Opinion – Page 73

On restitution

The government of Canada has apologized to Omar Khadr and awarded him $10.5 million in damages. Khadr is a Canadian citizen whose parents took him as a child to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fifteen years ago, on July 27, 2002, a firefight took place in which Khadr, then 15, was wounded and a U.S. soldier, Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, was killed.

Khadr was arrested and incarcerated at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he pleaded guilty to throwing the grenade that killed Speer. Khadr later said he confessed falsely in the hope of returning to Canada. However, the facts of the firefight, whether Khadr was guilty or not guilty, whether he was a terrorist or a coerced child soldier-victim, are not relevant to the apology or the compensation.

The decision to apologize and pay Khadr millions of dollars is a result of a $20 million civil suit that Khadr launched after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously determined that the Canadian government’s interrogation of Khadr while he was at Guantanamo “offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.” The civil suit claimed that Canadian officials violated his rights, interrogating him when he was a minor, in the absence of legal representation. He also claims to have been subjected to torture, which would be consistent with the history of Guantanamo and evidence in the public realm.

The decision to apologize and compensate turns on this point: even if Khadr were guilty, the government of Canada did not adequately protect the rights and well-being of one of its citizens; indeed, it was complicit in their violation and acted outside of the rule of our own nation’s laws.

We can all make our own assessment of right and wrong in this case. But the Supreme Court of Canada made the key judgment about the legal foundation of Khadr’s case and the federal government – facing the alternative of almost certain failure in defending itself in the civil case, resulting in a much greater cost to taxpayers – opted to pay Khadr $10.5 million.

Whether it is First Nations land claims and residential schools payouts, symbolic payment to the Chinese-Canadian community for the head tax on their ancestors or compensation to Japanese-Canadians who were deprived of their property and forcibly sent to internment camps during the Second World War, money and an apology are poor substitutes for justice.

Money and an apology will not return lost years or family members. They cannot heal physical or mental wounds, though the money can help pay for medical and psychological treatment. Apologies and reparations cannot undo the harm done. But they can help hold our government and society accountable and, ultimately, that serves us all well.

It takes work to be your better self

Ever had one of those days? Or weeks? When things just fall to pieces around you? Sometimes it’s just stuff – a plumbing disaster or a flat tire. Sometimes it’s an interaction with another person that is so miserable that it ruins your day. For me, at least, those emotions of anger, hate, shame and embarrassment can completely knock me down into a bad place. It’s only natural, but it takes a lot of inner work to get myself on the right track.

I think of this as an inner struggle, which I am sure many of us have. It’s so hard not to take out your negative feelings on someone else. That’s why I think the Torah portion for last week, Balak (Numbers 22:2-25:9), is interesting. It’s not an easy text to study. There’s a lot in it, which is quickly summarized by the reformjudaism.org Torah study website as follows:

“Balak, the king of Moab, persuades the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites so that he can defeat them and drive them out of the region. However, Balaam blesses the Children of Israel instead and prophesies that Israel’s enemies will be defeated. (22:2-24:25)

“G-d punishes the Israelites with a plague for consorting with the Moabite women and their god. The plague is stayed after Pinchas kills an Israelite man and his Midianite woman. (25:1-9)”

This summary contains some detail, but skips the part where G-d stops Balaam in his tracks and keeps him from cursing Israel. It involves a talking donkey. (This is definitely a portion that you should re-read if you have forgotten it.) The donkey refuses to budge because an angel, sent by G-d, blocks its way. Balaam, a prophet, ends up blessing the Israelites, instead of cursing them, because he can speak only what the angel says he will put in his mouth. G-d tells Balaam what to say.

Is Balaam really a changed man when his curses become blessings? Is someone so filled with hate and curses able to turn things around for good? Or is this amazing blessing that he offers only happening because the Almighty intervenes?

I have a hard time believing in a personal form of the Divinity that pops down and fills our mouths with blessings. Some people do have that kind of faith, and believe that the right thing will arrive, heaven-sent, to save the day. For me, this portion is perhaps about something else.

Balak and Balaam are filled with hate and prejudice when they see the Israelites, who are in some sense, refugees. They are the “other” – strangers who are passing through, and many people find reasons to fear or hate the “other” in their midst.

Yet, just like those days when we have inner struggles, we need to have our better selves win out over feelings of negativity. Sometimes we can rise above our fear, anger or other feelings. When we do, sometimes we can observe the beauty of someone or something that is different and special. We can learn from that new experience.

