Tag: anti-Israel

Challenging films at VIFF

Soon after he discovered he was Jewish, Csánad Szegedi reached out to Rabbi Boruch Oberlander. Szegedi’s transformation from virulent antisemite to Orthodox Jew is the topic of the documentary Keep Quiet. (photo from Gábor Máté/AJH Films & Passion Pictures)

While this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival holds much that will be of interest to Jewish Independent readers, the list is short when it comes to specifically Israeli or Jewish-related films that will appeal.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Israeli films are harsh critiques of Israel. Beyond the Mountains and Hills (Israel/Germany) is about a dysfunctional family (a metaphor for the country), Junction 48 (Israel/Germany/United States) is about an Arab-Israeli rapper who faces racism, among other Israeli-inflicted ills; Between Fences (Israel/France) is a documentary about Israel’s internment of African refugees at the Holot Detention Centre and Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt (Israel/Canada) is about Hannah Arendt, who, among other things, was critical of Jewish leadership during the Holocaust and did not approve of the state of Israel as it was founded.

Among the other film offerings is Keep Quiet (United Kingdom/Hungary), a documentary about Csánad Szegedi, the staunch antisemite who helped found Hungary’s far-right party Jobbik and its Hungarian Guard, which has since been banned. As a member of the European Parliament, he continued to foment hatred until a fellow nationalist and racist outed him as being Jewish – his grandmother had not been the adopted daughter of the Klein family, as she told him, but their daughter. The documentary includes interviews Szegedi did with his grandmother (about her imprisonment in Auschwitz, and other matters) and a conversation with his mother, who also found out later in life that she was Jewish. He asks both women about his increasing embrace of antisemitism over the years, why didn’t you stop me? Their responses are thought-provoking and sad.

Keep Quiet does not accept Szegedi’s transformation unquestioningly and gives speaking time to the doubters, as well as the cautious believers, such as Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, head of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council in Budapest. Oberlander has supported and taught Szegedi since the former antisemite contacted the rabbi for help. The event that ends the film is Szegedi’s attempt in 2013 to speak in Montreal about his Jewish journey – he wasn’t allowed to stay in the country. Before being put on the next plane home, however, Szegedi recorded a lecture, which was played at the event, with Oberlander fielding the hostility it wrought in some attendees. In Oberlander’s view, we must love every Jew, no matter how wicked. Of his choice to help Szegedi, he says, “I pray that I shouldn’t be disappointed.” Even Szegedi is unsure as to whether he would ever turn his back on Judaism – maybe, he admits, but not likely.

The way in which the filmmakers present Szegedi’s story is informative and balanced, and viewers get a sense of the man and his deeds, as well as about Hungary and how a political party as racist as Jobbik can find success there.

photo - Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (photo from the Hannah Arendt private archive via Zeitgeist Films)

Vita Activa also does a good job of including both fans and critics of Arendt’s work, but mainly uses Arendt’s own words to explain her thoughts and analyses. The film uses as its foundation the Adolph Eichmann trial, about which Arendt wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), describing Eichmann as “a typical functionary,” and thus an example of the “banality of evil.” (Viewers should be warned that there are many disturbing Holocaust-related images in this film.)

“Eichmann was quite intelligent but he had that dumbness,” she tells an interviewer in one of the clips included in the documentary. “It was that dumbness that was so infuriating, and that was what I meant by ‘banality.’ It has no depth; it isn’t demonic. It’s simply the unwillingness to ever imagine what others are going through.”

Another of Arendt’s theories – about refugees – remains relevant. With no rights, refugees are considered “superfluous” by a regime, she argued, and denationalization and xenophobia become a powerful weapon of totalitarian politics.

In Keep Quiet, a political journalist describes Hungary as a “part of the world where history has been manipulated” and the effects that such manipulation has upon generations. Arendt broadens that view beyond Europe, saying, “It has been characteristic of our history of consciousness that its worst crimes have been committed in the name of some kind of necessity or in the name of a mythological future.”

