antisemitism – Jewish Independent

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.

Redouble efforts

North American society, hobbled by the COVID pandemic and enflamed by police violence and the belated recognition of other forms of systemic racism, has now veered determinedly into a discussion of privilege.

Discussion of white privilege is an effort to address systemic racism not only from the perspective of the disadvantages experienced by people of colour but, conversely, via the advantages experienced by the white majority in places like North America. It is, of course, a necessary and worthy undertaking. When considering anti-racism along with antisemitism, however, this approach can cloud more than it elucidates.

While some Jews, including most in North America, are considered white in today’s culture and society, the effort to dismiss the particularity of the Jewish experience is an erasure that can feel particularly galling when it emanates from people who pride themselves on respecting the cultural and historical experiences of different peoples.

It may be folly to seek rational explanations for unreasonable biases, but the presence of antisemitism in movements ostensibly advancing human equality can perhaps be explained by the fact that, among the many and morphing characteristics of antisemitism is a depiction of Jews as powerfully monolithic, grasping and collectively economically advantaged.

The application of generalized stereotypes onto all members of any group is the definition of prejudice. When it comes to stereotypes about Jews, it can naturally lead to what has been called “punching up.”

Attacking people perceived as weaker (or less advantaged) than oneself is “punching down” and is, obviously, despicable. Yet, if one subscribes to the idea of powerful, controlling Jews, the inevitable “punching up” can be perverted into an heroic act of advancing equality. Rather than raising up those who are, or are perceived to be, disadvantaged, this aberrant approach strives to drag down those perceived to be advantaged. That those “advantaged” or “privileged” people happen to belong to that oldest of scapegoated groups can hardly be a coincidence.

In recent years, but particularly in recent days, we have seen prominent Black figures in the world of entertainment and professional sports get themselves into hot water over comments that are explicitly antisemitic or perceived as such. Some, like football star DeShawn Jackson, have apologized; others have dug in their heels. In Jackson’s case, he recanted after sharing on social media assertions that Hitler was not racist and other posts that claimed a Jewish plan to “extort America” and achieve “world domination.”

Similarly, a social media hashtag, #JewishPrivilege, was perpetuated by white supremacists and others – but was then co-opted by Jews themselves. Israeli activist Hen Mazzig, who is said to have started the counter-trend, wrote: “#JewishPrivilege is when my grandparents were violently forced out of Iraq and Tunisia for being Jewish with only the clothes on their back. Along with 850,000 other MENA Jews they arrived to Israel with nothing, only spoke Arabic, and lived in a tent/tin shack for years.” So many Jews tweeted their experiences of antisemitism that the hashtag trended again, but with new meaning.

Fighting antisemitism and fighting racism against Black, Indigenous and other peoples of colour can sometimes put a person at a confusing and contradictory crossroad. However, the solution is not to walk away. We don’t have that privilege. It is our moral responsibility and it is in our self-interest to redouble our efforts against racism and antisemitism and to educate anyone and everyone who does not see the interconnectedness of these two causes and their complexities – including ourselves.

We cannot walk away

George Floyd’s name may be the best known, but police in the United States (and Canada and elsewhere) have assaulted and killed too many racialized individuals to recount here. While we might hope that the current focus on these needless and unlawful deaths will bring a sea-change in police training and behaviours, the truth is we have seen uprisings of outrage multiple times this century resulting in apparently minimal structural correction. Will this time be different? We can hope so – and act in ways that advance positive outcomes – but one trend is absolutely not helping.

Amid the weeks of protests and riots, the ceaseless attention on this issue has brought to light some factors that are less than encouraging. A backlash to the protests and their sometimes-violent flare-ups unsurprisingly take racist overtones. The mantra “all lives matter,” for example, is a tone deaf and offensive rejoinder to the Black Lives Matter movement. Acts of antisemitism – the spray-painting of a Los Angeles synagogue and a litany of other acts and statements from members of or those supporting a disparate movement – may give perceived consent to some Jews to turn away from the campaign for human equality. But BLM is not an organization; it is a movement. It is made up of scores or hundreds of independent groups and millions of supporters. Some of those individuals are Jews, Black and non-Black. We should be grown-up enough (and sufficiently world-weary) to know that, among any such agglomeration of people, some will express antisemitic ideas. If we are so troubled by this that we throw the baby of racial equality out with the bathwater of fringe extremism, we would be wise to look inward. If we refuse to stand with BLM because of a proportion of bigots in its ranks, take a good hard look at the company we keep by standing with its opponents.

The upshot is that BLM and the larger fight for equality – indeed, the fight to simply keep police from killing African-American and individuals from other identifiable minority communities – is too important to step away from even if we ourselves are targeted by some in the ranks. This should not be about Jews – though, while this should be a given, the world does not work this way. One element that has the potential to strain this alliance is those who have tried to make the relationship between police brutality and racial injustice about Jews: Israelis, specifically.

