Category: From the JI

Fresh, solemn significance

For a great number of Canadians, particularly those too young to remember the Second World War, Remembrance Day is not the day of intimate commemoration it was for previous generations. Canadian engagement in Afghanistan, however, has once again bestowed on this solemn occasion more immediacy. That said, most young Canadians who file into school auditoriums for the recitation of “In Flanders Fields” and a moment of silence understandably may not experience the same emotional reaction as their parents or grandparents who participated in or lost loved ones in the world wars.

This Nov. 11 will probably have poignancy beyond the routine, though, because of the tragic events of recent days. Our country is mourning Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent, who was murdered last month in Quebec, and Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was shot at the National War Memorial in Ottawa two days later.

The murder of Cirillo was immediately followed by a dramatic shootout at the heart of our democracy, the Parliament Buildings, in which the assassin and thankfully no one else was killed.

The symbolism of the latter shootings is unambiguous. A killer – maybe deranged, maybe driven by ideology, maybe a bit of both – kills a military official standing guard at the icon of Canada’s military sacrifices, then heads directly to the legislature of our country, apparently intending further destruction.

Reaction has varied intensely. American 24-hour news outlets treated the occasion with typical spectacle. Canadian media have been credited with exhibiting characteristic Canadian moderation. Canadians have not, evidence so far suggests, gone hog-wild in demanding the swapping of human rights for physical security. A typically Canadian assessment will be made about whether elected officials should have greater protection, but there has been minimal hysteria about an imminent invasion by terrorists.

These incidents, of course, raised the inevitable fears and allegations. Both crimes were perpetrated by men who were newly observant Muslims. Yet, there is minimal evidence that either was in any way connected to a larger Islamist network or that religious fanaticism was a greater driver than grave psychological or emotional troubles.

Still, there was reaction in the unlikeliest of places. In Cold Lake, Alta., a mosque – talk about a little mosque on the prairie – was a hate-crime target with, among other things, “Go home” spray-painted on its exterior. In what was the perfect Canadian response, locals showed up to clean off the graffiti and festoon the place with signs, including one with the message “You ARE home.”

There may be a place for hate-crimes legislation and certainly there are laws against vandalism, but the greatest reaction of all is individual members of a community coming together to undo – literally and figuratively – the hatred purveyed by a minority of bigots.

As we prepare to mark Remembrance Day Tuesday, members of our community also gather Sunday night to mark the 76th anniversary of Kristallnacht. This date marks the horrible moment when the incremental threats of the Nazi regime moved from words to deeds, and the intimidations of successive antisemitic laws moved toward the grisly realities of the Final Solution.

Kristallnacht also holds particularly fresh import in a world where Jewish shops and people this year have been subjected to attack in Europe and elsewhere. Both of these solemn days call on us to consider events of the past and to be vigilant in the present. Lest we forget.

Horribly wrong advice

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who came to our attention as the conduit for Edward Snowden’s Wikileaks cache, has a theory on why members of the Canadian military have been killed in terror attacks like the one last week in Ottawa. They died for the sins of Canada’s foreign policy.

Greenwald wrote a piece after the incident in Quebec on Oct. 20, in which two soldiers were run over – Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent fatally – in a deliberate attack. Greenwald’s article was rerun at rabble.ca on Oct. 22, apparently posted to the site about the time another attack was taking place on and around Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

“It is always stunning,” Greenwald wrote, “when a country that has brought violence and military force to numerous countries acts shocked and bewildered when someone brings a tiny fraction of that violence back to that country.”

Greenwald shifts blame for the soldiers’ deaths from their murderers to Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, Canada’s newly announced air support for the Western battle against ISIS, and on Canada’s being “an enthusiastic partner in some of the most extremist War on Terror abuses perpetrated by the U.S.”

The article has been shared around social media and similar assertions have been made by other commentators.

It needs to be said that both of these incidents, in which the perpetrators themselves were also killed, were apparently “lone-wolf” attacks. Also popping up in social media are demands for greater attention to mental illness in Canada, the implication being that mental instability may have trumped ideology for one or both of these perpetrators. This is an important issue to consider.

Greenwald anticipates the inevitable comeback to his argument – that Islamists are not driven by reaction to our foreign policy but by hatred of our values. That is, they hate us not for what we do, but for who we are.