I’m always knocked out by the beauty of Balaam’s blessing. Whenever I sing “Ma Tovu” – “How beautiful are your tents, Oh Jacob, Your dwelling places, Israel” – which comes directly from this Torah portion, I feel the awe and wonder in the words. Rashi points out that the tents were placed so that their door flaps faced outwards. Even though in the encampment everyone was close together, they were able to maintain a sort of tidy privacy, and a space for separate families by placing their entrances away from one another.

I’ve felt overwhelmed by the hate speech, terrorism, starvation and war that are happening around us. Yet, sometimes, we see a little hope in the media reports. There are amazing people of all faiths who rise up to help. There are even people who capture a terrorist or criminal but conquer their own yetzer hara, or evil inclination, manage to find their best selves and keep that person from harm until the police arrive.

Why does this portion begin with a curse that turns to a blessing, and end with a plague and punishment? I have a hard time with this sort of literal punishment, but it seems like a powerful metaphor. Perhaps it is a way of reminding us that even when we are tempted, and struggle with curses and acts of violence, we must find our best selves and behave morally. We must offer blessings to others. We have to open ourselves up to the “other.” We can learn from and admire their ingenuity. We also need to stick to our beliefs, and guard against being led astray. We can avoid that part inside ourselves that seeks to do harm, and try to help others control that urge to harm, too.

In a practical, positive sense, most Canadian Jews are lucky, our communities are diverse, full of newcomers and people who have been here generations – we are from all over the world. We can open ourselves up to enjoying a diversity of Jewish customs, practices and ideas that enrich our institutions and celebrations. Further, we can enjoy the diversity of the wider community, which is also intensely rich.

We can be different than those who seek tit-for-tat vengeance. Tempted to fight back during a negative exchange, or to cut someone off in a fit of road-rage? Step back.

Think about that talking donkey. Imagine if your car did that to you! Smile. Be the better person. You have that yetzer hatov, the good inclination, right there. Let it out. Be a blessing.

Joanne Seiff, a regular columnist for Winnipeg’s Jewish Post and News, is the author of a new book, From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016. This collection of essays is available for digital download, or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her on joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Express your opinion

The good news is we’re again debating “who is a Jew.” This is good news, of course, only because it’s a topic that divides Jews mostly when external threats abate enough to allow the luxury of pilpul around denominational rights and definitions.

We can only assume that the state of the world – the Iranian threat, the unhinged American administration, Syria in collapse – looks fine enough from the Israeli prime minister’s office that we have the freedom to indulge in family squabbles.

A year-and-a-half ago, the Israeli government finally agreed to create an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall. The Charedim who legally control Israel’s Jewish religious character, including practices at the Wall, have imposed a strict gender division on prayer and ritual at the holy site. This has sent the message to Conservative, Reform and other non-Orthodox Jews that the holy site is not wholly theirs and, by extension, that their forms of Judaism are not authentic or proper. The creation of an egalitarian section was hailed as putting an end to a painful and divisive aspect of Israeli-Diaspora relations.

An egalitarian space would permit families to visit the Kotel together, allow girls to read from the Torah during their bat mitzvahs and give women the right to pray out loud, rather than following the existing rules by which women must pray quietly so that their voices may not be heard by men on the other side of the divided plaza. The agreement for a new egalitarian space would not alter the existing men’s and women’s areas, but rather add a new, third space, south of the traditional prayer areas.

At the time the agreement was reached, Anat Hoffman, chair of the board of Women of the Wall, a group that has been at the fore in advancing the goal of an egalitarian space and whose members are routinely arrested for praying at the Kotel with prayer shawls, said the decision by Israel’s cabinet was an acknowledgment “that there is more than one way to be Jewish.”

Last week, the Netanyahu government changed its mind and decided there is not.

Bending to pressure from the ultra-Orthodox members of his coalition, the proverbial tail that so often wags the dog in Israel’s political system, Netanyahu called a snap vote on whether the decision taken in January 2016 to create the egalitarian space should indeed proceed. Ministers who last year voted in favour last week voted against.

In for a penny, in for a pound, the government at the same time advanced a bill that would reinstate the Orthodox monopoly on conversions and lifecycle events, including marriage and burials. Among the implications is that Jews not converted under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate – in other words, by Conservative, Reform or other non-Orthodox rabbis – would not be recognized as Jews.

