{"id":37085,"date":"2021-06-25T01:53:27","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T08:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=37085"},"modified":"2021-06-24T23:59:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T06:59:51","slug":"stepping-up-to-confront-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/06\/25\/stepping-up-to-confront-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Stepping up to confront hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Jewish Federation\u2019s Shelley Rivkin, CJPAC\u2019s Kara Mintzberg and CIJA\u2019s Nico Slobinsky spoke at an online event June 17 on topics including how individuals can help fight antisemitism in Canada. (PR photos)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Representatives from three Jewish communal agencies spoke at an online event June 17 on topics including online hate, adoption of the Working Definition of Antisemitism, strengthening supports for the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes, and how individuals can help fight antisemitism in Canada.<\/p>\n

Shelley Rivkin, vice-president of local and global engagement at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Kara Mintzberg, B.C. regional director for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), and Nico Slobinsky, director of the Pacific region of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), spoke about how their agencies are confronting the surge in antisemitism, as well as a range of other topics.<\/p>\n

Dafna Silberstein, associate director of the Jewish Federation\u2019s Israel and global engagement department, opened the evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here tonight to understand the Canadian political process and learn how you can become more involved, how we can become engaged with a range of issues that matters to you and to our community, and to learn what our community organizations are doing to combat antisemitism,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rivkin described Federation\u2019s role as \u201cour community\u2019s primary convener.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are an umbrella organization that represents over 25 organizations locally and an additional number of organizations, approximately 10, in our partnership region [in Israel\u2019s Galil Panhandle] and globally,\u201d said Rivkin.<\/p>\n

Federation is the central fundraising arm of the community and runs programs and partners with other agencies to care for the most vulnerable. About one in six Jewish British Columbians lives in poverty, she said, including 13.4% of Jewish children. Federation is also critically involved in supporting Jewish day schools and ensuring continued provincial support for those institutions, she added.<\/p>\n

Antisemitic incidents and threats have spiked in recent weeks, coincident with the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Rivkin said the relationships Federation has built with other ethnocultural agencies and communities have proven valuable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a long history of working side-by-side with other ethnocultural communities,\u201d she said. \u201cThese relationships and the supports that we provide are very important so that, when we stand up and speak out on behalf of other ethnocultural organizations, we\u2019re building the bridges and relationships so that they will stand up and speak out on our behalf. Especially this past month, we\u2019ve been very proactive in reaching out to the Indigenous community and the Muslim communities, both of whom faced significant losses over this past month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivkin also noted Federation\u2019s substantial investment \u2013 about $1 million annually \u2013 in community security.<\/p>\n

\u201cHate crimes against our community remain one of the highest reported crimes in Canada,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was why, in 2016, we made the decision to invest in a director of security that is available and responsive to all of our community organizations, in particular those organizations that have stand-alone facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slobinsky explained that CIJA represents hundreds of thousands of voices affiliated with Jewish federations across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cCombating antisemitism, educating Canadians about the central role that Israel plays in Jewish life, strengthening the ties between Canada and Israel and ensuring that Jewish voices are represented in the discussion on a range of issues is some of the long-term work that CIJA does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Because of CIJA\u2019s lobbying, he said, the federal government has announced an emergency summit on combating antisemitism, to be led by former justice minister Irwin Cotler.<\/p>\n

CIJA also promotes the adoption by governments of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition on Antisemitism, which Slobinsky calls \u201cthe gold standard definition for antisemitism\u201d and a vital tool in fighting antisemitism in Canada and around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in our history, we have a definition [of antisemitism] that we as a community champion, that the Canadian government has adopted and now Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec have adopted,\u201d Slobinsky said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very useful tool to work with our elected officials, law enforcement, our partners in other communities, when they ask us what is antisemitism, how do you experience antisemitism, how it manifests.\u2026 We are defining what our own discrimination, our own oppression, looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

CIJA is also calling on federal and provincial governments to increase supports for existing hate crime teams in British Columbia and to initiate teams to investigate and prosecute hate crimes in jurisdictions where investigation teams do not yet exist.<\/p>\n

Of CJPAC, Mintzberg said: \u201cWe are all about political engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur focus is on getting our community interested and involved in politics through volunteering and building relationships with elected officials,\u201d she said. CJPAC, she emphasized, is not involved in lobbying or advocacy; that\u2019s CIJA\u2019s job. \u201cWe create programs that reflect the mandate of engagement and highlight the importance of getting involved in Canada\u2019s political process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jewish voters have a significant presence in only about 10 of the country\u2019s 338 ridings. Especially during elections, Mintzberg said, CJPAC acts as a \u201cpolitical concierge,\u201d connecting volunteers with candidates. As Canada is currently governed by a minority government, an election could come at any time. She calls on community members to step up now and be prepared when that call comes.<\/p>\n

Mintzberg asked that people pledge to volunteer in the next election and participate in a free, one-hour online training course, which can be accessed via cjpac.ca<\/a>. Slobinsky invited participants to visit cija.ca\/takeaction<\/a> to find ways to mobilize against antisemitism and support other topics on CIJA\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Jewish Federation\u2019s Shelley Rivkin, CJPAC\u2019s Kara Mintzberg and CIJA\u2019s Nico Slobinsky spoke at an online event June 17 on topics including how individuals can help fight antisemitism in Canada. (PR photos) Representatives from three Jewish communal agencies spoke at an online event June 17 on topics including online hate, adoption of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[801,458,769,3649,4300,5285,3597,2327],"class_list":["post-37085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-antisemitism","tag-cija","tag-cjpac","tag-jewish-federation","tag-kara-mintzberg","tag-nico-slobinsky","tag-politics","tag-shelley-rivkin"],"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\/37085","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=37085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}