antisemitism – Page 13

The need for transparency

Justice Jules Deschênes, who was appointed by the Canadian government in February 1985 to oversee the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada. (screenshot from B’nai Brith Canada)

For nearly four decades, Jewish human rights organizations have been trying to figure out how Nazi war criminals were able to gain citizenship and refuge in Canada following the Second World War. Why were high-ranking members of the Nazi Allgemeine Schutzstaffel (Nazi SS) and Waffen SS troops who fought on Germany’s behalf considered eligible for Canadian citizenship? And who were they? What were their names?

The answers to many of these questions can be found in an obscure list of reports held in government archives. Since 1985, when the Deschênes Commission was appointed to investigate allegations that Nazi war criminals were living in Canada, B’nai Brith Canada and other Jewish organizations have been urging the federal government to release all the commission’s findings. Those records include an historical account of Canada’s post-Second World War immigration policies, written by historian Alti Rodal (the Rodal Report).

“We have always felt that providing the general public with a greater understanding of Canada’s ‘Nazi past’ is a significant venture to providing closure to that time period,” explained Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith’s director of research and advocacy. “This is important because, at a time of rising antisemitism, where there are less and less survivors of the Holocaust around, it is essential that we furnish educators and advocates with as many tools as possible to enable as fulsome a teaching of the [history of the] Holocaust,” including, noted Robertson, those decisions that may have indirectly made it easier for Nazi perpetrators to escape prosecution.

The Hunka affair

Last September, a critical portion of the documentation was made public by the federal government after it was revealed that a former member of the Waffen SS Galicia Division, Yaroslav Hunka, had received a standing ovation in Parliament. Human rights advocates wasted no time in calling for the rest of the Deschênes Commission’s documents to be released, arguing that the unredacted reports could help further Holocaust education in Canada and avoid such mistakes. More than 15 groups, representing Jewish, Muslim, Iranian and Korean ethnic communities and interests, supported B’nai Brith’s petition and, on Feb. 1, the Trudeau government released the bulk of Rodal’s account.

That move has given human rights organizations access to a wealth of information about the politics, the thinking and the apprehensions that often steered the government’s decision not to prosecute or extradite war criminals. Compiled as an historical account of Canada’s post-Second World War policies, the 618-page redacted Rodal Report provides details that aren’t revealed in Deschênes’ deliberations.

Set against the backdrop of today’s rising antisemitism, the report illustrates that Canada’s current struggle to balance the needs of those targeted by antisemitism and discrimination with other democratic principles, like free speech and privacy, is nothing new.

screenshot - Alti Rodal, author of the Rodal Report — Alti Rodal, author of the Rodal Report. *(screenshot from Ukraine Jewish Encounter)*

According to Rodal, Canada’s postwar immigration policies were heavily influenced by a belief that extraditing naturalized Canadian citizens for war crimes would be, in the words of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, “ill-advised.”

“Trudeau’s concern,” Rodal wrote, “was that the revocation [of citizenship of an alleged war criminal] could alarm large numbers of naturalized citizens who would be made to feel that their status in Canada could be insecure as a consequence of the politics and history of the country they left behind.”

And Pierre Trudeau was not alone in his reticence to bring Nazi war criminals to court.

“All those goals which Canadian society has set for itself can certainly not be achieved by short-circuiting the legal process in the hunt for Nazi war criminals,” the commission wrote, while examining whether a military court might be an appropriate venue for litigating charges of war crimes.

By the time the commission concluded its research, it had effectively struck down every available legal mechanism for pursuing action against most former Nazis living in Canada. The Deschênes Commission determined that war criminals could not be prosecuted under Canada’s Criminal Code, but neither could they be tried by military tribunal. Nor could they be successfully prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions for acts of genocide or crimes against humanity. And Canada’s extradition laws would be ineffectual in many instances, including when it came to approving requests from Israel. Israel didn’t exist at the time of the Holocaust, the commission reasoned, and thus didn’t meet Canada’s requirements for requesting extradition of Second World War criminals.

New laws, similar challenges

Canada’s only remedy would be to amend its laws going forward. In 2000, nearly 14 years after the release of the Deschênes Commission’s report, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act was given Royal Assent. Antisemitism, hate speech and hate crimes are now federal offences as well, covered under Section 319 of the Criminal Code. However, some legal experts say the process of bringing charges of antisemitism or hate crimes to court remains too onerous.

In June, the Matas Law Society and B’nai Brith hosted an educational webinar on the legal strategies available to Canadian lawyers when pursuing charges of antisemitism. Gary Grill and Leora Shemesh, two Toronto-based lawyers who have recently represented victims of alleged antisemitism in Ontario, offered different views as to why it is so hard to bring a hate crime to court.

“We have the tools,” acknowledged Shemesh, “we’re just not effectively using them.” She said she has represented several alleged victims of antisemitism and, in each one of the cases, the charges were later dropped.

Grill, on the other hand, suggested that the issue had to do with initiative. “It’s about political will” when it comes, for example, to ensuring that prosecutors understand that “death to Zionists” is veiled hate speech and should be prosecuted as antisemitism. “The education is easy,” he said. “We can educate prosecutors. We can educate police. It’s not a problem. [But] this is about will. It’s not about law.”

“There are problems with certain [parts] of Section 319 and [its] enumerated defences,” Shemesh said. “Prosecutions under the Criminal Code for the promotion of hatred … require the approval of the attorney general to proceed, which, I say, has partially explained why such prosecutions have been rare in Canadian jurisprudence.”

In Robertson’s opinion, there can be value in legislative oversight. The attorney general’s sign-off “is a safeguard to ensure that our hate crimes legislation … is only utilized when warranted. I believe it is designed to prevent overuse,” he said. “Listen, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with having checks and balances to ensure that the proper charges are being laid and the severity of these charges warrant such. The issue is the reluctance of the attorney general to sign off on these charges and the procedural, I would say, slow-downs in effecting the sign-off. These are the issues. If we can perfect the procedures around the sign-off, then this is a completely fine check and balance.”

photo - Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy for B’nai Brith Canada — Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy for B’nai Brith Canada. *(photo from B’nai Brith Canada)*

As for addressing the rise in antisemitism that Canada is experiencing today, Robertson believes the answer lies in ensuring Holocaust education is available and continues. That requires ensuring public access to the documents that most accurately tell the story – including those of Canada and other allied nations.

