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.
MP Anthony Housefather was in Vancouver last week. (photo from Government of Canada)
Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP who openly considered joining the Conservatives, made an urgent plea during a presentation in Vancouver last week for Jews and pro-Israel voters to keep a foot on both sides of the political divide.
Housefather, member of Parliament for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, was on the West Coast for a series of meet-and-greets with Jewish organizations and individuals. At Temple Sholom just before Shabbat on May 17, Housefather was open about the disappointments some Jewish Canadians – including himself – have felt with the current Liberal government.
“We’ve seen a government that has had an excellent record on Israel for the past eight years turn away from that excellent record that we all cherish so much,” he said before going into examples he said show his party has been a voice for Jews and Israel.
Since Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party came to power in 2015, Housefather said, Canada has had a better voting record at the United Nations than the previous Conservative government had.
“We voted against 87% of the anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, comparable only to the United States, at about 90%,” he said. “Most European countries were between zero and 10%.”
On antisemitism, Housefather said it was his party that appointed a special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and antisemitism – first Irwin Cotler and now Deborah Lyons – and adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism. The federal government apologized for this country slamming the doors on Jewish refugees before and during the Holocaust, initiated Jewish Heritage Month, and made antisemitism one of four pillars of the federal antiracism strategy, he said.
“I’ve been proud of the record of my party while we have been in government on these issues,” he said.
“Since Oct. 7, I think the Jewish community across the country has felt somewhat abandoned,” he said. In January, the government was “not able to articulate that Israel was not committing genocide,” he said. The decision to restore funding to UNRWA – the UN’s Palestinianrelief agency some of whose employees, evidence shows, were involved in the Oct. 7 terrorism – was a blow to many Jewish Canadians. The turning point for Housefather was the New Democratic Party motion that was widely seen as condemning Israel, including calling for an end to military trade with the country.
“Unfortunately, the decision was made to amend [the motion], which made the resolution better, but it was still bad,” Housefather said. In the end, only he and two other Liberals voted against the motion. What really hurt, said Housefather, was when the NDP member who moved the motion was given a standing ovation, including by Liberal MPs.
This combination of events led Housefather to question his place in the party and to publicly acknowledge he was considering crossing the floor. He decided to stay with the Liberals, in part because the prime minister tasked him with new responsibilities to address antisemitism, but also, he said, because he realized that his voice – and those of other Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians – is needed in the governing party.
“I need to be there to make our voices heard in the party,” he said. “Once you place all your eggs in one basket and you have no allies in the other party when it comes to power, then you’re screwed.”
Housefather has a list of actions he wants from the government and others. He is urging Criminal Code amendments to add “bubble legislation,” which would prevent protests within a certain distance from synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres, after protesters laid siege to a Jewish community building in Montreal and people inside were prevented from leaving for hours.
Police need to be told that they must enforce the law around harassment and hate speech, and university administrations need to act to keep students safe, he said.
Housefather pushed for parliamentary hearings on campus antisemitism, which have now begun.
He urged Jewish Canadians to develop relationships with their elected officials, and he passionately urged them to leave their hatred aside.
Housefather said he gets barraged by hate messages from antisemites and anti-Zionists – including death threats – but it’s the hate from Jews that really upsets him. No matter how much some voters agree with him on issues that are important to the Jewish community, he said, they nevertheless condemn him in extreme terms – “traitor,” “quisling” – for being part of the Liberal party.
“If our community wants MPs to support our community, you have to deal with them in a way that doesn’t send them hate, that doesn’t treat them like dirt.”
Above all, Housefather said, Israel and Jewish issues shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
“We should all fight for them and we shouldn’t be trying to create wedge issues that divide the Jewish community,” he said.
Vancouver Police last week arrested a woman for praising the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. The woman, who multiple reports say is Charlotte Kates, a leader in a group called Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, was later released as police develop their case to present to the Crown for possible charges.
News of the arrest was met with a level of satisfaction among Jewish community organizations. Kates and Samidoun have been sources of outrage and concern for years. The group is routinely described as having “direct ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),” which is designated as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code of Canada. Canadian Jewish organizations have called for Samidoun to receive a similar censure – as it has in Germany, where it is a banned organization, and in Israel, where it is designated as a terrorist entity.
Kates, a British Columbia woman who is married to Khaled Barakat, a senior member of the PFLP, was arrested in relation to recorded statements made outside the Vancouver Art Gallery last month. There, she referred to several terrorist organizations as heroes and described the Oct. 7 attacks as “the beautiful, brave and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people.” She led a crowd of hundreds in chants of “long live Oct. 7.”
Emergence of the video led to absolute condemnation from BC Premier David Eby.
“Celebrating the murder, the rape of innocent people attending a music festival, it’s awful,” said the premier. “It’s reprehensible, and it shouldn’t take place in British Columbia. There is clearly an element of some individuals using an international tragedy to promote hate that’s completely unacceptable.”
Kates is banned from participating in public protests for five months, according to a statement released by Samidoun. An investigation is underway and it will be up to Crown prosecutors to determine whether charges are laid and the case goes to trial.
In announcing the arrest, Vancouver police spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison explained the line police walk.
“We defend everyone’s right to gather and express their opinions, even when those opinions are unpopular or controversial,” said Addison. “We also have a responsibility to ensure public comments don’t promote or incite hatred, encourage violence, or make people feel unsafe. We will continue to thoroughly investigate every hate incident and will pursue criminal charges whenever there is evidence of a hate crime.”
The arrest comes as the federal government begins a process of reviewing Canada’s approach to hate-motivated expression. New legislation beginning its way through the wending process of Parliament is focused especially on “online harms” and involves a multi-pronged approach that would see amendments to the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and new laws addressing cyber-bullying, “revenge porn,” encouragement of self-harm and other actions.
The bill (click here for story) is part of an ongoing effort to address the social and technological challenges of hate-motivated crimes, as well as the range of dangers presented to children and others by online predators, bullies and extortionists.
The federal government’s efforts, long delayed and inevitably controversial, are part of an age-old effort to walk a line between the right to free expression, on the one hand, and the right, on the other hand, for people to be free from harassment and threats based on personal identity or other factors. Any discussion of balancing these contending rights – which is anything but an exact science – is destined to disappoint or anger people on both sides.
The next steps in the current legal investigation – whether it proceeds to criminal charges and, if so, how the case proceeds and concludes – will also not satisfy everyone, if anyone. Indeed, it is a factor of this sort of case almost exclusively where many argue the challenging position that, in the words of Voltaire, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Few today would defend to the death the right of anyone to glorify Oct. 7 (or anything else, probably), but the point is that the right of free expression is considered by many to be sacrosanct. This has always been a core differentiator between our society and that to which we so often compare ourselves, the United States, whose constitution prioritizes precisely this sort of freedom.
An absolutist position is much easier for courts to adjudicate. Drawing lines in moral conundrums is a much more challenging undertaking.
As we watch this one case proceed locally, we will also be carefully observing the broader, legalistic and philosophical disputations occurring in Parliament as Bill C-63 proceeds through the creation process. The outcome, in both instances, will be necessarily imperfect. The hope is that they should be as just as human endeavours can be.
A federal bill to address online harassment, bullying and hate has aspects to admire and others to cause concern. What happens in the committee process will determine the success of the proposed law.
That is the take of two experts – including one who had a hand in drafting the legislation. The devil, as always, is in the details of balancing free expression with the right to be free from threats and harassment.
Dr. Michael Geist, the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, who also serves on the advisory board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was joined in a recent online panel by Dr. Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law and associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Calgary. Her recent work includes projects on online harms, misinformation and disinformation, and she co-chaired the expert group that advised the federal government on the development of the Online Harms Bill, which is known as Bill C-63. The virtual panel, on April 17, was presented by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and moderated by Richard Marceau, CIJA’s vice-president, external affairs, and general counsel. More than 850 people registered for the event, indicating what CIJA board chair Gail Adelson-Marcovitz indicated is a depth of interest, and perhaps concern, about the bill.
Geist explained that the new bill is a result of years of work, following the federal government’s withdrawal of an earlier attempt at addressing the problem of online harms.
Bill C-63 is really three separate concepts rolled into one. It would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code, as well as introduce a new Online Harms Bill. Together, the components would codify currently inconsistent approaches to the problems.
The bill would redefine “hatred” in the Criminal Code and define a new crime of “offence motivated by hatred.” That offence, as well as advocating or promoting genocide, could lead to life imprisonment.
Amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act would add the “communication of hate speech” via the internet or other telecommunication technology as a discriminatory practice. Individuals would be empowered to bring a complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which could penalize offenders up to $50,000. The law, if passed, would affect public communications, like social media posts, not private messaging or emails.
Separate components of the bill would make it easier and quicker to address specific offensive content, such as “revenge porn” and posts that could harm children, encourage suicide or bullying or otherwise endanger young people.
A digital safety commissioner and ombudsperson would help guide individuals through the process of dealing with bullying or other issues related to the law.
Geist said many legal experts who seek to balance freedom of speech with freedom from abuse “breathed a sigh of relief” after the federal government abandoned earlier efforts and relied for the new bill on expert advice.
“It’s a pretty good starting point,” Geist said. “We know the broad brushstrokes of what that might include but there is a lot of uncertainty still, so it’s easy to like it when we don’t know the specifics.”
Geist and Laidlaw agreed on most points but had some differences around oversight. Geist said the bill appears to grant enormous powers to a new digital safety commissioner. The idea of life imprisonment for an online comment, he added, may be a sticking point. “I find that hard to justify,” he said.
