antisemitism

What’s in a definition?

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, in 2016, adopted a so-called Working Definition of Antisemitism. Given the complexity and pervasiveness of this ancient bigotry, the statement itself is remarkably succinct at a mere 38 words.

It reads: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

It is innocuous and hardly debatable. Where controversy has arisen is in the accompanying 11 examples, seven of which make reference to Israel. Examples provided of antisemitic manifestations include: accusing Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust; accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations; applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis; and holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

Opponents of the definition, including a majority of Vancouver’s city council, which voted against adopting the definition in 2019, claim it could stifle free expression in the form of criticism of Israel – this despite the fact that the definition self-defines as “non-legally binding.” In a world where any individual with access to a computer has more power than even the most powerful figures in history to disseminate their views to a global audience, it is notable that “Zionists” are imagined to have the power to control what others think, do and say. The criticism is perhaps, ironically, a manifestation of the problem itself.

To their credit, the new U.S. administration has said it “embraces and champions” the definition. The previous administration also endorsed the definition. (Canada and 28 other countries, as well as scores of cities and other jurisdictions and organizations have similarly endorsed it.) But the Trump administration’s support was a component of a broader politicization of ostensible support for the Jewish community. By allowing Israel’s right to exist in peace to become a partisan tool, we risk polarizing politicians and the public, driving supporters to their corners on a topic where less polarization should be encouraged.

If there are problems inherent in the terminology, it is perhaps in the chutzpah of attempting to define it at all. It is almost universally acknowledged that antisemitism is uniquely capable of metastasizing as required by the perpetrator. It is, above all, a pathology of the antisemite, with more to do with the eye of the beholder than with Jewish people themselves. Antisemitism is very often (if not always) a projection of someone’s (or some society’s) own problems directed toward an empty vessel in the form of “Jews.” Note that antisemitism is most rampant in the places where Jews are fewest – or nonexistent.

Antisemitism differs from other prejudices and bigotries as well in the typical responses it engenders. We have unlearned a tendency to deflect blame for misogyny back onto its victims; we do not accept that violence against women is in anyway justified by, say, what a victim was wearing. We recognize racism as a flaw of it perpetrators and we do not accept that racism against people of colour is based on the behaviour or innate characteristics of the victims. Homophobia is a pathology of the homophobe; it is not nurtured or provoked by LGBTQ+ people. Yet how many times do we see people respond to antisemitic violence or words with a variation on the question: What did the Jews do to deserve it?

Last week, that formulation was hinted at by a Democratic member of the U.S. Congress, Rep. Andy Levin, of Michigan. “Injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere,” Levin said during a webinar. “Unless Palestinian human rights are respected, we cannot fight antisemitism.”

This false equivalency and conflation – coming from a Jewish elected official, no less – is a picture-perfect illustration of why the IHRA was created.

As the new administration in Washington begins repairing the unprecedented social and economic damage done to the country over the past four years, it is encouraging to see one of its first acts being an explicit and enthusiastic commitment to the battle against antisemitism.

Celebrate Jewish power

I watched inauguration day with great emotion, for numerous reasons, including the fact that a Black Indian woman is in the White House for the first time in history. I was equally excited not only about the corollary fact that there is a second gentleman for the first time in history, but that he is a Jew – the first in history to enter the White House. And yet, I noticed that the very same media outlets celebrating

Kamala Harris’s mark on history failed entirely to mention her husband’s mark on history. If Doug Emhoff were of African, East Asian, Middle Eastern or Latino descent (as, for the record, a critical mass of Jews are), I believe it would have been another story entirely.

Case in point: there was fanfare over the fact that Alejandro Mayorkas, appointed to head of Homeland Security, is the first Latino and the first immigrant to fill the position. There was nary a peep, however, about the fact that he is also the first Sephardi Jew in American history to serve in a cabinet. Given the fact that Sephardi Jews are invisible not only in the American mainstream but even in the Jewish mainstream, his appointment is a significant milestone.

But still, silence.

I believe this silence is rooted in the deeply embedded, twisted and, for the most part, unexamined brand of racism against Jews – namely, that Jews are rich, all-powerful and controlling the world. Over the millennia, across the globe, this ideology has been used to fuel and justify anything from discrimination to genocide of Jews – ironically underscoring the lack of Jewish power, given how easy it has been to beat down and upend Jews, no matter what leadership positions or financial assets we may have accumulated under our collective belt.

Despite the many obstacles to Jewish power and wealth, in this country as elsewhere, Jewish accomplishment in either realm is typically put under a microscope, resented and/or derided. At best, it is envied, with an undertone that Jews don’t deserve it, and that there is something dirty or sinister about Jewish money and power.

Take a personal example from the late 1980s, when I was a student at Columbia University, and Professor Griff from Public Enemy came to campus: speaking to a packed audience, he launched a pointed attack on Jews – among other things, referring to the school as Columbia Jewniversity. This, despite the fact that a scant 50 years prior, Jews were barred admission at Columbia and throughout the Ivy League, simply for being Jews.

Another example: Hollywood routinely comes under attack as being run by Jews, instead of getting recognized and celebrated as a hallmark of Jewish creativity and survival. And yet, as documented in the film Hollywood: An Empire of Their Own, Jewish immigrants created the industry from the ground up, specifically because, as Jews, they were barred from the spectrum of other professions in America.