“They even invent fairy tales to feed to the population to explain why it happens: they hate us for our freedoms,” wrote Greenwald. “Those fairy tales are pure deceit. Except in the rarest of cases, the violence has clearly identifiable and easy-to-understand causes: namely, anger over the violence that the country’s government has spent years directing at others.”

It’s not a stupid idea, but it’s simplistic in the extreme. It suggests not only a self-deception about the ideology driving worldwide terror, but an almost understandable, desperate hope for safety: if we just stop provoking the terrorists, they will leave us alone.

What his position ignores – though it is shared by many – is that the perpetrators are fundamentalists, seeking the destruction of the existing order not only in Syria and Iraq, but worldwide. The deceitful fairy tales are those told and believed by those who refuse to acknowledge evil when they see it beheading people on the internet.

Greenwald’s position, in fact, is a version of the Western colonialist mentality. The actions and worldview of ISIS and other extremists are not born of ideology or theology. No, they are solely a reaction to our actions. It’s all about us. It’s a weirdly imperialist view in its own way.

But even if he is correct, even if the attacks we saw last week and those endured by other democracies including Israel in recent years, were motivated by government actions and policies, his solution is suicide.

Even if there were proof positive that terrorists were motivated by our policies, rather than the fact that we like freedom, equality, an after-dinner drink and mixed-gender dancing, the solution would still not be to change our policy.

For a country to base its foreign policy on whether or not it will be liked or hated by ideologues who scythe off the heads of innocents is a map to self-destruction. The idea that terrorists will target our soldiers and civilians because our government is engaged in far-off conflicts is not completely outlandish, but its corollary – that we should change our foreign policy to one more agreeable for the worst elements in the world – is horribly wrong. That is, to use a hackneyed and ridiculed phrase that is nonetheless spot on, how the terrorists win.

Make Mideast bloom

Zionism promised to make the desert bloom. Of course, as they were literally making this happen, the chalutzim could not have imagined the figurative blooming that would come decades later, when Israelis would lead the world in new technologies and other economic innovations.

A new report from Credit Suisse quantifies just how successful Israel has been. And while it isn’t a surprise, in some ways, it is a symbol of astonishing achievement when taken in historical context.

The Swiss bank’s Global Wealth Report takes into account the assets, minus debt, of households and individuals, including savings, real estate and investments. By this measure, Israelis are the sixth wealthiest people in the Middle East and Asia, bested only by Australia, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan. With a per capita net worth between $150,000 and $175,000, Israelis are on par with, or exceed, the average European. And the wealth is distributed more evenly than it is in the United States. Not only that, but the trajectory is especially impressive for Israelis, with assets growing about 14 percent in the past year. (In Canada and the United States, the world’s wealthiest region, the average net worth of an adult is $340,000.)

The tiny country with effectively no natural resources, facing adversity and existential threat since its inception, has built a thriving economy that delivers for its citizens economic outcomes that exceed its oil-rich neighbors.

Of course, Israel’s detractors will not be impressed. Economic success is anathema to many of those who seek to boycott, divest from and sanction the Jewish state. To BDS supporters, every Israeli success is merely proof of misbegotten advantage due to exploitation or imperialism or worse.

Yet all the economic and social misery that surrounds Israel can be attributed in part back to the fatal decision nearly seven decades ago by the Arab League to have no truck nor trade with the Jews.

It is not a coincidence that the Credit Suisse report considers Canada and the United States in a single unit. Our economies are integrated enough to enjoy synergies (and yet distinct enough that the full impact of the 2008 global recession did not slam Canada as hard as it did the United States).

Were Israel as integrated into its regional economy as Canada’s is in ours, the economic miracle it represents could have spawned parallel, related success stories all around it. It still could.

A few voices in the Arab Middle East are finally speaking up to suggest that the decades-long isolation of Israel should end. Such a rapprochement would be good for Israel, to put it mildly. But it would be economically beneficial for the entire region. If economic self-interest were the defining impetus for Arab Middle East foreign policy, peace might be not so distant a dream.

Lessons from Nobel Prize

Last week, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The former may be more familiar to most of the world than the latter but, in pairing the two, the prize committee was making some very blunt statements about girls, children and long-held international enmities.