“With the recent issues that we’ve seen regarding immigration into Canada, I think [the Deschênes and Rodal reports serve as a] narrative that is more relevant than ever. I think it is important for us to understand our mistakes of the past so that we don’t repeat them in the future,” Robertson said. “And, as well, when it comes specifically to Holocaust education, I think it is important for Canadians to appreciate the level of complicity, if there was any complicity, in our government helping Nazis escape prosecution following the culmination of the Holocaust in World War II…. It helps to paint the totality of the picture of just how widespread the Holocaust was.”

Robertson said Canadians often think of the Holocaust as a “European issue,” that it only adversely impacted Jews in Europe. “So, understanding Canada’s role and [the Holocaust’s] aftermath helps to globalize the narrative, and perhaps that will help Canadians to better appreciate the truly global impact of the Holocaust [and the trauma] that is still ongoing.”

To date, most of the Deschênes documents have been made public, with the exception of Part II of the original report, containing the identity of members of the Nazi party who were granted immigration to Canada. The ancillary documents, such as the Rodal Report, also contain information that has not been made public. B’nai Brith Canada continues to lobby for their release.

Jan Lee is an award-winning editorial writer whose articles and op-eds have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

On Holocaust education

Next year, for the first time in British Columbia, the Holocaust will be a mandated topic for Grade 10 students. Until now, the task of teaching this most important subject has fallen upon impassioned teachers and dedicated organizations like the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC).

Like many Jews, however, I’m left with many questions about this new curriculum. The first is, why only Grade 10? What can be taught in a term (or even a year) that will adequately distill the story – the full story – of the Holocaust and its impact on today’s societies?

My husband, who taught grades 2-12 in British Columbia, defends the introduction of Holocaust studies so late, arguing that students are more receptive at Grade 10 to critical thinking about complex topics, like the events, attitudes and political forces that led to the Holocaust.

True, perhaps, but addressing today’s rising antisemitism, a goal cited in the province’s announcement last fall, will take more than a single year’s high school course. Linking the lessons of the Holocaust to the dangers of today’s misinformation about Jews and Israel is vital, but changing societal mindsets takes years. A 2021 survey of North American teens by the Canadian nonprofit Liberation75 provides an idea of the challenge ahead: nearly a third of respondents 13-17 years of age (most of whom were Canadian) either didn’t know what to think about the Holocaust, thought the numbers of Jews murdered had been exaggerated, or thought the Holocaust never happened. Those findings are concerning, especially when paired with similar results from an Azrieli Foundation survey of Canadian millennials two years earlier.

As the VHEC has demonstrated in its programs, there are ways to introduce Holocaust education at a younger age – and to continue the discussions, adding more complexity and detail as children get older. British Columbia’s Grade 12 curriculum currently includes an elective on genocide studies, but even though the Holocaust is a suggested topic, there is no requirement that teachers include it. Some teachers might teach about the world’s largest genocide, some may not.

How the new curriculum addresses this topic will have other implications for how future generations interpret its lessons. As B’nai Brith Canada’s Richard Robertson points out in the article in this issue on the Rodal Report (page 32), the Holocaust was far from just a “European issue.” At home, for example, the Holocaust had profound implications for Canada’s immigration policies, both when it came to limiting entry of Jewish refugees and its quiet acceptance of Nazi war criminals. Today’s debates about Holocaust education are testament to the need for its expansion, not only on its history in Europe, but what occurred here after the war.

For all these reasons, we should be introducing Holocaust studies earlier in schools. Jewish traditions have much to contribute to the discussion of pedagogy. Jews are innovators when it comes to making sure that our youngest generations are exposed to history, including our ancestors’ many encounters with antisemitism. For thousands of years, our tradition has ensured a safeguard against collective amnesia: we teach the young. We use the tools that best apply to the age group and the subject, and recognize the value of instilling a collective memory about the discrimination our people have faced. We use anecdotes and stories to impart historical lessons. For example, our children are taught from the earliest ages, at Purim, about how Esther and Mordechai averted a national pogrom and saved their people from genocide. The story of Hanukkah reminds children not to take our faith for granted, but to stand up for our principles.

No doubt, the curriculum for Holocaust studies will go through many changes in the coming years. What is clear, though, is that we have an imperative to make sure this history is taught.

Jan Lee is an award-winning writer. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.

Visit here inspires hope

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Vancouver for the first time to meet with members of the Jewish community and local business leaders. It was a wonderful experience that enabled me to see the Jewish community up close, and I plan to return soon to this city with its beautiful landscape, and warm and friendly people.

Through my work, I know how difficult it has been for the Jewish community given the explosion of antisemitism, especially since Oct. 7. The sharp rise in antisemitic incidents, including attacks on synagogues and the shocking experiences of students at the University of British Columbia, have created an ambiance of fear, anger and uncertainty. At the same time, this troubling climate has brought together Jews from all walks of life to defend our values, our people and the state of Israel.

One name that repeatedly arose – a nongovernmental organization I am very familiar with through my work at NGO Monitor – was Samidoun. Samidoun is a Canadian-registered not-for-profit, founded by a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khaled Barakat. Barakat’s spouse, Vancouver resident Charlotte Kates, is its international coordinator.

Although Canada declared the PFLP a terror group in 2003 and, despite Samidoun’s antisemitic and pro-terror rhetoric, the government still has not taken action to shut down this NGO.

Like the PFLP, Samidoun disseminates messages and an agenda supporting violence, terror and antisemitism as a means to destroy the state of Israel. Since the Oct. 7 atrocities, Samidoun has expanded its local activities, contributing centrally to the sinister atmosphere facing Canadian Jewry. Illustrative examples include a July seminar in Toronto that called for eliminating “Israel as a military, political and economic establishment” and an event in Vancouver where the PFLP, Hamas and Hezbollah were praised. There have been dozens more such events.

In contrast to Canada, Samidoun activities have been banned in several countries, including France and Germany. Meta (formerly Facebook) shut down the social media accounts of the Vancouver and Toronto chapters of Samidoun, while Stripe, a major credit card processing company, closed Samidoun accounts on its platform, preventing online fundraising in Canada.