“RichJewish” mindlessly rolls off people’s tongues like one word, and people routinely ascribe supernatural business powers to anyone with Jewish blood. But how many are aware of the historic racism and persecution behind each of these ideas? While the particulars varied according to time and place, in Christian- and Muslim-dominated societies alike, throughout the millennia, Jews were prohibited from owning land, banned from most or all established professions, and barred entry into schools from elementary to university levels. Jews thus were forced into entrepreneurship and innovation, in the interest of survival, leveraging whatever scraps or cracks in the system that were available at the time.

Of particular note, for centuries in Christian Europe, Jews deliberately were banned from all professions except that of the despised userer – effectively forcing Jews into a “dirty business,” then punishing Jews for it, through genocide. While times have changed, the image of the crooked Jew persists, if only through a vague sense of distaste or mistrust.

As a colleague once noted, “Religion creates culture.” While we live in a predominantly secular society today, American ideas and values are shaped by a primarily Christian legacy, including the embedded notion that Jews are all-powerful. So, it’s understandable, albeit questionable, that most Americans could not comprehend the significance of the first Jew in the White House or the first Sephardi Jew in the cabinet.

I, however, did. So, after watching Harris and Emhoff walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, with Ella Harris in tow, sporting a classic JewFro, I took matters into my own hands and wrote a song, “Jew in the White House,” blending an ancient Iraqi Jewish prayer with original music and lyrics, celebrating Emhoff’s stamp on history. It was telling that a number of Jewish friends – in real life and on social media – were distinctly uncomfortable with my song airing on YouTube, afraid that calling attention to a Jew in power might stir the rancour of racists and lead to a wave of anti-Jewish violence. After all, Proud Boys and QAnon ideology is rooted in classic tropes of Jews running the world, so why add fuel to the fire?

Exactly my point.

At its best, Jewish power is conditional, tenuous and fragile. It is neither handed over nor readily available to Jews. It is not a privilege. It is hard-won – the outcome of scrappiness and sacrifice over the course of generations, in the face of overwhelming odds. And it is high time that we not only recognize it as such, but full-on celebrate it.

Loolwa Khazzoom (KHAZZOOM.com) is an Iraqi-American Jewish musician, writer and educator. Her work has been featured in top media, including the New York Times, Marie Claire and Rolling Stone. This article was originally published by jewthink.org.

Chapter soon behind us

The violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. (photo by Tyler Merbler/flickr)

Elect a clown, expect a circus. That has been a recurring meme over the past four years. As the reality show that is the Donald Trump presidency staggers into its final few days, the full fruit of the president’s years of bellicosity and violent language expressed themselves at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6. Incited by the president, who repeated his utterly baseless claims of a stolen election, thousands of people marched on the seat of America’s democracy, smashed windows, stormed the building, threatened lawmakers and defaced and desecrated the premises.

Some observers, including many Republicans, expressed shock at a turn of events that was almost entirely predictable. After years of the most irresponsible rhetoric imaginable from the so-called leader of the free world, and after two months of undermining the most sacred facet of American democracy, the peaceful transition of democratically elected administrations, violence was a surprise only to those who have not being paying attention – or who observe through ideological blinders.

It seems to be a turning point. A growing, though still far too small, number of Republicans are finally saying they have had enough of the outgoing president’s petulance and possibly criminal irresponsibility. Listening to some, it appears they were looking for an opportune moment to break with their leader, and the violence – which killed five people – provided the ideal opening.

It is not enough for apologists to pretend that these elements are in any way peripheral to Trumpism. He has encouraged, abetted and refused to condemn the most evil strains in the American body politic, from the Ku Klux Klan to Proud Boys, referring to “very fine people on both sides” at Charlottesville – when one side was white supremacists with a sprinkling of neo-Nazis and anti-democratic thugs. Faced with the destruction his words and his supporters wrought at the Capitol, Trump uttered the least a president could possibly say, calling on the rioters to go home, while also repeating the lies that led to the violence in the first place. Then he added: “We love you. You’re very special.” He just can’t help himself.

Among the insurrectionists at the Capitol were overt Nazis, including at least one wearing a shirt with “Camp Auschwitz” emblazoned on it and another with the acronym “6MWE,” meaning “six million wasn’t enough.” These are the very special people Trump loves. Jews and others who were taken in by an embassy move and other ostensibly “pro-Israel” acts should know now the fire with which they were playing.

There must be accountability. At the top, those who abetted and encouraged the worst actions of the past years should be held criminally liable, if that is the extent of their culpability. At a lesser level, those who tacitly or explicitly permitted what has happened – Republican senators, congress members and party officials – will ideally suffer at the ballot box at the next opportunity. Among ordinary people, including some in Canada who have expressed support for this extremist and white nationalist approach, we should seek introspection around how we may have been drawn into a political disease that we should have recognized for what it was – yet let proceed along a path that almost inevitably led to the loss of human life and the shattered glass at the U.S. Capitol last week.

We might also hope that leaders of other countries will look at the American case as an instruction in the dangers of oratorical brinksmanship, division and scapegoating. One of Trump’s greatest allies, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, is in an election (again) and it will be illuminating to see if his style softens at all. In Europe, where far-right populism is seeing a resurgence, perhaps the warning shots from Washington will inspire a little more moderation.

