antisemitism – Page 11

Resilience of Portugal’s Jews

King Manuel I of Portugal (1495-1521) had a problem. To marry Princess Isabella of Spain, he consented to the request of her parents – Ferdinand and Isabella – to rid Portugal of its Jews. But Manuel wanted to keep the Jewish citizens close by, for their economic benefits (money and skills). His solution? In 1496-7, he forced Jews to convert. (He also expelled the country’s Muslims.)

Manuel believed that New Christians – this population is likewise referred to as conversos, anusim or Crypto-Jews; marranos is a derogatory term that should not be used – would continue to boost the country’s economy. It should be noted that Jews in Portugal already paid a special poll tax and a special property tax.

Even after they were forcibly converted, Portuguese Jews could not live wherever they wanted. They lived in separate quarters referred to as judiarias, what we might call ghettos. They worked as artisans and rural labourers, weavers, tailors, cobblers, carpenters, leather tanners, jewelers, and every branch of the metal industry, ranging from ordinary blacksmiths to armourers and goldsmiths.

Several Jews nonetheless reached prominence in medieval Portugal. Among them was Abraham Zacuto, originally from Spain. Portuguese King John II invited Zacuto to be the royal astronomer. The king wanted Zacuto to chart a sea route to India. Unlike most of his fellow religionists, Zacuto managed to flee Portugal after King Manuel imposed conversion on the country’s Jews.

There was also Isaac Abarbanel, who was King Afonso V’s treasurer. Yehuda Even Maneer was the richest Jew in the kingdom and, for that reason, was appointed Portugal’s finance minister. Master Nacim, a Jewish eye doctor, was accorded certain privileges because of his professional skills.

Before King Manuel decreed the forced conversion, the Jewish community of Tomar built a synagogue, in spite of attacks orchestrated against them and other Jews in the country. Unfortunately, the building was used for its original purpose for only a short period, after which – for years and years after the forced conversion – it was used by the Church. The town itself became one of the sites of the Inquisition tribunal. Today, the synagogue has been renovated and is considered a national monument.

Crypto-Jews continued to covertly practise Judaism. In the town of Porto, for example, the Crypto-Jews secretly operated a synagogue, hiding it from the Inquisition.

photo - In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up a Torah ark, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour — In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up a Torah ark, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

In 2013, a renovation project at a facility for Portuguese senior citizens turned up an amazing find. Hidden behind the eastern wall of the dining room was a Torah ark, or aron kodesh, carved directly into the stonework separating the building from its neighbour. There were two compartments, a square space topped by a slightly larger arched tablet-shaped opening, with space for approximately six small Torah scrolls. Besides this relatively recent discovery, we have the 16th-century testimony of Immanuel Aboab, a native of Porto. (The late Yom Tov Assis, who was a professor at Hebrew University, had likewise been trying to locate where such an aron kodesh was located in the area.)

It was common among Crypto-Jews to light one Shabbat candle in a secret cabinet. There was also an emergency tool for snuffing out Shabbat lights if it was suspected that a Christian neighbour was spying. To make Shabbat different from other days, these secret Jews ate no meat. Purim was marked by three days of fasting beforehand. Passover was celebrated two days late, so as to throw Christians off the track. Other secret Jews took the risk of undergoing circumcision.

Within limits, these Crypto-Jews read psalms and recited the Shema, didn’t work on Shabbat, didn’t eat pork and fasted on Yom Kippur. Manuel (Abraham) de Morales passed out manuscripts of what he thought were important points to know about Judaism. But most of the Jewish customs were orally transmitted from mother to children.

Not surprisingly, the period before the forced conversion was not totally free of tension between Jews and Christians: Franciscan and Dominican clergy walked through judiarias, ready to convert Jews. Moreover, Portugal’s new merchant class was apprehensive about the influence of the Jewish citizens and their capital. Under the reign of João I (1385-1443), new laws obliged Jews to wear an identifying sign on their clothes and imposed curfews on the judiarias. There were scattered outbreaks of violence, like the attack on the Lisbon judiaria in 1445, in which many died.

photo - Jew Street in Lisbon, Portugal — Jew Street in Lisbon, Portugal. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

After the forced conversion, New Christians would be charged with being infidels, not heretics. These New Christians generally adopted Christian given names and Old Christian surnames. They probably did this to deflect attention. But harder times still followed for Portuguese Jews, with the massacre of 2,000 conversos in Lisbon in 1506 and the Portuguese Inquisition, which began in 1536. Inquisitors would come to a town and tell the gentile population that they were looking for secret Jews. They would present a list of suspicious behaviour to look for.

In medieval Portugal, turning in New Christians became a profitable venture. Arrested conversos had their assets seized by members of the Inquisition. Occasionally, Church officials would accept bribes for temporary pardons.

Apparently, if a New Christian approached an inquisitor, he had a chance of redeeming himself by admitting that his family lit Shabbat candles or washed sheets for Shabbat. On the other hand, if an Old Christian accused a New Christian of still practising Jewish rituals and the latter denied the observances, he would face a worse outcome from his trial.

The number of Inquisition victims between 1540 and 1765 is estimated at 40,000. Punishment included being raised by a pulley with one’s hands behind one’s back. Convicted infidels were then burned at the stake.

Cells where Crypto-Jews were held before their Portuguese Inquisition trials. *(photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)*

The cruel punishments passed down by the Portuguese Inquisition drew large crowds of spectators. The crowds were akin to those who would come to watch bullfights.

Trials ceased after about 250 years, although Portugal’s Inquisition was not officially abolished until 1821.

Jewish informers should also be mentioned. These people, as can be imagined, found an open ear among Portugal’s prejudiced secular and religious leaders. If these traitors were discovered by the Jewish community, they might have had their eyes gouged out, their tongue removed or been put to death for putting the community at tremendous risk. So serious a crime was acting against one’s own people that even Maimonides condoned Jewish informers.