On most issues, Israel should take Diaspora concerns into consideration only secondarily to what is right for Israel. We have said in this space before, for instance, that Israeli defence policies should be determined with the security of Israelis as the priority, not the comfort of Diaspora Jews who have to live with the political consequences, but not the life-and-death consequences facing Israelis.

This is different. Rules regarding prayer at the Western Wall – who, where and how – should be made with the interests of the Jewish people – not just Israelis – foremost in mind. Of course, if the rules were made with the majority of Israelis in mind, they would reflect the diversity of religious observance both in Israel and in the Diaspora. Instead, what we have is a narrow reflection of ultra-Orthodox priorities that is more a result of political realities in the Knesset than religious reality anywhere outside that chamber.

Ultimately, these decisions are a result of political, not religious, considerations. The political needs of the Netanyahu government’s coalition appear to be superseding the Jewish state’s respect for diversity and pluralism within the global Jewish peoplehood.

“We believe in Jewish unity, not uniformity,” states a letter to Netanyahu signed by scores of Canadian rabbis. “The spectrum of Jewish practice is diverse, but it need not lead to divisiveness. Our differences are eclipsed by all that unites us: millennia of shared history and a shared future. What happens to Jews today – no matter where they live or where they attend synagogue – invariably affects us all.… We are an indivisible people, which is why we are deeply concerned by these and any other actions that unnecessarily foment division within amcha.”

Most of us do not have a vote in Israel, but each of us has a voice. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is urging each of us to contact the Israeli embassy to express our views on this vital matter. Please do.

Prejudiced reasoning

On June 24, as part of gay pride festivities taking place in cities around the world, an incident occurred at a “dyke march” in Chicago that rightfully caught the attention of people everywhere. A group of Jews who were attending the event with rainbow pride flags emblazoned with the Star of David were asked to leave.

There are at least two galling aspects to this incident. The first and most obvious is the unabashed bigotry of throwing people out of what is ostensibly a human rights march because they belong to an identifiable group. The second is the misrepresentation of victim and victimizer – Jews were asked to leave because some other participants might feel “triggered” or “unsafe.”

To understand the reasoning, such as it is, we need to recognize how concepts of minority and human rights have altered in recent years – and how these changes bode ill for Jews.

Among the varied forms of antisemitism is one that sees Jews as the embodiment of privilege. This is because antisemitism differs from many other forms of discrimination in part by how the perpetrators view their target. White supremacy, which also seems to be having a renaissance in the United States, is a strain of discrimination that allows the perpetrator to feel better about themselves by positioning themselves (in their minds) above members of another group. Antisemitism, at present at least, differs in that the perpetrators often attribute to Jews a sense of superiority. Review the comments section of almost any news story involving Jews and see how ubiquitous the term “Chosen people” is in the screeds of antisemites. There is a prevalent idea that Jews think they are better than other people – and deserve to be brought down a notch.

In Chicago, people who see themselves as victims turned what limited power they had onto a group that they miscategorized through a crude and racist ideological lens: the powerful Jews may oppress Palestinians and control Hollywood, Washington, the banks, the media and what not, but, at the very least, we can promote equality and justice by kicking them out of our dyke march. There is actually a logic to it, if you recognize the prejudiced reasoning behind it.

Economic inequality experienced by minorities, police violence, systemic discrimination, growing social intolerance, a rise of open racism and xenophobia and a vast range of other problems are real. The idea that anyone was “unsafe” because Jews were present in a lesbian march is not. This type of thinking diminishes the credibility of these movements. It also undermines the foundation of the entire social justice movement, which talks constantly about “allies.” When it comes to Jews, it seems, talk is all it is.

Canada, Israel, Jews

When Canada belatedly opened its door to Jewish refugees – to some of the surviving remnant after the Holocaust – it did so not out of an abundance of humanitarianism but because of economic necessity, the need for skilled and unskilled workers in a booming economy.

Regardless of the motivation, that influx of refugees redefined Jewish identity in Canada. The increased Jewish population and the institutions they spawned essentially built the community we know today.

As former Vancouverite Adara Goldberg described in her book Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947–1955, the institutions that we now see as the organized Jewish community were created for and by the refugees and immigrants who came after the war. By contrast, those who came to the United States after the war were greeted by and largely assimilated into a strong Jewish community already in progress.

