that is admittedly mainstream, but allows for debate on Israel, is a positive development.

This is one reason the Jewish Independent has joined the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Ameinu, Or Shalom, Schara Tzedeck, Beth Israel and Temple Sholom in co-sponsoring Left vs. Right: The Battle for Israel’s Soul. On Oct. 23, J.J. Goldberg of the Jewish Daily Forward and Jonathan S. Tobin of JNS.org – whose visit here is part of a series that has taken them to dozens of other Jewish communities – will model how we can argue passionately about something as heated as our views on Israel while remaining not only respectful of our “opponent,” but maybe even come to like them. (Click here for event information.)

The modeling of civil discourse about contentious issues is also one of the purposes of the Faigen Family Lecture Series, which will take place on Oct. 30. Presented by Vancouver Hebrew Academy, along with several sponsors, this year’s speaker is conservative journalist and commentator Ben Shapiro, who suggests that social media is not the appropriate place to seek dialogue, noting, “you don’t look to Twitter for meaningful conversation.” (Click here for story.)

The JI sponsored the documentary The Oslo Diaries at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival for similar reasons. (The Israel Consulate General, Toronto and Western Canada, also sponsored this film. See jewishindependent.ca/oslo-diaries-peace-possible.)

While we all know that, ultimately, the Oslo Accords failed to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the film shows just how close we came to peace. One of the most important aspects of the documentary, which is based on the diaries of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators of the accords, is the evolution of the relationship between these enemies, which they were at the time.

One of the most powerful scenes in the film is a conversation between the two chief negotiators, Uri Savir on the Israeli side and Abu Ala on the Palestinian side. Initially, they compete with regard to the history of their ancestors in Jerusalem and how far back their family ties go. However, they soon agree that they are not at these talks to make a better past but to make a better future. While the Oslo Accords failed for reasons beyond their control, the negotiators accomplished what seemed impossible – they formed an agreement – and Savir and Ala, at least, became friends.

Earlier this year, as part of the Civil Conversations Project of the podcast On Being, host and creator of the show Krista Tippet interviewed Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University in Durham, N.C., who also co-created and co-leads the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative, and Rabbi Sarah Bassin of Temple Emmanuel in Beverly Hills, Calif. The whole conversation is fascinating but one exchange illustrates why respectful discourse on controversial topics is so difficult.

First, Tippet notes that agreement shouldn’t be the goal of such discussions, but rather understanding. She gives an example from an interview Antepli did with Israeli journalist and author Yossi Klein Halevi, where Halevi told Antepli, “I am not a dove. I am not a leftist. My positions are very mainstream, skeptical Israel.” To which Antepli replied, “And I’m not interested in marginal Jews who will agree with everything Muslims believe about Israel.”

Second, in talking about this interview and his relationship with Halevi, Antepli says there is often “a conflation of political disagreement with moral disagreement…. Yossi is like my brother. There is hardly anybody who is closer to me like him, but watch us when we talk about Israeli-Palestinian conflict…. But do I ever doubt his integrity? Do I ever doubt his moral red lines? Do I ever doubt his moral imagination?… I think many people think political disagreement translates itself as moral arguments.”

About her work creating spaces in which her community can engage on controversial issues, Bassin says, “I put out the line that the only people I don’t want in this space are people who are going to physically threaten our security. But, beyond that, I think that we want to welcome as [many] diverse voices as possible…. And it’s been hard, and some people have been challenged by it, but, ultimately, the leadership has really embraced that, because they see the need for it.”

Many of our community leaders and organizations – not just those mentioned here – also see the need, and are continuing or beginning to establish spaces for civil dialogue and debate. We owe it to ourselves and the future of our community to lend them our support – and our voice.

Reflections on elections

(photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Advance voting is underway across British Columbia for municipal elections that culminate Oct. 20.

There are many dedicated, informed people with excellent ideas running for office in Vancouver and in communities across British Columbia. This is especially fortunate, since this year saw what may be the greatest number of incumbents in recent memory opt not to seek reelection. Of the 10 members of Vancouver city council, for example, only three are running for reelection. (One is running for mayor.) Mayor Gregor Robertson is also leaving the scene.