The impact of the forced conversion and the Inquisition continue to be felt. Take, for example, Belmonte, located in the northern part of Portugal. It has a small Jewish community that has retained the rituals of Judaism despite all the hardships and persecution. In the 1990s, when the idea of building a synagogue was raised, some Jewish community members were against it. Why? Because being a member of the anusim community was their cherished identity. Almost 200 years after the Portuguese Inquisition had been abolished, they couldn’t imagine living openly as Jews.

Estimates are that at least 20% of Portugal’s current population has anusim roots.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Hope for best outcomes

Every election leaves a portion of the electorate thrilled and another group disappointed. The more polarized the electorate, the more intense these emotions. Two elections recently were certainly examples of this – and they were elections that could hardly have been closer.

The British Columbia provincial election returned the New Democrats under Premier David Eby to office – but just barely. A single seat assured a majority government but that is a most precarious victory. Eby will need to be vigilant to ensure not a single member of his caucus steps out of line on a confidence vote or becomes disgruntled enough to bolt the party. This is almost certainly part of the reason Eby gave every member of his caucus a special title (along with added pay for the responsibilities).

Eby has a reputation for centralizing power in his office – to be fair, almost every leader in our parliamentary system does, but apparently Eby is a master at micromanaging – and this is a double-edged sword. He does not lack the skills to keep potentially wayward sheep in line, but excessive domination tends to incite rebellion.

Jewish voters especially will be watching a few things. The new mandatory curriculum for Holocaust education is to be rolled out next year. Given behaviours of the BC Teachers Federation and the potential for individual instructors to go rogue, the possibility exists for this curriculum to be weaponized against Jewish people. There are already dispiriting anecdotes about anti-Israel activism among some teachers. The introduction of mandatory Holocaust education could open the door to reactionary activism among those who think the Holocaust should not be privileged over other human catastrophes, as well as conversations that could turn in inappropriate directions because they lack the language or support for context. We hope that the province’s curriculum experts have anticipated this potential and worry that it is a nearly impossible task to monitor. We should be looking for various types of evaluation to guide these educational programs.

The back-from-the-grave BC Conservative Party, now the official opposition, has promised to introduce adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism among its first acts in the new Legislature. This will put the Jewish community and our issues in the centre of political drama immediately – not a welcome or comfortable situation for our minuscule demographic; the debate is sure to engender opposition and recriminations.

In the broader scope of 2024 history, though, our provincial election will be a footnote next to the election that took place a few days later. The reelection of once and now future US president Donald Trump will almost certainly have exponentially more dramatic effects.

The reelection of Trump turned out to be not as close as every poll suggested, but also not as commanding as some commentators say it was. He won the popular vote this time by about 2.5 million votes, which, in terms of the raw vote margin, is the fifth-lowest since 1960 – but, compared to having lost the popular vote by almost three million votes when first elected in 2016, the 2024 margin points to a swing in the electorate that cannot be ignored.

Trump’s recent election seems to have been met by opponents with a fatalistic sense of déjà vu. His choices of cabinet appointees suggest his second term will be no less a circus than his first and quite possibly more damaging in many ways.

According to exit polls, Jewish voters in the United States supported the Democrat, Vice-President Kamala Harris, over Trump by a margin of almost four-to-one. (Israeli voters, if they could have voted, would have backed Trump by almost mirror-image landslide margins, according to at least one poll, a disparity that deserves discussion some other time.)

Support for Trump’s stated pro-Israel positions is premised on the presumption that what he says is what he will do. This is true for all politicians of course, but it is especially true for an individual as volatile and unpredictable as this one. (Whether his positions are actually good for Israel and Jews is also a topic for further analysis and discussion.)

Whichever parties or candidates we support, all of us should hope for the best outcomes. Much depends on it, if in significantly different magnitudes – the government of BC does not, for example, have nuclear weapons – but polarized partisanship does not serve the majority well.

As a Jewish prayer for elected officials says, “May they be guided with wisdom and understanding to serve all its inhabitants with justice and compassion. Strengthen their resolve to protect freedom and promote peace, so that harmony and tranquility prevail among all who dwell here.”

Against their best interests

Writers often get submission calls saying “Sorry, we cannot pay you, but our publication is widely distributed. You’ll get great exposure!” I don’t bother, thinking something like “No, thanks. I live in Manitoba, Canada. We can die of exposure.”

For most, writing isn’t lucrative. If I sell an article, sometimes the cheque covers the grocery bill. Years ago, I decided that I don’t work for free. I avoid residencies and literary submissions with reading fees. Even a well-appointed writer’s residency often costs money for travel, food or lodging. Meanwhile, I pay for utilities and care for my kids, so I write at home. It’s cheaper. Same for reading fees. Although small publications need support, if I pay them to read my submission, it conflicts with my goal to get paid. It’s common sense when trying to make a living.

In early November, I read Winnipeg Free Press editor Ben Sigurdson’s column about writers, books and awards called “Paper Chase.” The headline read “Authors, artists boycott Israeli cultural orgs.” It summarized a petition signed by “thousands” of writers, listing by name some with Manitoba connections. These writers choose to avoid working with Israeli cultural and literary institutions, publications and festivals because they are ostensibly “complicit in violating Palestinian rights.” The petition doesn’t mention Hamas, which governs Gaza. It doesn’t hold Hamas or Egypt accountable for their contributions to the crisis or mention Oct. 7. There’s no reference to the wider global conflict, which includes Iran and Hezbollah, among others.

By withdrawing their work, these authors want to punish non-political Israeli entities. They assume that, with their great literary fame, they’re important enough that their choice matters. They wish to deprive Israelis of hearing or reading their work. Due to their moral outrage, these authors won’t earn money from Hebrew translation rights, appearances at Israeli universities, conferences, festivals or book signings.