Yousafzai is a Pakistani Muslim. When she was 11 years old, she began writing a blog for the BBC about life under the Taliban in the Swat Valley area of northwest Pakistan. Her family operated schools in the area and the Taliban banned girls from attending. She persisted – not only in attending school but in becoming an international voice for girls’ education. When she was 15, in 2012, a gunman boarded her school bus, asked for her by name and shot her. Yousafzai survived and continues her activism with more determination.

Satyarthi is an Indian Hindu who has devoted himself to the cause of children’s rights, particularly opposing child labor and advancing education for all. His organization has rescued and rehabilitated 80,000 child laborers.

The Nobel’s choice of Yousafzai and Satyarthi made a statement not only about the value of childhood and education, but by choosing laureates from the belligerent neighboring countries of India and Pakistan, they were also underscoring the need to overcome long-standing animosities for the greater good.

There are many reasons why children do not receive the education they deserve – intertwined factors of poverty, violence, oppression, forced early marriage and more – but gender is a particularly gnawing factor in many parts of the world. The more a country limits girls’ education, the more backward the country is – and not in the culturally relativist sense of backwardness that is no longer politically palatable terminology, but in objective, empirical, economic terms. The statistics are staggering.

Every extra year of education a girl in the developing world receives can increase her income 15 to 25 percent. When mothers are responsible for household income, there is a 20 percent increase in child survival rates. Every additional year of schooling a mother receives reduces infant mortality by five to 10 percent.

The more education a girl receives, the fewer children she is likely to have – and they are likely to be healthier and to go to school themselves. And education reduces the likelihood that a girl will be pushed into marriage in adolescence.

As is so often the case, oppression of one group harms the larger society. Ameliorating the oppression of some advantages the whole. A 10 percent increase in girls’ school attendance can increase a country’s GDP by three percent. If all the moral and human justifications do not persuade governments, the numbers should convince them that girls’ education is an economic benefit.

Israel is a case study. From before the state was proclaimed, women have played central roles and been leaders in all aspects of civil society. It is not a coincidence that Israel – a barren, resourceless nascent state in 1948 – has emerged as one of the world’s most successful economies. There are a number of obvious and less obvious reasons for this, but the inclusion of women is one of them.

This is not to suggest that everything is roses. Men still dominate professorships and the sciences in Israel. Arab schools in Israel receive fewer resources than Jewish schools, though efforts are advancing to close this gap. (Christian Arabs, though, statistically have better graduation exam results than Muslim or Jewish students and attend university in numbers above the Israeli median.) Israel is also investing large sums in revamping Charedi education to better prepare religious men and women for the workforce.

But girls in Israel are more likely than boys to graduate high school and continue to university. The high school dropout rate for boys is almost three times that of girls. More than 56 percent of students in university are female.

Of course, such is the state of the world today that what lessons Israel may offer will be rejected out of hand due to the source but, by selecting an Indian and a Pakistani, the Nobel committee was clearly making a statement that urgent issues must be addressed regardless of old antagonisms.

The Nobel committee was also clearly recognizing the impact that a single person – or two individuals – can have on the way the world thinks and behaves.

The state of impermanence

As a harvest festival, Sukkot is infused with thanksgiving for the bounty that Jews in Canada and, mercifully, in most of the world today, enjoy. The holiday is also an earthy affair, as we move out into our backyards (or, in some cases caused by this hot housing market, our sliver of a balcony) and into temporary shelters inspired by those used by the Israelites during the 40 years of exodus in the desert. The emphasis of the sukkah is on impermanence and inhabiting one, even if just for a meal, inspires reflection on the impermanence in our lives, including life itself.

Sukkot is immediately followed by Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah – and the juxtaposition is striking. On Simchat Torah, we celebrate the most permanent thing the Jewish people have experienced. On this day, we complete the annual reading of the Torah and immediately begin again, missing not a beat between the end of Devarim, Deuteronomy, and the beginning of Bereisheet, Genesis.

For a people who have known – who, indeed, have just finished a week of reenacting – historical impermanence, Simchat Torah is a reassurance that, in the face of all historical, social and technological change, at least one thing remains constant: the book that binds us in spirit and practice.

The Torah is a constant in times of change, and it is easy to take for granted that, in the long history of the Jewish people, we are living out one of the most dramatic epochs our people has ever known. For millennia, our forebears yearned for Zion, longing to celebrate next year in Jerusalem and to be a free people in our land. In our generation, this dream has come to pass.