A similar change is evident across Metro Vancouver, where an inordinate number of incumbent mayors and councilors have chosen not to continue serving. Part of this may be coincidence and part may be that new funding rules put in place by the province have made the task of running more challenging, in some ways. Whatever the reasons, Vancouver and many other communities face a major realignment in our local politics.

Especially at a time like this, it is a little disappointing that there are not more individuals from the Jewish community who have chosen to offer themselves for office. It has been encouraging, on the other hand, to see the number of people from the community who are volunteering on campaigns and taking a very active role in engaging with candidates. The candidates forum for several mayoral hopefuls, sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the social service agency SUCCESS, was well attended. Another event, organized by CIJA and the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, allowed people to speak one-on-one with those who would like to be mayor of Vancouver.

There are, of course, not a lot of “Jewish issues” in local elections, though candidates for mayor addressed a number of things that are of concern to the Jewish community at a recent candidates forum. (For story, click here.) Ensuring that our municipalities remain welcoming, safe places for members of every ethnocultural community is a top priority. Part of that comes from people in positions of leadership leading by example. We have seen, in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, the licence that can be given to people with ill will when leaders choose to engage in incendiary language. It has been reassuring that there have, to date, been no serious incidents in local campaigns of overtly divisive language or strategies.

While the atmosphere has not been terribly divisive, division is the key word for traditional political parties in Vancouver.

Vision Vancouver, which has dominated the city for the last decade, has collapsed, not even managing to put up a candidate for mayor. The Non-Partisan Association (NPA) is a house divided, with at least two new parties emerging from disaffected former members.

The likelihood of independent candidates being elected to Vancouver city council and boards – as well as to the mayor’s chair – has probably never been greater. It could be an interesting mix for the next four years, with a constructive amalgam of different ideas coming together to synthesize into good policy – or it could be four years of chaos.

On the topic of chaos … a word about Vancouver’s at-large voting system. It is difficult enough to make an informed choice for the one position of mayor with 21 people contesting the race. It is an entirely different ballgame to try to make sense of the 137 candidates running for the 26 positions on city council, school board and park board. There is simply no way to expect reasonable, ordinary people to inform themselves adequately about this number of candidates.

Vancouverites have been floating the possibility of a ward system for decades but still face this daunting and compendious ballot every election. A ward system would not be without it faults – it could have the effect, for example, of elected officials representing their narrow constituencies against the broader interests of the city at large – but it would certainly permit average voters to become more familiar with the candidates who would represent them.

For now, though, this is the system we are in. And finding our way through it and voting with the best information we can access is the least we can do as citizens of a democracy. Despite the fact that local government is the one that has the most direct impact on our everyday lives, it is also the one that tends to attract the lowest voter turnout.

The last election saw a turnout of about 43%, which is comparatively good for a local election. (The one before that saw less than 35% turnout.) Some observers have suggested that the circus-like circumstances this year could help voter turnout, with so many new groups and independent candidates trying to get their supporters to the polls. Still, with 21 candidates for mayor – at least a half-dozen of them serious contenders – the possibility of someone taking the position with, say, 25% of the vote, is a real possibility. If turnout were to rise to a comparatively healthy level of, say, 50%, that would still mean the mayor has a mandate from a mere 12.5% of voters.

But, consider this from your perspective as a voter: the power of your one ballot to influence the outcome may be higher than ever.

Ends and beginnings

As we come to the end of the High Holy Days, we set ourselves on paths of new beginnings. On Simchat Torah, we mark both a beginning and an end. The cycle of Torah reading ends and then immediately begins again. It is said that we read the same passages of the Torah every week, every year, but the meanings change because we are different people year after year, experiencing life and the world with different eyes and, hopefully, with increased wisdom.

The Days of Awe are a time of critical introspection. This period of teshuvah invites us to recognize our shortcomings and commit to improvement. This mission is both individual and collective. As a people, we are obligated to repair the world, and this year calls on us with no shortage of issues to collectively confront: inequality and suffering, environmental degradation, inhumane treatment of animals, the pursuit of justice.