I noted that Sigurdson’s column removed the name of Jonah Corne, a Jewish University of Manitoba professor, from his list of Manitobans who boycott Israel’s literary scene. I don’t know why he did that.

Some suggest these protests are against Israel, where half the world’s Jewish population resides, but not against diaspora Jews. Why then leave a Jewish Manitoban off the “notables” who joined the boycott? Is it a mistake, or a tell? This protest conflates all Jews and Israelis, no matter one’s political beliefs or where one lives.

Writers fail to look after their own self-interests, be they monetary or ethnic, with this type of activism. Signing a petition could bring an author’s work attention, assuming “any publicity is good publicity.” Yet not all Manitobans on the petition got that dubious editorial publicity. Omitting a Jewish Canadian from the list of Manitobans who signed the boycott smells fishy.

Sigurdson also didn’t mention the long list of authors and creatives who signed a counter-petition by the Creative Community for Peace. This group is against discriminatory cultural boycotts. They support free expression for all. This list includes many recognizable names, from popular and intellectual circles, including Ozzy Osbourne, Mayim Bialik, Bernard-Henri Lévy and Gene Simmons, among others. Professors, actors, directors, musicians, Pulitzer-winning journalists and Nobel Prize-winning authors populate this list. These creative communicators, against boycotts and for free speech, include Jewish writers, but also allies.

This connects to the commotion about Canada’s Giller Prize. Jack Rabinovitch started this prize in honour of his late wife, the journalist Doris Giller. This award is Canada’s largest literary fiction prize, which comes with $100,000. The prize highlights Canada’s diversity and literary excellence and is sponsored by Scotiabank. It’s now fashionable to protest the prize and Scotiabank’s investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. The petition lists others, including Indigo and Audible. Many authors now protest and boycott the jury. Others pull their work from consideration and sign petitions against the Giller via “Canlit Responds.”

The Globe and Mail’s Marsha Lederman writes that, if Scotiabank were sufficiently pressured, it might withdraw sponsorship from the prize rather than fully divest from whatever financial investment offends the protesters. No other sponsor would be likely to take on a prize that comes with so much protest baggage. The largest Canadian literary fiction award would disappear. Have these protesting authors thought this through? If the Giller Prize collapses, Canadian fiction authors can no longer benefit from it.

Rabinovitch and Giller were Jewish Canadians. This prize celebrates Canadian literature. In 1972, Giller, as a Montreal Star writer, worked as a correspondent in Israel, but this couple lived in Canada. Protesters forget to be grateful. The generosity of this prize and the positive attention it brings Canada’s literary scene shouldn’t be underestimated. Lederman writes that protesters haven’t targeted other large literary awards with financial ties to Israel or many other businesses on the boycott list. Is this protest about financial ties to the Middle Eastern conflict, or is it about bias against Jews, even if they live in Canada?

Practically, writers must make money if they want to work in their field. Publicity for political pet causes might make money from literary appearances, book signings, sales, or translations. But boycotting financial opportunities and suppressing access to books doesn’t help writers support themselves. Many readers support worldwide free expression and won’t purchase the books of those who boycott. Some readers won’t support those who hold Israeli cultural institutions, literary events or citizens responsible for a conflict that spans the Middle East. We don’t hold the Giller Prize, a literary award, responsible for North American political conflicts and policies. Why hold it and Israeli literary institutions responsible for a war started by Hamas and Iran?

In Canada, we celebrate diversity. The 2024 Giller Prize jury writes: “Writers of fiction imagine … what it means to be another: to be marginalized, to be suppressed, to be guilty – to be joyful! – or simply not seen.” Writers remain unseen and marginalized when readers don’t buy or read their work.

Further, Canadians have marginalized Jews, both in Canada and worldwide since Oct. 7, 2023, failing to condemn Hamas or antisemitism. For those who choose boycotts, that “othering” and marginalization of the world’s small Jewish population remains acceptable. Some now believe that, when it comes to the cultural contributions of Jewish Canadians, “none is too many.”

Cutting communication with the Israeli literary scene threatens Canadian cultural institutions. A political boycott also threatens half the world’s population of Jews, those in Israel. It doesn’t embrace free expression or bring peace. As Lederman suggests, it’s unlikely to help any Palestinians.

Boycotts allow writers to shoot themselves in the foot. Writers can’t pay for essentials when they aren’t paid for their work. Without big awards, even famous writers sometimes can’t pay for groceries. Limiting readership limits income. It’s noteworthy that, while past Giller winners protest, the media hasn’t reported on anyone returning that $100,000 prize.

Choosing diversity means including all Canadians, even Jewish Canadians who create opportunities like the Giller Prize. When it comes to how we behave, cause and effect still matter, even when writing and selling fiction.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Book a cautionary tale

Selina Robinson will release her memoir, Truth Be Told, in a special launch event on Dec. 18. Robinson, who served in senior cabinet portfolios in British Columbia’s government, was fired earlier this year after offhand remarks about the land on which Israel was founded.

In Truth Be Told, Robinson tells the behind-the-scenes story of what happened as she worked with the Jewish community to confront the antisemitism that erupted after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel. Dubbing herself the “Jew in the Crew,” Robinson was the voice of the BC Jewish community in government.

Then, when anti-Israel protesters and a group of Muslim clergy threatened the government unless Robinson was fired, Premier David Eby called a meeting of the entire New Democrat caucus – except for Robinson herself – and immediately afterwards she was told that she needed to resign.

The book is a cautionary story of the dangers to ethnocultural communities, multiculturalism and democracy itself when leaders stay silent – or worse, capitulate – in the face of coercion and place expediency ahead of principles.

Robinson will launch the book in conversation with Global BC legislative reporter Richard Zussman at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 18, in Vancouver. The specific location will be shared the morning of the event for security reasons.

There is no charge to attend the event, but registration is required at selinarobinson.ca. Copies of the book can be reserved on the website and will also be on sale at the event, with Robinson on hand to sign copies.