Barring more violence on Inauguration Day, God forbid, this chapter will soon be behind us. Joe Biden was not everyone’s first choice for president, he was more of a compromise pick. Based on decades of experience, he has been charged with picking up the pieces of a society shattered by four years of negligent and confrontational executive leadership. It doesn’t hurt that he has a grandfatherly demeanour and a history of consensus-building. While the outgoing president will not attend the swearing in – more proof that he abhors the core principles of democracy – beside Biden will be Kamala Harris, the first woman and the first Black and Asian person to assume the vice-presidency.

No humans are perfect. The Biden-Harris administration will make mistakes and we will criticize them. But we can rejoice in the arrival of a new future, led by people of goodwill, intelligence and moderation, who know the difference between right and wrong, between neo-Nazis and very fine people.

Critical to take a stand against hate

Since time immemorial, no matter what calamity occurred in the world, if there was a problem plaguing humanity, Jews were used as the convenient scapegoat.

Earlier this year, as the coronavirus pandemic spread across Europe and then throughout North America, conspiracy theorists claimed that Israel and Jews around the world were secretly involved in spreading and even engineering the deadly disease. While these conspiracies are baseless and seem almost comical at first glance, thanks to the power and ubiquity of social media, even the most bizarre falsehoods can find fertile ground and poison the minds of millions of people almost instantaneously.

Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to rage across Canada and the world and, though the claim that Jews are behind COVID-19 remains utterly fictional, that hasn’t stopped a dangerous new crop of antisemites from spreading their toxic bigotry.

Not only is Canada not immune to the age-old virus of antisemitism, but British Columbia has also been infected. As was reported in the Georgia Straight, an anti-mask activist in Vancouver, Marco Pietro, who organized and participated in a number of rallies protesting coronavirus restrictions and policies, released a Holocaust denial video on social media. The two-minute-long video features Pietro saying that the Holocaust is a myth perpetrated by fake survivors to scam money out of the wider, unsuspecting public. He also claimed that Mein Kampf – Adolf Hitler’s antisemitic manifesto – didn’t contain any objectionable material, and that the coronavirus pandemic is a plot used by Jews in a quest for control. Pietro also said that concentration-camp survivors are liars and accused “a bunch of Zionist Jews” of “setting up” Hitler.

Meanwhile, on Nov. 15, a speaker at an anti-mask rally in Vancouver condemned “satanic, talmudic” people. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that the No More Lockdowns group (which now goes by the name “Human Rights Movement”) produced an event in Vancouver organized by antisemitic conspiracy theorist Raoul Taylor van Haastert, who has decried the “Zionist media” and stated “our WWII history is a lie.” CAHN’s report cited Vancouver neo-Nazi Brian Ruhe, who, in an antisemitic post that went viral, shared his beliefs about “Rothschild-Zionist-communist control” that is being covered up, claiming that Jews control the media.

Let there be no doubt, there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Jewish people or the state of Israel are behind the coronavirus pandemic or any of these other odious libels. Conversely, the evidence supporting the Holocaust’s veracity is so overwhelming and indisputable that, to deny its occurrence, far from being a legitimate disagreement on historical facts, is rather merely an attempt to deny the Jewish people’s collective suffering at the hand of the Nazis to further an antisemitic agenda.

Most British Columbians would rightly brush off Pietro’s and Ruhe’s words as illogical rants of mad men, but, tragically, as bothersome and as offensive as their statements are, antisemitic acts are at or near all-time highs across Canada, including in British Columbia.

Earlier this year, B’nai Brith Canada’s annual audit of antisemitism logged more than 200 such incidents in British Columbia alone, ranging from harassment to vandalism. In one such incident, for example, Camp Miriam, on Gabriola Island, was vandalized with graffiti, including a swastika and other images. The image and symbol that represented the Nazi regime that murdered six million Jews in Europe less than 100 years ago is today being used to attack young Jewish summer campers. One can only imagine the long-lasting psychological damage inflicted on young people as a result of such an incident – and multiply that by more than 200 incidents last year alone.

Such antisemitic conspiracy theories, as espoused by Pietro, Ruhe and others must be forcefully repudiated and condemned by all. Thanks to social media, even the most bizarre lie can have a worldwide impact, and that’s why it’s so critical to take a public stand against antisemitic hate and propaganda. As history has taught, while antisemitic words are bad enough, the paramount concern is that they can often morph into violence. Enough is enough.

Mike Fegelman is the executive director of HonestReporting Canada (honestreporting.ca), a nonprofit organization working to ensure fair and accurate Canadian media coverage of Israel.

Scientific breakthroughs

Scanning Israeli news this week has a feel of a sci-fi fantasy. Most eye-catching of all is the assertion by a Tel Aviv University researcher, in a peer-reviewed article, that hyperbaric oxygen therapy can “reverse aging” by lengthening telomeres, the structures found at the ends of chromosomes, by more than 20% on average.

“This means we can start to look at aging as a reversible disease,” Prof. Shai Efrati said, as reported in the Times of Israel. Some gerontologists are skeptical of the claims and some suggest it could open a Pandora’s box of related health issues, but, from ancient times through the 16th-century conquistador Juan Ponce de León to, apparently, contemporary Israel, humankind has dreamed of and sought out a figurative or literal fountain of youth. Whether Efrati’s research will fulfil that dream will be watched closely.

And there are other scientific headlines this week.

