As Jewish communities complete the cycle of the High Holy Days, we emerge from a period devoted to an accounting of the soul: reflection on the year that has passed, acknowledgment of failures, repentance, reconciliation and, ultimately, the possibility of renewal. This year, that ancient process takes place against a painfully modern backdrop.
It has been nearly three years since Oct. 7, 2023, ushered Jews around the world into an era in which antisemitism, for many, ceased to feel like an abstraction or a remnant of history. Jewish Canadians have faced harassment, intimidation and violence severe enough that Prime Minister Mark Carney himself acknowledged recently that antisemitism has surged to levels “not seen in the postwar period.”
That insecurity was brought home starkly on erev Yom Kippur in Belleville, Ont. Members of Sons of Jacob Congregation were gathering for Kol Nidre when gunfire erupted nearby. A police officer was seriously wounded and the alleged gunman subsequently died after an exchange of fire. Photographs show bullet damage to the synagogue’s stained-glass windows.
Against this backdrop, Carney arrives this week in New York for the 81st United Nations General Assembly.
The prime minister is expected to declare that Canada wants a reformed United Nations – one better able to fulfil its fundamental responsibilities for peace and security, development and human rights. He will bring a message that Canada wants multilateral institutions to be more effective, legitimate and responsive to a world that is dramatically changed. His message, if not his explicit words, will reflect the new reality caused by the erratic US administration’s upending of diplomatic (and other) norms.
There is plenty to reform at the UN.
For Jewish observers, the General Assembly has long provided one of the more dispiriting spectacles in international diplomacy: the ritualized annual procession of resolutions condemning Israel. Any serious UN reform would have to include this lopsided obsession – as well as the larger problem of UNRWA.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has provided education, health care, food and other indispensable services to millions of Palestinians for decades. The humanitarian need it addresses is real, and any discussion of reform must begin by acknowledging that civilians cannot simply be abandoned while governments debate institutional architecture.
But UNRWA has also faced profound questions about legitimacy, corruption, malfeasance and relations with terrorists.
Canada, under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, temporarily paused new UNRWA funding in January 2024 after reports that UNRWA officials were directly involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, but restored funding that March, saying it would support implementation of reforms.
Under Carney, Canada has continued substantial support. Ottawa has committed $100 million in long-term institutional funding over four years, in addition to humanitarian contributions, including a further $11 million agreement with UNRWA signed this year.
The question now is what “supporting reform” actually means.
Carney arrives at the United Nations pressing for greater effectiveness, less duplication and institutions capable of living up to their mandates. UNRWA offers a concrete measure against which those ambitions can be judged.
Addressing the widespread problems of UNRWA is not an act of hostility toward Palestinians. Quite the opposite. Palestinians deserve humanitarian institutions that are trusted, accountable and focused relentlessly on their welfare. Israelis deserve confidence that international institutions are not contributing, directly or indirectly, to the perpetuation of hatred, violence and terror. Donor countries deserve evidence that enormous sums spent ostensibly in the name of peace are actually advancing it. And Jews in Canada deserve an international order that applies its principles consistently.
The High Holy Days do not promise that reflection will erase what has happened. They suggest something more demanding: that honest examination can make a different future possible.
Nearly three years after Oct. 7, the darkness can sometimes seem to have become permanent. Belleville offered another unnerving reminder of how deeply insecurity has entered Jewish life in this country. But, as we were reminded this week, Yom Kippur ends not in despair. It ends with a final blast of the shofar and the joyous possibility of beginning again.
Institutions can do that, too. They can confront their failures, correct what has gone wrong and recommit themselves to the purposes for which they were created. If the United Nations is serious about renewal, there could hardly be a more appropriate time to demonstrate it.
Mark Carney, who has seemingly demonstrated more backbone than many in relations with the US administration could strengthen Canada’s efforts at becoming a meaningful middle power by demonstrating some of that resolve when he meets other leaders in New York to address the future of the UN.