– Courtesy Pat Johnson

Mobilizing against Jew-hatred

Ysabella Hazan said phrases such as “the West is next” imply “exactly what the enemies of Israel accuse us of – being a Western outpost in the Middle East, a settled body, which is not true.” (photo by Dave Gordon)

Rage Against the Hate in New York on Oct. 31 had the goal to “gather Jewish organizations, and to find ways to start fighting back, to retake the streets, to retake the campuses, to retake social media, to combat antisemitism in a way that we haven’t,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of the Israeli nonprofit Shurat HaDin Law Centre, organizers of the full-day conference.

photo - Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Israeli nonprofit Shurat HaDin Law Centre, which organized the Rage Against the Hate conference in New York Oct. 31 — Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Israeli nonprofit Shurat HaDin Law Centre, which organized the Rage Against the Hate conference in New York Oct. 31. *(photo by Dave Gordon)*

More than 30 organizations were conference partners and keynote speakers included radio host/author Dennis Prager, attorney Alan Dershowitz, actor Michael Rapaport, activist Shabbos Kestenbaum and NGO Monitor’s Gerald Steinberg.

Dershowitz, 86, said that after speaking to Jewish high school students, he was “stunned by their lack of knowledge” about Israel. To fill the void, he will be giving away a million copies of his latest book, The 10 Big Anti-Israel Lies and How to Refute Them with Truth, to 1,000 universities and high schools across the United States. He lambasted what he called the “educational malpractice” pervasive on college campuses, where professors “give disguise” to Jew-hatred through diversity, equity and inclusion policies, and oppressor-versus- oppressed beliefs.

“I offered $1,000 to anybody who could find me a single protester in any of these protests on university campuses that has ever called for a two-state solution. Nobody has taken me up on it. No protester wants to see an Israeli state,” he said to the audience of 300.

He added that “we are in a fight for our lives. We are in a fight for the future,” because these students will become politicians, corporate executives, media influencers and other types of leaders, and they will have all “been brought up with this kind of knee-jerk anti-Zionism.”

Darshan-Leitner characterized Students for Justice in Palestine as a “propaganda arm of Hamas.” She believes their activity is “actually providing material support to a terror organization” and, in doing so, contravenes the Anti-terrorism Act in the United States.

Kestenbaum – who, last January, became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Harvard University, alleging systemic antisemitism, and has testified before Congress about antisemitism on college campuses – told the Jewish Independent: “Jewish students are fighting a really remarkable fight with limited resources, with limited help and limited funding. It’s the Jewish nonprofits, who raise billions of dollars each year, who could be in a position to do a lot more. And so, I would encourage the Jewish nonprofits not to say, ‘What can the students be doing?’ but to ask themselves, ‘What can I be doing?’ to help students.”

“It is imperative that larger organizations actively support grassroots initiatives that can manoeuvre and mobilize quickly and efficiently, whereby large organizations cannot,” said Amir Epstein, director of Tafsik, a Jewish civil rights group that fights Jew-hatred in Canada and more broadly.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars are donated to large organizations, so it isn’t unreasonable for them to contribute considerable monetary aid to empower these grassroots efforts, so we can create a united front to combat the degradation of our Jewish community’s safety, and address the unprecedented antisemitism we face in universities, K-12 schools, media, politics and the arts,” said Epstein.

Montrealer Ysabella Hazan, who started the movement called Decolonized Judean, said phrases such as “the West is next” and “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East” do not resonate with the younger generation. “They do not speak about us, convey our story or address the accusations that we are facing on the world stage,” she said. “And they indirectly prove exactly what the enemies of Israel accuse us of – being a Western outpost in the Middle East, a settled body, which is not true.”

Columbia business professor Shai Davidai, who has earned renown for calling out Jew-hatred on campuses, told the audience that antisemites have “created the new normal” by making students feel uncomfortable being visibly Jewish.” He said, “If we don’t fight back in the court of public opinion and in the court of law, we’re not going to win this war.”

photo - At the Rage Against the Hate conference Oct. 31, Dennis Prager offered an idea of how to counter the delegitimization of Israel — At the Rage Against the Hate conference Oct. 31, Dennis Prager offered an idea of how to counter the delegitimization of Israel. *(photo by Dave Gordon)*

Prager, who did graduate work at the Middle East and Russian institutes of Columbia’s School of International Affairs, said, “I was basically taught by moral idiots, but they were giants compared to who’s teaching in Columbia today, or at Harvard or at Princeton.”

An argument he proposed to use against the delegitimization of Israel is to draw a parallel to the creation of Pakistan, born the same year as the modern Jewish state. “There were two Israels in history,” said Prager, “but there was no Pakistan in history. When it was created, it was wrenched out of India. Nobody ever challenges the right of Pakistan to exist.”

Rapaport, known for his social media posts about Israel, advised: “Fight with your heart, fight with your prayers, fight with your genius, brilliant, Jewish, Zionist minds. Fight ferociously and do not take a step back,” he implored, while also encouraging Jewish education: “The more that I learn about our fantastic, magical history, the prouder I become.”

Journalist Douglas Murray, who is not Jewish, and Darshan-Leitner, shared a question-and-answer session.

Murray lamented how “very senior politicians” and “a generation of Americans” have bought into the “delusion that, if you were to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, peace would break out, not just in the region, but around the world.” But a state of Palestine with Hamas leadership “will be another Iranian proxy state nearer to Israel,” he said, and it’s “an obscenity that more people don’t realize that.”

He also said this is “a great opportunity for alliance-building,” and reminded the audience “not to forget the Christian communities” and others “who have been so supportive of Israel.”

Winnipeg attorney Lawrence Pinsky told the Independent that the conference was “inspiring and helpful,” and he plans to create a community “situation room,” he said, “just so that we can have a multi-directional approach to any problem. These will be individuals who may or may not be parts of organizations, who actually want to do, and can do.”