Also coming out of Tel Aviv University is news that scientists have destroyed cancerous cells in mice by pinpointing affected cells with “tiny scissors,” while leaving everything around them intact and with no side effects. With trials possibly to begin in humans within two years, they are hopeful that this could be a revolution that could effectively cure cancer.

A third scientific bombshell comes from Israelis in Canada. Eliav Shaked and Roy Kirshon, expatriate biomedical engineers working in Toronto, are developing a speedy, non-invasive diagnostic for patients who are likely decades away from showing symptoms of dementia. While there is no cure yet for dementias like Alzheimer’s disease, the pair believe that an early diagnosis will not only permit individuals to prepare for eventual care but allow doctors to study the progression of the disease and thereby gain valuable insights.

In these pages, we frequently highlight Israeli technological and medical advancements but the news this week really seemed like a dream sequence from a futuristic utopia. Of course, none of these initiatives is a sure bet but they read like a hat trick against some of the most damning health challenges facing our generations.

Is it a coincidence that these are all emerging from Israel? It is no secret that the tiny state is a locus of a massively disproportionate amount of the world’s achievements in a range of fields.

Some books, like Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, and many other observers have posited that Israel’s successes are achieved not in spite of the adversities the country and its people have faced, but as a direct result of them. So many of the scientific, social and economic advances that have come out of Israel in recent decades are civilian benefits redounding from military research and development, though Israel is by no means the only country for which this is case.

No less significant are the social impacts of compulsory service in a national defence force that some have called the least hierarchical in the world. Individuals who made life-and-death choices for themselves and their colleagues at age 19 or 20 may be less timid in taking major entrepreneurial or other life risks at 25 or 30 than an average North American or European at that age. Not to discount the value of peace and all the benefits it would bring, the circumstances in which Israel exists have created a thoroughly unique social and economic environment.

Coincidentally or not, also in the news this week was a vote at the United Nations in which 163 countries, including Canada, voted for a condemnatory resolution against Israel; five voted against. It is one of 17 resolutions expected in this General Assembly session targeting Israel, while just seven country-specific resolutions are expected to be aimed at condemning every other injustice on the planet. Canadian Jewish organizations and pro-Israel commentators are furious at Canada’s vote, which directly contradicts pledges made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including during the last election campaign.

While many are appalled at the hypocritical obsession with Israel, and certainly Israeli diplomats are in the fray denouncing the vote, average Israelis, it is safe to say, remain sanguine. They have seen far worse attacks than that by the world community in the comparatively impotent global parliament that the UN General Assembly has become.

While it would be nice if the world judged Israel with moral measuring sticks commensurate with those we use for every other country, in the end it doesn’t seem to make much difference, thankfully. Even through the pandemic, Israelis have continued to try and turn science fiction into scientific reality. This week’s news alone included the possibility of cures for cancer, dementia and aging itself. And the benefits of such research do not accrue solely to Israelis, but to all of us – whether the nations of the world at the General Assembly recognize and appreciate that fact or not.

Reckoning with family’s past

Writer and illustrator Nora Krug spoke with the Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman at a virtual event Oct. 27. (photo by DW Deutsche Welle)

The first time Nora Krug heard the word “Jew” was in elementary school during religion class, which was taught by the local priest. He told students that Jews killed Jesus.

Born in the German city of Karlsruhe, Krug is now associate professor of illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, and author of the book Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home. She spoke with Marsha Lederman at a virtual event Oct. 27 presented by the German Consulate General in Vancouver, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria. Lederman is the Western arts correspondent for the Globe and Mail and her own book, Kiss the Red Stairs: Intergenerational Trauma, the Holocaust, and Me, is to be published in 2022.

“I came home from school that day and confronted my mother about it,” Krug recalled. “I said, ‘Are Jews evil?’ She got really angry because [it was] so obvious to her that this was something that nobody in Germany should ever think or say.”

A few years later, in her early teens, when she began learning about the Holocaust, she made a yellow star and intended to wear it as an act of solidarity with the Jewish people. Her mother, again, set her on a more appropriate path.

Krug explores her own struggles with her family’s past, as well as that of her country, in the book, a visual memoir that incorporates prose, graphics and photography. (See jewishindependent.ca/creative-engaging-memoir.)

The book was challenging on many fronts, Krug said, including her intention to tell one family’s story about the war era without downplaying German atrocities or doing anything that would appear to paint Germans as victims. While Germans did suffer during the war, it was ultimately a result of their own government’s actions.

“I’m not saying that Germans did not suffer during the war. I think they did,” she said. “But it was a self-imposed suffering.”

Like many aspects of researching a family’s or a country’s past, some things are unknowable and, at times, evidence can raise more questions than it answers. For instance, Krug had been told that her grandfather was a lifelong social democrat. But, when she dug through archives and found the military questionnaire that Germans in the American sector of occupied Germany were required to fill out to explain their war-era activities, he had acknowledged being a Nazi party member. Holding the document in her hands – not a facsimile, but the very document on which her grandfather had responded to more than 300 questions – was chilling, she said. The knowledge of her grandfather’s relationship with the Nazi party could only lead to speculation when she pieced two other facts together.

Krug had always known the location where her grandfather’s office had been in Karlsruhe. But only when she was researching the book did she discover that the Jewish centre and a synagogue were right across the street. Where was her grandfather when the synagogue was attacked on Kristallnacht and Jews were beaten in the streets? In the book, she posits four possibilities, from watching out his office window to laying home in bed sick to the most alarming possibility: that maybe he was among the mobs perpetrating the attacks.