A tactic has been to focus on training that a comparatively small number of American law enforcement officials have received in Israel. Some voices have made direct parallels between these law enforcement exchanges and police violence in the United States. Some even falsely claim that the knee-on-the-neck move that killed George Floyd is an Israeli invention.

Steven L. Pomerantz, a former assistant director of the FBI and now director of the Homeland Security Program at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, is an architect of one of the earliest such exchanges, which emerged shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks.

“Despite suggestions to the contrary, there is no field training involved in either the conferences or trips, and no training on holds or arrest mechanics,” he wrote recently. “Participants learn how Israeli law enforcement deters, disrupts and responds to terrorist attacks. They explore the ideology of suicide bombers and other attackers, ways to de-escalate an ongoing incident, and the intelligence-gathering and -sharing process.… Trip participants have discussed efforts to build trust with minority communities, visited hospital trauma units and crime scenes, and spoken with terrorists serving life sentences for murder. One year, JINSA organized a specialized trip for American bomb squad commanders, which focused on topics such as post-blast forensics and the materials used in explosive devices.”

There is a probably no democratic country in the world more experienced in counterterrorism operations than Israel. In today’s world, it would be foolish not to learn from this tragically hard-earned understanding. Like Canada and the United States, Israeli police and military personnel operate with civilian oversight. As Pomerantz writes, it is deceptive to pin on Israel the actions of rogue bad cops in the United States. And, even Jewish Voice for Peace, in their campaign against these law enforcement exchanges, explicitly calls out those who would strip the American context of repressive policing and shift the blame to Israel, as that could be reasonably interpreted as antisemitism and, therefore, harm the movement for solidarity.

It may be that these law enforcement exchanges worldwide – not just those concerning Israel – contribute to the militarization of policing, a trend that is worrying, to say the least. As part of a larger network of exchanges of security forces across the world, it may be that they need to be reassessed. However, to misplace responsibility for police violence – and to choose that scapegoat of ages, Jews – undermines the credibility and the effectiveness of the anti-racist enterprise, and it is disadvantageous to the larger movement for equality.

Good people in the anti-racism movement have and must condemn the targeting of Israel and Jews. Likewise, Jewish people who care about human equality must not step away from this fight, but rather fight on two fronts: against racism and antisemitism. For a better future for ourselves and for other minorities and marginalized peoples, we cannot walk away.

Family history informs his art

Much of artist Seth Book’s work has been influenced by his maternal grandfather, who was a Holocaust survivor, including “A Series I Don’t Want to Continue” – “One work to symbolize each character tattooed on his arm, and each million Jewish people that were massacred,” explained Book. (photo from Seth Book)

“My art began as solely for the enjoyment of creating work that was esthetically pleasing, but it has since changed to serve a didactic purpose and to provide awareness to social issues and histories that are important to me and my family,” Seth Book told the Independent. “A significant part of my work is to keep the legacy of my grandfather, survivors, and Jewish history alive.”

Book is a member of the third generation. “My mother’s father was a Holocaust survivor, originally from Romania. He went through a few camps, Auschwitz being one of them. Since seventh grade, I have completed a significant amount of research on his story, directly with him while he was alive, as well as after his passing, and, like many other survivors, he had an unbelievable journey,” explained Book, whose work will be on display at Art Vancouver April 16-19, in the unlikely event that the spread of COVID-19 is under control by then and the fair is allowed to take place.

“His presence in my early life has been extremely impactful on the way I live and see the world,” said Book of his grandfather, “and this is what has influenced my art. I truly believe that, in school, work and life in general, I have gotten my tenacity, conscientiousness and resilience from my zaide. As I learned more about his life and what he fought so hard to build for my family, he became a strong source of motivation and drive to succeed in my life. I still uncover bits and pieces about his life after the Holocaust.”

While his art for the past few years has been primarily concerned with his grandfather, the Holocaust, survivors in general, and present-day antisemitism, Book said the past year has been “transformational.”

“My connection to my grandfather allowed me to begin my work at this starting point relative to my own history,” he said, “but it has since expanded to include broader focuses, such as the current generation living on the legacies of survivors, as well as generational trauma and current events affecting the global Jewish community.”

Book, who works at a branding agency doing graphic design and writing copy for clients, is set to finish his bachelor of fine arts degree at the University of British Columbia. His coursework has allowed him to learn about and use many different mediums, he said, “including drawing, digital media, photography, painting and metalwork.”

Born in Vancouver, Book has lived in the Dunbar area his entire life. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah from preschool to Grade 7, and then went to St. George’s School for his secondary education. He continued his involvement in the Jewish community via Temple Sholom, he said, “where I participated in the confirmation class in 10th grade and then taught at the Sunday school in 11th and 12th grade. I was also lucky enough to travel to Israel with my family on the Temple Sholom trip after my bar mitzvah.”

He was well-versed in diverse media long before his university years.

“Growing up, I was always interested in creativity: building structures, doing crafts, colouring, and especially playing with LEGO,” he said. “I recall being hilariously picky with colours and colouring inside the lines when drawing with other kids as early as preschool; I always find it funny to this day how much it bothered me as a toddler to see other toddlers using odd colour combinations or messy drawing.

“This interest in art was then supplemented by Colette Leisen’s art class all throughout VTT – it was probably my favourite in elementary school. This carried on into various art classes in high school, including drawing, animation, graphic design, ceramics and painting.”

photo - Seth Book — Seth Book *(photo from Seth Book)*

Book said it is hard to define his artistic style because he has always been interested in finding new mediums and approaches. But he has less need for such definition since he began university. Since then, he said, “I have been able to let go of that and continue exploring what interests me rather than being labeled as a ‘painter’ or a ‘photographer.’ I always find that different mediums have such an incredibly unique ability to succeed in accomplishing a piece better than others. In other words, certain mediums are more effective than others in conveying certain ideas or concepts for varying projects. That being said, I try to use the best option I can for each work, trying not to limit myself in expertise. I can always try and learn! I did not work with metal until late 2019, and have already created two works using it, and I am very satisfied with how they turned out.”

Book, who has a background in business management in addition to his art training, said he first heard about Art Vancouver through a summer internship program he took part in a couple years ago, and has kept in close contact with the team there since. “I have loved working with the organizers and enjoyed attending the event every year,” he said. “I quite like the efforts they make to advance the art scene in my hometown and can’t wait to be a part of it as an artist this time.”

Hopefully, he will get that chance, but, even if Art Vancouver is canceled or postponed because of COVID-19, Book is an emerging artist whose works will available at other venues at other times.

He was able to tell the Independent about two pieces he was planning on bringing to the art fair. While he had not firmly decided on all the pieces yet, he said, “I selected the works from my portfolio which I have found to be the most striking, the works that I have received most compliments about, as well as the works which I feel represent my wide practice the best when shown together.”

One of those creations is called “A Series I Don’t Want to Continue,” which comprises six digitally rendered vinyl decals adhered to six two-foot-by-three-foot melamine sheets.

“A series opens an idea and simultaneously closes it,” reads the work’s description. “The values in between the first and last work tell a story or convey some sort of meaning through the relationships formed with the works in between.”

It continues, “A series of works in any media all relate to one another through consecutive nature. Labeling a group of entities as part of a series can bind them together, locking them out from further creation or reproduction. This is where the concept of my work integrates itself reflexively within the format of a series work. Through this work, I explore the contained value of past events, and particularly the Holocaust, in relation to my grandfather’s story.

“When he passed away, the evaluation of his extreme tenacity and hard work to establish our family and provide futures for generations to come was recognized more than ever. ‘Never again,’ the words that often cross our mind, could not be stronger upon recounting the horrors he endured. Never again, but also never forget. These events happened. They must be taught and preserved, but they are contained, and must never grow…. One work to symbolize each character tattooed on his arm, and each million Jewish people that were massacred. There will not be a seventh work in this series.”

The other piece that Book wanted to bring for sure to Art Vancouver is called “Untitled Crowd (The Stars, The Blues, The Ashes).” The 22-inch-by-30-inch ink-on-paper work is also related to the Holocaust. The description reads, in part, that the Nazis’ attention to detail was “dual-edged.”

“On one hand,” it notes, “they kept extremely particular and accurate data records of the prisoners murdered. Ironically, on the other hand, the attention to human detail was nonexistent. When Jewish people were funneled through various camps, they were stripped of their belongings and identities. They were nothing but a number.”

In “Untitled Crowd,” Book writes, “I attempt to discuss this specific lack of attention and elimination of one’s person. Each work is a recreation of real people who either survived or perished during the Holocaust. In order to illustrate the lack of respect and attention given to these unfortunately abused people, I spent a specifically short time on depicting them in the piece. Each face was dedicated about six minutes, to correspond with the six million lives lost. The faces are all overlapping with one another to represent not only the crowds of people who were murdered and their brutal living conditions, but also the morphing of individuals into a mess of numbers and bodies rather than human beings.”