He said the conference helped him realize that activism should involve “no ego,” and that people should jump into action, not feeling they “have to reinvent the wheel.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com.

Israel’s war is unique

French writer, filmmaker and human rights activist Bernard-Henri Lévy was in Vancouver at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue Nov. 6, in conversation with the National Post’s Tristin Hopper. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Bernard-Henri Lévy, a public intellectual so well-known in France that he is generally referred to simply as BHL, has thrown his energies into an “emergency” effort to defend Israel in a moment of history when the world has turned against the Jewish state.

Lévy was in Vancouver at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue Nov. 6, in conversation with Tristin Hopper, a writer for the National Post.

Throughout his career as a reporter, commentator, filmmaker and activist, Lévy has written and spoken extensively about humanitarian crises in Bangladesh, Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia and many other flashpoints. Now, he said, “I am pleading with all my energy for Israel and for the defence of Israel.”

His latest book – his 47th or 48th, he thinks – is Israel Alone.

Israel’s war is unique, he said, because it involves enemies who are not driven by ideas but by the nihilistic aim of destroying a nation and a people. The differentiation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is irrelevant to Hamas and Hezbollah, said Lévy, noting that many of those killed on Oct. 7 were among Israel’s leading peace activists.

“Those crimes have nothing to do with seeking a political solution to the suffering of Palestinians,” he said. “They don’t care about peace. They don’t care about a two-state solution. They don’t care about the fate of the old people. They only care about killing Jews. [The victims] could have been right-wing Jews. It happens that they were left-wing Jews, but they just don’t care. For Hamas, there is not left-wing or right-wing Jews. There is just Jews who deserve to be hated, tortured and, if possible, killed.”

Lévy urges the world not to be misled into thinking that Hamas and Hezbollah are national liberation movements. “They are the proxies, the puppets, of a very powerful country, which is Iran,” he said.

Lévy is optimistic because Israel is winning the war.

“What makes me a little less optimistic, and even pessimistic, what sometimes discourages me, is the reaction of the world,” he said. “Instead of saying bravo to Israel, instead of saying thank you to Israel, instead of standing at the side of Israel, who is waging an existential war for [itself] but also a useful war for the rest of the world – instead of that, the rest of the world, sometimes the allies of Israel, mumble, object, groan, accuse and ask, demand, beg, require from Israel ceasefire, compromise, negotiation.

“When you think about it, I don’t see any precedent of a just war, a fair war, which is treated by the allies of the country that is waging it, with such strange behaviour,” said Lévy. “It is unique.”

The West is responding like cowards to the threat of Iranian-backed Islamist terror, he argued, which has formed an alliance with Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime. Part of this refusal to stand with the victims is an ingrained tendency in Western civilization, he said.

“There are a lot of people in the West who love Jews when they are victims, who love to support them and to shed tears on their face when they are beaten, wounded and sometimes killed,” he said, “but who don’t like to see them proud and strong and behaving with heads up.”

On the positive side, Lévy believes, most people in Europe and North America are not irreversibly antisemitic or anti-Israel but are influenced by biased commentary. His new book is a tool for these people and those who engage with them, he said. “Those [people] can be addressed with reasonable arguments, with historical facts, and … can be not only addressed but convinced, I’m sure of that. That is the aim of this book.”

Canada has been a safe haven for generations of Jews, he said. But now, Canadian Jews hear fellow citizens calling for their destruction.

“What is the future of the Jewish communities in France and in Canada?” he asked. “I will tell you one thing. I know very few Jews who do not have, somewhere in the back of their mind, the precise or vague or very vague idea that they could go one day to Israel. This is the state of Jewry since 1948. To be a Jew means to be a good Canadian citizen, a good French citizen, but to have somewhere, even remotely, in the mind, the idea that Israel could be an option.”

The global condemnation of Israel is a reincarnation of a long-familiar trend, Lévy said. “The new argument of antisemitism, the new form, the new phase, the new name of the virus is anti-Zionism,” he said.

The best and “only efficient way to be antisemitic today” is to be anti-Zionist, he argued. Blaming Jews for deicide or some of the other historical justifications for antisemitism is no longer effective, he said. “If you say that today, honestly, you will not meet with great success. If one wants to hate with efficiency the Jews, there is only one way left.”

Israel has few supporters among non-Jews, he said, even among ostensible allies, whose support he described as often coming with conditions.

Lévy called the former and future president of the United States, Donald Trump, “a true ally of Israel, for sure, no doubt on that.” But he also reminded the audience of an incident in the election campaign, during which Trump warned a Jewish audience that he would blame them for his loss if he were defeated.

“And if you are responsible for my defeat, within two years, Israel will disappear,” Lévy paraphrased Trump. “It was a slip of the tongue probably. [But it meant that, in Trump’s mind], the Jews deserve to be protected, but conditionally, if they supported [Trump], if they were good guys and good ladies, if they gave him victory.”

Schara Tzedeck’s Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt welcomed the audience and acknowledged members of the Ukrainian, French and other communities in attendance. He also credited Robert Krell and Alain Guez for Lévy’s visit to Vancouver.

Update on taskforce

Since Oct. 7, 2023, many members of the Jewish community have experienced antisemitism in some form or another. Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs have been addressing these incidents, as well as progressing on a strategy to combat it.

A taskforce on antisemitism was appointed last November. Phase 1 was an emergency response in the months directly after Hamas’s attack on Israel. Phase 2, well underway, is about protecting the local community, strengthening relationships with allies, expanding education and raising awareness. This second phase includes an examination of how antisemitism is preventing community members from thriving, and research on how other communities have responded to similar challenges. It seeks to answer the questions, what can we learn from others and what are the best practices for combating antisemitism?