Let’s not be naïve. Samidoun is not the only NGO that is problematic, and it joins more than 100 other groups in Canada engaging in offensive and, at times dangerous, rhetoric. Moreover, the hatred stemming from Samidoun’s headquarters in Vancouver is not just against Israel and Jews, but against Canada and all Canadians. The NGO uses strategic attacks against the state of Israel and the Jewish people to distract from their assaults on the very values that enable Jews, Muslims, Christians and others to peacefully live side by side in Canada, Israel, and around the democratic free world.

Samidoun’s threat to Canadians, beyond the Jewish community, is blatant in their statement declaring Canada a settler colony “that require[s] the same settler logics and brutalities as ‘Israel’” and their claim that international law allows for people living in a colonialist society to “resist.” All law-abiding Canadians should be extremely concerned for Samidoun’s justification of Hamas’s Oct. 7 abduction, rape, mutilation and murder of innocent children, women, Holocaust survivors and eight Canadian citizens (including Vancouver’s Ben Mizrachi) as “resistance.” Moreover, Samidoun’s argument about Israel, that “imperialist warmongers will call it terrorism, but we know this is anti-imperialist resistance,” defends any terrorist activities they choose to initiate anywhere and is not reserved only for Israel but rather for all Western “imperialistic” countries.

While Kates is working to overturn Canada’s designation of Hamas and Hezbollah as terror groups, Samidoun is allowed to operate and flourish. After her appearance recently on Iran’s national television station to commend “the brave, heroic Oct. 7 operation” by Hamas that killed Canadian Jews, it is all the more critical to terminate Samidoun’s soapbox of hate that is based in Vancouver.

One of the impressive aspects of the BC Jewish community is the collective desire to work closely with those outside of their faith toward building a better society for all in Canada. After my visit to Vancouver, I am optimistic that Jews and non-Jews will work collaboratively against the seeds of divisiveness and hate sown by Samidoun. This will not end antisemitism in Canada, which has become, unfortunately, widespread. But it is an important first step.

Olga Deutsch is vice-president of NGO Monitor and has extensive expertise in international politics, humanitarian aid, funding to nongovernmental organizations, international development, post-Oct. 7 antisemitism, efforts to delegitimize Israel, and BDS.

About the 2024 Rosh Hashanah cover

I came across this Rosh Hashanah greeting card in the 2017 Forward article “The Curious History of Rosh Hashanah Cards in Yiddish” by Rami Neudorfer. The image was copyrighted by the Hebrew Publishing Company, New York, 1909, and the high-resolution version we used for the cover comes from the postcard collection of Prof. Shalom Sabar (emeritus) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“The card depicts two eagles in the sky: under the Imperial Eagle of the Russian coat of arms, a group of impoverished, traditionally dressed Russian Jews, carrying their meagre belongings, line Europe’s shore, gazing with hope across the ocean,” wrote Neudorfer. “Waiting for them are their Americanized relatives, whose outstretched arms simultaneously beckon and welcome them to their new home. Above them, an American eagle clutches a banner with a line from Psalms: ‘Shelter us in the shadow of Your wings.’”

Not only did Prof. Sabar provide the image for the cover but he offered further explanation of the card’s meaning. The verse quoted is partially based on Psalms 57:2; the fuller quote is taken from Psalms 17:8 – “Hide me in the shadow of Your wings.” In the illustration, the quote is changed to be in the plural: “Hide us in the shadow of Your wings.” And it appears in this form in the Ashkenazi siddur, where it is part of the Hashkivenu prayer, said Sabar. The full text can be found at sefaria.org.il/sheets/29587?lang=bi, where they translate the phrase as “and cradle us in the shadow of your wings.”

The message of a passage to freedom is not only enhanced by the Psalms quote, but also that the birds depicted are eagles, Sabar added. This is a reference to the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, he said, as in Exodus 19:4 – “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and [how] I bore you on eagles’ wings, and I brought you to Me.”

Education a key issue

Students across British Columbia have returned to the classroom. On university campuses, the activism that had roiled those spaces during the last academic year has returned to a boil. Jewish students are facing more of the horrible same.

Even public high schools are not immune, with reports of harassment of Jewish students and inappropriate comments by teachers and other students.

About a year ago, the government of British Columbia announced that Holocaust education would become a mandatory part of the Grade 10 curriculum. This came as a surprise to many people, who were shocked that it is still possible for a student to graduate from the public education system in this province without encountering anything about the Holocaust. To be clear, this is probably not usually the case, but what a student learns about that dark history has been left to the discretion of teachers.

Starting next year, that will no longer be the case. Students will have to study the Shoah. This is a positive development in many ways. Holocaust education is an entry-point to critical discussions about human rights, dignity, oppression, genocide, totalitarianism and a vast range of crucial topics.

From a Jewish perspective, at a time of increasing antisemitism, this is especially welcome. The dangerous potential of unchecked antisemitism is, of course, the ultimate and unique lesson of the Holocaust. Sensitizing young citizens to this message is an important part of addressing anti-Jewish racism.

The curriculum is still in development and we trust that educating about the Holocaust will be done in the context of a larger history of antisemitism. It would be a mistake to let students conclude that antisemitism is a product exclusively of a different place (Germany) and time (1933 to 1945). The Holocaust, students must understand, was part of a much longer trajectory of anti-Jewish racism and it must not be seen as anomalous in this larger context.

While there was much satisfaction at the announcement that this history would become mandatory in the curriculum, there is cause for concern.

When dealing with issues of extraordinary sensitivity – gender, race, sexuality, religion, treatment of historical events – parents, elected officials and the broader society depend on the ability and integrity of teachers to deliver this content in appropriate ways. This is where we have reasonable apprehensions.

While it is the government that mandates curriculum content, it is obviously teachers who deliver it. The teachers’ union, the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, has a long history of disseminating anti-Israel materials and adopting biased approaches to the issues of Israel, Palestine and the conflict there.