This has had several corollaries. The worldview of Canadian Jewish institutions – and, though not easily verifiable, probably a majority of Jewish Canadians individually – is imbued with the understandable anxieties imprinted on those who witnessed the rise of fascism and lived through it.

On the flip side, the Canadian Jewish community as we know it can be said to have been born almost contemporaneously with the state of Israel. Again, while Zionism is entwined with the American Jewish community, that community had many other preexisting cultural and political dimensions. In Canada, the rebirth and survival of the Jewish state occurred at the most impressionable period in the community’s history. As well, the idea of Jewish self-determination as the surest path to individual and collective security resonated powerfully with a community disproportionately made up of survivors of the Shoah. Moreover, Canada’s approach to multiculturalism, especially after 1967, differed from the American “melting pot” and suspicion of “dual loyalties.”

So, the nature of Diaspora-Israel relations is different for Canadians versus Americans. Yet, some of the challenges are the same.

A new essay by David Hazony, editor of the American Jewish magazine The Tower, takes a new tack on the topic of American Jewry’s existential challenges. The Jewish population is not only declining, he notes, but changing. The only demographic that is flourishing is the Orthodox, which is not necessarily reflective of what would have been recognized as “American Jewry” in the 1950s and ’60s. The two most-recognized paths to avoid assimilation, he says, are currently orthodoxy and aliyah – but he suggests a third way.

Hazony posits that the answer to challenges facing American Jews right now is a little more Israel. The essay reviews concerns that American (read: Diaspora) Jews and Israelis are talking across a widening divide. Hazony’s suggestion is that Americans, who have for generations viewed Israel as a political cause, begin to integrate Israeliness as a cultural characteristic and embrace it as the future of their Diaspora identity. For instance, he says, Diaspora Jews immersing ourselves in Israeli cinema, even with subtitles, will give us a remedial entry point into the culture.

Language – not an easy thing to learn, particularly for notoriously unilingual Americans, Hazony acknowledges – is another important entry point.

“Without Hebrew,” he writes, “any approach to Israeliness will be like walking into an enormous library in a foreign language but relegated to the tiny English-language section.”

He suggests a network of Hebrew language and culture centres modeled on the French example. How many times have you driven by the Alliance Française building south of Oakridge?

Finally, travel. Just 27% of Americans have visited Israel more than once, he notes. To understand a place, you have to go there.

The essay is fascinating and offers ideas that could both strengthen Diaspora communities and narrow the gap between us and our Israeli cousins.

As Canada Day festivities unfurl in the coming days, we will see the familiar dictum “The world needs more Canada.” In some ways, we can proudly say, the world would indeed be a more peaceful, cooperative and respectful place if Canadian models were emulated elsewhere. Like any country, we have our flaws, our oppressive history and current inequalities. But, as countries go, we’re pretty good.

Hazony is taking a similar tack, arguing that Diaspora Jews need a little more Israeliness.

In Vancouver, we are very fortunate that our Jewish community centre has, for longer than we can remember, recognized the vital importance of connections with Israel. A plethora of other Israel-related organizations keep these bonds strong.

While pondering what is great about Canada in the coming week, we might also reflect on the value of integrating more Israeli culture into our lives. It can enrich us individually and enhance Canadian multiculturalism, too.

Good relationships matter

My parents, married 52 years, have a long-standing joke. Sometimes, they would go out and everything would be a disaster. We’d be in the neighbourhood pizza joint and someone would throw up. Or, one kid would spill something sticky all over somebody else. There would be a fly in the soup. We’d have a fight. The car would break down. We’d have an encounter with a terribly nasty person. Then, my mom would turn to my dad, poke him, and say, “Listen, Seiff, if this were a first date, I’d never go out with you again!”

Sometimes we’d all laugh but, often, we’d turn away with a wry smile, because that was all we could manage. Later, we knew it would be funny, because we didn’t base everything on that one outing … but sometimes people do! How often does one bad (Jewish) encounter ruin a first date, a first visit to a new synagogue, a networking opportunity? How can we salvage these awful experiences?