Laidlaw said the new office of ombudsperson is an important step in helping individuals navigate online hate and harassment. The ombudsperson would be able to pass specific information on to the digital safety commission, whose mandate includes education and research supported by a digital safety office.
The bill would also place new obligations on corporations that run online platforms, like social media companies. At present, Laidlaw said, some companies, notably X (Twitter), are not taking the problem very seriously.
While Jewish advocacy organizations have long advocated for legal responses to hate speech, Geist warned of a double-edge sword.
“Could somebody who is supportive of Israel will be accused of promoting genocide?” he asked.
Geist upended the binary assumption of harassment and free expression, noting that the idea that limits on hate speech could chill expression ignores the existing, difficult-to-measure effects of online (as well as offline) harassment and bullying.
“There is already a chilling effect for anyone in our community and, frankly, in a number of communities, that speaks out on these issues,” he said. “The backlash that you invariably face causes, I think, many people to [reconsider] whether they want to step out and comment, and it’s not just online. There’s a chilling effect offline as well. These issues are very real and many of them will not be solved by legislation no matter what the legislation says.”
He fears a barrage of complaints, many vexatious, from all sides of many contentious issues.
While there is a needle-in-a-haystack challenge in addressing online harms, Geist said, addressing the problematic major players could have a broad impact, though no one believes online hate and bullying can be completely eradicated.
“The legislation talks about mitigating these harms, it doesn’t talk about eliminating them,” he said. Social media platforms, he believes, are looking for guidance on these issues and will be amenable to adhering to legislation. Moreover, he said, Canada’s proposals are somewhat belated responses that would put us roughly in line with the European Union, Australia, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions.
The inability to erase hate and harassment is not an excuse to do nothing, Laidlaw said.
“Enforcement has always been an issue,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s a reason not to pass laws.”
Laidlaw took exception to criticism that the new bill would represent government censorship. The proposed digital safety commissioner would be an independent body comparable with the existing privacy commissioner.
“Where there is some risk is in the fact that, in the end, government appoints the individuals,” she said. Still, the appointees would need to be approved by Parliament, not just the government in office.
“And remember,” she added, the commissioner’s “oversight is of companies, not of individuals. They’re not making individual content decisions or holding individuals accountable here.”
The commission would not be subject to legal rules of evidence, making it possible to immediately take down things such as child porn, encouraging suicide or other especially egregious posts.
Geist said this significant power demands that the government spell out more clearly the limitations of the commission.
“At a minimum, it seems to me that it is incumbent on the government to flesh out in far more detail where the limits, where the guardrails, are around the commission, so that we aren’t basically adopting a ‘trust us’ approach with respect to the commission,” said Geist.
Parliament is expected to take up consideration of the bill in committee soon and Laidlaw argued that some aspects deserve speedy passage while others require far more sober consideration.
“The Online Harms Bill could be passed with minor tinkering,” she said. The Criminal Code provisions, she said, give her serious concerns and deserve major revisions or complete scrapping. She also struggles with changing the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Geist agreed on taking the bill apart.
“I would separate out the bill,” he said. Criminal Code and Human Rights Act amendments deserve much deeper consideration, he said. The online harms piece, he said, could be tidied up and passed with tweaks.
A review released Monday about the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the sprawling bureaucracy that for decades has played a central role in the lives of Palestinians, said Israel has not provided adequate evidence to demonstrate that UNRWA workers engaged in terrorism.
The review, headed by a former French foreign minister, dismissed Israel’s claims that UNRWA workers in Gaza were engaged in terrorist activities, including the Oct. 7 pogroms. It did, however, recommend several steps to ensure neutrality, transparency and third-party monitoring of UNRWA activities.
Regardless of the specifics in this particular accusation, UNRWA is deeply problematic. Critics contend that its mission is to perpetuate Palestinian statelessness and discontent, rather than ameliorate these problems.
Many Jewish and pro-Israel voices have long pointed to UNRWA, as well as the annual procession of anti-Israel votes at the United Nations General Assembly, among other examples, as “proof” that the United Nations is hopelessly anti-Israel, if not antisemitic.
This may or may not be true. In any event, the answer is to fix the United Nations, not bury it.
Hyperbolic, disproportionate, often ludicrous attacks on Israel at the General Assembly and from countless UN bodies undeniably demonstrate a peculiar obsession with this one (Jewish) country to the detriment of other serious issues. However, this inappropriate and biased approach must not blind us to the irreplaceable value of the organization that was envisioned as a world parliament.
Coincidentally, a new poll of Canadians and Americans indicates massive dissatisfaction with the organization – and rightly so.
The Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute engaged the pollster Leger to survey North Americans on their opinions toward the United Nations. The poll was conducted about four months after the Oct. 7 attacks, and indicates that just over one-third of Canadians and just under one-third of Americans trust the UN.
Jack Jedwab, president and chief executive officer of both of the survey’s sponsoring organizations, noted a particular incongruity in the results. While only around one-third of respondents “trust” the United Nations, much higher numbers of people hold a “net positive opinion” of the body. In both countries, a majority – 58% of Canadians and 54% of Americans – view the organization as more positive than negative.
This is encouraging, because it suggests that, while people have issues with the UN in practical terms, we are not ready to give up on the potential of the UN or the ideals upon which it was founded.
There are many reasons to criticize the United Nations, but the clearly biased anti-Israel resolutions and reports that grab headlines obscure a panoply of crucial, often lifesaving programs and services delivered by UN organizations like the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, UNICEF and UNESCO.
To put this in a context that perhaps makes sense on a more localized level, giving up on the UN would be like eliminating the sewer systems, traffic lights and schools in your hometown because you can’t stand the mayor.
If we cannot muster idealism, let’s just be practical. Don’t take it from us, take it from Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations. Danon has a long history as a right-wing Israeli politician. In his 2022 book, In the Lion’s Den: Israel and the World, he reflects on his five years as ambassador, from 2015 to 2020.
He arrived, he admits, as a hawk and a hardliner, not expecting to fit into the world of diplomacy. Over his time there, he came to see the value of the UN, despite all the disappointments and wasted resources.
Even in the lion’s den at the head of the sprawling body, the General Assembly, Danon said it is possible for a seemingly unwelcome individual like Israel’s ambassador to “build bridges, forge friendships and create a space for understanding.”
The idea, expressed by some pro-Israel people, that Israel should simply walk away from the world body, would be to cut off our nose to spite our face. Why would we abandon the one small voice we have in that forum, surrendering it to the haranguing of Israel’s enemies without contest?
Likewise, if Canadians feel our government is not representing our values and ideals at the United Nations, we need to take that up with our elected representatives here and ensure that they do so. Throwing up our hands in surrender helps no one.
Is there a problem with UNRWA? Undeniably. Fix it. Is there a problem with the International Court of Justice? Many observers would say so. Fix it. Do numerous United Nations agencies obsess over Israel while millions around the world suffer in obscurity? Undoubtedly. Fix that too.
Is the United Nations perfect? It’s a ridiculous question. Nothing in human activity is perfect. But what is the role of Jews in the world, an obligation we reminded ourselves during our seders this week? Our obligation as Jews and as humans is to strive to make the world better – and, in that context, fixing the UN is central to that objective.
Is there a long way to go in this work? Yes. Are we free to abandon it? No.
Anthony Housefather has decided to remain in the federal Liberal caucus. Housefather, member of Parliament for the Quebec riding of Mount Royal, is one of only two Liberals to have voted against the NDP motion last month that called for a ceasefire, an end to Canadian military trade with Israel, as well as other positions about Israel and the current conflict.
As discussed in this space last issue, the New Democratic Party motion had some of its rough edges sanded down in order to make it palatable to almost all Liberal MPs. The rest of the House of Commons voted predictably. Conservatives unanimously opposed the motion, which they viewed as biased against Israel. The Bloc Québecois and the Green party sided with the NDP.
The daylong negotiations over amendments to the motion were a face-saving effort by the Liberal government to avoid the embarrassment of a serious schism in their caucus over foreign policy. In the end, a less inflammatory motion was passed.
Housefather, who is Jewish and represents a riding that has one of the largest concentrations of Jewish voters in Canada, was joined on the government side in opposing the motion only by Ontario Liberal MP Marco Mendocino.
Housefather was open about his frustration. Anyone who has found themselves in a place where they do not feel welcomed, based on their core identity, can certainly appreciate his feelings of isolation. However, we are pleased that he has decided to remain in the Liberal caucus.
Crossing the floor and joining the Conservatives, which he had said he was considering, would not have been advantageous to Jewish and pro-Israel voters. Since the administration of former prime minister Stephen Harper, at the latest, the Conservative party has been perceived as overwhelmingly pro-Israel. This approach has been welcomed by many Jewish Canadians.
However, this reality means that, were Housefather to switch parties, he would become just another pro-Israel voice in the Conservative caucus. By staying where he is, he will be a necessary voice for Israel and the Jewish community in the governing party. In an announcement a week ago, he said the prime minister has asked him to lead the government’s efforts in fighting antisemitism. This effort needs as much multi-partisan support as possible.
Anyone who has had difficult conversations with friends or family in recent months understands the emotional burden of being a voice for Israel in this challenging time. This, however, makes Housefather’s presence in the Liberal party that much more important.