In addition to her early work, Vita Activa touches upon Arendt’s personal life, which offers some further understanding of the philosopher, who was seen by many to lack empathy. In one interview, she talks about how Auschwitz shouldn’t have happened, how she could handle everything else but that. Yet, she criticized the Jewish leadership who cooperated with the Nazis – the councils and kapos – and hypothesized that, if there had been no such leadership, there would have been chaos and suffering and deaths but not six million. One professor interviewed for the documentary calls Arendt’s comments “irresponsible,” another says they showed her complete ignorance of history, yet another says she regretted her remarks later in life.

The film also notes Arendt’s change from supporting Zionism to condemning elements within it. Among other things, she said, “A home that my neighbor does not recognize is not a home. A Jewish national home that is not recognized by and not respected by its neighboring people is not a home, but an illusion, until it becomes a battlefield.” And she pointed to tendencies within Zionism that she considered “plain racist chauvinism” that do “not differ from other master race theories.”

The documentary also covers Arendt’s 1951 Book of Thoughts, in which she contemplates the nature of forgiveness, revenge, reconciliation. For her, the latter doesn’t forgive or accept, but judges. When you take on the burden of what someone else did, she believed, you don’t accept the blame or absolve the other of the blame, but take upon yourself the injustice that occurred in reality. “It’s a decision,” she said, “to be a partner in the accountability, not at all a partner to the guilt.”

photo - A “theatre of the oppressed” workshop at the Holot Detention Centre in Israel
A “theatre of the oppressed” workshop at the Holot Detention Centre in Israel. (photo from Vancouver International Film Festival)

Reconciliation and forgiveness don’t enter the picture in either the documentary Between Fences or the fictional (but based on a real person) Junction 48. They each highlight important, even vital, issues in Israeli society, but do so in such a condemnatory, predictable way that anyone but the choir won’t be able to sit through these films.

Without much context, Between Fences looks at the poor situation in which asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan find themselves when they reach the safety of Israel. In many countries, these asylum seekers face problems, but viewers wouldn’t know that from this documentary, nor would they begin to understand the atrocities being committed in their homelands. However, they will learn how Israel doesn’t recognize their refugee status and makes every effort to send them back, how racist Israelis are towards these newcomers and a host of other problems with Israel and its people. Not one government official or Israeli is interviewed, although some Israelis participate in the “theatre of the oppressed” workshops in Holot on which the film focuses. In addition to leaving many questions unanswered, the film also begins and ends confusingly and is slow-paced.

Bias also makes Junction 48 almost unwatchable for anyone who would like to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved, so that both peoples’ rights and safety are ensured. From the second sentence of the opening, the perspective is made clear: “The Israeli city of Lod is the Palestinian city of Lyd, which once sat on the main railway junction. In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinians were exiled from Lyd in order to resettle the town with Jews….”

photo - Samar Qupty and Tamer Nafar in Junction 48
Samar Qupty and Tamer Nafar in Junction 48. (photo from VIFF)

We then meet Kareem, an aspiring young rapper, whose parents are worried about his involvement with drug dealers and his future in general. His friends not only deal and take drugs, but visit prostitutes and dabble in other criminal activity. Nonetheless, every Israeli they encounter is the real bad guy, from the police to other rappers to the government, which is knocking down one of their homes to build a coexistence museum. Oh, the irony.

The only entertaining and thought-provoking aspect of this film is the music by lead actor and film co-writer Tamer Nafar, which is available online.

In the end, the Jewish Independent chose to sponsor what a VIFF programmer called a “classic Jewish comedy,” though, having seen a screener of the film, the Jewish aspect is hard to discern. While much lighter (and non-political) fare than the other offerings, it has much to say – or show, really, as the dialogue is minimal – about social awkwardness and a lack of direction in life. The protagonist, Mike, works at a pizza place in New Jersey and has the energy level of a slug and the magnetism of zinc. Yet, somehow, he has friends, albeit not great ones.