The taskforce is composed of volunteer professionals with different subject matter expertise from across the Jewish community. Between now and April 2025, they will examine manifestations of antisemitism in various sectors and how community members are responding to it. In April, they will deliver findings to the Federation board, with a formal presentation scheduled for the annual general meeting in June. The goal is to develop insights that will ensure the Jewish community can continue to thrive.

“We’re looking at different aspects of community life, including schools for children K-12, Hillel and campus life, the unions and the experiences of new Israelis coming to Vancouver,” said Mijal Ben Dori, vice-president, community planning, partnerships and innovation at Federation. “For example, new-to-Vancouver Israelis are having challenges finding jobs because they have to answer questions about whether they’ve served in the IDF and if they were in Israel after Oct. 7. Based on their answers to these questions, fewer Israelis are passing through the human resource departments of firms in BC.”

Emet Davis, director of Community Organizing Against Antisemitism, at Federation, said the taskforce has identified key areas that are particularly egregious “In the K-12 school system, school boards and teachers unions are engaged in rewriting history or the erasure of the Jewish experience in curriculum and lesson planning,” said Davis. “At post-secondary institutions across BC, antisemitic tactics this year have been more vitriolic and widespread, posing safety threats to our Jewish students. These are areas where we really have to focus our attention.”

The arts community is another concerning sector. “Groups like the BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts are using DEI criteria to issue grants, which excludes Jews,” Davis said. “That’s not the only area where Jews are being excluded based on DEI criteria.”

This three-to-five year phase of Community Organizing Against Antisemitism will require a budget of $10 million, for staffing, fight-back advertising and a legal resiliency fund. The hope is that funding will come from private foundations, the Jewish and broader communities.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.

Go on offensive: Levy

Pro-Israel activist Eylon Levy speaks with an audience member before his Oct. 30 talk at Schara Tzedeck, which was presented by StandWithUs Canada. (photo by Pat Johnson)

The terrorists who perpetrated the Oct. 7 attacks were products of schools paid for in part by the Canadian government, according to Eylon Levy, a former Israeli government spokesperson who addressed an audience at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue last week.

“The Oct. 7 terrorists all went to Canadian-funded schools,” he said. “That is outrageous. It’s disgusting. You need to hold [the Canadian government] accountable and say there are consequences.”

Most schools in Gaza are run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is funded by UN member-states, including Canada.

Levy spoke here Oct. 30 as part of a cross-Canada tour sponsored by StandWithUs Canada, a pro-Israel educational organization focused on campuses.

Levy said Israel’s recent announcement that it was banning UNRWA from operating in Israel was the right move because the agency exists to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee problem, not resolve it, to keep the Israeli-Arab conflict alive, to indoctrinate Palestinian children and to provide the financial safety net terrorists need to engage in violent attacks like Oct. 7.

Israel has been widely condemned for the imminent ban, which came after Israel repeatedly informed the UN that UNRWA’s staff includes known terrorists, some of whose names were provided to the UN by Israel.

“They just don’t care,” Levy said of the UN’s response that terrorists are on their payroll. “Now they claim UNRWA is irreplaceable. Well, you should have thought about that when Israel gave you the evidence that it is riddled with terrorism and you chose to deny that it was a problem.”

According to Israeli authorities, 12 UNRWA staff members actively participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, with allegations that more than 30 additional UNRWA workers were involved in activities such as facilitating hostage-taking and looting. Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has alleged that, of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, at least 12% are affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.

In conversation with Michael Sachs, Western regional director for Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Levy said many people are inverting right and wrong when it comes to the Israel-Hamas war and they are trying to sway young people especially.

“The world is trying to tell them that the cause of their generation, the great cause of this century, is the fight for Palestine, which means the destruction of the state of Israel,” Levy said.

Contesting these messages is tough, he said, especially when the agencies that represent the moral high-ground are on the wrong side.

Levy recalled a debate he had against broadcaster Mehdi Hasan.

“I knew he was going to come on the stage and say, ‘Well, the UN agrees with me, Oxfam agrees with me, Save the Children agrees with me, Red Cross agrees with me. How is it possible the whole world is wrong and you are right?’” Levy said. “That’s Jewish history: the courage to look around and say, ‘You’re all crazy. This isn’t right.’”

Levy noted that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement on social media mourning the death of Muhammad Abu Atawi, who was killed by the Israel Defence Forces.

Atawi was an employee of UNRWA but, according to Israel, he was also a Hamas terrorist who led the attack on the bomb shelter near the Nova music festival, in which Hersh Goldberg-Polin and others were sheltering.

“This is a leader I’m supposed to take seriously?” Levy asked. “The Red Cross that hasn’t lifted a finger to try to save the hostages is an organization that I am meant to take seriously? The NGOs that wouldn’t even shed crocodile tears on Oct. 7, that never tried to do any sort of campaign for the hostages, they are the ones I am meant to take seriously?”

Young people and other activists in the West who insist they are anti-Zionist and not antisemitic are deluding themselves, Levy suggested.

“You are expressing a hatred and a prejudice against the same people,” he said. “The fact that they believe that they hate the same people that their grandparents hated but it’s a complete coincidence shows a tragic lack of self-awareness.”

Getting the pro-Israel message out is especially challenging on social media, said Levy, but Jews and their allies can’t give up the battle.

Social media is problematic at the best of times – even when it is not a platform controlled by the Chinese regime, as TikTok is – because it maximizes engagement by provoking outrage and amplifies the most extreme viewpoints.

“We’re not going to win the social media battle,” he said. “But we can’t afford not to fight it.”

If the only thing that people see on social media are anti-Israel messages, what conclusion will people come to? he asked.

“But what if their friend, the person they know is a good, decent person, stands up and presents a contrary view?” said Levy. “Then at least you’ve made that person think this is complicated and there’s a case to be made on the other side. So, it requires all of us to be there, to fight the fight, to be as loud and vocal and produce as much stuff as possible.”

That battle of ideas also needs to be taken offline, he said.