We face a similar challenge at the provincial level. With the firing of Selina Robinson from cabinet, and her subsequent withdrawal from the governing New Democratic Party caucus, the Jewish community’s most outspoken ally, liaison and voice is gone from the government side of the legislature. Neither Robinson, who now sits as an independent, nor George Heyman, the other Jewish New Democrat in Victoria, are seeking reelection. It is entirely possible that the Jewish community will not have any community members in the next legislature.
This is not to say we do not have friends there.
Michael Lee, the MLA for Vancouver-Langara, has been a steadfast ally of the Jewish community and a stalwart presence at the weekly Sunday rallies for the Israeli hostages. Recently, when he addressed that audience, he went to lengths to warn against making Israel a political football. A community that can be taken for granted by one party and written off by another will find itself unrepresented in the halls of power. Lee reassured Jewish British Columbians that they not only have friends on the opposition side of the house, but in the governing NDP as well.
We know that there are allies for Israel and the Jewish people in the provincial NDP. It is a symptom of a larger concern that some of these people feel constrained around expressing that solidarity fully because of segments of their own party who would almost certainly single them out for that support.
As Robinson herself told theIndependent last issue, she has friends and supporters in the caucus – but she wouldn’t mention them by name for fear of putting a target on their backs. This is a serious problem, of course. But it is better to have quiet allies than no allies at all. Their presence can potentially moderate extreme elements in their party. Were they not there, restraining impulses might be minimized.
As we approach a provincial election this fall, and a federal election at some unpredictable date (remember, there is a minority government in Ottawa) Jewish Canadians and allies of Israel should not abandon the parties that include voices with alternative views. We should, like Housefather has chosen to do, make sure our voices are heard in all of Canada’s diverse political venues.
Selina Robinson, centre, with then BC premier John Horgan and Kate Ryan-Lloyd, clerk of the Legislative Assembly, at Robinson’s swearing-in ceremony in 2017. (photo from Selina Robinson)
Selina Robinson says she was fired from the British Columbia cabinet. Premier David Eby says she quit.
This is merely the tip of an iceberg in the conflicting stories that have roiled BC politics since Robinson’s cabinet career ended in February – and which burst into an even bigger storm when she left the New Democratic Party caucus March 6 with an incendiary letter to caucus colleagues.
Whether Robinson jumped or was pushed, Jewish community leaders and opposition politicians are denouncing what they say is a double standard, with multiple people – including the premier – getting second chances for remarks that were at least as impolitic as Robinson’s.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Independent, Robinson maintains the premier prevented her from doing precisely the work he called on her to do – another point that Eby contradicts. He thought her acts of contrition were proceeding just fine and suggests he was blindsided by her resignation from caucus.
Perhaps the prickliest aspects of the entire controversy are the motivations of the individuals involved. Robinson, opposition officials and many in the Jewish community see antisemitism at play. Government officials – including the cabinet minister Robinson says the premier “trotted out as the new Jew” – say that the evidence doesn’t amount to racial bias.
The bones of the story are familiar by now – but Robinson shared with the Independent personal reflections and sharp critiques of former colleagues, including Eby, fellow New Democrats who she accuses of profound insensitivity in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, a death threat that is now in the hands of international policing authorities, and how everything might have been different if John Horgan were still premier.
Poor choice of words
The drama began with words Robinson spoke in a Jan. 30 webinar organized by B’nai Brith Canada featuring Jewish elected officials from across Canada – or, at least, that is how most media coverage frames the controversy. Robinson said she has had a target on her back since much earlier, as a Jewish woman with emotional, spiritual and familial connections to Israel. That targeting came from within her own party, she claims, and she went into some depth about her fights with fellow New Democrats in recent months and years over the issue.
During the January webinar, Robinson said that the area designated for a Jewish state under the 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution was “a crappy piece of land with nothing on it.”
She immediately clarified in the webinar that there were people living there and she was referring to the arability of the land and the limited economic development in the region. But the genie was out of the bottle. Robinson told the Independent that what happened in the succeeding weeks – and continues roiling – is not so much a result of what she said, but of who she is.
Marvin Rotrand, the outgoing national director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights, was host of the now-notorious webinar. In a statement afterward, he said that a small part of Robinson’s speech was distorted and taken out of context, leading to a campaign against her by groups and individuals “too well known for their hate of Israel.”
Within days, thousands had signed a petition calling for Robinson’s firing. Leaders of more than a dozen mosques and Islamic associations sent a letter to Eby warning that NDP representatives would not be welcome in their sacred spaces as long as Robinson remained in cabinet. Days later, her constituency office was vandalized – including with the words “Zionism is Nazism” – and she received a death threat that international police organizations deem credible.
While pressure was building, Robinson and Eby both appeared to be feeling their way through uncharted territory. Robinson apologized – twice. She also offered to take anti-Islamophobia training.
“My words were inappropriate, wrong, and I now understand how they have contributed to Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism,” she said.
Parallels Robinson drew between Indigenous peoples in British Columbia and Jewish indigeneity in Israel also brought condemnations, and she specifically apologized for those remarks.
“The experiences of First Nations people are not mine to manipulate,” she said. “That was wrong and I am deeply sorry.”
“Her comments increase divisions in our province,” Eby told media. “They increase the feelings of alienation of groups of people, especially people of Palestinian descent and people who are concerned about the death and the destruction in Palestine that is happening right now.
“She has apologized unequivocally, as she should. And she’s got some more work to do,” Eby said. Robinson, the premier told media, was in the process of reaching out to community leaders to repair the damage her remarks caused.
What happened in those hours sowed the seeds for further conflict within the party, including, Robinson now says, the premier’s refusal to allow her to do what she could do – and wanted to do – torepair the damage she caused.
Was she wrong?
Some commentators have defended Robinson, saying that pre-state Israel was indeed a crappy piece of land in terms of arability. Robinson reflected on what she said and the reaction to it.
“I said things that I did not intend to hurt anybody,” she said. “I did not intend to make Arab, Muslim or Palestinian people feel like they are ‘less than.’ I understand that just the way I described Israel made them feel like they were poor land stewards, that they somehow were to blame for the conditions.”
Nevertheless, she said, she did not invent a narrative that Mandatory Palestine was a poor piece of land, she said.
“Other people have characterized [pre-state] Israel in that way,” she said. “I didn’t create that narrative. I was repeating a narrative that others had stated, from Mark Twain to land economists.”
For the purposes of historical accuracy, she said, she blames the Ottomans, whose empire had controlled the land for 400 years, for a lack of economic vibrancy in the region. That long-ago history, though, does not mean her words did not affect contemporary audiences, she acknowledged.
“Those words impacted them,” she said of people who expressed disappointment and other emotions at her remarks.
Criticism she rejects, though, are assertions that she espoused hate.
“I didn’t espouse hate,” she said, slowly, quietly and firmly. “I said words that hurt people. There was no hate in those words.”
These nuances, for what they may be worth, made no difference when it came to Robinson’s continuation as a cabinet minister.
Jumped or pushed?
“The depth of the work that Minister Robinson needs to do, in order to address the harms that she’s caused, is significant,” the premier told media Feb. 5. “[S]he screwed up, she made a really significant error and so we need to address the harm that was caused by that.”
At a news conference, Eby said a “joint decision” was made that Robinson would leave cabinet.
While she agreed to that wording, Robinson told the Independent, that is not a correct assessment of what happened.
“I didn’t think that I needed to leave cabinet,” she said. “That was not my choice. The premier was insistent that I had to.”
Robinson says Eby seized on something she said during discussions around her future.
“I said, ‘If you are asking me to step down from cabinet, if that’s what you want, I will,’” Robinson recalled. “It’s not what I want. And he said, ‘I can’t see a path forward for you in cabinet.’ So I said, ‘So you’re asking me to resign.’”
Robinson said she insisted the announcement from the premier’s office say that the premier asked her to resign.
“And they said, no, you offered your resignation,” Robinson continued. “And I said … the most you’ll get from me is that it was a joint decision and that’s what the press release [said], a ‘joint decision.’ But … let’s be really clear, as I said in my letter [resigning from caucus], I was told that there was no path back.”
Eby denies this.
“I did not remove her,” the premier told the Independent. “I can certainly believe that she didn’t want to do that, but I did accept her resignation.”
Leaving caucus
Robinson’s successive apologies and commitment to undergo anti-Islamophobia training didn’t save her cabinet job. But, she said, she was committed to making amends.
“The concept of teshuvah [repentance], for us as Jews, I take it seriously,” Robinson said, “It’s not enough to say you’re sorry, what are the deeds that go with it?”
Robinson came up with an idea she terms “The Project.”
In the aftermath of her firing, followed by the vandalizing of her constituency office and a death threat, Robinson and her family took off for a week in Mexico to recuperate.
“I called the premier from Mexico and said I have an idea, what do you think?” she recalled. “It was around outreach, working with the [Jewish and Muslim] communities, bringing them together … what did he think?
“And he said that’s a really interesting idea, let’s think about it,” Robinson said.
When she returned from Mexico, she talked to the premier’s chief of staff, Matt Smith. She fleshed the idea out some more, proposing that she and perhaps someone from the civil service – a Jewish person and a Muslim person – “would work with these communities and try to find ways to do dialogue and engagement and break bread and do the things that bring about peace and what could that look like,” said Robinson. She discussed the concept with Deborah Lyons, Canada’s special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, who was supportive and offered to do anything she could to support the effort, Robinson said.
After contemplating the idea, Smith came back with his decision: “Too political,” Smith said, according to Robinson.
