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.<\/p>\n
Despite CJPME\u2019s name, the messaging from the group doesn\u2019t indicate that the \u201cjustice and peace\u201d they seek will be particularly just or peaceful for Jewish residents of the Middle East. What happened last week should clarify where the group \u2013 or at least its leader \u2013 stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently,\u201d Lascaris tweeted, \u201cLiberal 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.\u201d The tweet was a bit of a non sequitur. Lascaris had posted on a different platform about a B\u2019nai 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.<\/p>\n
Accusing Jews of dual loyalties, of being \u201cothers\u201d 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\u2019s comment.<\/p>\n
The next move is up to members of the organization. If the members of CJPME reject their chair\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve made this warning before: if Trudeau\u2019s apology for Canada\u2019s rejection of the \u2018voyage of the damned\u2019 compares Jews fleeing the Nazis to the contemporary crisis of illegal economic migrants, he will require an apology for his apology. Think carefully,\u201d tweeted Frum.<\/p>\n
Thinking carefully is indeed what everyone involved should do.<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 scheduled for the week in November that marks the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht \u2013 should be about the St. Louis, its passengers, the victims of Canada\u2019s 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\u2019s history of institutionalized antisemitism.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Regrettably, Frum threw an additional wrench in the works with her use of the term \u201cillegal economic migrants.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
That aside, the apology will almost certainly be welcomed by most Jewish Canadians. It will be an opportunity for Canadians to remember \u2013 and, for those who do not yet know, to learn \u2013 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s name, the messaging from the group doesn\u2019t indicate that the \u201cjustice and peace\u201d they seek will be particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[801,1635,755,3157,8371,8148,8372],"class_list":["post-30116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-ji","tag-antisemitism","tag-bnai-brith","tag-bnai-brith-canada","tag-canada","tag-dimitri-lascaris","tag-linda-frum","tag-st-louis"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}