This year, a group of (mostly Jewish) educators applied to the BC Teachers’ Federation to create a specialist group to help equip teachers to educate on the Holocaust. Astonishingly, the BCTF rejected the application for recognition – a recognition that is, apparently, almost rubberstamped for most other topic areas – without any suitable explanation. Given the history of the BCTF on this subject, many people have understandably come to their own conclusions about what was behind this rejection.

By the nature of their roles, teachers have a vast amount of leeway in transmitting information. The government will set out learning outcomes and expectations for this component, but the potential for inappropriate messaging in individual circumstances is great. Off the top of our heads, for example, we can imagine teachers equating the Holocaust to contemporary events and universalizing beyond the edges of what is reasonable given the uniqueness of the Holocaust in the context of antisemitism throughout the ages.

Not only does the government need to create a curriculum for the subject matter, it might do well to consider a curriculum for teachers to address appropriate and inappropriate ways of addressing the topics raised, including comments from students who have seen the inescapable propaganda accusing Israel of “genocide” and equating Israelis with Nazis.

In just over a month, British Columbians will elect a new government. Whichever party forms government will necessarily have to find a way to work with British Columbia’s teachers to ensure the useful delivery of this curriculum material.

When candidates call or knock on your door, it would be good to remind them that Holocaust education is an important issue for you (as are many other issues, addressed in the story here). Let them know that ensuring this new component of the curriculum is handled appropriately is something you will be watching for as a new government – NDP, Conservative or, given the bizarre upheavals in politics recently, some other group – sets course on this important initiative.

האנטישמיות שוברת שיאים בקנדה ובישראל לא מבינים למה

לפי נתונים אחרונים של ההסתדרות הציונית העולמית מאז השבעה באוקטובר האנטישמיות בקנדה גדלה בקרוב לשבע מאות אחוזים, לעומת התקופה המקבילה אשתקד. כשבעים אחוז מפשעי שנאה בקנדה מכוונים כנגד הקהילה היהודית המקומית. זאת בזמן שאוכלוסיית היהודים בקנדה מהווה קרוב לאחוז וחצי מאוכלוסיית המדינה

האנטישמיות שוברת שיאים בלתי נתפסים בקנדה ובעצם בכל מדינות המערב והם מדאיגים ביותר. ולמרות זאת בישראל לא מבינים בכלל מה הסיבה העיקרית לעלייה באנטישמיות נגד יהודים ואזרחי ישראל כאחד. וישראל לא מנסה להפעיל אפוא מדיניות הסברה ולימוד ברחבי העולם כדי לנסות ולהתמודד עם האתגר הקשה הזה

רובם של הישראלים מדגישים בהרחבה את העלייה באנטישמיות ברחבי העולם. זאת כדי להצדיק שהרבה יותר בטוח לחיות בישראל מאשר מחוצה לה. את הישראלים זה בכלל לא מעניין כי הסיבה לגידול המשמעותי באנטישמיות נגד יהודים וישראלים בעולם, נעוצה בתוצאות ההרסניות של פעילות צה”ל בעזה. רבים ברחבי העולם צופים ושומעים על כמות גדולה של אזרחים פלסטינים ובהם נשים וילדים שנהרגים עקב התקפות בלתי פוסקות של צה”ל. הצבא הישראלי מחפש לחסל את אנשי החמאס, הג’יהאד האיסלאמי וחברי ארגוני טרור נוספים. אך באותה עת תושבי עזה משלמים מחיר כבד מנשוא. רבים מקפחים את חייהם ומאות אלפים נותרו חסרי בית, והם נעים אנא ואנא בין איים של חורבות

לאור האובדן הגדול של חיים אדם בעזה חל כאמור הגידול המשמעותי באנטישמיות והשינאה כנגד יהודים וישראלים בכל רחבי העולם. ונראה כי לפי מדיניות ממשלת ישראל הנוכחית והעומד בראשה, בנימין נתניהו, לא יחול שום שינוי לטובה בעת הקרובה. כך שאלו שבחרו לגור מחוץ לישראל משלמים מחיר כבד שלא באשמתם

אומר יעקב חגואל, יו”ר ההסתדרות הציונית העולמית: מדובר בעלייה חסרת תקדים. בשבעה באוקטובר לא פרצה מלחמה רק נגד מדינת ישראל, אלא נגד העם היהודי כולו, עם קמפיין מתוזמן וממומן שמעורר אנטישמיות. זו תופעה שלא נראתה מאז השואה, ואנחנו יחד עם ממשלות ומדינות נוספות צריכים להילחם בתופעה הזו ולעקור אותה מהשורש. אנחנו לא ניתן לעולם לחזור לימי מלחמת העולם השנייה. כאמור חגואל לא מתייחס כלל לסוגיה מה הסיבה הישירה לעלייה באנטישמיות והיא מותם של אלפי פלסטינים בעזה בעקבות פעולת צה”ל. אי הכירה בסיבה לא תאפשר להילחם משמעותית באנטישמיות

ואילו ד”ר רחלי ברץ, ראש המחלקה למאבק באנטישמיות בהסתדרות הציונית העולמית מוסיפה: הנתונים בלתי ניתנים להכחשה. בחודשים האחרונים חל שינוי גדול לרעה ביחס אל יהודי קנדה. הדבר ניכר מאוד ברחובות ובריבוי האירועים האלימים, אבל לא פחות מכך בקרב סטודנטים, מרצים וחברי סגל בקמפוסים השונים. הרעות החולות שהפכו פופולריות במערב אירופה ובארה”ב הגיעו גם למדינה שבה מהווים היהודים פחות מאחוז וחצי מהאוכלוסייה. עם זאת, בקנדה חיים למעלה מארבע מאות אלף יהודים. מדובר בתפוצה היהודית השלישית בגודלה בעולם, וראוי שכל הגורמים הרלוונטיים יתנו את דעתם ויטפלו בתופעה חמורה זאת

לעומתם ראש ישיבת סלבודקה בבני ברק, הרב משה הלל הירש (שהוא גם חברת מועצת גדולי התורה של דגל תורה), טוען כי הניסיון לצמצם את עולם התורה, הוא זה שמביא להעצמת תופעת האנטישמיות בעולם. הרב הירש מוסיף כי עלינו שהכל מתנהל לפי פעילותו של אלוהים והכל בעצם לטובתנו. הרב מציין עוד כי אנו חיים כיום בתקופה שאינה חסרת תקדים וכלל ישראל חיות במשך מאות שנים לפני בית המקדש ולאחריו, עם אתגרים מאותם סוג של היום

Holding faith at rallies

UBC student Zara Nybo, a non-Jewish ally, holds a poster of Rom Braslavski, as she speaks of his heroism before he was taken hostage to Gaza on Oct. 7. (photo by Pat Johnson)

As negotiations continued in Doha, Qatar, for the release of Israeli hostages, the weekly rallies in support of those held, their families and all Israelis continued Sunday, Aug. 18, at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“As a university professor and as a Jew, I have been forced to witness the frontlines of a propaganda war to dehumanize and demonize Jews and to delegitimize the nation of Israel,” said Prof. Steven Plotkin, a University of British Columbia physicist.