In the Torah portion B’midbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20), which we read last month, there’s a lot of census-taking and numbers. This isn’t counting every person, but those who can fight when assembling a military. There’s order in this parashah, so we understand that a strong army, or even a strong society, needs to be well-organized and administered. We need leaders, as mentioned in Numbers 1:16. Rashi points out that the elected ones, the chieftains of their tribes – “These were those called of the congregation; those who were called upon for every matter of importance that happened in the congregation.” We read edah as a tribe, but it can also mean a social or ethnic group (Yemenite Israelis, for instance) or a congregation.

Numbers matter, and good administration matters – but it isn’t all that matters. When Dr. Ron Wolfson came to visit Winnipeg in April as the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue scholar-in-residence, he asked a group of lay leaders and Jewish professionals, “How many Jewish people live here?” Immediately, there was an undercurrent of talk. Indeed, how many of us are in Winnipeg? My next thought was – does it matter?

In the same Torah portion of B’midmar, Nadav and Abihu are mentioned, in Numbers 3:4. However, because they offered “alien fire” (an unacceptable sacrifice) in the Sinai, they were struck down. Others were counted in their place. Nadav and Abihu made one bad mistake. They had one bad encounter (one bad date?) with the Almighty. That’s all it took for them to be killed and knocked out of Judaism forever.

It takes many positive encounters to reinforce a relationship. So, a Jewish person needs repeated positive experiences in a Jewish community to keep coming back. Some shake off a bad experience or two with a smile, joke or laugh. However, it depends on the person, and what happened. It can take “one bad date” to be turned off forever.

Wolfson described how small things make a huge difference in how we relate to one another. Greeting someone with a smile, offering them a warm participatory musical experience, some honey cake or a hug can make all the difference. These things aren’t expensive. They aren’t hard to do – but for some reason, many congregations still resist any change at all, even if it’s an entirely positive community-building shift that costs little or nothing to implement.

A joke followed. What does it say above the ark, the aron hakodesh, at your congregation? At Shaarey Zedek, it says, “Know before whom you stand.” Wolfson said that all shuls probably should have a different tag line – “But we’ve always done it this way.”

If you are entirely satisfied with how things go in your Jewish community, by all means, don’t change a thing. Keep doing what you’re doing. However, if you’re not satisfied? If your children don’t want to join, or the membership is declining, or people aren’t volunteering or contributing to your organization in the way you’d like, you need to stop and ask if the way you’re doing things is really working. Is your approach still relevant? Is it inclusive? Does it create positive encounters that matter?

B’midbar teaches us that numbers and administration matter – but only if you have committed members or people to count. Negative experiences can strike us down (like Nadav and Abihu) or just be a bump in the road, if you have a healthy long-term relationship. I was struck, at the end of a whole weekend of this Jewish learning and enrichment, by how energized some participants were with many good ideas for the future.

At the same time, I encountered those who said, “Thank you, but …” and wanted to say how they disagreed, what was wrong and what wouldn’t work here. Have you ever found that kvetching – without offering solutions – makes positive change?

Ever read the children’s book Stone Soup? A motivated, positive community can feed many people with a stone, some old vegetables, and maybe a stewing hen. Throw in some donations of flour and yeast and you have bread. It’s not expensive. It’s not hard to do. Yet, one must consistently ignore the naysayers while doing it. Are we willing to step up and make suggestions for building good, long-term Jewish community relationships?

Good. Bring your old carrots and dried up root veggies. Our skills and Jewish congregations can make something delicious together. Inexpensive solutions, kindness, smiles and constructive suggestions welcome. Let’s build our numbers by welcoming folks to the table with what we’ve got. Even a humble soup tastes better, or a song sounds richer, when we make it and sing it ourselves.

Boost defence of peace

Pierre Trudeau once compared living next to the United States to sleeping with an elephant. “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt,” Trudeau told the Washington press in 1969.

The former PM’s son, current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to be recognizing that, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the beast is as uneven-tempered as it has been in living memory.

The United States is currently led by a man whose foreign policy compass swings from tweet to tweet. There is no way to predict what position he will take next, having repeatedly besmirched NATO and other agencies of internationalism. The European powers have explicitly or implicitly taken the once-unthinkable position of deeming the United States no longer a dependable ally.

In successive major policy speeches last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan laid out somewhat new directions for the Canadian government, both seeming to concur, at least implicitly, that the United States is not the reliable ally it once was.

Sajjan promised a $62 billion boost to defence spending over 20 years, which would seem to be good news for Trump, who has criticized NATO member-nations for not pulling their weight. However, it came on the heels of Freeland’s speech a day earlier, in which she expressed concern that Americans seem prepared to “shrug off the burden of world leadership.”