Short Stay is one of those films that moves apace with its main character, so slowly and in all different directions, as Mike both physically wanders the streets and mentally wanders to destinations unknown. Viewers don’t gain insight into what motivates Mike, who seems unperturbed by his lack of career, social skills, direction and future, but they root for him, empathize with what must be his loneliness.

photo - The social awkwardness of the protagonist of Short Stay, Mike, is obvious in his exchanges with others
The social awkwardness of the protagonist of Short Stay, Mike, is obvious in his exchanges with others. (photo from VIFF)

Short Stay director Ted Fendt best describes the acting of the nonprofessional cast, many (all?) of whom are his friends. “The film contains a range of performance styles from the fairly natural (Marta and Meg), to Mark and Dan’s B movie ‘villains,’ who might have stepped out of an Ulmer or Moullet film, to the quasi-Bressonian, unaffected manner Mike delivers his lines.” And therein is a Jewish link, Edgar G. Ulmer.

Another Jewish filmmaker – Vancouver’s Ben Ratner – will be premièring his short film, Ganjy, at this year’s festival. About a former boxer suffering from dementia pugilistica, who is in desperate need of help when three friends visit, Ganjy was inspired in part by Muhammad Ali. Its creators are looking to fundraise enough to take the film to other festivals, as well as contribute to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Centre. For more information, visit indiegogo.com/projects/ganjy-film#.

For more information about and the full schedule of films playing at VIFF, visit viff.org.

Note: This article has been edited so that it is clear Hannah Arendt was speaking of tendencies within Zionism that she considered “plain racist chauvinism” that do “not differ from other master race theories,” and not condemning Zionism as a whole.

Tempest in coffee pot

The BDS movement – which seeks to boycott, divest from and sanction the state of Israel – is having an impact. Though maybe not exactly as they’d hoped.

There was a tempest in a coffee pot recently when an East Vancouver café waded into the topic, angering some customers and, we surmise, perhaps some of the establishment’s own employees and investors.

As we addressed in this space last week, Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, was dismayed by the vote by her party in convention to support the BDS movement. She pondered resigning her position but this week announced that she would remain at the helm and seek to revisit the issue with her party.

A social media feed for Bows & Arrows Coffee, on Fraser Street, declared that May’s lack of support for BDS meant that she “got cowardly” on the issue and “caved.” One online commentator responded that the café’s coffee “tastes a little too antisemitic for my liking.”

After some social media back and forth, the co-owner of the café, which is headquartered in Victoria and only recently opened the Fraser Street location, published a statement acknowledging that he had “tweeted without consultation with staff and business partners.” Seemingly surprised that a simplistic #BDS hashtag and name-calling would elicit strong and equally simplistic reactions, he says that he blocked other posters and deleted tweets. He did these things, he claims, because he “wanted to address real arguments, not stand in a storm of accusers that would not engage or address my criticism of a state.”

Hopefully, he has learned that Twitter is not designed for intelligent and in-depth debate or discussion. More hopefully, perhaps he will now consider the possibility that BDS is not necessarily about “solidarity with oppressed peoples everywhere.”

While BDS supporters, including the one involved in this instance, reject the idea that the movement has any antisemitic elements and insist it targets “Netanyahu’s administration and policies of expansion in the territories,” plenty of evidence exists to suggest that BDS aims to end the existence of a Jewish state and, some would argue, this is perforce antisemitic.

Nonetheless, at least one member of the Jewish community went beyond Twitter and invited the B&A co-owner to discuss the issues surrounding BDS. In his email, the community member included a link to an article by Alan Dershowitz that was published by Haaretz, called “Ten reasons why BDS is immoral and hinders peace.” It can be found on the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ website.

While the brewmaster may contend, as he implies in his statement, that he was a victim of “[t]he silencing that occurs daily via the repetition of the dominant narrative,” what he really experienced was disagreement with his beliefs and a resulting effect on his business. He was not silenced. He voluntarily chose to exit a discussion he started.

In Canada, thankfully, the freedom to speak one’s mind comes with the freedom of others to criticize the views that come from that mind. Such discussions are healthy and can even be enjoyable – especially over a nice cup of coffee.