The Hamas strategy is one of “asymmetric warfare,” he said, in which they bait Israel Defence Forces with attacks and hostage-takings, then use their own Palestinian civilians as human shields, knowing that the casualty numbers and horrible images will evoke sympathy in the West.

“And we’ve seen it,” he said. “The encampment and the protests at UBC quickly turned from advocating for the human rights of Palestinians to a call for the end of Israel.”

On campus, the messages he saw included the now familiar “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” but others on the same theme, including “We don’t want your two states! Take us back to ’48” and “Resistance is justified when you are occupied.” Another common refrain, he said, is “‘Globalize the intifada.’ That means bring terrorism everywhere, including here in Canada.”

“Long live Oct. 7” was yet another slogan the professor saw on his campus.

“Let that sink in,” he said.

When reports of extensive sexual abuse by Hamas and other Palestinians who broke through the border on Oct. 7 became known, he said, “I saw posters at UBC that announced a discussion group for ‘the lies that Zionists spread about the sexual abuse that didn’t occur on Oct. 7.’”

Plotkin reflected back to the days after the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City, when people put up posters of their lost loved ones.

“Could you imagine what kind of person would think to tear one of those down? No one would have dreamed of it,” he said. “And now we’re seeing a world whose moral compass has completely lost its direction.”

Posters of Israeli hostages are routinely torn down at UBC, elsewhere in Vancouver and around the world. Plotkin shared a psychological hypothesis for why this desecration is so rampant.

In the identity-centred worldview of many activists, Plotkin said, morality is determined by one’s position in the hierarchy of oppression.

“The less powerful are pardoned, the more powerful must be guilty,” he said. Because Hamas is less powerful than Israel, Israel must be guilty, despite the evidence of Hamas murdering, raping and abducting Israeli civilians.

“A hostage poster, however, throws a wrench into that framework because it forces them to cope with the idea that the people that they thought were oppressed could actually be in the wrong,” Plotkin said. “Their whole simplistic worldview of the blameless oppressed and the evil oppressor is undermined by the ugly facts contained in the posters. A hostage poster induces a cognitive dissonance and, rather than question their own worldview, it’s easier for them to see it as pro-Israel propaganda designed to elicit their sympathy for the Jews in Israel, the bad guys, and so they feel compelled to tear the poster down.”

Eyal Daniel, a Burnaby high school teacher who specializes in Holocaust and genocide studies and who is president of the Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators’ Association, spoke about how his group was denied recognition by the BC Teachers’ Federation.

Representing close to 150 educators, the group applied to become one of the BCTF’s provincial specialist associations.

“Our application was rejected without any given reason,” he said. “Currently, there are no educational resources about the Holocaust and antisemitism for teachers in the province.”

Conversely, Daniel said, the province’s 50,000 teachers are bombarded by their union with materials promoting the elimination of the state of Israel.

The provincial government has mandated that Grade 10 students must receive Holocaust education beginning in 2025 and it is said to be working on curriculum materials.

Despite the lack of recognition from the BCTF, Daniel’s group will continue to work “as if we had been approved,” he said.

“Therefore, these days, we are in the process of constructing a new website, developing useful, meaningful professional development opportunities for teachers, assessing and developing appropriate educational materials and working with the minister of education on the upcoming Grade 10 Holocaust education curriculum framework,” he said.

Daniel spoke of his family’s recent visit to Israel, where they visited the site of the Nova music festival.

“Stepping out of the car into the desert heat, we were immediately surrounded by the haunting silence,” he said, “but, yet, 364 voices called out from the ground: Where is the humanity? The Nova memorial site is a barren killing field where humanity ceased to exist.”

Rabbi Susan Tendler of Congregation Beth Tikvah, in Richmond, spoke of the need for dialogue.

“In civic discourse … we’re yelling more than we’re listening,” she said. “So many of us will talk about the need to listen to one another but instead we’re just angry and have an inability to actually talk to one another.”

She asked people to see the humanity of others as a starting point to dialogue.

“To be a Jew means to respect and understand that every single human being was created in the image of God,” she said. “Let us continue to work for peace in the region that so, so sorely needs healing.”

Zara Nybo, a fourth-year student at UBC, is an ally to the Jewish community, president of the Israel on Campus club, and an Emerson Fellow with the international advocacy group StandWithUs. She shared recollections of a training conference in Los Angeles from which she and scores of other campus activists recently returned. At an LA rally for the hostages, she heard profoundly moving testimonies from family members of those still held in Gaza.

“Most people around me, men, women, had tears streaming down their face,” said Nybo. “We were all holding each other in collective grief.”

The mother of Rom Braslavski spoke of how her son had been a security guard at the Nova music festival and took it upon himself to hide the bodies of murdered women, both so they would not be taken to Gaza and so that they would not be posthumously raped or mutilated, as he had seen other female bodies desecrated. Braslavski was taken hostage in Gaza.

As Nybo and her fellow students prepare for the new academic year, she emphasized the training they have undergone and the determination with which they will return to campus.

“I will tell you we are committed to this fight,” she said.

Richard Lowy, who has provided vocal and guitar inspiration at almost every rally for months, spoke of the hope that a resolution will come through negotiation.

Event organizer Daphna Kedem recounted the rally in Tel Aviv the evening before and expressed hope that the hostages will be released soon and that the weekly rallies she has organized for 10 months will cease to be necessary.