The creation of the state of Israel has changed Jews, Judaism and Jewish practices in small and large ways. One of the most significant ways is the sense of permanence provided by a Jewish homeland. Yet, there have been times of war and terror when the dream has turned nightmarish. And there remain many in the world who would like Israel to be an impermanent way station, merely another sukkah, for the Jewish people.

Jews – in Israel and around the world – are determined that Israel should remain as permanent and enduring as the Torah. Yet, unlike the Torah, which has a definitive beginning and end, Israel’s borders are not recognized by the international community, nor is there a consensus in Israel about where precisely they should be in the event of a final status agreement for a two-state solution.

While Jews worldwide were contemplating construction of their sukkot, the United States and others were condemning Israel’s recent announcement of additional housing construction in East Jerusalem.

Such settlements do nothing to convince the world that Israel is acting in good faith vis-à-vis a two-state outcome. On the other hand, condemning construction as the primary obstacle to peace in the region is a difficult pill to swallow: there are more pressing impediments to peace on both sides of the conflict.

However, while settlements may not be the main impediment to peace, they are an attempt to build something relatively permanent in a region without clear borders. It seems a considerable waste of resources – human labor, building materials, money, time, even Israeli and Palestinian PR efforts and goodwill – to keep building, especially knowing that the area is disputed and, therefore, impermanent.

Such construction also raises the hopes and dreams of those who ultimately will live there – what happens if they are forced to move? Israel has demonstrated its willingness to uproot Jewish residents in Sinai and Gaza in exchange for the faint hope of peace.

Through history and ritual, Jews understand that most things are temporary, like settlements that eventually give way to compromise. We also understand that some things are meant to last, like Torah and like the irreversible redemption of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

Netanyahu at UN: danger, opportunity ahead

Last week at the United Nations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas once again accused Israel of heinous crimes, including “genocide.” And, once again, the global community demonstrated its collective gullibility. It was left to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Monday to stand at the same lectern before the UN General Assembly and deliver what has become an annual rebuttal to the most preposterous allegations against the Jewish state.

It was not a cheery speech, but nor was it all doom and gloom. In that half-empty assembly hall – many delegates, apparently, cannot even bear to listen to the words of an Israeli leader – Netanyahu took on one accusation after another.

“I’ve come here to expose the brazen lies spoken from this very podium against my country and against the brave soldiers who defend it,” he said, holding up the Israel Defence Forces as representative of “the highest moral values of any army in the world” and insisting that “Israel’s soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration … from decent people everywhere.”

He slammed the UN’s Human Rights Council, which he declared an oxymoron.

“By investigating Israel, rather than Hamas, for war crimes, the UN Human Rights Council has betrayed its noble mission to protect the innocent,” the prime minister said. “In fact, what it’s doing is to turn the laws of war upside-down. Israel, which took unprecedented steps to minimize civilian casualties – Israel is condemned. Hamas, which both targeted and hid behind civilians – that, a double war crime – Hamas is given a pass. The Human Rights Council is thus sending a clear message to terrorists everywhere: use civilians as human shields. Use them again and again and again. And you know why? Because, sadly, it works.”

Then he turned his sights toward Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He warned that, while Iran may have softened its tone, its aim is the same as that of ISIS, Hamas and other militant Islamists – world domination.

These common dangers – “a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements gaining ground” – provide an opening for peace between Israel and its neighbors. And not only militarily, but also in terms of regional development.

“Together we can strengthen regional security,” said Netanyahu. “We can advance projects in water, agriculture, in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.

“I believe the partnership between us can also help facilitate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. But, these days, I think it may work the other way around: namely, that a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

If Israel’s prime minister can talk about the potential for “new opportunities” in the Middle East alongside the dangers, and of “the indispensable role of Arab states in advancing peace with the Palestinians,” perhaps it’s not so naïve to remain hopeful.

Time to parade your views with pride

With our own civic and municipal elections in British Columbia weeks away, it may seem odd to take time to consider the impending civic vote in Toronto. Of course, the entire world has devoted some of its attention to Toronto politics this year, the guffaws and ridicule turning to sympathy now that incumbent Mayor Rob Ford has been diagnosed with a serious and rare cancer. This latest twist in the saga provides a needed insight into society’s divergent responses to some health crises – like a large malignant growth – versus mental health crises, of which the mayor has probably demonstrated multiple symptoms, yet which gathered little to no sympathy, only punchlines and ridicule.