On the latter front, our cousins in the United States are absorbed in a drama around the appointment of the next justice of the Supreme Court and things that he may have done many years ago. The senators considering his nomination heard two irreconcilable narratives last week from the accuser and the accused. The testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford echoes the testimonies of so many people, mostly women but also men, who have felt empowered, motivated or obligated to share their most personal experiences in what has become known as the “#MeToo era.”

Yet the senators’ motivations hinge on more than determining who is telling the truth. Political considerations – advancing President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee to the bench before the November midterm elections – seem to be the factor front of mind for some elected officials, regardless of Blasey Ford’s testimony. It seems clear that politics may trump justice in this case.

Politics in Canada is not as brash as that in the United States, but populist and exclusionary ideas may be finding a voice here that they did not have before. A new federal political party seems prepared to amplify views that, until recently, were more limited to online discussions and whispered conversations. Meanwhile, the party that won Monday’s provincial election in Québec mooted during the election campaign the idea of throwing out newcomers who do not gain an adequate grasp of the French language within three years of arrival. Unconstitutional as such a policy may be, even voicing such ideas brings us to a new chapter in Canadian public life.

Immigration and refugees are a perennial issue, with the nature of a society at the heart of the discussion. The groups of people at the centre of the discussion – immigrants and refugees – change generation by generation. In this era, Jewish Canadians have an opportunity to bring hard-learned wisdoms to the debate. The federal government is set to formally apologize next month for a most egregious historical example of exclusion: the rejection of the passengers on the MS St. Louis. Indeed, this memory should inform our reaction to the current discussion and the realities for the millions of displaced people and refugees fleeing conflict around the world.

Personal experiences inform our political ideologies. And, through our personal actions, we can affect political affairs. This can be in obvious ways – like showing up to vote in the municipal elections on Oct. 20 or in advance polls – or in more subtle but profound ways, like educating the next generation, modeling the values we hope to advance and creating ripples of goodness across our circles of influence.

In matters of public policy and in the more private ways we behave in our lives, the holy days remind us to take stock of our own role in advancing justice and a better world.

We may feel insignificant in the grand scheme. How can we affect the powers in the White House or in Ottawa or around the world? But Jewish tradition is clear. “It is not your responsibility to finish the work [of perfecting the world], but you are not free to desist from it either,” said the Mishnaic sage Rabbi Tarfon.

Inward reflection is the first and easiest step we can take as individuals to address faults in our world. Based on this reflection, we may choose to move to action. Where it will end, we cannot always tell at the beginning. But it is our job to get the ball rolling.

Feast for mind and soul

Smack in the middle of the Days of Awe, hundreds of members of our community came together for an inspiring, entertaining and occasionally emotional evening celebrating unity and inclusion.

The opening event of the 2018 Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign Sunday night once again took the form of FEDtalks, four presentations from individuals with starkly divergent life experiences.

Zoya Schvartzman, whose career now is devoted to improving the lives of individual Jews in Europe and revivifying once nearly obliterated Jewish communities there through her work with the Joint Distribution Committee, talked about how a comparatively simple gesture by the Vancouver Jewish community, when she and her single mother lived here several years back, was a testament to paying it forward. By providing a family in need with a small hand up, probably nobody involved at the time imagined that a kind word and a bag of groceries, including a jar of chocolate spread, would inspire a young woman to positively change the lives of some of the most marginalized Jews in the contemporary world.

Arik Zeevi, an Israeli judo Olympian, talked about the importance of setting goals that seem to exceed our grasp as a means of self-improvement and collective advancement.

Pamela Schuller, a disability activist and stand-up comedian, spoke of how Tourette syndrome went from being her defining characteristic to becoming an integral, appreciated and complementary component of her complex identity. Her endearing and humorous presentation encouraged everyone to look at perceived disabilities as unanticipated gifts.

Rabbi Irwin Kula, in an intellectually packed tour de force, spoke of Judaism’s ability to transform itself, saying that the first Jews of Vancouver would not recognize the Judaism of today and that our descendants a century hence will not recognize our Judaism – and that this is a sign of constructive adaptivity.

The four speakers offered very different perspectives, which, together, reminded all of us at the Vancouver Playhouse that unity and diversity are complementary and not exclusive.