Queer Jews are feeling isolated

Aviva Rathbone, chair of JQT Vancouver, finds hope in the fact that “[t]here are lots of people in the community coming together right now and finding connections to heal what they can in what is a very broken world and what is a very broken situation.” (photo from JQT)

Probably all Jews have experienced emotional and mental impacts from the events of Oct. 7 and since. For LGBTQ+ Jews, these effects are often magnified by the climates in their multiple communities.

JQT Vancouver (pronounced J-Cutie), a volunteer-run Jewish queer and trans nonprofit group whose mission is “‘queering’ Jewish spaces and ‘Jew-ifying’ queer spaces,” has released the results of a survey that indicates LGBTQ+ Jews are experiencing profound pain – regardless of where they stand on an apparently vastly diverse spectrum of opinions about the conflict in the Middle East.

Titled 2024 JQT Temperature Check Report, the document collates responses from 91 individuals, including narratives of their experiences, and the overview it paints is bleak.

“There are a lot of really sad commentaries,” Aviva Rathbone, chair of JQT, told the Independent. “A lot of the folks who responded to the survey are people who are really struggling right now.”

She cautioned that the survey may not include the perspectives of others who may be having more positive experiences.

“Some people are feeling really accepted into community right now, they are feeling like they found a place,” said Rathbone. “We didn’t hear from those folks, but that’s not to say that they don’t exist.”

The results are not surprising, she said.

“We knew people were struggling,” she said. “It was a surprise, I think, the depth of anger and sadness that was there.”

Fewer than half of survey respondents indicated that they felt safe and accepted in Jewish spaces and only about a quarter said they felt safe and accepted in queer spaces. Fewer still, 14%, said they felt comfortable in both.

Since Oct. 7, approximately half of respondents indicated that actions and/or statements of queer (57%) and Jewish organizations (51%) have had a negative impact on their mental health.

A majority (57%) of respondents indicated that their safety and security felt threatened since Oct. 7 because of their Jewish identity. More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) said they experienced antisemitism online or in-person since Oct. 7.

Much of the discomfort centres on divergent attitudes toward Israel and the war against Hamas, as well as opinions around the definitions of antisemitism and what some respondents describe as exclusivist attitudes in the Jewish community, often described as overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and in the LGBTQ+ community, described by many as unwelcoming to pro-Israel Jews.

One respondent said the Jewish community should “acknowledge that anti-Zionist Jews are still Jews and should be welcome in Jewish spaces” and that “queer Zionist Jews are still queer and should be welcome in queer spaces.”

JQT serves members who self-identify as Zionist and those who self-identify as anti-Zionist.

“When the mainstream Jewish community dismisses Jews who criticize Israeli actions, it makes me feel alienated from that community, more than before,” wrote one respondent.

Two among scores of examples illustrate the chasm between the narratives shared in the report. One respondent accuses “queers for Palestine” of trying “to turn Zionism into a dirty word” and making them feel “unwelcome as a Jewish Israeli in queer spaces when not hiding myself.” Another writer says, “It makes me unsafe when Jewish organizations […] make wildly racist statements about Palestine. Conflating Judaism with Israel makes it seem like I am complicit in this genocide.”

Said another respondent: “None of the synagogues or even [Jewish queer groups] have made any statements that humanize the struggle of non-Zionist Jews and how we’ve been systematically shut out of spiritual, social and cultural Jewish spaces for far too long. In fact, the current climate within these spaces promotes a pro-war and anti-Palestinian rhetoric that pushes me and my friends away from feeling security and belonging in our identities.”

The divergence in attitudes is typified by another survey response.

“People wearing an End the Occupation T-shirt or other such slogans signal to me that the wearers believe Hamas to be righteous rather than terrorist, that all lives are not equal, makes me uncomfortable, as does the aggressivity of protesters, including [queer groups that support] Palestine. Standing in solidarity with Israel and its absolute right to defend itself, while not recognizing the numbers of non-Hamas Palestinians killed and the living conditions in Gaza during the war is also not comfortable for me,” wrote a respondent.

If there is a clear takeaway from the study, Rathbone said, it can be summed up in one word.

“Empathy,” she said. “We have the ability to hold space for our own pain and anger and for other people’s pain and anger. I fully believe that humans are expansive and the Jewish community for sure is expansive and we have done this many times. We have been able to hold space for ourselves and for other people who are suffering, even when we don’t agree with them.”

Disagreements over politics, no matter how intensely and personally held, should not erase the empathy Jewish people have for one another, she said.

It is possible to have conversations across that divide, as JQT did recently in a “listen and be heard” event, facilitated by two professionals.

That event was part of a major mental health initiative in collaboration with Jewish Family Services, with funding from the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, that was in the works even before Oct. 7. Among numerous projects rolled out in recent months addressing the challenges facing LGBTQ+ Jews is a 10-page resource issued last week, titled JQT Affirming Care: A Toolkit for Mental Health Providers. It was developed by care providers Hannah Zalmanowitz and Anat Kerelstein.

Carmel Tanaka, executive director of JQT, said the toolkit, which Jewish trans or queer people can give to healthcare providers, as well as friends or anyone else who might benefit from a deeper understanding of their experiences, is a direct response to expressed needs in the community.

photo - JQT Vancouver executive director Carmel Tanaka talks about Twice Blessed 2.0 at a recent event. The 2022 needs assessment includes 13 calls for action, including mental health support and being open to those who have a spectrum of opinion on Israel/Palestine — JQT Vancouver executive director Carmel Tanaka talks about Twice Blessed 2.0 at a recent event. The 2022 needs assessment includes 13 calls for action, including mental health support and being open to those who have a spectrum of opinion on Israel/Palestine. *(photo by Kathryn Nickford Photography)*

“We kept hearing that one of the barriers to receiving mental health support was linked directly to the lack of provider knowledge, training and competence around working with Jewish queer and trans people,” Tanaka said. “So, we created this educational toolkit aimed at reducing the burden on JQTs of having to educate their mental health providers on their lived experiences and mental health needs.”

Along with the Temperature Check report, Tanaka said, the toolkit provides tangible evidence of both the challenges and steps to improving the isolation and difficulties faced by affected individuals.