Having lived for the past two decades in the United States – and being married to a Jewish man and having a 5-year-old daughter who is beginning to ask questions about history – all impacted her decision to write the book.

“I don’t think I would have done that had I not left Germany because I think, when I lived in Germany, I felt like I learned everything there is to learn about the war, what else is there to investigate?” she said. “That was my thinking. But, since I’ve been living in New York, I’m an individual and I am a German representing my country.”

Being away from her homeland also made her consider history more from an individual perspective.

“I think when you live as a German among Germans you accept the collective understanding of how we grew up learning about the war,” she said, crediting Germany with doing a good job addressing the topic as a nation. “But I think where we have to really still catch up is to do it on an individual basis, to really go back into our families, into the archives, into the cities where we grew up, what happened in our streets, in our houses, and investigate more deeply on an individual level.”

These are complex challenges and Krug sees a problem with the way Germans struggle with their national identity because of the terrible history of the 20th century.

“I think Germans really need to learn to love their culture,” she said. “I have a problem with it, too. I’m not saying I know how to do that. But I do think it’s a dangerous thing to only highlight our guilt. I think we need to learn, as Germans, to replace the word guilt or shame with the term responsibility.”

By struggling to express national pride, she said, Germans tend to abandon that to a fringe element.

“The problem is a lot of Germans who are willing and open to looking back at the past from a critical angle cannot express this love for their culture,” she said. “I think Germans should try to learn to do that because, otherwise, we leave it to the extreme right to do it for us and that’s a big problem.”

After Krug’s conversation with Lederman, a high school teacher submitted a question noting that some Canadian students are expressing fatigue at learning about Canada’s history of residential schools and asked whether German kids are getting tired of learning about the Holocaust. Krug acknowledged this might be the case and suggested ways of teaching that make the lessons more directly relevant for the present.

“If we had learned in Germany, for instance, more about the German resistance movement, we could have applied that knowledge to the present as well and asked ourselves, how can I help minorities that are harassed today or how can I make sure that we defend our democracy?” she said. “I think the more important question to ask is not what would I have done back then but what am I doing today on a daily basis to reflect on the issues that we have in our countries, no matter what country that is.”

Task force set up

Over the last several years, there has been an alarming increase in antisemitic incidents across the globe, with many originating online. As social media posts do not stop at international borders, members of the national legislatures of Australia, Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States came together last month across party lines to launch the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism.

Members of the task force include Member of Knesset Michal Cotler-Wunsh (Blue and White, Israel), Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather (Liberal, Canada), MP Marty Morantz (Conservative, Canada), Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Democrat, United States), Congressman Ted Deutch (Democrat, United States), Congressman Chris Smith (Republican, United States), MP Josh Burns (Labour, Australia), MP Dave Sharma (Liberal, Australia), MP Andrew Percy (Conservative, United Kingdom) and MP Alex Sobel (Labour and Cooperative, United Kingdom).

The launch of the task force follows campaigns working to expose online antisemitism, including the #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate campaign that served as a global call to action to combat the virulent antisemitism that goes unaddressed or inadequately addressed on social media platforms.

The task force has the following goals:

Establishing consistent messaging and policy from parliaments and legislatures around the world in order to hold social media platforms – including Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and Google – accountable.
The adoption and publication of transparent policies related to hate speech.
Raising awareness about antisemitism on social media platforms and its consequences in order to acknowledge the tremendous responsibility that comes with the power the platforms hold.
Emphasizing that, if one minority cannot be protected by hate speech policies, then none can be. This task force will, therefore, serve as a means for protecting all minority groups from online hate.
Underscoring that the fight against antisemitism is a non-partisan consensus in democratic countries.

“Always and at this time in particular, as we stand united in fighting a global pandemic, another virus rages that requires global collaboration and cooperation,” stated Cotler-Wunsh. “By working with multi-partisan allies in parliaments around the world, we hope to create best practices and real change in holding the social media giants accountable to the hatred that exists on their platforms. It is imperative that we work together to expose the double standards.”

Housefather said, “Online hate, including antisemitic hate, is growing exponentially. Posts are viewed across national borders and impact people in many jurisdictions. Social media platforms have failed to adequately address hatred on their own. But they cannot be expected to create different policies in every separate country. By working together, we can create international definitions and recommendations for regulating social media platforms that can then be reviewed and hopefully implemented by each individual country.”

Morantz added, “Online hate is an abhorrent reality on social media platforms. I am honoured to work on a bipartisan basis with my Canadian colleagues, as well as international colleagues, to find solutions that keep all those safe who might suffer from online hate, antisemitism and discrimination.”

Historic win for Paul

In an historic victory, Annamie Paul was elected leader of the Green party of Canada Saturday, becoming the first Black person and the first Jewish woman to lead a federal political party. How historic this news is will depend on her impact on Canadian politics, beginning with her showing in a by-election in the riding of Toronto Centre at the end of this month.

Paul will also be challenged by some in her party who have taken exception not only to her moderate, conciliatory positions toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue but to her Jewishness itself. During the campaign, she was bombarded with antisemitic trolling, some from within her party, some from outside agitators. She overcame her nearest opponent, Dimitri Lascaris, on the eighth round of voting. Lascaris, one of Canada’s most vocal anti-Israel activists, was endorsed by a range of anti-Zionist figures, including Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters.