The premier told the Independent that the idea that a civil servant would work on the project with an elected official is what was “too political.”
Robinson doesn’t believe that. “It was more, we’d prefer to be silent on the whole thing,” she said.
Silence, she contends, is a root of the entire problem – not just with her firing but around the government’s approach to antisemitism. The premier and the government, she contends, are more concerned with success in this fall’s election than with doing the right thing.
“We are in election mode,” she said. “And, frankly, we’ve been in election mode since [Eby] became the premier [in November 2022]. I get it. I’m a politician. I understand the gig, I know how these things work.
“However,” she said, “we are also government. We are a party trying to get reelected and we are government, and you have to be able to do both at the same time. It’s hard. I’m not saying it’s easy. But you can’t give up the governing part and just do campaign mode. You campaign and you govern simultaneously and I think what’s happened is they stopped governing. A government says, we have a problem, what are we going to put in place to help this community that is being terrorized? And it’s controversial, because there are others who think it’s appropriate to terrorize this community. I think what governments are supposed to do is bring people together. Right now, the actions are ripping people apart.”
The fact that the premier’s office would not allow her to engage her colleagues in a broader discussion about both antisemitism and Islamophobia led her to believe there was nothing she could do that would satisfy the government.
“I committed to a number of deeds and have acted on them and that still wasn’t good enough,” she said.
While the government seemed unsatisfied with her efforts, many Muslim people have been more forgiving, she said. Many have expressed forgiveness for her words and accepted her apologies – she has accepted Iftar invitations and extended seder invitations to Muslim friends and acquaintances, she said.
“There are Arab and Muslim leaders that I have had wonderful conversations with, heartfelt conversations,” she said. “I could hear the agony in their voice and they could hear the agony in mine.”
That kind of amity, though, was not something she found among her NDP colleagues. On March 6, her 60th birthday, Robinson released a statement resigning from the NDP caucus.
Harsh words for Heyman
The day after Robinson’s resignation, the premier’s office organized a news conference at the Legislature. George Heyman, BC minister of environment and climate change strategy, told the media that he took exception to the assertion that Robinson’s resignation represented “our government [having] lost the only Jewish voice in our caucus or cabinet.”
“They should know,” said Heyman, “that I’m also Jewish. I grew up as a Jew.”
His experience in the NDP, Heyman said, does not comport with Robinson’s perceptions.
“My experience is that our caucus and our cabinet are deeply committed to fighting antisemitism, to opposing hatred and I have found them to be personally supportive of me on an ongoing basis,” he said.
“He was trotted out as the new Jew, which was a shonda [shame], as they say, on so many different levels,” claims Robinson. “I believe George was put up to it. I know how things work. They didn’t want me to be the only Jewish voice.
“But George doesn’t identify as a Jew,” she said. “He’s told that to so many people. He’s not connected to the community.”
Robinson thinks Heyman allowed himself to be used.
“You thought it was OK? So, the premier asks you, you could have said I’m not going to do that.”
Heyman takes exception to Robinson’s comments about his identity and especially about the idea that he was put up to anything.
“People who know me know that I don’t do things that I don’t want to do,” he told the Independent. Heyman said he was moved to address the issue as soon as he heard opposition MLAs claim the government had lost its only Jewish voice.
On the larger issue of his identity, Heyman said it is up to individuals to self-define.
“I think it’s actually my and every Jew’s right and responsibility to determine in what ways they identify and connect with their own heritage, which is not the same as practising a particular religion,” he said. “My position as a child of Holocaust refugees and as a grandchild of Holocaust victims is, I think, fairly well known. I certainly haven’t hidden it. I may not be a member of the Jewish community in the same way that Selina is. I am not a practising Jew, but to say that I don’t identify as a Jew I think is simply inaccurate.”
Is it antisemitism?
Robinson said media have tended to misrepresent her comments about antisemitism in the NDP. She did not say the party was rife with antisemites. Her letter of resignation from caucus included several incidents – and most of these were matters of record. She herself has experienced antisemitism directly only from two colleagues, she said.
Immediately after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, Robinson said, she sent a message to her colleagues noting that the Jewish community in British Columbia was experiencing trauma as a result of what was happening, including the murder of a young Vancouver man, Ben Mizrachi, and expressions of solidarity and condolences were in order.
Days later, she said, two of her colleagues – Aman Singh, MLA for Richmond-Queensborough and parliamentary secretary for the environment, and Katrina Chen, MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed – responded to her message by stating that the government should express solidarity with Palestinians.
“Three days after, maybe four days after the massacre, [they] felt that it was appropriate to put out a statement about how Palestinians were treated,” Robinson said. “Ben Mizrachi hadn’t been buried yet. The [Israeli military] hadn’t responded.”
Robinson was outraged.
“This isn’t about that,” she said of responding to expressions of Jewish suffering with demands for solidarity with Palestinians. “Could you not take a moment – a moment – to reflect on how horrible it is that a terrorist group came in and slaughtered 1,200 people? Just acknowledge it. Just acknowledge that that was wrong and we need to fight against terrorism.”
Robinson does not understand how people cannot see antisemitism in the erasure of Jewish suffering.
“Jewish suffering is discounted,” she said. “It’s [perceived as] not real, it’s fake. It has no value and diminishes another group of people who are suffering.
“This isn’t a competition of who is suffering more,” Robinson said.
She called the premier immediately upon seeing the messages from Singh and Chen.
“I said, I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with those two. I just can’t,” she said. “And he said, let me deal with it. I was grateful. It felt like he had my back.”
Robinson never heard from Chen, whose social media feed frequently shares Palestinian memes and messages. On the day Robinson released her resignation letter this month, Chen tweeted: “Not wanting to see more kids and people die in Gaza is not antisemitism.”
An hour after she took it up with the premier, Robinson said, she heard from Singh.
Neither Singh nor Chen responded to the Independent’s request for comment or clarification on Robinson’s version of events. However, the Independent has seen the text Robinson referenced and, in it, Singh called the Oct. 7 attacks “absolutely horrific” and said Hamas “should be brought down.” He also expressed empathy with Robinson and her family in Israel.
“I wanted us as a caucus just to recognize the pain in Gaza as well,” he wrote, adding that he was not calling on the government to make a statement in that regard, “[b]ut internally I felt that needed to be said.”
Additionally, the original email Singh sent was on Oct. 12 and, therefore, after the beginning of Israel’s military actions, not before, as Robinson had claimed.
While Chen and Singh did not comment to the Independent, Heyman defended them, also noting that the emails Robinson cited were “private communications within caucus.”
“It was disturbing to me that her interpretation of actions of a number of my colleagues were that they were antisemitic,” Heyman said. “These are colleagues I respect. I’ve had many conversations with them and I know how deeply committed they are to fighting antisemitism and to fighting all forms of hatred.”
Robinson, in any event, did not consider Singh’s text an apology and did not respond. Nor has she spoken to Singh since.
“If he had come up to me and said, ‘Selina, you never acknowledged my apology, can we talk about it?’ I would have,” she said. “But I really felt like he did not get it.”
Not getting it is, Robinson thinks, the problem. It is not that her colleagues are overt Jew-haters, but that they do not know what antisemitism looks like and refuse to take the time to find out.
“What I tell them is you don’t know enough about antisemitism in its newest form,” she said. “I think for them it’s name-calling, swastikas – I think that for them is really clear. The new form of antisemitism that we are seeing … [includes] the delegitimization of Israel, [the idea] that Jews are responsible for Israel’s political decisions or military decisions, Israel as colonizer, Jews as white people, therefore, the oppressor – I don’t think they have a frame for how to make sense of that.”
Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, she said. Denying Israel’s right to exist, which is the position of many of the people who wanted her out of office, is.
“What you’re saying is Jews shouldn’t have a homeland, that their history of continually being pushed out of those lands over time, over millennia, you want that to continue,” she said. “If you don’t recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a nation-state, then that contributes to Jew-hatred.”
Taking the North American settler-colonialism model and applying that lens to Israel and Palestine is simply wrong, she said.
“It is inaccurate, it is a false narrative, it is patently not true. And, as a result, they are engaging in antisemitism,” said Robinson, whose own comparison of North American indigeneity to the Middle Eastern model drew condemnation. “I don’t think that they want to be antisemitic but they are, because they don’t understand and they’re not taking the time to learn how that history is different from this history here in North America. I think that’s where those folks are going wrong. What’s the solution? Education. Learn the history. And you’re not going to get it from TikTok and you not going to get it from Twitter, so you need to do some – I’ll use the premier’s words – you need to do some deep learning.”
When it comes to her former colleagues, Robinson believes their culpability comes from a combination of fear of failure and refusal to learn.
“They don’t recognize this form of antisemitism and so they are silent because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing one way or the other,” she said. “But their silence is deafening and no one is saying, I want to learn more about this.”
Though that’s not quite accurate. One colleague, after she left cabinet, and another after she left caucus, reached out to Robinson and said they have been looking to learn more about antisemitism.
One asked her why they, as elected officials, are not trained in this.
“Well, you’d better ask the premier,” she responded.
Battling Zionists
In her letter of resignation from caucus, Robinson mentioned several colleagues by name, among them Mable Elmore, MLA for Vancouver-Kensington. Elmore’s example is one that has come up repeatedly among Robinson’s defenders in recent weeks as an example of someone who has gotten away with comments that are arguably worse than anything Robinson expressed.
In November, Mable Elmore rose in the house to make a routine statement. Instead, Robinson said, she went off script and delivered a two-minute talk about people dying in Gaza.