 

BDS infiltrates Greens

In a turn of events that party regulars and, really, no Canadians anticipated, Elizabeth May is spending her vacation this week considering whether to resign as leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The impetus, apparently, is her party’s decision at its recent convention to adopt a resolution that attacks Israel and calls for boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning the Jewish state. It’s all part of a movement (shorthanded BDS) that hides behind the language of human rights to separate Israel from the community of nations, while ignoring not just the atrocities perpetrated by the Palestinian governments of Hamas and Fatah but also the most serious human rights abuses in the world.

May made it clear before the convention that she opposed the resolution, though most delegates probably did not realize it was a stay-or-quit litmus for the leader. After the vote, May complained that the issue was not subjected to a fulsome debate at the convention and that she did not have the opportunity to explain why she opposed the policy and why delegates should join her in rejecting BDS. Still, most delegates would surely have known how their leader – who earlier this year was endorsed in a leadership review with a whopping 93% – stood on the issue, given extensive media coverage.

There was something odd even in some of the remarks by opponents of the BDS policy, which emphasized the electoral albatross BDS would hang around the party’s neck, rather than the inherent immorality and hypocrisy of BDS. Critics seemed to assume BDS is a vote-loser, but is this assumption based on the fact that informed Canadians would oppose the movement? Or on the stereotype-founded idea that messing with the “Zionist lobby” is a no-win proposition? This may be unfair criticism if we assume rational people equate immoral, hypocritical policies with electoral failure.

May has spent a decade attempting to put the Green Party of Canada on the political map and succeeded, in 2011, in becoming the first Green MP elected to Canada’s House of Commons. She was reelected in 2015. She is almost certainly the only Green party public figure most Canadians can identify. Without her at the helm, the party would lose its sole recognizable face.

After the convention vote, May said there were plenty of issues she was happy to defend going into the next federal election, but BDS is not one of them. The anti-Israel movement has put her in this spot and it is an object lesson for Canadian politics more broadly.

BDS is a parasitic movement, attempting to infiltrate vulnerable hosts like the Green party and other well-intentioned trade unions, academic groups and social justice movements with an ideology that is not progressive at all, but anti-democratic and anti-intellectual.

BDS, and the anti-Israel movement more broadly, has attempted and in many cases succeeded in convincing progressive Canadians that they share values and ideals. Had the Green party engaged in the fulsome debate May says she wishes had happened, there would have been an opportunity to point out that BDS presents a one-sided, unbalanced interpretation of events that does not advance peace, that demonizes Israel and that makes common cause with the world’s most misogynist, homophobic and illiberal forces.

It was when the New Democratic Party of Canada was at its lowest ebb, in the 1990s and early 2000s, that the party’s policy was co-opted by extremists who used the language of human rights to advance an anti-Israel agenda that was anything but rights-oriented. Since then, the anti-Israel movement (because, as we have reiterated here, “pro-Palestinian” does not do justice to the injustices the movement excuses) has tried to graft itself onto any emerging cause.

It began, most visibly, with the eccentric Queers Against Israeli Apartheid – who privilege official Palestinian oppression of LGBTQ people over the reality that Israel is (at the very least) an oasis of freedom for gay people in a desert of sexual repression – and has spread to other movements, including Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter, a desperately necessary effort to confront police violence and systemic discrimination against African-Americans, recently adopted a manifesto rife with boilerplate loathing of Israel and attestations of support for the national cause of Palestinians. Black Lives Matter has no foreign policy, except inasmuch as smearing Israel constitutes a worldview.

Why? Because the anti-Israel movement is adept at playing on the guilt of progressive people and movements to advance an agenda that is, at root, backward, violence-justifying and ignorant of history.

The BDS movement succeeded in co-opting the Green party into adopting its regressive position and now, depending on May’s decision on her future, may have done irreparable harm to the party, as BDS continues to harm the prospect of peace in the Middle East and a better life for Palestinians, the ostensible beneficiaries of the movement.

Greens’ true colors?

Voters in the United Kingdom – well, in England and Wales, at least – have decided to quit the European Union. The referendum last week turned British politics, and world economic markets, upside down.

The potential for a Scottish withdrawal from the United Kingdom is again front and centre. More than this, politicians and commentators worldwide are extrapolating the vote’s meaning across Europe and North America to try to comprehend the potential impacts of a coalescence of disgruntled, anti-elitist, populist, nativist and xenophobic tendencies. Already, the result seems to have given licence to some people to act out on xenophobic hatred, with numerous incidents of verbal and physical assaults against visible minorities reported across Britain in just the couple of days following the referendum.

Among those who supported the losing “Remain” campaign are some who threaten to move to Canada. This is a default for Americans and now, apparently, Brits who dislike the democratic outcomes in their own countries. The Canada strategy is much talked about but rarely executed. Ironically, people from countries that move toward exclusionary practices and tightened immigration policies assume that Canada is an uncategorically welcoming place that would greet them with open arms. On Canada Day, of all times, we should take it as a compliment that our reputation is one of haven and acceptance.

And yet … while Europe may be aflame with xenophobia and demagoguery, Canada is not immune to strains of something nasty. The current example comes from none other than Canada’s Green party.

For a movement that ostensibly subscribes to the precept of thinking globally and acting locally, the policy resolutions for the party’s August convention are starkly parochial. Only two items proposed for consideration approach foreign affairs issues – and both attack Israel.

One resolution calls for the party to join the BDS movement to boycott, divest from and sanction the Jewish state. More hypocritically still, the Green party is seeking to have the Jewish National Fund of Canada’s charitable status revoked. That a Green party would target one of the world’s oldest and most successful environmental organizations is symptomatic of something irrational in the mindset of those who promulgated the resolution. Whether it advances to the convention floor – and what happens then – will tell us a great deal about the kind of people who make up the Green Party of Canada.

In a world where human-made and natural catastrophes seem unlimited, from the entire population of Green party members across Canada, only two statements of international concern bubble to the surface – and both are broadsides against the Jewish people.

Elizabeth May, the party’s leader and sole MP, said she opposes both resolutions but, since the determination of policy is made on the basis of one member one vote, there is a limited amount she can do. She met last week with Rafael Barak, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, and said the Green party’s support for Israel’s right to exist is “immovable.”

We’ll see.

A London lesson

Britain’s Labor Party is going through a crisis as successive low-level and, more recently, senior members of the party express antisemitic attitudes.

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London and a Laborite familiarly known as “Red Ken,” told television audiences last week that Hitler was a Zionist, repeating a common and despicable theory usually limited to musty corners of the internet, implying that the Holocaust was all a ploy to engender sympathy that would lead to the creation of the state of Israel. Livingstone apologized if people had taken offence to his words but did not apologize for what he said.

Around the same time as Livingstone – a stalwart of the party’s left for decades – was getting in hot water, so was Naz Shah, a party rising star. The MP accused Israel of behaving like Nazis and suggested that Israel be relocated to the United States, an explicit call for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the last refuge of the Middle East where they have not yet been eliminated.

The conflict broke into the open, at least in the international media, in February, when one of the co-chairs of the Labor club at Oxford University resigned, declaring that a large proportion of club members have “some kind of problem with Jews.”

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labor Party leader whose own record of allegiances leans more toward Hamas and Hezbollah than it does toward democratic, Jewish Israel, has called an inquiry into antisemitism in his party. Yet, this did not stop one of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet members and closest allies from dismissing allegations that the Labor Party has a problem with Jews as a “smear.” And some have declared the condemnations of antisemitism in the party a “new McCarthyism.”

While all of this sounds like bad news – and it’s hard to argue that the presence of antisemitism in one of the Western world’s major political parties is anything but – there is a silver lining.

The fact is that ideas like these have been percolating on the left and elsewhere for years. They are expressed daily in certain forums on the internet and pop up in private conversation even among people who are respected and trusted on other topics.

In recent years, we have seen individual eruptions of outlandish accusations against Israel – indeed, “apartheid,” “genocide” and accusations of Nazism and the perpetration of a holocaust are accusations thrown routinely at the tiny outpost of democracy. That antisemitic outbursts in Britain’s Labor Party have reached a critical mass that could no longer be dismissed as the unrelated rantings of misguided individuals has led to a much-needed confrontation over the topic. Now, the party must confront and address the problems in its ranks.