“I just really hope that leaders in the Jewish community, as well as leaders in the queer community, do take a moment to seriously read this so that they can better understand why we are doing this and why there is a need to support our community,” Tanaka said, adding that JQT continues to remain open to those who are on a spectrum of opinion on Israel and Palestine. “It really hurts to not be included in Pride events or in queer spaces, to not feel included in Jewish spaces. It’s an impossible situation to feel like you don’t belong.”

Even amid a plethora of discouraging responses, Rathbone said there is reason for hope.

“I don’t want folks to read it and to become really depressed and hopeless, because there are lots of ways to find hope,” she said. “There are lots of people in the community coming together right now and finding connections to heal what they can in what is a very broken world and what is a very broken situation. That also gives me hope, to watch people recognize that they can come together in community and do their part to heal something.”

Inclusion, but not for Jews

Simon Fraser University assistant professor Dr. Lilach Marom gave a lecture May 27 called Where is Antisemitism in EDI Discourses in Canadian Higher Education? How Did We Get Here, And How Can We Move Forward?

Prevailing trends in equity, diversity and inclusion on campuses and elsewhere often exclude Jewish people and discount antisemitism, according to a Simon Fraser University academic.

Despite extensive policies around racism, discrimination and related topics, many universities and academic organizations have no explicit references in policy to antisemitism, says Dr. Lilach Marom, an assistant professor at SFU, who focuses on anti-racism and inclusion in education with a focus on structural and institutional barriers to access.

“When we look at references to antisemitism and Jewish identity across EDI policies and action plans, we see that there is not much reference,” she said during a lecture May 27 that was part of Diverse Approaches to Research in Education, a seminar series co-hosted by Faculty of Education’s Research Hub and the Research Advisory Working Group. For example, resources from the Canadian Association of University Teachers include a self-identification survey, but under the category of race and ethnicity, there is no option to select “Jewish.”

In addition to Jewish identity, the experiences of Jewish people with antisemitism are often not specifically addressed. “Sometimes, it is not named when there are other forms of oppression and racism that are named,” she said.

EDI stands for equity, diversity and inclusion (in the United States, Marom noted, it is reordered as DEI). Equity, she said, is the removal of systemic barriers and enabling all individuals to have equitable opportunity and access to benefit from higher education. Diversity is about the variety of unique dimensions, identities, qualities and characteristics individuals possess along with other identity factors. Inclusion is defined as the practice of ensuring that all individuals are valued and respected for their contributions and are supported equitably.

EDI has become the prevalent framework to address issues of social justice and equity in Canadian higher education, said Marom. Fully 90% of higher educational institutions in Canada reference EDI in their strategic planning and 91% have an EDI task force or are developing one, according to a Universities Canada survey of members in 2022.

photo - Dr. Lilach Marom — Dr. Lilach Marom *(photo courtesy)*

Marom sees a number of reasons why antisemitism is excluded. Antisemitism is often categorized as religious-based discrimination, which reclassifies it outside the realm of anti-racism.

“Jewish people see themselves as a people, which means they have shared culture, language, history, religious texts and rituals,” said Marom. “But, within the North American context, Jewishness is conceptualized as a form of religion.”

This is specifically the case in Canadian law, where antisemitism is categorized under religious discrimination and reported under hate crimes motivated by religion.

This creates a disconnect when it comes to EDI, said Marom. “In most cases, EDI typically does not centre on religious-based discrimination,” she said. “So those things are on the margins, they’re not core to the EDI discourses.”

Settler-colonialism and decolonization are core concepts in EDI discourse, which presents challenges around the way Israel and Palestine are considered.

“I’m worried about the new antisemitism that emerges at the intersection of anti-racism and settler-colonial discourses,” she said. “Both those discourses are insufficient and incomplete to understand Jewishness, the Jewish condition or the situation in Israel-Palestine.… They create this forced binary between Jewish people as the embodiment of white privilege and colonial oppression, and Palestinians as racialized and indigenous. I think this binary is not only inaccurate, it also feeds into new forms of antisemitism.”

Settler-colonialism is a leading framework for analyzing Canadian history, said Marom. Applying that framework to Zionism and the formation of Israel in a simplistic way overlooks the long and complex history of that land and creates a false dichotomy between Jewish people as the embodiment of oppression and Palestinians as indigenous, she said.

These constructions fail to acknowledge the historical, cultural and religious ties of Jews to the land dating back millennia. They also don’t acknowledge that there could be places in which there are coexisting claims to indigeneity in Israel-Palestine.

Meanwhile, the construction of Jews as white and privileged, she said, reflects a “legal and cultural whitening of Jews in North America.”

“This is not to ignore the fact that Jews definitely have gained some privileges from their ability to assimilate and integrate in this mainstream North American culture and those possibilities were not open to members of other racialized groups,” she said. “Jews have definitely gained some privileges from this ability. However, this also feeds into some antisemitic tropes or stereotypes – Jews as a ‘model minority’ or ‘super powerful’ – and have put them in a position that is not really in and not really out. These in-between spaces [mean] they can be targeted on one hand by conspiracies from the right like the Great Replacement Theory, but also pushed against from the left as an embodiment of white privilege.”

The construction of Jews as white overlooks the self-identification of Jewish people, she said, and it doesn’t recognize the diversity of Jewish people. While in North America many Jewish people are Ashkenazi, in places like Israel, the majority of people are from Asian, Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds.

“In critical discourses, we don’t talk about race as skin pigmentation nor as biological constructs,” Marom said. “We talk about it as a form of social construct. If you think about race as a social construct, looking at the history of Jewish people with marginalization, exclusion and genocide, they cannot be put aside from anti-racism discourses and be absorbed into whiteness.”

It is not useful, she said, to participate in “any form of oppression Olympics. But I think we need to acknowledge that antisemitism is not following the typical path of other racialized groups, where hopefully there is less exclusion and more integration with time,” she said. “With Jewish people, many times when they thought they were most integrated and most included, this is when they faced the most extreme forms of exclusion and marginalization.”

Marom clarified that discussion about antisemitism and the protection and safety of Jewish people should not be confused with “protection” from challenging ideas.