Lascaris has been a lightning rod in the party and the country for anti-Israel activists. When confronted during the campaign about the overt presence of antisemitic comments, ideas and harassment directed at Paul, Lascaris redirected, saying that antisemitism exists mostly on the right of the political spectrum.

Bigotry of every form must be acknowledged and condemned regardless of where it emerges. Pretending it does not exist and accusing one’s opponents of it while ignoring its presence in one’s own movement is a deeply unprogressive approach. Paul – as well as the Jewish community and all Canadians who seek justice and equality – must be vigilant and vocal as bigots react to the increased visibility of a Black Jewish woman leader.

The Green party has a history of problematic approaches to the Middle East, including a 2016 vote to endorse the BDS movement, later rescinded after then-leader Elizabeth May threatened to quit. That incident underscored the limited power of the leader’s role in the Green party. As Paul told the Independent in a recent interview (jewishindependent.ca/paul-hopes-to-make-history), she will not have the power, as leader, to make or alter party policy. May’s gambit – threatening to quit unless a position was reversed – is a rare tool in the kit.

Paul’s varied career has included roles as a director for a conflict prevention nongovernmental organization in Brussels, as an advisor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and as a political officer in Canada’s mission to the European Union. She was co-founder and co-director of an innovation hub for international NGOs addressing global challenges and has worked with other NGOs, such as the Climate Infrastructure Partnership and Higher Education Alliance for Refugees. She was born in Toronto to a family that immigrated from the Caribbean and she converted to Judaism under a Hillel rabbi while studying at Princeton University.

In her interview with the Independent, Paul said she admires Canada’s politics of compromise, but that the climate crisis is an exceptional event that requires single-minded determination to address.

In her victory address Saturday, to a small group observing social distancing, she suggested the voting public is ready for politicians who look and think differently.

While British Columbians are focused on provincial politics with the Oct. 24 election – and the world awaits the outcome of perhaps the most consequential U.S. election in our lifetimes on Nov. 3 – we will keep an eye on the Oct. 26 Toronto Centre by-election to see the next step in the trajectory of this new leader on the federal scene.

A testament to free speech

A new book on an incendiary topic turns out to be not quite as expected. The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, by Kenneth S. Stern, may be the most comprehensive assessment of the (at least) 20-year battle on North American campuses between pro-Israel and anti-Israel forces.

Jewish and pro-Israel readers picking up the work might anticipate a litany of horrors, anti-Zionist if not antisemitic incidents, brawls, screaming matches, vandalism, boycotts and the like. There is that. But Stern argues that the perception that campuses are aflame in anti-Zionist rage is simply not true. More, he offers proof that the pro-Israel side is far from innocent of engaging in disgraceful tactics, too. There is ill will and there are bad actors on both sides. Most unexpectedly, as much as the book is about the conflict, it is more than anything an exercise in applied ethics on the topic of free expression.

Stern is the director of the Bard Centre for the Study of Hate, an attorney and an author. For 25 years, he was the American Jewish Committee’s expert on antisemitism and he was a lead drafter of the Working Definition of Antisemitism. He is also, it appears, something close to a free speech purist. As such, he rails against efforts by Israel advocates who have organized campaigns to censure (and censor) anti-Israel voices. He doesn’t let the other side off easily, either, calling out acts of harassment like drowning out pro-Israel speakers with the “heckler’s veto.”

The book, from New Jewish Press, an imprint of University of Toronto Press, begins with an empirical assessment. In institutions of higher learning in the United States, Israel is an issue in very few, he writes.

When speaking with Jewish audiences, Stern asks for a show of hands to gauge perceptions on anti-Israel attitudes. He asks for guesses on how many American colleges have divested from Israel.

“Many seem surprised when I say ‘zero,’” he writes. “There are relatively few campuses where Israel is a burning issue, and every year the number of pro-Israel programs … is usually at least double the anti-Israel ones. There are over 4,000 campuses in the U.S. – in the 2017-18 academic year, 149 had anti-Israel activity.… So the campuses aren’t burning.”

He does not dismiss the extreme tensions on a few campuses, however.

“[O]n some campuses where anti-Israel activity is prominent, pro-Israel Jewish students may feel marginalized, dismissed or vilified, sometimes with antisemitic tropes.” Identity politics and the conflation of Jewish people with “whiteness” creates racial conflict. “[T]he labeling of Jews as white becomes a problem when shared victimhood becomes a sacred symbol, a badge of honour, a precondition to enter a club of the oppressed. Antisemitic discrimination is rendered invisible.”

Though bigotry may play a role in the discussion, Stern does not see constructive resolutions in neologisms like trigger warnings, safe spaces and microaggressions.

“Faculty should have the right to give trigger warnings if they want, but I never do, and I think the idea is a horrid one,” he writes. “I teach Mein Kampf. It’s disturbing – get over it. College should prepare one to be an adult, and there are no trigger warnings after graduation day. Why are we encouraging students to be ostriches? Shouldn’t they, rather, be learning how to navigate things that will likely unsettle them over the rest of their lives?”

He quotes CNN commentator Van Jones, a strong civil rights proponent, who opposes “safe spaces” on campus: “I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take the weights out of the gym. That’s the whole point of the gym.”