From a Canadian perspective, this has particular interest, because our New Democratic Party, in some ways a child of the British parent party, is entering into a period of reflection and reinvention. Its last two leaders, the late Jack Layton and the recently defenestrated Thomas Mulcair, tried to eradicate from their party not-uncommon expressions of anti-Zionism that sometimes relied on anti-Jewish prejudice as an accelerant. The spectacular failure of the Mulcair-led NDP in the last election is leading some to say that a turn to the more extreme left is, if not an electorally advantageous move, at least an ideologically pure way forward. Such recidivism would almost certainly involve some rehabilitation of old anti-Israel fixations.

Yet, it is always better to shine light under these rocks than to allow these ideas to mutate. In Britain right now, we are seeing the predictable illogical extremes to which unchecked anti-Zionism can lead. It will be informative to watch the public discussion that transpires. Though differences are vast, the political cultures of Canada and Britain still have some strong parallels. Perhaps, if Britain confronts in this matter now, Canada will not need to later.

סירה של דייג יפני נסחפה עד לקנדה

קו סאסאקי שמח מאוד לשמוע שלפחות סירתו ניצלה מהצונמי, והיא נמצאת כיום בידים טובות ומטופלת היטב. (צילום: Spirit Bear Adventures)  

המרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים מגביר את שיתוף הפעולה עם הסטודנטים היהודים במאבקם בפעילות האנטי ישראלית

המרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה שם לו למטרה ראשית לעזור לתא הסטודנטים היהודים הלל, במאבקים נגד הפעילות העניפה בקמפוסים השונים להחרמת ישראל. בשותפות עם הלל המרכז מספק לסטודנטים היהודים הדרכה אסטרטגית, תמיכה מסיבית בשטח ומשאבים כספיים, כדי שיוכלו להתמודד מול הקמפיינים האנטי ישראליים, בזמן אמת. המרכז והלל הכינו תוכניות ואסטרטגיות שונות בעת הצורך, כדי להתמודד ולהפריך את המיתוסים השונים שהומצאו על ישראל.

במקביל המרכז והלל עובדים מול הנהלות האוניברסיטאות השונות וסגל המרצים, להצגת ישראל האמיתית והעובדות הנכונות עליה. במסגרת זו המרכז לוקח נציגים מהאוניברסיטאות לביקורים בישראל, כדי שיראו מה קורה באמת בשטח. במרכז מציינים כי לאור הפעילות העניפה שלו מול האוניברסיטאות ונציגיה השונים, במקרים רבים הקמפיינים נגד ישראל הפכו לפחות פחות אפקטיביים.

נציגים של המרכז בשיתוף הפדרציות היהודיות בקנדה, עובדים ישירות מול הארגונים היהודים השונים לצורך הגברת הביטחון. הפעילות כוללת הדרכת ותדרוך העובדים במוסדות היהודים. נציגים של המרכז מבצעים בקביעות ביקורות אבטחה במוסדות היהודים, בהם הג’ואיש קומיוניטי סנטרס, בתי ספר, גני ילדים, מחנות קיץ ובתי הכנסת. בנוסף המרכז מסייע לארגונים בהגשת תוכניות אבטחה לתוכנית של הממשלה הפדרלית לאבטחת מוסדות בקנדה, שיפור התשתיות והקצאת משאבים כספיים ועוד.

האחראי על תחום הביטחון בהקהילה היהודית במרכז לענייני ישראל והיהודים בקנדה, אדם כהן, נמצא בקשר שוטף עם גורמי הביטחון הקנדיים, ובהם המשטרה הפדרלית, יחידות המשטרה המקומיות ועוד. הקשר הזה מאפשר למרכז לקבל מידע ביטחוני בזמן אמת ולהיערך בהתאם, כדי להגן על הקהילה היהודית בעת הצורך.