Everyone in the audience certainly left with a lot think about. However, standouts as we reflected afterwards included the idea that, while Judaism treasures tradition, its millennia of continuity is due at least in part to a willingness to break existing paradigms and make room for new ways of being and thinking, as well as fresh voices, being inclusive of multiple identities and ensuring that successive generations are welcomed and included even – perhaps especially – when they challenge the way things have always been done.

Also underlying much of the evening was the concept that our actions have powerful ripple effects that we cannot forecast. Small actions – teaching judo to a 7-year-old, standing up for a classmate with a disability, reaching out to members of the community in their times of need – can lead to life-altering consequences.

Underscoring these messages were words from leaders of our local Federation and campaign, including Federation board chair Karen James, past chair Stephen Gaerber, women’s philanthropy chair Megan Laskin, chair of this year’s campaign Jonathon Leipsic, and Federation chief executive officer Ezra Shanken, all of whom, in particular ways, reminded attendees of the obligation and privilege of participating in a collective movement that changes lives in British Columbia, Israel and around the world.

Leipsic singled out members of his generation, pleading that they maintain and expand upon the institutions and infrastructure that previous generations built for us. He made special note of Charles Diamond, whose funeral had taken place earlier that day. Diamond’s parents were among our community’s pioneers and the Diamond family, through generations, have been role models of the involvement needed for a community to thrive.

In these days of introspection, teshuvah and transcendence, FEDtalks proved a perfect opportunity to come together, reflect, celebrate, think big and rededicate ourselves to making positive contributions individually and collectively.

Tweets raise questions

Dimitri Lascaris, chair of the board of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), last week tweeted what is being condemned as a blatantly antisemitic swipe at two Jewish members of Parliament.

Despite CJPME’s name, the messaging from the group doesn’t indicate that the “justice and peace” they seek will be particularly just or peaceful for Jewish residents of the Middle East. What happened last week should clarify where the group – or at least its leader – stands.

“Apparently,” Lascaris tweeted, “Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and Michael Levitt are more devoted to apartheid Israel than to their own Prime Minister and their own colleagues in the Liberal caucus.” The tweet was a bit of a non sequitur. Lascaris had posted on a different platform about a B’nai Brith Canada rally in Toronto, after which two women who had attended the event posted a video saying that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should face the death penalty. Weirdness all around, certainly, but how Lascaris connected this incident with two Liberal MPs is an open question. Ultimately, whatever link there may be is irrelevant in the bigger context.

Accusing Jews of dual loyalties, of being “others” who are not fully of a society, is an age-old charge almost universally accepted as antisemitic at its core. Encouragingly, politicians of every stripe (as well as plenty of other Canadians) have tweeted or otherwise made clear their dismay at Lascaris’s comment.

The next move is up to members of the organization. If the members of CJPME reject their chair’s remarks and remove him from his role, they will have demonstrated that they understand something about justice. If not, Lascaris and the group he represents should be snubbed by elected officials and anyone with a genuine interest in peace and justice.

* * *

Another interesting tweet came from Tory Senator Linda Frum last week, in response to the announcement that Trudeau would issue an apology for the Canadian government’s refusal in 1939 to allow the MS St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees, to land in Canada. Forced to return to Europe, 254 of the passengers were murdered in the Holocaust.

“I’ve made this warning before: if Trudeau’s apology for Canada’s rejection of the ‘voyage of the damned’ compares Jews fleeing the Nazis to the contemporary crisis of illegal economic migrants, he will require an apology for his apology. Think carefully,” tweeted Frum.

Thinking carefully is indeed what everyone involved should do.

Leaving aside the criticism about the merits of historical apologies, which we have addressed in this space previously, Frum makes a useful point. To be heartfelt, the apology should stand on its own merits as the voice of a nation genuinely regretful about a scar on our national honour. The apology – scheduled for the week in November that marks the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht – should be about the St. Louis, its passengers, the victims of Canada’s decision and perhaps the broader lesson of what was not done to aid the mortally endangered Jews of Europe. It should not be taken out of context through the universalizing of the story. That the passengers on the ship were Jews is absolutely critical to understanding the history of the St. Louis and our country’s history of institutionalized antisemitism.