It is easy to criticize American leadership – under any administration – and, admittedly, while the possibility of U.S. intervention might have given some dictators and oppressors cause for pause, American power has also strengthened dictators and oppressors when it has been in their interests. Nonetheless, the abdication of American leadership creates a frightening vacuum.

Jewish tradition includes the value of lo ta’amod al dam rei’echa, the prohibition against passivity in the face of violence to others. This rather universal concept seems likely to be diminished under the Trump presidency.

“The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership puts in sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course,” Freeland told MPs. “To say this is not controversial: it is a fact.” She added: “To put it plainly: Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes require the backing of hard power.”

This is a stark shift in Canadian policy of the past 40 or so years. Without openly saying so, Canadians have been happy to keep military budgets low, knowing that our neighbour would have our back if push came to shove. Canada has little to fear in the form of foreign invasion, although our sovereignty in the Arctic could come under threat by Russia (or even the United States) at almost anytime.

More immediately, what our deflection of military might has created is a limited ability to act in ways on the world stage that reflect Canada’s stated values, which include the pursuit of justice (in Jewish tradition, bakesh shalom v’rodfehu) and the protection of human dignity. Again, when faced with Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Middle East, or with the barbarity of ISIS, or civil war in Syria, or countless other tragic flashpoints globally, Canada has been satisfied to allow our closest ally to set the terms on the ground.

We have been able to have our cake and eat it, too, for many years, calling our approach “soft power,” which means moral suasion based on a degree of global respect Canada has achieved, while leaving “hard power” to our NATO allies. Our role in Afghanistan is an exception, and a source of pride for those who believe that the people of that country should live free from oppressive entities.

This is an imperfect example, of course, since Afghanistan remains riven by terrorism and political division. That average Afghanis, particularly women and minorities, are better off now than under the Taliban is unquestionable. While our presence there has had tangible results, in the global context, it is a somewhat symbolic engagement. Our military has limited capacity to engage similarly in another theatre and would certainly be stretched to the limit if we were to be called into two or more conflicts.

Canada does not – and should not – aspire to be a global military powerhouse. But to maintain self-defence capabilities and to act on our values in a difficult world – at a time when the great power we counted on to do this on our behalf is recanting – requires us to make financial commitments.

We must balance these commitments with our ability to fund social programs and other policies of national pride. Any increased international role should be focused on trying to prevent conflicts, supporting peace efforts and on providing humanitarian and other economic aid.

How to slow climate change

President Donald Trump has received well-deserved condemnation from, among others, leaders of many nations, many governors, mayors, environmentalists, corporate chief executive officers and Jewish and other religious organizations for withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris climate change pact that was agreed to by all the 195 nations that attended, including Israel, Canada and the United States. How should Jews respond to the U.S. withdrawal?

First, Jews should become very familiar with the issues involved. Ten important climate-related factors are:

Science academies worldwide, 97% of climate scientists and 99.9% of peer-reviewed papers on the issue in respected scientific journals argue that climate change is real, is largely caused by human activities and poses great threats to humanity. All 195 nations at the December 2015 Paris climate change conference agreed that immediate steps must be taken to combat climate change.
Every decade since the 1970s has been warmer than the previous decade and all of the 17 warmest years since temperature records were first kept in 1880 have been since 1998. The year 2016 was the warmest globally since 1880, breaking the record held before by 2015 and previously by 2014, meaning we now have had three consecutive years of record temperatures.
Polar icecaps and glaciers worldwide have been melting rapidly, faster than scientific projections. This has caused an increase of elevation in oceans worldwide, with the potential for major flooding.
There has been an increase in the number and severity of droughts, wildfires, storms and floods.
California has been subjected to so many severe climate events (heat waves, droughts, wildfires and mudslides when heavy rains occur) recently that its governor, Jerry Brown, stated, “Humanity is on a collision course with nature.” California serves as an example of how climate change can wreak havoc.
Many climates experts believe that we are close to a tipping point due to feedback loops, when climate change will spiral out of control, with disastrous consequences, unless major positive changes soon occur.
While many climate scientists think that 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric CO₂ is a threshold value for climate stability, the world reached 400 ppm in 2014 and the amount is increasing by two to three parts per million per year.
While climate scientists hope that temperature increases can be limited to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), largely because that is the best that can be hoped for with current trends and momentum, the world is now on track for an average increase of four to six degrees Celsius, which would result in great human suffering and significant threats to human civilization.
The Pentagon and other military groups think that climate change will increase the potential for instability, terrorism and war by reducing access to food and clean water and by causing tens of millions of refugees fleeing from droughts, wildfire, floods, storms and other effects of climate change.
The group ConservAmerica, formerly known as Republicans for Environmental Protection, is very concerned about climate change threats. They are working to end the denial about climate threats by the vast majority of Republicans, but so far with very limited success.

