UNESCO a mockery
There are those who envision a future without Israel in it. No one knows what the future holds, yet there are some who, in their enthusiasm for a future without a Jewish state, are reinventing the past. Last week, UNESCO,…
Opinion
Will the NDP survive?
While there were signs that the New Democratic Party’s rank and file were somewhat ambivalent about Thomas Mulcair’s leadership, the magnitude of the party’s rejection of him Sunday was stunning. Fully 52% of delegates to the party’s national convention in…
Case for a positive rethink
When speaking to Jewish audiences about advocacy, I often refer to my own background as a Jewish convert in making the point that we sometimes have to apply a fresh perspective – and have a collective “out-of-body” experience – to…
Reflections on Pesach
Passover is coming next week, yet it seems to have been with us in spirit a great deal this year. Many Jewish individuals and congregations in Vancouver and elsewhere have been involved in welcoming Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing tyranny…
Pragmatic, dirty choices
Franklin Roosevelt famously replied to his secretary of state’s assessment of the Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza Debayle – “Somoza’s a bastard!” – with the rejoinder “Yes, but he’s our bastard.” Politics makes strange bedfellows. International relations perhaps even more so.…
Is it time to end IJV herem?
When Vancouver-based songwriter and musician Daniel Maté wrote on his public Facebook page that he had declined an invitation from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver to accompany some singers on Yom Hazikaron, since he “couldn’t in conscience do that as…
Possibility of a better future
Teens light candles on March of the Living. (photo from March of the Living Canada) In April 2015, a group of 80 teens, under the guidance of three chaperones and a Holocaust survivor, arrived in Poland for a two-week journey exploring…
In the UN, on campus
Canada’s foreign minister has called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to review the appointment of Canadian law professor Michael Lynk as its special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine. Last week, Stéphane Dion tweeted (because that is how…
Antisemitism’s blurry lines
Avi Benlolo, president of the Canadian Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, was recently quoted in the National Post saying that Jewish university-bound applicants should consider options other than Toronto’s York University. The reason? A faculty association…
Trump at what cost?
“I didn’t come here tonight to pander to you about Israel,” Donald Trump told the AIPAC conference Monday evening, before proceeding to do exactly that. In his unique rhetorical way, Trump ticked off every box on the AIPAC agenda, and…