At the same time, what is the point of these apologies, or any commemoration of a past wrong, if we do not learn and apply the lessons to the choices we make in our world today? There is a fine line to walk in respecting the individuality of the St. Louis, on the one hand, and ensuring that the apology and associated discussion results in positive changes in our approach to current and future issues we must confront.

Regrettably, Frum threw an additional wrench in the works with her use of the term “illegal economic migrants.” This is apparently a reference to the concern that some in her party and elsewhere have that the migrants who are entering Canada via the United States from Latin America are not legitimate refugees fleeing persecution or danger, but rather people simply seeking to advance the wealth and condition of their families. While it is fair to bring attention to the illegal crossings, it seems odd for a Conservative (or a conservative) to imply that there is something particularly disagreeable about a person seeking economic advancement, either through migration or other means.

That aside, the apology will almost certainly be welcomed by most Jewish Canadians. It will be an opportunity for Canadians to remember – and, for those who do not yet know, to learn – this history. Once we as a country have made what small penance we possibly can for this tragedy, there will be time to consider how contemporary events can be informed by what we learn from thinking about the St. Louis and its passengers. That is part of the purpose of this entire exercise.

What does power mean?

Necessity is the mother of invention. Throughout Jewish history, whenever economic or social restrictions have been applied against Jewish populations, those same targeted Jews have responded by finding means to succeed despite the hurdles placed in their way.

In notable instances, the “invention” itself has become problematic. By excluding Jews from a range of guilds and thereby denying them the right to participate in the broader economic life of the community, medieval Europe pushed Jews into marginal occupations. One such occupation was moneylending, which created a dangerous dynamic that helped define European Jewish existence for hundreds of years. Existing in a bleak place between the power of the aristocrats and dukes, on the one hand, and the rage of the peasant mobs, on the other, Jews were forced from one place to another in part because of the economic role they were forced to play in society.

More cheerfully, our ancestors understood that learning was an intangible asset that no ducal dictator or antisemitic horde could take away. Continuing the tradition of study practised by for generations, the Haskalah, the Jewish enlightenment, saw Jews turn their minds to secular studies like sciences and the humanities. In a modernizing world, this proved a tremendous advantage. Much of the success enjoyed by Jews today is founded on the collective dedication to learning that began in ancient study halls and continues this very week as Jewish kids return to classrooms all over the world.

Zionism is a natural descendant of the theory of necessity and invention. For hundreds of generations, Jews prayed for a return to Zion and Jerusalem. But when, after the Middle Ages gave way to Enlightenment and emancipation, the place of Jews in Europe still proved precarious, as Theodor Herzl concluded during the Dreyfus Affair, the idea of Jewish self-determination as a national political movement took flight. Necessity increased in the first decades of the 20th century and Zionism went from a somewhat obscure idea to one almost universally accepted by Jews, though its realization would be too slow to save six million lives.

Attacked by its neighbours at the moment of its birth, Israel was forced to pull together a military defence. The alternative was unthinkable, and the generation faced with that reality during the War of Independence had learned just a few years earlier the danger of complacency and unpreparedness.

Facing existential threat once more in 1967 with the Six Day War, Israel again triumphed. The Eichmann trial, still fresh in the collective Jewish memory from earlier in the decade, created a stark awareness in Israeli and Diaspora minds about the precariousness of Jewish existence and the determination of those who would seek to destroy us.

Since 1967, there has been no doubt that Israel is a regional military powerhouse. This truth is axiomatic. If Israel were not a regional powerhouse, it’s likely Israel would not exist. This is what makes uncategorical criticism of Israel for its militarism so infuriating, as it fails to even acknowledge that the “invention” was made necessary by the world’s unquenchable antisemitism.

And so, it seemed, this was among the messages Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was trying to convey in a speech last week adjacent to Israel’s nuclear research centre, home of the country’s unacknowledged nuclear weapons program. He made some stark statements about the dangers of weakness.

“The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive,” he said. “The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and, in the end, peace is made with the strong.”

Some have made the case that Netanyahu’s bluster and warnings to enemies are un-Jewish, that acknowledging power, and reveling in the benefits it presents, is antithetical to Jewishness. Perhaps.

Yet, we should also realize that we are in a time of changing paradigms. In the vast scope of Jewish history, the decades since the establishment of the state of Israel are the blink of an eye. We are still recalibrating what it means to be Jewish in an age of Zionism. As Jews in the Diaspora and as Jews in the Jewish homeland, we are redefining our identities and connections in a time of incredible flux. What does Jewish mean now? How do we accommodate and respond to power? What measures must we take to redefine our relationships with non-Jews, including the leaders of other countries, in a time when we have the power to defend ourselves and no longer rely on the ephemeral kindness of strangers?

As Rabbi Irwin Kula (who will speak in Vancouver this month; see page 5) says, we who are alive in this time of extraordinary transition can be a part of “one of the great adventures in the human drama right now.”

Given an option, we may have chosen to live in duller times. But we are here now – and that necessitates us inventing ways to thrive in the world we have inherited.

Opening Pandora’s box

Maxime Bernier quit the Conservative party last week, at the precise moment that Conservatives from across the country were gathering in Halifax for their national convention, preparing for the federal election that is 13 months away.

Canadian political history would suggest that the former cabinet minister’s departure and his promise to form a new federal political party will be little more than a footnote in the history books when all is written.

The ostensible point of division between Bernier, who came a very close second to Andrew Scheer in last year’s Conservative leadership contest, is supply management. Supply management is an agricultural policy that limits supply in an attempt to stabilize prices so that Canadian farmers can make a decent living. It’s the reason we pay what we do for cheese, milk and poultry and it is prefaced on the understanding that the few extra dollars we pay weekly keeps the agricultural sector viable.

Bernier, who lambasted his former party over the issue, is correct. Support for such meddling in the economy is antithetical to conservative economic values. But it is an oddly Canadian consensus by which parties across the spectrum essentially accede to the status quo for political, if not policy, reasons. Opponents of Bernier in last year’s leadership race expressed fears that his opposition to supply management would undermine the Conservatives precisely where they are most popular: in rural Canada.

If less interventionist economic policies become the basis for Bernier’s new political party, it is hard to imagine how it will catch fire among Canadian voters. From a political standpoint, such a platform seems like a loser from the gate.

But there is a potential wild card in this scenario. Though he skirted the subject during his news conference last week, Bernier’s recent social media statements play to xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiments. This, far more than economics, has the potential to get the attention of Canadian voters.

The Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau likes to be associated with openness and a welcoming diversity, which contrasts nicely with developments to the south. But a recent poll suggests Canadians may not be as settled on this approach as some of us would like to believe.

The poll asked whether Canadians believed that there are too few, too many or the right number of immigrants to Canada. Overall, 18% of Canadians said there are too few immigrants coming to Canada, while 38% said there were too many and another 38% said the numbers were about right. The poll’s breakdown by party label indicates just how divisive this discussion could become. Only 12% of self-declared Liberals said that Canada has too many immigrants, while 73% of Conservatives hold that position.

Canadians, to an extent, have avoided opening a Pandora’s box in the form of a national discussion about immigration, perhaps happy in our complacency and self-image as a welcoming place. If Bernier’s new party – or, indeed, if the Conservatives – see an opening, we may be about to lift the lid somewhat on this issue.

If Bernier decides that he has nothing to lose and something to gain from upsetting accepted wisdom, it won’t necessarily prove a winning formula for his new party. However, if, by raising these topics, he forces other parties to articulate more specifically the generalized approach to multiculturalism and diversity that we take for granted, we may be headed for a reckoning on immigration, diversity and openness.

The election of Doug Ford as premier of Ontario suggests that populist messages are not anathema to Canadian voters. The Quebec provincial election, now underway, may very well provide a test case for some of these ideas that challenge our cherished notions of diversity.

When voter turnout hovers around the 50% mark, mobilizing one’s political base can be as crucial as convincing the undecided. If suspicion of outsiders appears likely to excite an identifiable core of the electorate, ambitious politicians will certainly consider how they might benefit by exploiting it.