“But she never made reference to the massacre on Oct. 7,” Robinson said. “She never tied this as a response to terrorism.”
Elmore is parliamentary secretary responsible for antiracism initiatives under the attorney general.
Leaders in the Jewish community, Robinson said, have long been wary of Elmore. At the start of her political career, Elmore got in hot water for voicing a conspiracy about “vocal Zionists” in her workplace that she and other union activists had to “battle.”
“They were always anxious about Mable, given her history,” said Robinson of leaders in the mainstream Jewish community. “When she was made parliamentary secretary for antiracism, [Jewish communal leaders] expressed concerns to me but they said … we believe people can change [and] learn, and so they went along with it.
“Then, when Mable did her two-minute statement in November that sort of disconnected what’s happening in Gaza right now from the attack on Oct. 7 and left out a big chunk of the story, [Jewish community leaders] were outraged,” said Robinson. “They were absolutely outraged. I went to the premier’s office with my own outrage and then, of course, communicated the community’s outrage.”
Jewish leaders, according to Robinson, were asking for Elmore to be taken off the antiracism file completely. Instead, she said, the premier left Elmore in charge of antiracism initiatives but removed her responsibility for liaising with the Jewish community on issues involving racism. Dealing with the Jews on antisemitism and broader antiracism approaches would be handed over to Attorney General Niki Sharma.
“This is where the story gets really interesting,” Robinson said. Eight weeks after the premier removed antisemitism and liaising with Jews from the government’s point person on antiracism and handed those responsibilities over to the more senior attorney general, Robinson reached out to Sharma after the Vancouver Police Department released a report that anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city had spiked 62% in 2023.
“It’s been eight weeks now since [Sharma] has been responsible for the file. The Jewish community is reeling, numbers are through the roof,” said Robinson, who said she asked Sharma what the government was doing. “She had done nothing from November on. She hadn’t met with the [Jewish] community. She had no plan.”
Sharma promised to get Robinson a brief on how her department and the government intended to address the increase in hate-motivated crimes against Jewish individuals and institutions. Robinson never received it.
Disputed events
In the hours after Robinson released her letter to caucus, Premier David Eby addressed the controversy repeatedly with media.
“I wish she had brought her concerns to me directly so we could have worked through them together,” he said at one point. Later, he said, “She didn’t feel safe with me to bring forward her concerns and she felt she had to resign. So, I’ll examine that.”
Eby’s comments infuriate Robinson. “When the premier says that I never came to him – this is the part that really makes me crazy – I did,” she told the Independent. “I was even coming with solutions.”
Those solutions did not seem to move the dial in terms of any redemption Robinson might have expected for what she sees as good-faith efforts to make amends and her proposals to help address antisemitism and Islamophobia in government.
Target on her back
Robinson felt she had a target on her back – and not only since the “crappy piece of land” incident.
“There were targets even during convention,” she said. Before the BC NDP convention last November, Robinson warned the premier’s office that several delegates and groups were going to bring forward emergency resolutions about the war in Gaza.
“I kept saying, we are a subnational government, we don’t do international relations,” Robinson said. “I don’t even know why we would entertain international commentary.”
Convention organizers apparently felt there was a need to allow some delegates to blow off steam. Robinson said she and others then strove to create a relatively balanced resolution, “and that work happened behind the scenes.”
“But there were people calling for my head back then, back in November,” she said.
In her capacity as minister responsible for BC postsecondary institutions, Robinson gained the wrath in February of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC and the Canadian Association of University Teachers, who called on Eby to oust Robinson. The latter group accused Robinson of undermining “the democratic principles of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and a college and university system free of direct manipulation by the provincial government” because Robinson had retweeted a call for Langara College to fire Dr. Natalie Knight, an
English instructor who referred to the mass murders of Oct. 7 as “amazing” and “brilliant.”
As a result of Robinson’s vocal and visible presence on these issues, she said, there were people “paying very close attention to what I said, how I said it, when I said it. So, I was a target – I still am a target, I think.”
Warning signs?
While Robinson has felt a target on her back, including from some in her own party, there is a larger trend that has nothing directly to do with her, arguably going back to 1967 or before, when the Canadian left’s approach to Israel and Palestine began transitioning from a largely pro-Zionist position. With a few notable exceptions, NDP elected officials and rank-and-file members for several decades now have aligned more with the Palestinian cause than the Israeli one. While criticism of Israel may or may not be fair, depending on context, some people, including some longtime party members, have written the party off as poisoned by antisemitism.
Bernie Simpson is one of only a handful of Jewish British Columbians ever elected to the provincial Legislature. He was the New Democratic MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview from 1991 to 1996, but his roots in the party go back decades earlier. He was mentored by Dave Barrett, the first and still only Jewish premier of the province, and Simpson was at the upper echelons of the NDP from the 1960s.
Throughout that time, he told the Independent, he struggled against far-left “ideologues.” He eventually left the party about 25 years ago, in large part because of the prominence of anti-Israel voices like Svend Robinson and Libby Davies.
“I always felt, in the years that I was involved with the NDP, that there was underlying antisemitism,” he said. “I didn’t realize the extent of antisemitism in the NDP until Selina brought it to the world’s attention, and good for her.”
Simpson believes Eby is beholden to certain segments of his caucus.
“He has to appease the left-wing ideologues or else he’d have a revolt and probably they could undermine his leadership,” Simpson said. “They are quite capable of doing that, the left wing.”
“Can a party be antisemitic?” Robinson asked. “Well, people make up a party. So, it depends who is there.”
In 2021, she called on the resolutions committee of the federal NDP convention to get some perspective on foreign affairs.
“When they had their convention, they had the top 25 resolutions [and] 16 of them [or] 15 of them, were anti-Israel,” she said. “Really, people? Do you not care what’s happening in Chad, or the Congo, or to the Uyghurs? What is your obsession? I reached out to them and I called the people in charge of the resolutions committee and the response was, and I quote, ‘It has been ever thus.’ I was stunned.
“Can you not reflect on your obsession and where that’s coming from?” she asked. “I get it if you have one or two [resolutions about Israel]. I don’t like Israeli government decisions, what they’re doing. For sure, challenge this [Israeli] government in terms of the decisions that they are making. You only have so much time to debate your resolutions, but you want to spend three days debating Israel? Then you’re not a party I can take seriously to represent us as Canadians. Not on China, not on Iran, not on these really big, despotic nations. Nope. It’s just the Jews.”
Under the late Jack Layton, who was leader of the federal NDP from 2003 to 2011, Robinson said, things were not as bad as they are now.
“I blame Jagmeet Singh,” she said of the federal NDP leader. “I hold him completely responsible for the rhetoric and the outrageousness that we are seeing. He’s party leader. This is on him…. His attacks on me because I described Israel pre-1948 [Israel] as a crappy piece of land and his vociferousness towards me was vile.”
Singh had called Robinson’s comments “not only factually wrong, but offensive and irresponsible” and that “elected leaders must be voices for peace and justice.” The federal NDP leader said he had conveyed his “serious concerns” to Eby.
Singh’s office did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment.
Decision to retire
When Robinson left cabinet, she let it be known that she had earlier decided not to seek reelection in this fall’s provincial election.
She had planned to announce her retirement on March 6, her 60th birthday. After three terms as an MLA, following two terms on Coquitlam city council, Robinson thought it was time to leave public life after 16 years. In December, she shared the news with the premier.
There were lots of reasons to wind up her elected service, she said. Her (adult) kids are talking about having kids and she wants to be a hands-on bubbe. Her father turns 84 this year and she wants to spend more time with him, and with her husband’s parents, who are of a similar age. Her husband, Dan, wants to travel.
The premier, Robinson said, was kind when she shared her decision with him late last year.
“He was surprised I wasn’t running again,” she said. “He thought I’ve been a very competent minister. He had lots of nice things to say about me.”
But there was something else.
“I said, caucus hasn’t felt the same since Oct. 7,” she told Eby who, she said, opted not to ask her about that. “It just hung. He didn’t ask. He didn’t say, tell me more about that or what do you mean – he knew what I was referring to, of course – but he didn’t push, he didn’t pursue. It saddened me a little bit because I would have hoped he would have been at least a little bit interested to understand what that was about.”
Still, she acknowledges, the purpose of the call was to share her retirement decision and the conversation soon turned to logistics – when she would tell the party brass, whether she had groomed a successor, when to go public.
March 6 did involve a major announcement, of course, but it wasn’t about the decision that she wouldn’t run in the next election. Instead, she released an open letter to colleagues, telling them why she would no longer be sitting as part of the New Democratic caucus.
Death threat and vandalism
The hate Robinson experienced after her webinar comments went viral was extreme. At her offices, voicemail reached capacity. Staff were days behind keeping up with the bombardment of email.
It was a Saturday when an email came in threatening to shoot Robinson in the head, but staff didn’t discover it until four days later. They knew the procedure, having dealt with a similar incident a year earlier – a threat against Robinson not because she is a Jew but because she is a woman. Staff found the death threat email the same day they had arrived at the Coquitlam office to find it vandalized and festooned with hate messaging.
“The police have found the perpetrator,” Robinson said. The email came from the United States, so US Homeland Security and the FBI are involved. “It’s legitimate and it’s credible. It helps that it’s someone at a distance but it’s also in a place where guns are easily accessible, so it’s a bit of both.”
Robinson’s husband now keeps a baseball bat next to the bed.
