{"id":49083,"date":"2026-06-12T01:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=49083"},"modified":"2026-06-10T13:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:52:24","slug":"sharing-stories-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/sharing-stories-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing stories, advice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"photo<\/a>
Vancouver City Councilor and Deputy Mayor Peter Meiszner holds the city\u2019s proclamation of April 19 as Raoul Wallenberg Day. (photo by Masumi Kikuchi)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society (WSCCS) hosted its 21st annual Raoul Wallenberg Day event on April 19. Held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture this year, its theme was \u201cConfronting Hate Speech and Scapegoating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan Le Fevre, the society\u2019s current president, opened the proceedings with a brief history of the organization and the annual event.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur name is taken from Raoul Wallenberg and Chiune Sugihara, who were two outstanding diplomats who, at great personal risk, saved thousands of Jews in World War II,\u201d he explained. \u201cOur aim is to recognize and remember those who have acted with similar civil courage in the present day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver City Councilor and Deputy Mayor Peter Meiszner read the city\u2019s annual proclamation of April 19 as Raoul Wallenberg Day. He thanked the society \u201cfor their leadership in establishing and sustaining this important event and their dedication to recognizing those who act in defence of human dignity.\u201d He spoke of the need for such leadership, when, \u201cacross Canada and around the world, we are witnessing the consequences of hate speech, including acts of violence that undermine the safety of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

WSCCS board member Gene Homel introduced the three speakers, starting with Kim Reclama-Clutesi (Oqwilowgwa), who has served as the elected chief of Kwakwaka\u2019wakw (Qualicum First Nation), and is a Kwakwaka\u2019wakw and Pentlatch knowledge holder and an ethnobiologist.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Kim Reclama-Clutesi (Oqwilowgwa) speaks at this year\u2019s Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society Raoul Wallenburg Day event April 19. (photo by Masumi Kikuchi)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She shared various experiences with hate and injustice, along with examples of resilience, including work that her father did to protect children in residential schools, and his family. She spoke of how she is always seeking connections. \u201cEven if it\u2019s a thin thread, we have to honour those connections\u2026. A lot of what people are doing today is trying to remove those connections and putting us into different places and categories,\u201d especially regarding treaty and land claims issues, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to remember that this began over 500 years ago, with the Doctrine of Discovery and the papal bull that was issued in the late 1400s,\u201d said Reclama-Clutesi. \u201cIt gave permission for European colonizers to \u2018discover\u2019 lands if they assumed that the people were \u2018not organized\u2019 or were in need of \u2018spiritual healing\u2019 \u2013 I\u2019m paraphrasing dramatically.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to colonization, she explained, there was food security through traditional land and water stewardship, there were cultural practices that promoted spiritual growth and community cohesion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Reclama-Clutesi spoke of the need for compassion. \u201cWe share this land with many,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is education,\u201d she concluded. \u201cNot just education as in taking cultural competency courses. It\u2019s about getting to know each other. It\u2019s about going into each other\u2019s sacred places and understanding them. It\u2019s about looking at things with a different lens.\u201d It\u2019s also about calling out those who spread hate and deny injustices that have happened, she said.<\/p>\n

The second speaker was Hasan Alam, a human rights and labour lawyer, president of the BC Civil Liberties Association and co-founder of the Islamophobia Legal Assistance Hotline. He addressed the fact that the relationship between the Muslim and Jewish communities has not always been easy, saying it is important to hold onto \u201cour shared histories and our shared experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described the power of words to engender hate, to scapegoat and to \u201cother,\u201d as well as the dangers of silence. As a youth in the post-9\/11 era, he experienced and witnessed the increased suspicion of Muslims, including instances of detention without due process \u201cnot because of anything they had done, but because of their names and what they believed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This not only influenced Alam\u2019s decision to become a lawyer, it also taught him a lesson: \u201cWords are not neutral. They carry weight. They shape how we see each other, how institutions treat us and, when weaponized, they can strip people of their dignity, their safety and, in the worst moments in history, their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alam discussed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as the Criminal Code. He gave the R v. Keegstra case as an example of an appropriate and successful prosecution of someone promoting hatred. His focus, however, was the injustices that occur within lawful boundaries. He noted that \u201cthe framework, as it operates in practice, too often assumes an equal playing field\u201d between those spreading hatred and the targeted community. Yet, those with the widest platforms, such as politicians and the media, through apparent credibility and through repetition, can generate broad acceptance of their ideas, to the detriment of the \u201cothered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Hasan Alam (photo by Masumi Kikuchi)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alam warned that the state is not a \u201cneutral arbiter of free expression.\u201d Those in power can select who gets heard, \u201cpunishing certain voices while giving others a free pass,\u201d he said, highlighting Canada\u2019s genocide of Indigenous culture, and the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War.<\/p>\n