All that is for another time. In the first candidates’ forum post-Rob Ford (his brother, councilor Doug Ford, has taken his place on the ballot), front-running candidate John Tory told the audience at a largely Jewish forum that he would vote against funding for the city’s massive Pride Parade if the anti-Israel group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) were allowed to participate.

Unlike Mayor Ford, both the candidates Tory and Olivia Chow have marched in the parade and express support for it. But Tory reportedly elicited huge applause by promising to withhold the approximately $160,000 the city grants to the parade if the anti-Israel group were allowed to participate.

Understandably organizers of the parade have balked at political intervention that would limit participation to certain condoned groups. It was not long ago that, rather than marching in the parade with their supporters, public officials were condemning the parade as an inappropriate, hedonistic bacchanal on the streets of the city.

As Jews and as Zionists, our gut is with those cheering in the audience. QAIA is a fringe of extremists who undermine gay rights in the Middle East by delegitimizing its only oasis of legal and social freedoms. And the use of the word apartheid to describe Israel is plain wrong.

There is a more fundamental value at play here, however. It is basic free expression. As we saw recently, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival experienced controversy over a Jewish community ad that included the Israeli flag. In this case, it is the gay community that is soiled by its association with repression of open discourse – while VQFF accepted the ad in question, they treated its revenue differently, donating it to another organization. The festival is currently reviewing its ad policy. Our advice to them: we shouldn’t give in to those who seek to suppress free expression; all sides should be heard.

And it’s the same for Toronto Pride. There could hardly be, in a democracy, a better opportunity outside of the voting booth to register one’s opinion than a parade. Rather than applaud censorship, opponents of QAIA should attend the 2015 parade, enjoy the show, wait for the QAIA contingent, peaceably let their opinions be known with a creative sign or a catchy cheer.

Don’t make QAIA martyrs to free expression by preventing them from participating. Show them that the public rejects their worldview.

Siegel wins travel-writing award for article in JI

photo - Masada Siegel
Masada Siegel (photo from travelingboy.com)

Masada Siegel, a journalist and media personality known as “The Fun Girl Correspondent,” has won silver in the Personal Comment category of the 2014 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. The award, sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation, is given “for outstanding print, online and multimedia works and for travel photography and both audio and video broadcast.” Faculty members of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication judge the competition.

Siegel was recognized for her article “World Opens Up Solo,” published by the Jewish Independent.

The gold for Personal Comment went to Tony Perrottet, “Rich Tourist, Poor Tourist,” published by the New York Times; the bronze to Sean Carlson, “The Reach of a Single Village,” in the Irish Times; and an honorable mention to Christopher Solomon, “A Case for Getting Far, Far Away,” the New York Times.

Meeting the future together

The turning of the calendar presents opportunities for reflection and gratitude. We at the Jewish Independent are particularly grateful this year for the support we have experienced as a community institution. And that leads us to offer an expression of gratitude to you – our readers, our advertisers, our donors.

This year has seen the JI expand into a more fulsome and engaging online presence, with a fresh website and greater impact on social media. With the paper available in more than 35 locations, our content is reaching a wide audience.

The JI is, ostensibly, a for-profit venture. Realistically, it is a labor of love undertaken by a small group of people led by a sole proprietor. So, it is especially gratifying that the issue that you hold in your hands today – or have before you on your computer – is chockablock with advertisements. These advertisements are the lifeblood of this publication. More than ever before, everything outside of advertising is a zero sum game. Subscription fees cover only mailing costs. Everything else – staff time, writers’ compensation, printing, everything that goes into making a newspaper – is funded almost exclusively by advertising. In the last couple of years, many of you have been generous enough to donate to the paper, and this has helped greatly.

We continue to believe that this newspaper is irreplaceable glue for this community, a mirror and a place for dialogue.

While we need money – we are not going to lie about that – we also need the incredible diversity of talent that defines this community. If you or someone you know could make a contribution of time as a writer, as a filmmaker, a performer, a fundraiser, a social-media maven, or in whatever form suits your talents, you can make an important contribution to the continued success of this 84-year-old community publication.

Do not underestimate the power of your voice. If you saw something insightful in this week’s paper or online, tell your friends. Word-of-mouth may be as valuable as anything else in ensuring that the JI remains vital. Share on Facebook (like us!), Tweet about us (follow us!), pass your hard copy or forward your e-version to friends and family. Visit our website weekly, or even daily. There is always something new to read or watch, and the more activity we can demonstrate, the greater the revenue the site generates, making it possible for us to do more of what we do best.

Consider gift subscriptions for those close to you – or those far away, who would enjoy news from home. When considering birthday, graduation or other gifts, a book or a piece of exercise equipment (the JI understands the mind-body connection, after all), shop for them at Amazon or Astone Fitness via our website, as the paper receives a portion of sales.

If you pick up the paper for free at the Jewish Community Centre or one of our other depots, we value and need your readership, for sure, but please consider a donation. Any contribution is appreciated, and makes more impact than you can imagine.

And, of course, please support our advertisers – and let them know you understand the role they play in strengthening Jewish life in British Columbia by making possible everything we do in these pages and online.

All of these small but vitally important actions can make the difference between whether this 84-year-old community institution survives or whether we follow the fate of many other newspapers in this extremely difficult time for the industry.

We are moving in the right direction. The JI remains a strong example of small media done right (and a wall full of awards attest to the quality of our work). But we can’t do it alone. We need to work together if we – and so many other community organizations and businesses – are going to thrive for another eight decades.

The elite aren’t who you think they are

At any given time, but especially in recent weeks when Israel’s conflict with Hamas has been front-page news, a perusal of the comments under any story involving Jews almost inevitably devolves into some variation on the theme of Jewish control. It is notable how frequently, even in 21st-century Canada, Jews are depicted as manipulating the media and puppet-mastering the powerful, like the United States.

The advent of the electronic age has brought the phenomenon to even greater levels of intensity. We are now all broadcasters. We are all publishers. We are all curators of the news.

A few years ago, the vast majority of North Americans gathered their information from the same couple of sources. While every city and town had its own newspaper, these mostly received international news from the same few press agencies. On television, Canadians were offered CBC or CTV. We now have access to hundreds of English-language TV stations and millions, if not billions, of other sources for whatever information we seek. News, which was once a staid medium, has morphed into infotainment, in which beheadings in Iraq mingle with Kardashian marriages.

Time was, one could count on the fact that most of the people at your dinner party would have heard what Barbara Frum had said the previous night or would catch the reference to a Wayne and Shuster skit. Now, if you don’t “get” the references, an electronic device will promptly be provided so that you can watch the original source of the reference itself.

There is certainly something democratizing about this panoramic access to information. Yet there may be something contra to healthy democracy in this situation, as well. The underpinnings of a successful civil society rest partly on a shared foundation of knowledge. As we have become more individualized in our choices of what we know or ignore, those shared foundations are crumbling. That a great number of young people get their news from sources like Jon

Stewart’s The Daily Show is slightly reassuring in the sense that at least they’re getting some knowledge of world affairs, similar to the transition in the 1960s when attitudes changed from viewing comic books as something akin to pornography to a resigned attitude that “at least the kids are reading.”

It is true that social media has helped young people – all people – take up causes and devote themselves to social change if they seek to do so. One of the greatest examples was this summer’s ubiquitous Ice Bucket Challenge, which has raised millions of dollars for ALS research and advocacy. Still, there is a diminishing of comprehensive, shared, reliable news and information upon which all people form their opinions.

In a democracy, everyone has the same voice at the ballot box. But a democratic society is not formed only on one day every four years. A thriving democratic society requires the engagement of an informed population every day. From that perspective, democracies risk losing an important element of viability and vibrancy when a huge proportion of the population is choosing the garden channel over Newsworld, TMZ over the New York Times.

For centuries, there has been the conspiracy theory that a tiny minority somehow controls knowledge and everything that goes with it. In a strange way, this myth may be approaching reality. But it is not Jews who are the elite increasingly controlling what transpires in the world – it is the diminishing number of people who are actually paying attention.

This is not, like the conspiracy theory, the effect of a minority seizing control from the masses. It is the opposite: it is masses of people abdicating their right and responsibility to be informed, active participants in democratic society. And, as more people look away from the uncomfortable realities of the world, a smaller and smaller elite – those who choose to remain informed – will have an outsized influence on public opinion and what governments do worldwide.