Stern contends a fundamental error has been made in defining terms.

“We want campuses that are open to expression – including, perhaps even especially, difficult and disturbing ideas – but which protect students from real harassment and intimidation. Hate speech codes were efforts to say that ideas themselves can harass and intimidate. Ideas can and should make one uncomfortable (a comfortable college education is a wasted college education). But harassment is something different.”

Strategically, he argues, trying to censor hateful ideas is self-defeating and advances hate agents by martyring them.

“By trying to censor, rather than expose and combat, speech the students perceived as hateful, they were actually helping the alt-right and white supremacists,” writes Stern. “It’s no coincidence that the white nationalists in recent years have wrapped their racist and antisemitic messages around the concept of free speech. Why would progressives allow these haters to steal the bedrock democratic principle of free speech, disingenuously saying that this is what their fight is about? By trying to deny alleged racists platforms, progressives are helping white supremacists recast their vile message as noble protection of a right.”

Another strategic failure, he argues, is buying into the Palestinian narrative’s good/evil dichotomy.

“Israel’s case is best understood as inherently complex and difficult; playing into the ‘all bad’ and ‘all good’ binary of the other side renders those complexities invisible,” he writes.

The conflict on campus spills over, of course. Israel has created a list of 20 organizations, those that urge boycotts of the country, for instance, and bars their members from entering the country. Stern sees this as counterproductive: “You don’t make the case that blacklists (especially of academics) are proper if your goal is to oppose blacklists. You are conceding the argument.”

He gives an example of an anti-Israel campus activist who defends his group’s refusal to meet with Zionists “over cookies and cake” because “you Jews, in all due respect, you wouldn’t sit down with Nazis for tea and cake.”

He also reflects on the “Standards of Partnership” adopted by Hillel International, the Jewish campus organization, which proscribe engaging with groups or individuals that deny Israel’s right to exist, or who delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard Israel, who support BDS or who exhibit “a pattern of disruptive behaviour towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility.”

Writes Stern: “For those who are not yet ideological soldiers, but want to learn more, and want to do it around their campus Hillel, what sense does it make that adults are telling them they can only bring in certain types of speakers? Yes, the adults defined BDS as hateful. But does it make sense to tell students they have to go elsewhere than the Jewish address on campus to hear about it firsthand from those who support it?”

The litany of bad behaviours on all sides of the ideological divide is likely to make readers of Stern’s book uneasy, whether the reader is Zionist or anti-Zionist. But it is a rare and uncompromising testament to free expression that should give genuine free speech advocates an uplift, particularly in an era when ideologically driven regulation of expression and ideas, especially on campuses, has left many advocates of core liberal, academic values feeling beleaguered.

Paul hopes to make history

Annamie Paul is running to succeed Elizabeth May as leader of the Green Party of Canada. (photo from Annamie Paul)

Annamie Paul wants to be the first woman of colour and the first Jewish woman to lead a political party in Canada. But, in the process, the human rights lawyer and former diplomat who is running to succeed Elizabeth May as leader of the Green Party of Canada has been taken aback by the overt antisemitism thrown at her since it became widely known that she is Jewish.

“You almost can’t believe what you’re seeing,” said the Toronto native, who has worked extensively overseas. “There are very explicit comments questioning my loyalty to Canada because I am Jewish. There are those who have suggested that I am seeking to infiltrate the party on behalf of Zionist elements.”

Paul said what disappoints her most is the almost complete silence from others when antisemitic posts are made on social media, such as the Facebook group for Green party supporters.

“The comments were whispers at first, innuendo, and now they’ve become very explicit,” she said. “If people are allowed to make these comments unchecked, it really emboldens them and that’s definitely what I’ve noticed over the last week or two.”

Amid a litany of such comments – including items not directly targeting her but equating Israelis to Nazis on Green-oriented social media sites – only one single individual not on her campaign team has called out the offensive posts. At the urging of Paul’s campaign, moderators removed some of the most disturbing ones.

“It’s taken me aback,” she said. “It wasn’t something I was fully prepared for, to be honest.”

She differentiates between people who are deliberately provocative and those who are uninformed.

“I accept that there are a certain number of people who still need to be educated … and, while it’s perhaps not my responsibility to do that, I’m willing to do that because I think if I can create a little more understanding, then that’s important,” she said.

Paul spoke at a Zoom event organized by Congregation Beth Israel and moderated by Rabbi Jonathan Infeld on July 8. That conversation was primarily about Paul’s life, Jewish journey and career. In a subsequent interview with the Jewish Independent, she delved more deeply into policy and her experiences with antisemitism and racism.

Born in Toronto to a family from the Caribbean, she was among the first students in Toronto public schools’ French immersion program. Her mother, a teacher, and grandmother, a nurse and midwife, worked as domestics when they arrived in Canada. Her mother went on to get a master’s of education and taught in elementary schools for more than three decades; her grandmother became a nurse’s aide.

Paul credits her mother’s broad-mindedness and spiritual bent for the openness that led her to embrace Judaism in early adulthood. Paul was converted by the Hillel rabbi while completing a master’s of public affairs at Princeton University. She also has a law degree from the University of Ottawa. She chose Ottawa in part because its law faculty emphasizes law through an Indigenous lens. In addition to seeking at an early age to be an ally to Indigenous peoples – she started law school at 19 – she saw parallels between the Canadian situation and her own heritage as a member of the Black diaspora.