“We need to be willing to step into risky discussions,” she said. “But I think what EDI does is really talk about impact. It talks about how can we be engaging in those difficult spaces while still feeling that we are being seen as human, that we are included, that we have space. I speak only on my behalf [but] I think this is the case with many Jewish faculty that I know. I don’t think that this is the way many of us [have felt] since Oct. 7.”

There is a balance to be found between academic freedom and protection of minority communities, said Marom – but the approach to this balance when it comes to Jews and antisemitism seems different than in other cases.

“I just find it very peculiar that a lot of my colleagues who usually are very sensitive toward issues of inclusion and belonging all of a sudden become the strongest supporters of academic freedom when it comes to the issues of antisemitism,” said Marom. “Not that academic freedom is not important – it is really important – I’m just curious to hear how come it becomes so important now when the people in question are Jewish people.”

She also cited a seminar on antisemitism and anti-Zionism that was sponsored by about 40 organizations, most of them Muslim and Middle Eastern academic groups.

“This we would never see on other issues, in which people from the outside explained to people on the inside what they need to know about themselves,” she said. There were some Jewish speakers at the event, she noted, but they came from a very specific ideological perspective.

“I’m not saying that they are not legitimate,” she said. “I’m not even saying that they’re not important and I don’t think that we need to define who is in and who is out to speak on behalf of the Jewish people – there is enough space in the world to speak. But I am worried for the tendencies in progressive circles to adopt those voices and put them in and check the inclusion box, because that is not how we do inclusion in any other circles.”

The principle of “nothing about us without us,” the idea that no approach toward a group should be adopted without the full and direct participation of the affected people, should not be overlooked when it comes to antisemitism, she said.

A video of Marom’s full presentation is available at youtu.be/FQbGiySUetM.

Upstanders toolkit launched

Upstanders Canada held a nationwide webinar last month to introduce a toolkit aimed at confronting antisemitism in the various forms it may manifest – particularly in the inherent biases people may not be aware they carry.

At the June 23 launch, Pat Johnson, the founder of Upstanders Canada, discussed the toolkit, called Be An Upstander: How Allies Can Recognize and Contest Antisemitism. Among those attending the online event were representatives of several faith-based organizations. Most attendees were not part of the Jewish community.

Johnson outlined how antisemitism works and the characteristics contained within antisemitism, such as “othering” (casting a group of people as different from the rest of society), victim-blaming, and inverting the victim and the perpetrator.

The toolkit demonstrates how these characteristics of antisemitism can lead to projection – where a society places the blame for things it fears, hates or does not understand onto Jews. This can lead to conspiracy theories in which complex world problems are simplified into a clearcut package that frequently places the blame on Jews.

Antisemitism is a foundation of many conspiracy theories in that the theories usually rest on the belief that a powerful group of Jews controls events. The theories do not need to specify Jews as the people behind what is considered wrong, but rather can use references to “Hollywood,” “cosmopolitan elites” or “globalists,” which equally fulfil the purpose of implying that Jews are doing nefarious, self-serving deeds behind the scenes.

Feelings of envy and inferiority, the toolkit points out, may distinguish antisemitism from other forms of racism. Whereas many types of prejudice come from a sense of superiority, antisemitism is derived in part from the belief that Jews “think they are better than everyone else.” This, in turn, leads to “punching up,” or, as Johnson says, “the idea that attacking a perceived ‘superior’ is a way to advance social justice, though the person being punched is always a victim.”

Johnson offered a picture of what antisemitism may look like when it is not obvious.

“Blatant antisemitism is easy to recognize,” he said. “It is also the form of antisemitism most likely to turn violent and is, therefore, the most dangerous. But all people of goodwill recognize and condemn that form of antisemitism. More subtle, unconscious forms of antisemitism exist in inherent biases, stereotypes and tropes that people may carry without even recognizing them.”

The stereotype of affluent, high-ranking or privileged Jews, for example, brings with it a specific danger, one that may not be violent but is nonetheless harmful. Antisemitism, Johnson explained, becomes the “perfect prejudice” because the concept of powerful Jews renders the notion of taking antisemitism seriously invalid as their supposed power makes them immune to discrimination.

The toolkit touches upon some historical tropes about Jews, such as an alleged “persecution complex” and Jewish “untrustworthiness and disloyalty” in business settings, citizenship and elsewhere. It also discusses blood libels, the Holocaust and blaming the killing of Jesus on Jews.

Regarding equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, Johnson notes that Zionism is the manifestation of Jewish self-determination in a state and that “anti-Zionism is not criticism of Israel, it is opposition to the existence of the state of Israel.” He discounts the idea that pre-existing biases against Jews have no impact on opinions about the Jewish state and admonishes those who accuse Israel of using historical discrimination for political advantage. The toolkit references the three Ds developed by Israeli politician and human rights activist Natan Sharansky to determine if anti-Zionism is antisemitism: demonization, double standards and delegitimization.

The toolkit adds, “Zionism does not preclude Palestinian self-determination. Coexistence is the only path to peace and it is the responsibility primarily of the people who live there. The responsibility of overseas observers should be to encourage that coexistence – not to exacerbate the conflict by stoking intolerance, here or abroad.”

One of the problems well-intentioned individuals have when contesting antisemitism is not feeling adequately prepared to respond. For this, the toolkit not only provides many strategies for preparing, but offers encouragement and empowerment.

Be An Upstander, a 20-page pdf document available online, comes with numerous links that allow readers to explore in greater depth subjects surrounding antisemitism and ways of responding appropriately to it.

In addition to Johnson speaking about the toolkit, the launch event featured short speeches from Deborah Lyons, Canada’s special envoy on antisemitism; Zara Nybo, a campus media fellow for HonestReporting Canada and Allied Voices for Israel at the University of British Columbia; and Rabbi Lynn Greenhough of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple in Victoria, which hosted the event. Television personality Shai DeLuca emceed from Toronto.

The Upstanders toolkit was created in partnership with Kolot Mayim, with financial support from the Union for Reform Judaism, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island.

Upstanders is a movement of mainly non-Jewish people standing up against antisemitism. It is a nonpartisan, non-denominational organization, open to Canadians across all differences of identity, orientation, outlook and ability. To find out more and to view the toolkit, visit upstanderscanada.com.

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