Kindness amid chaos
To look at social media posts targeting Robinson is to dive down a rabbit hole of varying degrees of outrage and a great deal of hatred. In the real world, she said, she has experienced an outpouring of compassion.
An acquaintance sent her a bouquet of blue and white roses – Israel’s colours. Robinson was walking in the park with earphones in and a passerby made the heart sign. Heaps of cards, letters and emails have poured in. People have sent art, including a rendering of a woman reaching for the sky, which is displayed prominently in her office.
“I want to weep, actually, because it feels validating,” she said.
But that outpouring of support from the public is not mirrored in the reaction of her former cabinet and caucus colleagues, she said.
While Robinson’s experiences among the NDP officials with whom she spent more than a decade is a testament of profound loneliness, that is not entirely the case, she said. Some people have been dependable and supportive. She can count them, she said, on one hand. And she won’t mention them by name for fear of throwing them to the wolves.
“I’m not going to single them out, only because I’m worried about their backlash,” she said. “I want to protect them for being there for me.”
What ifs …
When she left cabinet, Robinson cleared out her personal possessions from her ministerial office. The day the Independent visited her, she had just been going through those boxes.
“I came across a card from John Horgan, when he stepped down,” she said, referring to the former BC premier, who retired in 2022, and was replaced by Eby. The card, she said, “just talked about how much he values my input and that I brought all of me to cabinet.
“He trusted my judgment vis-à-vis the Jewish community,” Robinson said. “He really wanted to understand that he was doing right by the Jewish community, so he would regularly check in with me about what did I think. I would say, ‘You were a mensch.’ He really took to that word, ‘Was I a mensch?’ ‘You were a mensch.’”
Might things have played out differently if Horgan had been in the top job when all this blew up? Robinson believes so.
“I think he might have heard my concerns differently earlier on,” Robinson said. “If I would have told him that, since Oct. 7, caucus hasn’t felt the same, he would want to know why. What’s changed? What’s it like for you? And that may have had a different outcome.”
When the webinar comment grew into a crisis, Robinson suspects the former premier might have responded differently than the current one did.
“I think he would have stood by me. I think he would have weathered the storm,” she said.
Second chances?
One of the things that Robinson’s defenders, including Jewish community leaders, have pointed out is that everyone seems to get second chances but the Jew. The offences outlined in Robinson’s letter of resignation, as well as documented incidents like Elmore’s multiple transgressions, suggest a willingness to forgive, if not forget.
When Robinson was hauled on the carpet for her comments and thrown out of cabinet within days, the official voices of the mainstream Jewish community noted that, mere days earlier, the Jewish community had been asked – and agreed – to overlook an egregious misstatement on the part of the premier himself.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, the premier’s social media feed noted the occasion and declared: “We stand with the Muslim community throughout Canada on this sorrowful day of remembrance.”
The message was soon taken down and an apology posted.
“Do you know who managed that debacle for the premier’s office?” Robinson asked. “Me.”
Robinson was not the only one to catch the grievous error, of course. BC United, the official opposition party, screen-captured the post before it was deleted. Robinson, meanwhile, was on to her leader’s office to get to the bottom of it.
“I spoke to folks in the premier’s office,” she said. “I learned who made the error. I was assured it was an error.”
An apology is not enough, she told them. “You need to explain how this could happen.”
The explanation was that two days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day was the anniversary of the 2017 Quebec City mosque attack during which six people were killed and 19 were injured. A lower-level social media staffer had apparently mixed up the messages for the two separate days.
Until the clarification, some people wondered if the post was a deliberate act of baiting the Jewish community on one of the most solemn days of the year. Robinson is confident it was simple human error.
“I have to believe that, otherwise I’m way too cynical about the world,” she said. “I have to take people at their word … and that’s what I guess is heartbreaking for me, that people couldn’t take me at my word. They chose to think the worst of me, after all this time.”
Political fallout
Robinson’s departure – and the broader issues of antisemitism she raises – absorbed the Legislature and the press gallery for days.
Kevin Falcon, leader of the BC United official opposition (formerly known as the BC Liberals), has repeatedly called for an independent investigation into what he calls “the antisemitism that is rife not just within the government but within their own cabinet, caucus and party.”
Speaking with the Independent, Falcon raised what he and so many others have called a “double standard” in the treatment of Robinson, while there are members of the NDP who have not apologized for intemperate remarks and yet have suffered no consequences.
“I can’t help but note the worst that Selina could be criticized for is using perhaps a poor choice of words,” said Falcon. “But she did the honourable thing and fully withdrew the comments, apologized for the comments and, even after saying that she would go through anti-Islamophobia training, whatever that is, [it] still wasn’t enough for the premier to [not] drop her out of cabinet, which is in stark contrast to how they’ve dealt with other people within their own government who have made terrible statements in the past.”
Recent concerns about racism against Indigenous people in the healthcare system, Falcon said, resulted in quick action.
“They couldn’t move fast enough then to appoint an independent investigation into the allegations of racism in the healthcare system,” he said. “But, when it comes to investigating antisemitism within their own government, caucus, cabinet and party, well, nothing to see here. They just continue to delay.”
Another double standard, Falcon said, is the different reactions to claims of antisemitism versus other forms of racism.
“They’re always out there professing to be so concerned about racism, except when it comes to racism against the Jewish community,” he said. “The double standard is certainly so glaringly obvious. That’s the part that feels so remarkably different. That’s the part that none of us can just get over. It’s amazing to me that they say all the right things about [being] so concerned about this, we have thinking to do, we need to create safe spaces and this word salad of woke-isms that they can spew out very easily, but fail to address the two fundamental issues that concern us on this – the double standard as a result of Selina being fired out of cabinet and people who have said far worse antisemitic statements or tropes [but who] continue to serve, some of whom have never apologized.”
Falcon said that critics of Israel, like those who targeted Robinson, are missing crucial moral principles.
“In war, tragically, there are always innocent lives lost,” he said. “It is an unavoidable aspect of war. That breaks my heart when I see innocent people dying on both sides.
“We have to understand some important principles,” he continued. “One is that Israel has a right to exist and Israel has a right to defend itself.”
Politics, legendarily, makes strange bedfellows. Robinson seems to have few reliable friends among her former colleagues, but Falcon said her new seatmates are literally and figuratively on her side – she is now on the opposition side of the House, awash with BC United, Conservative and Green MLAs.
“She’s got a lot of supporters on the opposition bench,” Falcon said.
John Rustad, leader of the BC Conservative party, a long-moribund party that is showing surprising strength in opinion polls, said his heart goes out to Robinson.
“That Selina was brave enough to share that I think speaks volumes to what is going on within the caucus and within the [New Democratic] party,” Rustad told the Independent. “David Eby has known about this for months and he’s refused to take action. I think the province is not interested in having a premier that won’t stand up and defend British Columbians and Canadians.”
The Conservative leader echoes Robinson’s allegations that the premier is more concerned with politics than fighting antisemitism.
“I don’t think they are looking to doing what’s right,” he said, suggesting that electoral calculations based on the disparity of sizes of the Jewish and Muslim populations are driving their decisions. But, Rustad warns, this approach could blow up in their faces.
“I think, quite frankly, they are miscalculating where people in this province are because I think people are not interested in antisemitism, they’re not interested in hate, they want a government that’s going to stand up for everybody in this province,” he said.
The letter from Islamic leaders warning that New Democrats would be unwelcome in Muslim sacred spaces that came shortly before Robinson’s firing was concerning, Rustad said.
“When I saw it, the first thing that came to mind was government bowing to threats,” he said.
“It takes courage to do what Selina did, it takes courage for a government to stand up for what’s right and that’s where David Eby has failed,” said Rustad. “I was, I guess, a little shocked to see how quickly David Eby backed down and bowed to that pressure that was put out there. It was disappointing from my perspective because government sometimes has to do things that some people may be upset with because it’s the right thing to do.”
BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau called the Oct. 7 attacks “a devastating and terrible event,” and said that elected officials in this province have a responsibility to address the local repercussions of overseas developments.
“We really have to focus on the people of BC and that we are taking seriously the reality of antisemitism,” she said. The rise in hate crimes, which began most notably during the COVID pandemic, was addressed in a report from the Human Rights Commissioner in 2022. Furstenau believes the commissioner should consider actions to confront the growing prevalence of antisemitism now.
“It may be that the next steps could be for the Human Rights Commissioner to take on a project to help us recognize, address and reduce antisemitism in BC,” she said. “I think, given the very complicated nature of the war between Israel and Hamas, that we could be looking for the Human Rights Commissioner to look at antisemitism and Islamophobia and, really, how do we come out of this as a place that’s less divided and has less hatred?”
Responding to Robinson’s expressions about antisemitism in government, Furstenau said the former minister needs to be taken at her word.
“Selina is the expert on what Selina has experienced and we have to respect that,” said Furstenau. “When somebody indicates that they have experienced racism or discrimination, it’s not our place to question that.”
“I’m fine”
Robinson’s emotional health has been a concern for friends and supporters. Few people can imagine the impact of being at the centre of a public maelstrom like the one Robinson is enduring.
Amid all this, there have been physical health realities.
In 2006, Robinson was diagnosed with a rare form of intestinal cancer. She beat it. Then, in February 2023 – “February’s been a bad month for me the last few years,” she said – Robinson shared the news that routine screening indicated that cancer had returned.
After treatment, she got the good news eight months later that the tumour they had found in February was gone.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m on the chemotherapy that I’ve been on for years. I will be on this medication for the rest of my life.”