Second, Jews should consider Judaism’s powerful teachings that can be applied to environmental sustainability. These include:

“In the hour when the Holy One, Blessed be He, created the first man, he took him and let him pass before all the trees in the Garden of Eden and said to him: ‘See my works, how fine and excellent they are. Now, all that I created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt or destroy my world. For, if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you.” (Midrash: Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28)
Genesis 2:15 indicates that the human role is to work the land but also to guard and preserve it. Jews are mandated to be shomrei ha’adama, guardians of the earth, co-workers with God in working for tikkun olam, healing and repairing the world.
Judaism teaches: “Who is the wise person? The one who considers the future consequences of his or her actions.”
The Jewish sages expand Deuteronomy 20:19-20, prohibiting the destruction of fruit trees in wartime to build battery rams to overcome an enemy fortification, to make a general prohibition against unnecessarily destroying anything of value.

Jews should be on the forefront of efforts to help avert a climate catastrophe. We should try to significantly reduce our individual carbon footprints by recycling, using efficient light bulbs and other items, eating less meat, reducing our use of automobiles by walking, biking, sharing rides and using mass transit, when appropriate, and in other ways. We should support efforts to increase efficiencies of automobiles and other items, shift to renewable sources of energy and make societal steps that reduce greenhouse emissions.

We should try to arrange programs on climate change at synagogues, Jewish centres and other Jewish venues, write letters to editors, speak to family members, friends, neighbours and co-workers, and take other steps to increase awareness of the seriousness of climate threats and how applying Jewish values can help reduce them. We should do everything possible to reduce climate change and to help shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path.

Richard H. Schwartz, PhD, is professor emeritus, College of Staten Island, president emeritus of Jewish Veg and president of the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians. He is the author of several books, including Judaism and Vegetarianism and Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet, and more than 250 articles at jewishveg.org/schwartz. He was associate producer of the documentary A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World.

Ignorance and power

Rebecca Katzman is graduating from the School of Social Work at Ryerson University in Toronto this spring. Now that she is leaving the institution, she has decided to go public with an incident that happened when she applied for a field education placement at a Jewish agency.

The story emerged recently and Katzman shared the experience firsthand in the Canadian Jewish News last week.

For her third-year work experience placement, she asked the school’s coordinator to investigate possible opportunities at UJA Federation or the Prosserman Jewish Community Centre. The school official responsible, Heather Bain, denied Katzman’s request, telling her that her choices were incompatible with the values of the school.

“I did not follow up with Prosserman JCC or UJA because after looking into them, some of their values seem to be in opposition to the values of the school,” Bain wrote in an email to Katzman, adding that the agencies both appear to have a “strong anti-Palestinian lean.” Later, Katzman said, Bain suggested that Katzman could work with the Jewish organizations only if she came in with an agenda to “bring a critical awareness to the setting.”

“It seemed that she implied that I could only work at these agencies if I came in with an anti-Israel agenda,” Katzman wrote in CJN.

When pressed by Katzman, Bain acknowledged that she did not do her own investigation into the organizations, but relied on the advice of colleagues who are members of Jews Against Israeli Apartheid. She added that she might change her position if she discovered that “both agencies (were) supporters of Palestinian solidarity movements.”

It turns out Bain may have underestimated who she was dealing with. Katzman was not only active in student organizations supporting Israel and opposing antisemitism on campus, she was a StandWithUs Emerson Fellow, part of what is described as a “prestigious one-year fellowship program that recruits, trains, educates and inspires pro-Israel college students to become an elite cadre of leaders on college campuses across North America.”

StandWithUs provided Katzman with pro bono legal counsel. Even so, despite legal assistance and a history of involvement in Jewish activism, Katzman did not go public until her time at Ryerson was over. How many students in Canada have had similar experiences but lacked the resources or fortitude to stand up to it?