The piece’s three parts carry added symbolism. “The first work is done with shades of mustard yellow to signify the yellow stars Jewish people were forced to use as identification, and the shades are more distinct in overlapping to show not all identity had yet been lost,” writes Book. “The second work is completed with shades of blues to represent the blue-striped pyjamas prisoners wore, and the difference in tone decreases to create a more homogenized look as they lost identity. The final work uses the greyscale to convey the ashes of those perished, and the gaining age of survivors around the world.”

For more on Book, visit his website, sethbook.ca. For more on Art Vancouver, see artvancouver.net.

Antisemitism, Part 2 of 2

Last week in this space, we addressed some of the challenges facing the Jewish people globally, which were put into stark relief by the latest edition of an Anti-Defamation League report titled Global 100. The most recent annual review of antisemitic attitudes worldwide paints a disheartening picture.

There are (at least) two inferences to draw from the report: that what we’ve been doing to confront antisemitism isn’t working or, perhaps more disturbing, they are working and, without them, the situation would be much worse.

First, a point that deserves repeating. Antisemitic ideas are most rampant in places where there are few or no Jews, because antisemitism is far less about Jews than about the antisemites and their need for scapegoating or other psychosocial outlets. But that fact is of limited comfort for the Jewish woman attacked on the subway or the hundreds of people evacuated from Jewish community centres around New York state last Sunday due to bomb threats.

We who are writing these words and you who are reading them can, for the most part, do little about the global situation, but the familiar saying, “Think globally, act locally,” rings as true as ever. While there are myriad organizations working nationally and internationally in the interests of the Jewish community and Israel – and we would like to see more of that, as well as some means of quantifying their results – the greatest impacts most of us can have are probably right here in our own neighbourhoods.

Again, advertising the great achievements of Jews and Israel may not be the best strategy. There is no need for, or value in, diminishing Jewish achievement and pride, but there is value in simultaneously reinforcing the universal humanity of Jewish people.

Without reopening that can of worms about whether Trump (or Bolsinaro or Orban or Modi or Mohammad bin Salman) is bad for the Jews – because we have national and international organizations operating on those macro-diplomatic fronts – what can ordinary folks like us, who feel afraid, helpless and perhaps disenfranchised, do to have an impact and, no less crucially, feel less isolated and disempowered?

As individuals, we can engage with others in our midst: with the church down the street, the service clubs in our communities, the ethnocultural groups that abound in Vancouver and across Canada, and the pet parents we meet at the dog park. The objective, we think, should not be a full court press to persuade these people that Jews are awesome. The point should be to rebuild the relationships that Jewish communities and individuals have enjoyed with the broader Canadian mosaic; not to advocate for these other groups and individuals to stand with us, but to stand with them so that, together, we form bonds of mutual understanding and care.

It is sometimes noted, especially on social media and in conversations among friends – you’ve certainly heard it – that some of the most concerning voices today are not coming from far-right radicals (though these are troubling) but from ostensibly reasonable people on the left. Ameliorating this challenge is not going to come from declaring them the enemy and polarizing our voices with their opposite – which is what is happening quite frequently in a perilous form of the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend construction (see Trump/Bolsinaro/Orban/Modi/MBS above). The challenge will be addressed by rebuilding or strengthening the bridges between our communities and causes – not because it is the expedient thing to do, but because it is the right thing to do.

Last week on the front page, we featured two (of many) individuals in our community who are leading local voices in the movement against climate change, each using different strategies toward the same goal. They are not doing this as ambassadors of the Jewish people, of course, but they are doing so as Jews, motivated by their values and urgent commitment to saving the planet. They are Jewish allies in a diverse mix of dedicated activists.

Countless other Jewish community members are working across faiths and cultures to advance all the communities they encounter. Holocaust survivors are partnering with indigenous residential schools survivors in joint educational initiatives, and there are Jews who are actively supporting the Japanese community’s call for redress from the B.C. government for its role in the grave mistreatment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. Local Jewish groups and individuals are doing everything from working to stop human trafficking to sponsoring Syrian refugees to participating in interfaith activities to making food for the homeless.

The pages of this paper are filled regularly with stories that are not, let’s say, Jewish-specific, but of Jewish people making positive contributions to the world. Motivated by a vast range of factors, often by their Jewish values, these points of light in the world are acting on issues important to them and building interpersonal and cross-community bridges in the process.

When we began this two-part conversation last week, we pointed out that, if we had the solution to antisemitism, you would have heard it. We don’t. It seems nobody does. The work being done at the national and international levels by the vast network of Jewish and Zionist organizations is mostly admirable and should be supported. But each of us also needs to look closer to home and remember that, as Margaret Mead said, a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world – and perhaps make some friends along the way.

While celebrating and preserving what is unique in our Jewishness, we should also enhance what was successful in parts of the 20th century: allying with the diversity of individuals and groups in our multicultural society to remind them – and ourselves – that we are not alone, but part of a larger human enterprise.