“We have been stripped of all of the things that Indigenous peoples are fighting for still in this country,” she said. “Through colonialism, we lost our identity, we lost our culture, our language, our religions. We really can’t tell you anything with any great degree of precision about our ancestors. When I saw other peoples fighting for those things, I understood intuitively how important it was.”

Paul has worked as a director for a conflict prevention nongovernmental organization in Brussels, as an advisor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and as a political officer in Canada’s mission to the European Union. She co-founded and co-directed an innovation hub for international NGOs working on global challenges and has served on the board and advised other international NGOs, including the Climate Infrastructure Partnership and Higher Education Alliance for Refugees. She is married to Mark Freeman, a prominent human rights lawyer and author. They have two sons, one in university in London, U.K., the other in high school in Toronto.

Returning to Canada after spending about 13 years abroad, Paul looked at Canadian politics with fresh eyes. While she had been courted to run provincially by the Ontario Liberal Party in the early 2000s, she opted to run federally for the Green party in 2019. She took about 7% of the vote in Toronto Centre, which was won by Finance Minister Bill Morneau. She is one of nine candidates running for Green leader.

She chose the Green party because, she said, “we don’t have time to fool around with the climate emergency.”

“I celebrate the compromise that is the spirit of Canadian politics,” Paul said. “This is the Canadian way. But there are some things that you simply have to do all the way or it really doesn’t work. One of those things is the climate emergency. If we don’t hit our targets, then we are setting ourselves up for disaster. The Liberals, the NDP, the Conservatives, they’re just not committed to that goal and so I wanted to make it clear that I was aligning myself with the party that was very, very committed to reaching those targets.”

COVID-19, for all the health and economic devastation it has wrought, also presents opportunities, said Paul. In Canada, federal and provincial governments came together and political parties set aside partisanship to an extent. Canadians who may have been skeptical that a massive challenge like climate change could be ameliorated see what concerted governmental action – and massive investments – can look like. “[Canadians] know that money can be found if it’s needed and they know that we can mobilize very quickly,” she said.

The billions of dollars being invested into the economic recovery should be directed toward projects that explicitly advance a green economy, she said, such as a cross-Canada energy grid that produces electricity from renewable sources to be shared throughout the country. This is just one of a range of opportunities that Paul sees emerging from this extraordinary economic challenge.

“For a country as wealthy and well-educated as Canada, if we want to be, we can really be first in line for all of this,” she said. “It’s exciting.”

The Green leader has limited constitutional authority in a party dedicated to grassroots policymaking, Paul said. If party members adopt a policy that challenges the leader’s core values, the leader may be required to walk away. Such a scenario emerged in 2016 after the party adopted a resolution to boycott Israel. Following a showdown, the resolution was rescinded and May carried the party into the subsequent election. As a result, Paul said, the party is on record supporting Israel’s right to exist and opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

Paul opposes the Netanyahu government’s Jordan Valley annexation plan because she believes it contravenes international law. But she also urged vigilance against those who might mask their antisemitism in anti-Zionism. And she stressed the unlikelihood of pleasing everyone on either side of the Israel and Palestine divide.

“I don’t feel that there’s anything these days that you can say in terms of that conflict where you’re not going to attract criticism that you were too soft or you were too hard,” she said. “It’s very difficult.”

But, while she doesn’t have the magic answer to resolve the longstanding conflict, her background in diplomacy and international law makes her confident in asserting that negotiated settlement is the route to any eventual solution.

“Dialogue always has to be the preferred option,” she said, adding that international law must be applied to all sides. “State actors, non-state actors, they are all subject to international law. Their obligation is to respect international law and to protect fundamental human rights. There are no exceptions to that.”

At a time when North Americans and others are facing our histories of racism and injustice, Paul finds herself at an opportune intersection.

“I’m very aware of what I represent as a candidate,” she said. “I’m a Black woman, I’m a Jewish woman.… I know people are very interested in my identities and I embrace that…. I would say, though, that [I hope] people will take the time to get to know me and not to create a one-dimensional image of me simply focused around those identities. I feel that I’m very prepared because of the work I’ve done, my academic studies, etc. I’m very well prepared to take on this role and all of the elements of this role.

“You’re not just an environmental advocate as the leader of the Green party, for instance, you also need to be able to talk about foreign policy, you need to be able to talk about economic theory, you need to be able to talk about rural revitalization and what are we going to do about long-term care and should we decriminalize illicit drugs. You need someone who is three-dimensional and I know that I’m three-dimensional and I hope people remember that.”

As a Jew of colour, Paul also has insights on antisemitism in the Black Lives Matters movements and racism in the Jewish community.

“The Black diaspora is not a monolith,” she said. “The Jewish community is not a monolith, either. Don’t ever take the actions of some members of the community as an indication of how the entire community feels.… I would just say don’t let that push you out of wanting to support the community in the way that you should. In terms of Black and Indigenous lives in this country, the statistics just take your breath away. Not just the criminal justice statistics but also health, education, life expectancy, they are really very troubling and those communities need as much help as they can get from people who really understand, who have suffered a great deal of persecution historically, as well, and have had to create opportunities and overcome barriers and still do.”

The leadership vote takes place Sept. 26 to Oct. 3. The deadline to join the Green party to vote in the election is Sept. 3.