It is further complicated, he added, because the Israeli government has effectively given up communicating to the world.

Levy, who was born in England to Israeli parents and made aliyah as a lone soldier, was effectively conscripted to serve as an English-language spokesperson at the beginning of the war. He was fired after a social media spat with Britain’s then-foreign secretary David Cameron. Levy cofounded the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office, which tries to fill the information gap he said the Israeli government has left.

Pro-Israel voices in the West need to change tack, according to Levy. Rather than being on the defensive and explaining Israel’s actions, Canadians and others should be calling out governments and NGOs.

“Other people owe us answers,” he said. “UNRWA owes us answers. The Red Cross owes us answers. The UN owes us answers. I think we have to go on the offensive and demand those answers from other people instead of constantly trying to defend ourselves and say, ‘I can explain.’”

Levy dismisses calls for a ceasefire. The war needs to end in the defeat of Hamas – and it’s all over but the surrender, he argued.

“Hamas has lost,” he said. “It’s game over.”

But Hamas needs the world to help it understand that fact.

“The problem is, when international actors step in to demand a ceasefire, as opposed to Hamas’s surrender, they tell Hamas to keep fighting,” he said. With Hamas on its knees, “It’s outrageous that some countries are trying to get it back up on its feet.”

Hezbollah has also been largely eliminated, according to Levy.

“All of its top leadership are dead,” he said. “The infrastructure along the border has been destroyed.”

Iran, of course, remains unbowed, even in the face of the damage Israel has inflicted on its proxies.

Levy said one outcome from the current crisis is that Jewish communities have come together. In Israel, individuals instantly mobilized on Oct. 7 to do whatever they could and, in the diaspora, Jews have united as they rarely have before.

“That sense of responsibility, that sense of solidarity, being there for each other and having each other’s backs, I find incredibly inspiring,” he said. “That awakening of responsibility and self-reliance and leadership in Jewish communities around the world has been an inspiration to people in Israel.”

Jesse Primerano, executive director of StandWithUs Canada, which brought Levy to Vancouver, said his group has 106 interns and fellows on campuses across Canada this year – an increase over past years and a happy surprise for Primerano. He was afraid for the organization’s programs this year, he said, concerned that they wouldn’t be able to recruit students to stand for Israel on campuses. The opposite happened.

“Numbers skyrocketed,” he said. “The truth is that they are not scared. They are empowered. They are emboldened … and they are so brave and ready to stand up.”

SWU has also hired more staff across Canada, including a full-time position in Vancouver funded by the Diamond Foundation.

Three students from Vancouver-area campuses who are part of the SWU Emerson Fellowship program spoke to the audience, drawing ovations.

A Shylock written for Rubinek

Saul Rubinek in Mark Leiren-Young’s Playing Shylock, which is playing in Toronto. Leiren-Young wrote the work with Rubinek in mind. (photo by Dahlia Katz)

Victoria playwright Mark Leiren-Young spent October in Toronto, where his Playing Shylock is appearing at Berkeley Street Theatre through Nov. 24. The one-man show, which stars Saul Rubinek, is based on the Jewish character in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

“I’ve been attending rehearsals, run-throughs and previews as a playwright,” Leiren-Young told the Independent from Toronto before the play’s world premiere. “That means I’m around to work on the script with the actor and director. Since it’s a new script, that means I’m adjusting it to reflect ideas that come up in rehearsals, working with the costumes, the designs and the space. Really, anything that needs doing to get the script as tight and right for the actor and the production as it can be – making sure ideas are clear, jokes land and that Saul is having as much fun as possible.”

photo - Mark Leiren-Young — Mark Leiren-Young (photo by Jeffrey Bosdet)

Leiren-Young’s play Shylock first appeared on stage at Bard on the Beach in 1996. Playing Shylock, he said, is an all-new play with the same core premise: a production of The Merchant of Venice has been canceled in mid-run due to a controversy over the production.

“This is a bespoke piece that started during the COVID lockdown and I built it around Saul’s life experiences after studying his voice, his personal history, his greatest roles, his mannerisms,” Leiren-Young said. “This was written to sound like Saul and feel like Saul and not like a character or story created by me.”

In fact, when actor John Huston, who starred in multiple productions of Shylock, touring five provinces, asked Leiren-Young what was recognizable from that first play, the playwright responded, “The lines that Shakespeare wrote.”

“Beyond keeping some of Shylock’s best lines from Merchant of Venice, this is an all-new play because we’re in an all-new world,” said Leiren-Young. “And it’s a new world in so many ways. Think about how controversies played out before social media. Think about how the issues in theatre and society have changed, and the issues the Jewish community is facing.”

According to Leiren-Young, the original draft of Playing Shylock was completed a couple of years ago. Yet, he tries to update his plays to reflect current circumstances.

“This script always included a cancelation letter inspired by an actual cancelation announcement,” said Leiren-Young. “The original draft for Playing Shylock was inspired by a letter announcing the cancelation of a screening of the controversial opera The Death of Klinghoffer about a decade ago.”

The letter now, he said, is largely inspired by the decision of the Belfry Theatre in Victoria to cancel its January production of The Runner after protesters demonstrated and vandalized its property because they objected to a play about an Israeli volunteer with the Orthodox group ZAKA.

“Not just because it’s more current, it’s Canadian and more relevant to the times,” he said, “but because that letter appeared to be used as the template for canceling another play at a theatre across the street from the Belfry.”

Rubinek, a distinguished stage veteran, is widely known to film and television audiences. To name but a few of his credits: Wall Street, Barney’s Version, Frasier. This past June, the Globe and Mail placed Rubinek in the 25th spot on its list of the greatest Canadian actors of all time.

“I believe that if the people who made that list see this show, they’ll want to bump up his ranking by a fair bit. Watching Saul deliver Shakespeare’s lines is amazing. Watching Saul deliver my lines is a dream,” Leiren-Young said. “He’s 76 and he’s better on lines than any other actor I have ever worked with.”