It is clear that Bain’s extraordinary decision was based on almost complete ignorance of the reality of the organizations she besmirched, having been arrived at on the advice of individuals who come from an extreme anti-Israel position. For a person in a position of power to set policies, this is disgraceful.

It takes courage to stand up to this sort of injustice. Those who choose – or who, like Katzman – are forced to confront it deserve our encouragement, support and gratitude.

The year it all changed

On May 24, Israelis celebrated the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem in the streets around the Jerusalem Great Synagogue. (photo from Ashernet)

Everything changed in 1967. Fifty years ago, Canada celebrated its 100th birthday, hosting an Expo in Montreal and, at least in the narrative we like to tell ourselves, came into our own as a country.

We became a country in 1867, “came of age,” historians tell us, at Vimy Ridge, in 1917, gained full autonomy from Britain’s Parliament in 1931, and adopted our very own constitution in 1982. But 1967 is when we stopped being a baby-country and became a confident, adult-like state on the world stage.

It’s possible that few Canadians pinpoint 1967 as a particular turning point. The various measures of Canadian pride – the U.S. exchange rate, hockey titles, military engagements, pop cultural contributions – have ebbed and flowed in the successive decades. National unity saw multiple flashpoints, from the October Crisis just three years after the euphoria of the Centennial, to the referenda of 1980 and 1995, the latter of which almost ended the nation. Free trade and globalization altered us once again.

“Canadianness” itself changed dramatically in this half-century, from a concept rooted in British heritage to a recognition of “two founding nations” to celebrating multiculturalism and a belated recognition of the rights and tragic history of indigenous peoples resulting directly from our national project. In this time, too, Canada has gone from a staid, comparatively conservative place to one of the most liberal countries in the world. Institutionalized antisemitism, which was still rife in the Canada of 1967, has become almost entirely absent (although incidents and acts of antisemitism, like much else, continue to occur).

While nothing really substantive changed overnight, 1967 is a symbolic moment in Canadian history.

For Israel, 1967 had symbolism but, in very real, tangible and irreversible ways, it was a year when everything changed. While it didn’t happen overnight, it did take a mere six days. The Six Day War, which began June 5, 1967, literally and figuratively reshaped Israel, the Middle East, Diaspora Jewry and global diplomacy.

In its early years, Israel experienced exponential population growth like almost no country on earth has seen. It went from the proverbial desert to a blooming success, first through innovations in agriculture and, later, in technology and almost every other sector of human endeavour. A successful nation was born. But the Jewish state was never accepted by the neighbours it defeated in 1948-’49 and, in 1967, war came again.

Yet the result was so quick and so decisive that some viewed it as a sign of Divine intervention or evidence of chosenness. More realistically, it was a people holding their ground because there was no alternative.

The experience affected not only Israelis but Jews everywhere. Canadian Jews and others in the Diaspora volunteered, sent money, prayed and organized. Less than two decades after it had begun, Jewish self-determination in the ancient land and modern state of Israel hung by a thread. And then victory.

The anxiety before and jubilation after transformed into something new and unexpected. The control by Israel over the West Bank (formerly part of Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (which had been under Egyptian control) led to a new dynamic in Israel – and in the world’s approach to Israel. Having been seen as the underdog, Israel in 1967 transformed – in the eyes of the world and, to an extent, in the eyes of Israelis themselves – into a powerful regional force.

The occupation has been the defining foreign policy concern for Israel for half a century now and affects the way Israel is treated on the global stage. Jerusalem, reunified under Israeli control during the war, is a flashpoint of local and international conflict over competing claims. Israelis will likely be forced to reckon with the legacy of 1967 for many years to come, as it seeks to protect both the democratic and Jewish natures of the state, as well as reaffirming its commitment to minority rights and to pluralism.

Despite this overarching conflict and its associated violence and threats, Israel has developed an economy and culture that is a human-made miracle of the modern world. The list is familiar and endless: scientific and academic achievement, technological innovation, global emergency response, lifesaving medical advancements. Even Israel’s intelligence capabilities, born of necessity, are so advanced that the president of the United States foolishly can’t help bragging to adversarial foreign despots that he has insider intel.

Amid all these challenges and hard work, Israelis self-report in international studies to be among the happiest people on the planet. (Canadians also rank high.) Even with room for improvement, this reality is perhaps the greatest achievement of all.