The public\u2019s \u201cmoral panic\u201d can lead to political rhetoric that eventually results in laws or selective application of laws that target specific communities, said Alam. This can have a \u201cchilling effect,\u201d so that people self-censor \u2013 \u201cfreedom of expression doesn\u2019t have to be formally taken away to be lost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think real dialogue works,\u201d he added. \u201cThe research on prejudice reduction consistently shows that when people who hold mistaken assumptions driven by fearmongering, driven by misinformation, driven by othering, or maybe just limited exposure, when they actually engage with the community they fear, those views do change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making space for good-faith dialogue, where someone can admit they don\u2019t understand something, might be uncomfortable, said Alam, but \u201cthat discomfort, when it\u2019s honestly expressed and when honestly engaged, is often the beginning of understanding, and that\u2019s where change lives … when the person in front of you becomes real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marsha Lederman \u2013 a Globe and Mail <\/i>columnist and author of two books\u00a0 <\/span>\u2013 spoke about how Sugihara saved some 6,000 Jews by issuing them transit visas.<\/p>\n

Referring to a statue of Sugihara in Los Angeles that was defaced earlier this year with red paint, she asked, \u201cHow, in any way, is this statue, is this man, an appropriate target?\u201d It\u2019s understandable to disagree with the actions and policies of the current Israeli government, she said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite another thing to self-righteously target a historical figure whose heroic act was saving Jewish lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Marsha Lederman (photo by Masumi Kikuchi)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel, there has been increased hostility toward Jews and a greater acceptance of speech that is hateful, if not the legal definition of hate speech, she noted.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that \u201cwhat is happening in Gaza is catastrophic,\u201d Lederman does not believe it should be compared to the Holocaust. Such comparisons, she said, are being used to delegitimize the state of Israel, and she shared some of her family\u2019s experiences and other Holocaust history as proofs of why this line of thinking is wrong.<\/p>\n

Lederman has become a frequent target of hate speech and she read out some of the names she has been called, including \u201cZionist nutcase\u201d and \u201cblood thirsty ghoul,\u201d and, by supporters of Israel, \u201ctraitor\u201d and \u201cself-hating Jew\u201d; she has been threatened. \u201cBoth sides have accused me of weaponizing the Holocaust, which my parents survived and which my grandparents [and other family] did not,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lederman\u2019s strategy for dealing with hate is to continue to exercise her freedom of speech. \u201cI refuse to stop writing about these wars, about antisemitism, about Gaza, about Oct. 7, about Iran, Lebanon, with context, nuance and, I hope, heart, always trying to come at it from the humanitarian middle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A panel discussion and question period followed the presentations, and the program concluded with the National Film Board short For Angela<\/i>, the true story of a Winnipeg mother and daughter who successfully confronted bullying aimed at their Indigenous identity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The April 19 event was supported by the Peretz Centre and the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ann Daskal<\/b> is an independent writer and a member of Or Shalom.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society (WSCCS) hosted its 21st annual Raoul Wallenberg Day event on April 19. Held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture this year, its theme was \u201cConfronting Hate Speech and Scapegoating.\u201d Alan Le Fevre, the society\u2019s current president, opened the proceedings with a brief history of the organization and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22882,24892,8837,6716,4242,1122,24891,2251,7556,20545,113,317],"class_list":["post-49083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-hasan-alam","tag-hate","tag-hate-crimes","tag-history","tag-human-rights","tag-kim-reclama-clutesi","tag-law","tag-marsha-lederman","tag-resilience","tag-wallenberg-sugihara-civil-courage-society","tag-wsccs"],"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\/49083","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=49083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}