The treatment is not without side-effects.
“It makes me a bit more tired than most other people, although my husband says that might not be a bad thing in terms of people keeping up,” she said. “I get muscle cramps. They are inconveniences rather than serious implications. I really am fine.”
The joyful news that the cancer was gone came on Oct. 5.
“Lots of happy tears around that,” she said. Two days later, news from Israel turned those happy tears to something very different.
Points of pride
Although she didn’t share the news with the public until the controversy arose, Robinson was already planning for a life post-politics. She will not be the NDP candidate for Coquitlam-Maillardville in the election scheduled for Oct. 19. Every indication is that she would have been reelected easily. When she first ran provincially, in 2013, it appeared on election night that she had lost. When the final votes were counted in the days after, she squeaked in by 41 votes. Her next two elections were not at all close. In 2017, more than half the voters in the riding chose her and, in 2020, she nabbed just a hair under 60% of the vote.
During her first term, Robinson was an opposition MLA. When John Horgan formed government (under an agreement with the BC Greens), he appointed Robinson minister of municipal affairs and housing. This was a daunting role in one of the most expensive places to live in the world.
Several things really stand out for her from that time.
The BC government, under Horgan, with Robinson in the housing portfolio, was and remains the only provincial government to fund housing on Indigenous reserves.
“It’s a federal responsibility, but this is ridiculous,” she said. “They are British Columbians and they need housing.”
Another achievement she cites is that, when she became minister, she undertook to meet with officials from every municipality in the province – close to 200 local governments – and she said she still runs into current or former mayors and councilors who credit her for engaging with them.
After the election in 2020, Robinson was promoted to finance minister. Achievements from that gig? Robinson throws her arms in the air without hesitation: “The biggest surplus in the history of our province.”
Her control over the province’s wallet came in the midst of the COVID pandemic, with all that entailed. In addition to sound bottom lines, she said the government brought down “good budgets that delivered for people and that made a difference.”
When Eby replaced Horgan as leader and premier, Robinson was shifted to the ministry of postsecondary education and future skills.
In this role, she takes pride in removing the age limit for former youth in care to access postsecondary education. Those who age out of the foster system had been able to obtain tuition funding and additional supports – but only until age 26.
“If you’re a former youth in care, it takes a longer time to figure out how to adult,” said Robinson. Now, these young people (even if they are no longer so young) can access educational funding and cost of living supports to reach their academic or vocational goals.
It was also in her responsibility for postsecondary education that Robinson found herself on the frontlines of campus turmoil, with anti-Israel protests by students and pro-terrorism comments by some BC academics. She convened a meeting of the heads of all BC’s colleges and universities and laid out expectations for civil, peaceful dialogue on campus.
Voting advice?
The firestorm over Robinson’s comments, charges of antisemitism in the government and public service, complaints that the premier is not taking matters seriously enough and the related controversies come only months before British Columbians go to the polls. These crises are not coincidental to the proximity of the election, Robinson contends, but are a direct effect. The government is doing what they think is politically helpful, rather than what is right, she said.
So, where does that leave Jewish and sympathetic voters who would have cast a vote for Eby’s party in October but now feel adrift, wondering if the NDP represents their interests?
“I feel very adrift as well,” she said. “I think everyone has to make up their own mind. There is no perfect party. If you’re going to bring about change, then you need to use your voice to bring about change. That’s what this is all about.”
She puts the onus on members of her own (former) party.
“If people are silent, if New Democrats are silent on this, then you are complicit,” she said. “If you think this is wrong, if you think the direction the party is taking vis-à-vis Jews [is wrong], then you need to say something. You need to take action on it. That means challenge what’s become the status quo.”
Future plans
“Boredom terrifies me,” Robinson said.
Though boredom might seem a welcome respite from some of the emotions she has endured in recent weeks, Robinson insists she is not done contributing to the community. She just doesn’t know yet in what capacity.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’ll find something to do.”
“I’m learning to knit,” she said. She’s got local food maven Susan Mendelson’s classic cookbook Mama Never Cooked Like This and she’s thinking of pulling a Julie & Julia by trying every recipe in the book and posting them to social media.
Robinson has traveled across much of Western Europe but not Spain and she is reading about that country and its history.
She has promised her husband she will not make any long-term commitments before January.
Until the writ drops for the next election, she remains MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville.
An Israeli cabinet minister visited Canada recently and, with due respect, some of our journalistic colleagues buried the lede.
In journo parlance, the “lede” is the most important and, therefore, first item mentioned in a conventional news story. To “bury the lede” is to (intentionally or unintentionally) downplay the most important thing that happened by talking about other things first.
This was the case when Amichai Chikli, Israel’s new minister for Diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, visited Canada recently. Some of our colleagues reported on Chikli’s condemnations of Canada’s government for not following some other countries in moving our embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and commended the Conservative party for “unwavering support for Israel and Jerusalem.” The minister’s abandonment of international diplomatic protocols appeared lower in the coverage.
It seems to us that there is a bigger story than an Israeli pol backslapping overseas allies and criticizing the government in power – although that is not unrelated from the bigger problem here. The main thing – the lede, as it were – is that an Israeli government minister came to Canada, sidestepped conventional protocols around meeting with commensurate-level officials, hung out instead with an ad hoc group of mostly opposition members of Parliament, spoke to an evangelical Christian audience and then scooted back to the Middle East.
Canada and Israel have deep, historic bilateral bonds. The Jewish community in Canada is tied to Israel emotionally, spiritually and familially. There have been diplomatic disagreements between our governments – and, indeed, there are some very basic divergences right now between Canadian Jews and what is happening in the Jewish state – but there are ways that things are done. And there are ways that things are just not done.
For four years, what many people view as the highest political office in the world was held by a man who betrayed every diplomatic nicety and convention imaginable. It may be that, among the countless ways the former U.S. president’s smashing of standards has lowered the collective bar, an Israeli politician sees it as acceptable to barge into Canada and behave as though he is a free agent rather than an official representative of the Israeli people. Canadians should not see it as acceptable. Canadian Jews should be particularly concerned.
An elected official who is not a member of a cabinet is free to travel to foreign lands and meet with ideological cohorts. A member of the government is expected to represent his (or her) country, not their own narrow interests.
The Canadian group that hosted Chikli – a new entity called the Israel Allies Caucus – is also to blame. Apparently operating outside the more formalized parameters of the longstanding official Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group, the new body appears to be made up of evangelical Christians and political conservatives, and it is abandoning protocols in favour of its own agenda. This should be particularly concerning to Canadian Jews who care about our country’s relations with Israel, as well as being overshadowed by groups that may not represent our interests.
Presumably, the new group views Canada’s official approach to Israel as not the right kind of support – but the specifics of government policy are not the biggest issue here.
Let us not forget that there are activists in Canada who recently tried to prevent former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett from entering Canada, accusing him of being a “war criminal.” Other voices, critical of policies of the current government, want to ban representatives of that government based on political disagreements.
Diplomatic protocols exist to create a space where representatives of countries can keep lines of communication open even when we have grievous disagreements, as we do, for example, with the worst human rights violators in the world. Indeed, Canada has carved out a role in the world as a “soft power” that uses words, rather than weapons, to bring sparring parties closer together.
If we diverge from diplomatic protocols and allow activists on any side to subvert these carefully constructed channels of communication, we risk further politicizing issues that should be above politics. More to the point, making Canada’s relations with Israel a political football is to risk long-term gain for someone’s perception of short-term gain. It may have made partisan ideological activists feel good to shmooze with an Israeli cabinet minister. It will feel less good for all concerned when policies that strengthen the Canadian-Israeli bond become viewed through a prism of which Canadian political parties benefit from their adoption.
Further, if we accept, from apparently “pro-Israel” activist MPs, a flouting of protocol, we will be hard pressed to complain when MPs host other overseas visitors we might view as troubling. If an opposition MP invites an Israeli, Palestinian or other speaker that many or most Canadian Jews view as deeply problematic and rolls out the red carpet on Parliament Hill as the Israel Allies Caucus did for Chikli, we will have no moral pedestal from which to complain.
Chikli should have known better. Higher-ups in his government should dress him down for his breach of protocol. But it was the leader of his government – the prime minister of Israel – who first and most egregiously breached such protocols, accepting an invitation several years ago from the U.S. Congress, rather than the U.S. president. (Of course, it was the Congress that broke the protocol first by extending the invitation, so we are addressing a larger pattern of inappropriate behaviour.) But Canadian Jews, even – perhaps especially – those who most enthusiastically welcomed Chikli, his undiplomatic behaviour and his impolitic remarks (whether we agreed with them or not!), should be aware of the unwelcome precedent they may have set.
Recently, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau visited Winnipeg. CBC reported that his trip involved promoting the federal budget, meeting with students, trade workers, apprentices and the mayor. The visit included celebrating with members of the Jewish community for Passover, as it fell during the holiday. I was at home and jokingly looked around my living room … nope, Trudeau wasn’t visiting our house! After he left the city, there was a photo published from the Simkin Centre, Winnipeg’s Jewish care home, with Trudeau wearing a kippah and shaking hands with residents. If anybody gets the honour of a visit with the prime minster, it should be our elders. I was pleasantly surprised.