שוטי ספינתי: סירה של דייג יפני נסחפה עד לקנדה

דייג יפני שאיבד את משפחתו באסון רעידת האדמה והצונמי שפקדו את יפאן לפני כארבע שנים, יכול להתנחם בכך שסירתו שניסחפה והגיע עד לחופי קנדה, ממתינה כאן עבורו. קו סאסאקי איבד את כל עולמו באסון הטבע הגדול ביותר בהיסטוריה של יפאן, שהתרחש במרץ 2011. ברעידת האדמה והצונמי נגבה מחיר כבד מאוד של כתשעה עשר אלף איש שנהרגו (חלקם נחשבים לנערים עה היום). ובין ההרוגים גם אשתו ובנו היקרים של הדייג המסכן. סאסאקי נשאר מחוסר כל ואפילו סירת הדייג האהובה שלו נעלמה.

אך מתברר שהסירה הלבנה מהפיברגלס לא הלכה לאיבוד או נהרסה, אלא כמו מאות ואולי אלפי חפצים רבים אחרים, נסחפה במים העמוקים של האוקיאנוס השקט, והגיעה אחרי מסע אחרוך עד לחוף המערבי של קנדה. לפני כשנה תושבים אינדיאנים מקומיים שגרים באזור החוף של בריטיש קולומביה, מצאו את הסירה האבודה. התברר להפתעת הכל שלמרות הדרך הארוכה ואסון הטבע הנוראי, כלי השייט של הדייג לא ניזוק כלל. בעזרת זוג אמיד (הבעל קנדי והאישה ממוצא יפני) שהגיעו לבקר בכפר האינדיאנים שתושביו הם אלו שמצאו את הסירה, תורגמה הכתובת המוטבעת עליה. האישה היפנית הפעילה את הקשרים הענפים שיש לה ביפאן, והצליחה לאחרונה לאתר את בעלי הסירה המדוברת. סאסאקי שמח מאוד לשמוע שלפחות סירתו ניצלה מהצונמי, והיא נמצאת כיום בידים טובות ומטופלת היטב. הזוג הקנדי-יפני החליט לעזור לסאסאקי הדייג ולממן אף את ביקורו כאן. בימים אלה הוא אמור להגיע לקנדה כדי התאחד מחדש עם סירתו, לאחר ארבע שנים. ככל הנראה סאסאקי ישאיר את הסירה כאן כיוון שהעלויות להעברתה בחזרה ליפאן גבוהות מאוד. בינתיים מתברר שהדייג התחיל לשקם את חייו ואף רכש לו כבר סירת דייג חדשה.

Rapper makes us proud

Matisyahu, the reggae rapper whose refusal to be bullied into a political pledge resulted in his being removed from the lineup of a Spanish music festival, was eventually allowed to perform last weekend.

Global outrage over the politicizing of the musical event – and the potential whiff of antisemitism – led organizers of the Rototom Sunsplash Festival to reverse their demand that the Jewish American musician pledge support for an independent Palestine. (Not a two-state solution, mind you, or a negotiated settlement of the conflict.)

After he received an apology, Matisyahu accepted the invitation to play after all. He mounted the stage to heckles and chants of “out, out,” from multiple audience members waving large Palestinian flags.

“Let music be your flag,” he urged the audience as he proceeded with his 45-minute set, ending with a spine-tingling rendition of “Jerusalem,” a defiant anthem of Jewish survival and resilience: “3,000 years with no place to be / And they want me to give up my milk and honey,” he sang. “Don’t you see, it’s not about the land or the sea / Not the country but the dwelling of His majesty … Rebuild the Temple and the crown of glory / Years gone by, about sixty / Burn in the oven in this century / And the gas tried to choke, but it couldn’t choke me / I will not lie down, I will not fall asleep.… Afraid of the truth and our dark history / Why is everybody always chasing we?”

The incident was a nasty one, certainly, but its lesson is beautiful. Do not let bullies win, whether they attack you because of who you are or the ideas you carry. It is an issue we reflected on locally earlier this summer when outside forces attacked our community for hosting speakers from the New Israel Fund and it is an issue we face continually from the BDS movement, which, in the Matisyahu imbroglio, has shown its true colors.