Of the play, Rubinek said Leiren-Young “leaps into the historic controversy about the character of Shylock with gleeful relish and biting humour and then has the chutzpah to create a poignant study of why theatre should matter.”

The actor added, “To collaborate with on a new play – and I’ve done a lot of them – Mark is an actor’s dream: tirelessly inventive, generous, creatively stubborn in all the right places and, best of all, funny.”

This weekend, on Nov. 10, 2 p.m., at Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El, Leiren-Young will give a talk about Playing Shylock, his original play Shylock, the character of Shylock, the impact and history of The Merchant of Venice and “anything else the audience that day wants to talk about.”

The author of numerous books, Leiren-Young is the only writer to win the Leacock Medal for Humour (Never Shoot a Stampede Queen) and the Science Writers and Communicators Award for Canada’s best science book (The Killer Whale Who Changed the World).

Leiren-Young’s Sharks Forever is a non-fiction book for middle-school readers and features an introduction by environmental activist Paul Watson. His next book, Octopus Oceans, is being released in early 2025. He is currently working on a new book for young readers focusing on how to protect the oceans and the animals who live there.

To follow Leiren-Young online, visit his website, leiren-young.com, and his Substack page, substack.com/@skaanapod?.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Comedy can unite and heal

Comedian Erik Angel performs his one-man standup show, Speaking Falafel, at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on Nov. 14. (photo from Erik Angel)

“This year, I discovered even more how comedy is an important tool to bring people together, for release and relief, and I won’t be exaggerating if I say that comedy saved me this year,” Erik Angel told the Independent in an interview in advance of his solo performance Nov. 14, 8 p.m., at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. He’ll also be taking part in a show for students at the University of British Columbia while he’s here.

“This is perhaps the saddest time in my life, with a lot of pain, sorrow and worry, and going on stage night after night and making people laugh, helps me clear my mind and move on,” said Angel of the year since Oct. 7, 2023. “On stage, I deal with my reality today, with antisemitism, but I do it in an entertaining way. They say that comedy is tragedy plus time and I call my performance a humanitarian respite for the soul.”

Angel, who lives in New York, has opened for headliners like Maz Jobrani and Zarna Garg. He’s been part of several comedy festivals and has performed in more than a dozen countries to date. This will be his first time in Vancouver.

Born and raised in Israel, Angel moved to the United States for love, he said, after meeting his bashert at, of all places, the Jewish community centre in Krakow, Poland, in 2015.

“I went to Krakow for a long weekend and all my life changed completely,” he said.

Angel has worked in several creative fields. As a singer-songwriter, he released three albums in Israel. He studied drama and worked as an actor for five years. He did some standup comedy in Hebrew at open mics in Israel almost a decade ago, but said he quickly switched to doing routines in English, even while still in Israel.

“Since summer 2016,” he said, “I’ve been doing comedy in English, almost on a daily basis.”

The show that Angel is bringing to the Vancouver JCC next week is the product of a lot of work.

“Speaking Falafel is an hour of comedy that I worked on for seven long years of comedy spots, day after day, and I am very proud of it. It’s a very funny show about my journey since I went on this long weekend in Krakow and met the love of my life. I share the difficulties of becoming a new immigrant, newly married in my 40s, the differences between Israeli culture and other cultures in the world, how to be now ‘the Jew’ everywhere, to live 24/7 with a second language. I tell stories, I speak with the audience, and I even sing a little bit.”

The Nov. 14 show is a bonus for Vancouverites, as Angel’s main purpose for coming to the city is the UBC show, which is the start of a winter tour for Comedy for Peace.

Angel established Comedy for Peace five years ago.

“I grew up in Israel with two million Muslims. I never met one – not in school, not in my basketball team,” he said. “I started to meet Muslims when I started to travel the world. The meetings were always friendly, and I wanted to do something artistic together. When I moved to New York, I became part of the New York comedy scene. I produced the first show, that was a huge success, and since then we have had shows in more than 50 cities in the US and Canada.

“Comedy for Peace is not a political event,” he stressed. “It’s about different communities who sit together under one roof and have fun. Simple as it sounds, we want to show people how easy it is to collaborate, laugh, learn about each other and discover how much we are more alike than different. Today, we also have a version with Christian comedians that will travel with the West Coast tour. Nov. 9, Comedy for Peace will be part of the New York Comedy Festival for the second time.

“After Oct. 7, a few shows were canceled (and a few not) and very fast we decided that, for us now, it’s more important than ever and this is why we keep going,” added Angel. “There are comedians, mostly Muslim or Christian Arabs, that cut me off and don’t want to be a part of it – it’s painful because I didn’t change – but most of the comedians are still on board. And our goal now is to bring our message everywhere possible, and [I] will never give up and will always believe most of us, the people, just want to live together peacefully.”

Performing alongside Angel at UBC will be Liz Glazer, Gibran Saleem and Paul Schissler.

“From my experience, people that come to support the show support the idea and are not coming to protest or say something against it and I hope it will be the same this time,” said Angel when asked if he was concerned about the protests and vandalism that have taken place at UBC and other universities. “We are a non-political peace show, so it’s crazy for me to think that things will go differently. Until today, the only problem we have had to deal with was people calling/writing or trying to shame online our Muslim/Christian Arab comedians or asking them not to do it anymore. Most of them just want to do it more since then. But still, we have the reality, there are many haters out there and everything can happen. We have a Q&A session at the end and we are open to speaking with reasonable people that will come with an open heart and ask questions they want to speak about or to understand more. This is part of our mission, to be there together on stage.”

To watch some clips of Angel’s performances from around the world, visit his YouTube channel, youtube.com/@erikangelcomedy9702, or his Instagram page, instagram.com/erikangelcomedy/?hl=en. For tickets to Speaking Falafel, go to eventbrite.com.