Confronted by a heckler in Quebec last week, the prime minister shut her down by dismissing her as racist. It turns out, she may well be. But she also may not be the voice in the wilderness that some, including the prime minister, would like to believe. These people, too, will demand to be represented in Parliament and in the national discussion.

The rest of us, then, will need to have more than happy axioms and comforting self-satisfaction if we are to successfully defend diversity, inclusiveness and the social and economic value of new Canadians.

Impacts of nation-state

Canada’s identity has evolved dramatically since the Second World War. First, the country’s self-image changed from an Anglo orientation as a member of the British Empire-cum-Commonwealth to a concept of “two founding nations,” which included the recognition of bilingualism and biculturalism as pillars of our identity. No sooner had that change been digested than we broadened the definition of Canadianness to incorporate multiculturalism and then, very belatedly, we have recently come to recognize the important place of indigenous Canadians and to attempt to reconcile our peoples with the history of injustice and cultural genocide perpetrated against First Nations.

Not all countries are given to this sort of evolving self-identity. Israel, in very different ways but over the same period, has struggled to define itself in a manner that reflects both its founding premise and its demographic and cultural realities. For several decades, the country has debated the question “who is a Jew?”; a riddle that goes to the heart of the nation’s identity in part due to the Law of Return, which grants citizenship to any Jew. But the place of non-Jewish citizens – both in the state of Israel and, more problematically, in the territories occupied in 1967 – has confounded the country as it struggles to be both a democratic country and one particularly founded as the homeland of the Jewish people.

This matter was brought to a head (again) recently by a law passed by the Knesset dealing with the country’s Jewish identity.

In practical terms, the “nation-state law” has little impact. If an Israeli didn’t follow the news, they would probably not notice any change in their daily life. The law is mostly symbolic. It enshrines the Jewish calendar as official, declares Jerusalem the country’s capital, codifies what was already the practical reality in terms of Jewish iconography in Israeli national symbols, such as the Star of David on the flag and the menorah on the national shield. But, it also explicitly downgrades the Arabic language, mother tongue of 22% of the country’s population, from official language to one with a “special status.” That doesn’t mean that Arabic (or English) will be erased from street signs or other official places, but it is a calculated poke in the eye to the country’s largest minority population – people who have struggled for decades to adapt themselves to their status as non-Jewish citizens of the Jewish state.

Critics, particularly on the left, have condemned the law as the triumph of Jewishness over democracy in the continuing struggle over the country’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Some claim that the accusation of “apartheid” has now been proven and codified. Competing New York Times op-eds by Ronald Lauder, head of World Jewish Congress, and Naftali Bennett, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, took diametrically opposing positions on the law.

The law’s enemies perhaps did themselves no favours during a mass rally in Tel Aviv nearly two weeks ago, when Palestinian flags were prevalent and some participants seemed to be promoting a one-state resolution.

The controversy is the culmination of several years of debate over the law, or variations on the theme. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu defended the final bill, which passed the Knesset overwhelmingly.

“We enshrined in law the basic principle of our existence,” he said. “Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, that respects the individual rights of all its citizens. This is our state – the Jewish state. In recent years, there have been some who have attempted to put this in doubt, to undercut the core of our being. Today we made it law: this is our nation, language and flag.”

The prime minister’s words are accurate enough. He acknowledges the fundamental and perhaps irreconcilable tug between “the nation state of the Jewish people” and one that “respects the individual rights of all its citizens.” And he is correct that the law enshrines what was already the de facto reality.

He is also not far off the mark in stating that some have tried to put in doubt Israel’s identity as a Jewish state – there are calls in the Middle East and elsewhere for a unitary state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, a concept that would effectively eliminate Jewish national self-determination. Yet, this is perhaps the most specious of Netanyahu’s arguments. Yes, there are those would see the Jewish state destroyed. But these voices are no more mainstream nor prevalent than they have been in recent years.

The law is red meat for Netanyahu’s core supporters and those to their right. It is a provocation – and an unnecessary one – that even the prime minister claims has no real, practical impact.

However, it does have an impact – and one that is perhaps not unintended. The law makes non-Jewish citizens of Israel feel isolated and demoralized and it strengthens the case of those inside and outside Israel who condemn the country for inequality and favouritism.