Matisyahu also showed his. And it was a thing to see.

 

Campus, church extremism

Last week, students at the University of British Columbia rejected a referendum question that would have urged the student society to boycott Israeli businesses and products.

But the news was by no means all good when the results came in last Friday night. In fact, more students voted yes in support of BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) than voted no. The question was defeated effectively on a technicality, with the number of students voting yes failing to reach quorum. Therefore the question failed.

Students were asked: “Do you support your student union (AMS) in boycotting products and divesting from companies that support Israeli war crimes, illegal occupation and the oppression of Palestinians?” The yes side received 3,493 votes, 2,223 students voted no and 435 registered their abstentions. To pass, the vote required 4,130 yeses, representing eight percent of eligible students.

In this, too, there is good news and bad news. The low turnout indicates that students at the university have better things on their mind than the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the anti-Israel movement on college campuses in North America is comparatively small. Yet the damage this narrow group of extremists can do to the comfort and security of Jewish and Zionist students – and to the broader objective of an inclusive, welcoming environment – has been serious and detrimental.

The BDS movement has had few tangible successes and plenty of failures, if measured by their effectiveness at actually boycotting, divesting from or sanctioning anything. What they have been wildly successful at is spreading messages that single out Israel as the fountainhead of all things evil.

Also mixed news is the fact that, while campaigns like BDS are finding it difficult to rustle up serious numbers of equally agitated fellow travelers, Jewish students, too, are challenged in finding substantial numbers of allies when confronted with a campaign of targeted aggression against the Jewish homeland. There might be only a few thousand out of more than 50,000 students who succumb to anti-Israel messaging, but there are even fewer who observe that messaging and are moved to come to the aid of Israel – and/or Jewish students – when it is attacked in this fashion.

Which raises another issue facing our Vancouver community.

Later this month, Canadian Friends of Sabeel will hold a conference on “overcoming Christian Zionism.” Sabeel describes itself as an “ecumenical Palestinian liberation theology centre” that is “working for justice, peace and reconciliation in Palestine-Israel.” In reality, it is a group that promotes a misrepresentation of events in the Middle East. The conference slated for Vancouver is explicitly aimed at undermining Israel among its North American Christian supporters.

Conservative Christians have been among Israel’s most reliable bloc of friends in troubled times. Like any bedfellows, the Zionist-Christian alliance brings with it complexities. While some Christians use Zionism as a back door to evangelizing or view Christianity as a “successor” religion to Judaism, for example, there are also many in the Christian Zionist movement who respect the integrity of Judaism.

The upcoming conference is co-sponsored by three Christian churches.

The United Church of Canada, for decades but especially in recent years, has adopted a heavily anti-Israel approach to global affairs. Their sponsorship of this event is not surprising. The Presbyterian Church in Canada is also supporting this event, though this, too, is not shocking, given that the American branch of the Presbyterian Church has been beset by anti-Israel agitation and last year voted to divest itself of some Israeli holdings.

What is surprising – and worrisome – is the role of the Anglican Church of Canada as co-sponsor of this conference. Two years ago, the church passed a resolution that made some attempts at balance but was marred by typical anti-Israel boilerplate. With their co-sponsorship of this Sabeel event, the Anglican church has thrown itself unequivocally off the fence.

There are parallels between these two developments – the UBC vote and the involvement of erstwhile moderate Christian groups in a blatantly anti-Israel conference. The fact is, probably most active Anglicans, Presbyterians and United churchgoers have no idea what their national bodies are up to. Of the millions of Canadians represented by these three denominations, the vast majority probably do not have an opinion on – or do not agree with – the approach of this month’s conference. As we saw at UBC, the anti-Israel movement tends to be a small group of zealots who get involved in a legitimate body and turn it into a platform, a rabidly anti-Israel tail wagging an otherwise amicable dog.

Like the impact of anti-Israel extremism on campus, the involvement of mainline Christian groups in this anti-Israel conference shows how a small group of dedicated individuals can create nasty, lasting divisions in a multicultural community.