However, the most interesting Winnipeg moment appeared on Twitter and in the news. In it, Trudeau speaks to an anti-abortion University of Manitoba student who says he’s a People’s Party of Canada supporter. Any educator trained in the Socratic method could recognize Trudeau’s response. This student engaged the prime minister in discussion while Trudeau was greeting people and shaking hands. Trudeau responded just as a good high school teacher would. He took the student’s comments seriously, carefully voiced them back and asked direct, probing questions to lead the student to the next step. They covered dental care, religious freedom, and then went on to women’s health care. Trudeau’s questions were things like “Do you believe women should have the right to choose what happens to their own bodies?”
The student later responded, “I think if they’re sleeping around they shouldn’t be allowed to abort the baby, personally.” The student conceded, in a few more steps, that he hadn’t quite decided whether a woman who had been raped should have access to abortion. Trudeau then encouraged him “to do a little more thinking – and praying.”
This clip circulated quickly through social media and brought up many issues. The thing that stuck with me was the student’s assumption that if a woman was pregnant and sought an abortion, it was because “they’re sleeping around.” Not something like the pregnancy might be a danger to the mother and, as such, needed to be terminated, or the fetus had grave abnormalities and wouldn’t live. There are viable reasons to need an abortion. While it’s not always simple, Judaism supports the mother’s right to health and well-being above that of a fetus.
Most surprising: the student failed to acknowledge facts he should have gotten in sex education. Facts like it takes two people to make a pregnancy happen. There was no assumption of any male responsibility.
This parallels something I’ve been studying while doing Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day) and am now reading about in Tractate Sotah. This tractate explores the Sotah ritual spelled out in the Torah, which identifies a woman accused of adultery by her husband. There’s not a lot of evidence to show this ordeal was ever practised historically, which hopefully it wasn’t. It involved a series of acts, including the priest at the Temple giving a meal-offering, taking down the woman’s hair, making her swear she was faithful, and then writing the oath on a piece of parchment, erasing it in water mixed with dust from the Tabernacle, and making her drink it. These “bitter waters” theoretically would predict a woman’s guilt. If she is guilty, she would be ill and infertile, or possibly die. A woman who was innocent would be fertile and not be harmed.
From a modern perspective, of course, this sounds completely repugnant, particularly when examining the talmudic tractate. The rabbis debate a scenario in which a man warns his wife not to be alone with another man. If she’s in a room alone with this other man for “some length of time” – this time varies but it could be very short, according to some rabbis – she’s potentially guilty of adultery. Again, no assumption at all of any male responsibility.
I feel eerie parallels between modern events and this talmudic exploration. In some U.S. states, increasingly restrictive access to abortion has brought about some convoluted laws to limit women’s ability to control their bodies. A new law in Florida requires a woman to show proof of rape or incest to be allowed access to an abortion if they are more than six weeks pregnant. Proof of rape or incest means “providing a copy of a restraining order, police report, medical record or other court order or documentation proving her victim status.” While the law is being challenged, if doctors violate the law, they can be charged with a felony.
Today, we recognize that a religious ritual forced on a woman accused of adultery, including forced consumption of bitter waters, doesn’t prove anything. Yet, the “legislators” of biblical and talmudic times felt this public shaming and ordeal proved a woman’s guilt or innocence. It was, perhaps, the ancient equivalent of forcing a rape victim to go through the medical examinations, police reports and other documentation. Many accounts indicate that obtaining this “proof” is not easy.
In Winnipeg, there are so few nurses available in the sexual assault unit to administer the rape kit that victims have been asked to go home and return later when a nurse is on duty, but to avoid showering. There are ample police reports where they assume a woman “asked for it,” or that she deserved it because of what she wore, etc. Expecting compassion from a Temple priest or police officer seems unlikely for many.
What to make of these inequities? To a 21st-century feminist, the Sotah ritual is abhorrent, but it’s equally horrendous that a victim must prove her victimhood again and again to get access to necessary health care. It’s compounded by hearing a Manitoba student assume that a woman slept around if she got pregnant, without any recognition of who else participated or what else might have happened. The Jewish historical tradition shows that, like other rigid biblical punishments – such as the ben sorer u’moreh (the rebellious son), who, in the Torah, is supposed to be stoned to death, but, in the Talmud, the rabbis give so many impossible parameters for the situation that it would be impossible to kill a rebellious son – our culture evolved and didn’t continue these harmful actions, but the ramifications linger.
The hopeful thing in regards to some women’s healthcare access is that our situation, at least in Canada, continues to evolve. Money talks: Trudeau’s Liberal government pledged $3.5 million to improve Canadian abortion services. Yet, the prime minister’s questioning of that student gave me more hope. No one could have predicted that conversation in advance. Our elected leader is “walking the walk” when it could have proved awkward. There’s something powerful about being trained in the (ancient) Socratic method. Unlike the ancient Sotah ritual, it works.
Joanne Seiffhas written regularly for CBC Manitoba 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.
I’ve always thought of the Nordic region as peaceful. Admittedly, my knowledge of the area is largely limited to Risk, the board game, where Greenland, Iceland and the Scandinavian countries are considered a haven, free of imminent attack from the throw of a dice.
Well, Finland just purchased Israel’s David’s Sling defensive system. For $345 million US. It was one of Finland’s first moves after recently being accepted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And it was the first sale abroad for David’s Sling, an integrated part of Israel’s multi-tier missile defence system. Israel now carries the title of major supplier to NATO.
I guess the world’s a bit more complicated than Risk.
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So long, Noa Tishby, the Israeli performer appointed by our previous prime minister, Yari Lapid, to advocate for Israel through her strong social media presence. With the formal and former title of special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization of Israel – fit that onto a business card! – she was known for sparring with BDS advocate Bella Hadid and others. Tishby was also a vocal supporter of Israel’s anti-judicial reform movement. Giving voice to the many thousands protesting the current government and its extreme shift rightward and into sometimes theocratic territory, Tishby says this was the reason for her dismissal. Well, ya. As the hawkish Jerusalem Post editorialist Ruthi Blum noted, “Tisbhy is free to share [her opinion]. But she shouldn’t have expected the government she’s been bashing to keep her as a representative.” Well, no. But keep on truckin’ Noa Tishby.
BTW, Tishby will be a guest at the JNF Negev event in Vancouver on June 29.
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Israel’s Tel Aviv Museum of Art is again among the world’s 100 most visited museums. This according to international art magazine The Art Newspaper. TAMA was ranked 49th in 2022, a jump from its 56th place the year prior. I am fortunate to be one of those visitors, on multiple occasions, over the past many years, often dragging my two children there when they were younger – how fun was that!
Paris’s Louvre and the Vatican Museum took first and second place, respectively. Canada was represented with a 60th place win by Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.
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Congratulations Milk & Honey, Israel’s preeminent whisky distiller, awarded the 2023 world’s best single malt whisky by the World Drink’s Awards for its Elements, Sherry Cask drink. Described as “[f]ruity aromas of citrus zest and white peach with a dash of wood varnish. Sweet to the taste … with flavours of golden syrup, vanilla, tropical fruit and iced tea.…” Sounds like a palate pleaser to me. But, if I had to choose, my favourite would be Seagram’s Five Star rye whisky. Not so much for its taste but for fond memories of fighting with my siblings for the silver sheriff’s star glued to the bottles.
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Jerusalem was selected by Time magazine as one of the world’s 2023 top 50 destinations, holding the 48th spot. It’s one of my favourite places to visit on a bustling Friday, starting with a walk through the overcrowded neighbourhood of Mea She’arim and enjoying a freshly baked challah. Then, bargaining my way through the Old City’s Arab Market, its tastes, smells and sights, and eventually making my way to the Western Wall, with the golden Dome of the Rock overhead. Ending with lunch at Machane Yehuda, the popular central Jerusalem food market, which has the freshest of meats and vegetables, and many colourful stalls.
Not to be outdone, Canada held two spots. Churchill was third – can’t beat those Northern Light spectaculars. Vancouver was 38th, for its eclectic cuisine and the beautiful Stanley Park.
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For sure, difficult days in Israel. Sociopolitical cultures are clashing internally. External enemies are looking on with glee, and testing us. But we’re not sinking into despair. Israel has experienced difficult times before and emerged stronger and wiser. So it will be this time.
Arguably, we are being governed by the worst government in our short history – for many reasons, including recent security challenges. I mean, come on, with someone as inexperienced and reactionary as Itamar Ben-Gvir as national internal security minister. Or Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spouting off on things about which he should know better and doesn’t. But let’s not blame the victims for the terror and rockets. Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, an inept Palestinian leadership with a hateful street – they are to blame, not the government.
Usually, it’s the right-wing governments that muster support for the very difficult realpolitik choices, from Menachem Begin’s 1982 Sinai exit to Ariel Sharon’s 2005 Gaza disengagement. Even Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2021 peace deals with several Arab countries under the Abraham Accords. Unfortunately, Netanyahu’s current government may be too inexperienced and messianic to enable reasonable, democratic, liberal change – read judicial reform – at such a scale. But who knows.
We cannot despair. At a very esoteric level, Israelis have hope. In fact, hope is the theme of our national anthem, Hatikvah, The Hope.
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According to the World Happiness Report, published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Israel remains one of the happiest countries in the world. (See jewishindependent.ca/measuring-happiness.) Rising to fourth place in 2023, just behind Finland, Denmark and Iceland, Israel’s showing likely reflected its reputation as a “villa in the jungle,” as dubbed by former prime minister Ehud Barak – despite being in the Middle East, one of the most contentious spots … on the Risk board.
Bruce Brownis a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah … a long time ago. He works in Israel’s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is the winner of the 2019 AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire An Israeli is…. Brown reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal.