Irwin Cotler

Reflecting back 80 years

At the community’s commemoration of Yom Hashoah, child survivor Janos Benisz spoke about his experiences during the Holocaust. (photo by Rhonda Dent)

Over the past year, Janos Benisz has watched the news of Ukrainian parents fleeing to Poland and elsewhere in Europe to find safety for their families. While “overjoyed” for the families finding refuge today, he cannot help but reflect back eight decades to his own family’s catastrophic history in that violence-ravaged region.

Benisz was born in the summer of 1938 in the Hungarian city of Esztergom. He is one of the very few children to survive the Nazi concentration camps and is now one of an even smaller number of survivors alive to share their stories of survival. He spoke April 17 at the annual Yom Hashoah Commemoration presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, on the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Benisz lost his mother in 1943, when she was 38, after she went to hospital for a routine procedure but was, he said, murdered by a fascist there. His father remarried and his stepmother would prove a saviour for the boy.

The following year, the Nazis began rounding up Hungarian Jews and preparing to transport them to forced labour and death camps.

“Like a plague of locusts, the SS came marching into our city,” he recalled. “As they marched past our house, there was a great fear in our family. My father closed the windows and pulled the curtains down and his fear was passed on to me. The next day, we left our home and on the front of our white stucco home was a yellow Magen David. Within hours, an SS commander came to our house and put stickers on our valuables.”

His father took young Janos and his stepmother to relations who were Catholic. It was the last time he saw his father.

“Life was wonderful for six weeks until one of the neighbours reported us and informed that Jews were in this home,” said Benisz.

An SS officer accompanied by Hungarian Arrow Cross fascists knocked on the door and seized Janos and his stepmother, who were sent to the Strasshof concentration camp, in Austria. They remained there for eight or nine months, until liberated by Soviet forces. Benisz credits his stepmother’s determination for his survival.

“It was like a lioness protecting her cub,” he said. “She would go into the circle where the food was, or the slop was, with the big cup and she would always bring food to me. I would drink it and that sustained me.”

After liberation, Janos, 7, and his now-mother made their way back to Esztergom. The devastation was nearly total.

“I had many, many cousins and they all were massacred,” he said. “My mother’s family … it was like the earth had opened up and killed them all.”

The experiences left Janos’s stepmother mentally broken and Janos was placed in an orphanage.

“The only thing I remember is cod liver oil in the morning and brushing my teeth with about 10 or 15 guys beside me brushing their teeth as well,” he said. “After two-and-a-half years in the orphanage, somebody from the Joint [Distribution Committee] picked me up, took me to the train station. There were 14 or 15 other Jewish orphans there and they told us, ‘You’re going to America – North America.’”

The group first spent six months in France, where “they tried to educate us,” he said, but the young survivors were like “a bunch of wild animals.”

The group arrived in Halifax on Dec. 3, 1948. They were given hot soup and delicious sandwiches, as well as ice cream, of which Benisz said he must have eaten a gallon with his bare hands.

On the train across Canada, orphans disembarked at different cities and Benisz arrived in Winnipeg in the midst of a blizzard.

“My first Canadian Jewish home proved to be a disaster,” he said. “I was bounced around like a basketball between foster homes.… I was never part of the family. I was always an outsider.”

The terrors that followed him from Europe, which led to screaming in the night, did not make him a welcome addition to potential foster homes.

“Who wants to have a stranger’s scream waking [one] up every night?” he asked.

He was put in a reformatory for about six months before a Jewish welfare agency rescued him and found him suitable housing and got him caught up in his education.

At a young age, Benisz got a job as a copy boy at the Winnipeg Free Press. A life in the news business followed, especially covering sports, which he did at newspapers across Western Canada. An editor changed his byline from Janos Benisz to Jack Bennett, which became his professional designation.

Eventually, he arrived to a new job at a Vancouver daily just as the press launched what would become a year-long strike. Jack Diamond, the late Jewish businessman and philanthropist, gave Benisz a job. Years later, after a corporate buyout, Benisz had a $25,000 windfall and he and a partner opened a business in Gastown, “and, over the next 15, 18 years, we made a lot of money.”

He spoke of his gratitude for the community of survivors, especially the Child Survivors Group, based at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. For two decades, he has spoken to school groups and others about his Holocaust experiences.

“I speak on behalf of the six million who have no voice, that includes 1.5 million children who were murdered,” he said.

At the commemorative event, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom reflected on the longer, formal name of the day, which is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. He emphasized the resistance and revolt inherent in both the name of the day and the fact that Yom Hashoah is marked annually on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“Our sacred purpose is so much more important, so much more vital, because the life-memory is fading. We gather here this evening at the twilight of an era. As the Survivors’ Declaration hauntingly observes, the age of the Holocaust survivors is drawing to a close. Before long, no one will be left to say, I was there, I saw, I remember what happened…. It is in this void that the deniers and the distortionists will come, they always do, as they have continually on every night and every day since even before the liberation of the camps, to say that this didn’t happen, that it wasn’t so bad or the relativism of comparing trauma to trauma.”

There is one significant difference between the contemporary generation and the generation of the 1930s, said the rabbi.

“That difference is that we have the experience that they didn’t have. We know it can happen because it did,” he said. “We know the antisemitism, if it is not confronted vigourously, forcefully and immediately defeated, can develop into monstrous dimensions. So, we don’t have the luxury or the privilege to say, let’s wait and see how things will develop, how this turns out.”

The VHEC’s Abby Wener Herlin, granddaughter of survivors Aurelia and David Gold, spoke as a representative of the third generation.

“In our family, in order to build a life and live each day, they could not speak about their experiences,” she recalled of her late grandparents. “In order to protect themselves and us from the atrocities and traumas of their past, they shared very little.

“There is a sense of weight that comes from being the grandchild of Holocaust survivors,” Wener Herlin continued, “to know that I am part of the last generation that will ever hear those stories firsthand. I feel it is my duty and responsibility to carry it forward and it is my duty to remember.”

In a video presentation, former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler discussed the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, as well as the Holocaust, and said that what makes both historical instances so horrific are not just the horrors themselves but that both atrocities were preventable.

“Nobody could say that we did not know. We knew but we did not act,” said Cotler.

He addressed remarks specifically to survivors: “You have endured the worst of inhumanity, but somehow you found the resources of your own humanity, the ability to carry on, to build families and to make an enduring contribution to Canada and to the communities in which you settled.”

Corinne Zimmerman, board president of the VHEC, read from a statement Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released for Yom Hashoah and Moskovitz read a message from B.C. Premier David Eby. Sarah Kirby-Yung, Vancouver city councilor, read a proclamation from Mayor Ken Sim.

Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim, the memorial prayer for the martyrs. An extensive musical program, produced by Wendy Bross Stuart and Ron Stuart, featured Bross Stuart on piano, Eric Wilson on cello, with Cantor Shani Cohen, Kat Palmer, Lisa Osipov Milton singing, as well as eight young voices collectively dubbed the Yom Hashoah Singers.

The evening was presented by the VHEC with the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and Temple Sholom.

Government to target hate

Irwin Cotler spoke Sunday at a virtual event convened by National Council of Jewish Women of Canada. (photo from raoulwallenbergcentre.org)

Canada is set to make a number of significant commitments to combat antisemitism, as are other countries that participated in a summit on the issue last week in the Swedish city of Malmö.

Irwin Cotler, Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and fighting antisemitism, spoke Oct. 17 at a virtual event convened by National Council of Jewish Women of Canada. The human rights lawyer and former federal justice minister, who is also international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, said that, in the aftermath of the conference, the Canadian government would announce a number of pledges.

These will include enhanced teaching and learning about the Holocaust across generational lines, combating the increasing Holocaust denial and distortion, and battling hatred on social media. Reducing an alarming rise in hate crimes will also be among the pledges Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to make, according to Cotler.

“Twenty-twenty was the year for the highest rise in hate crimes targeting Jews ever,” he said. “But, by May 2021, we had reached the level then of all the hate crimes in all of 2020.”

The government will recommit itself to protecting the security of Jewish institutions, he said.

“Here, the government recently made commitments in financial terms for this purpose,” said Cotler.

Zero tolerance for antisemitism in the political discourse is also an objective, he added.

“That means not just calling out antisemitism in the other’s political party but calling out antisemitism in our own,” Cotler said. “In other words, not weaponizing antisemitism or politicizing it, but holding each of us, respectively, our own political parties, accountable.”

In addition to Trudeau, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken were among the leaders who addressed the conference. The Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism was hosted by Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. Trudeau announced at the conference that Cotler’s role of special envoy would be made permanent.

Cotler contextualized the Malmö forum in a two-decade era of what he calls “demonological antisemitism,” which began at the 2001 Durban conference against racism that devolved into an antisemitic carnival.

“What happened at Durban was truly Orwellian,” said Cotler. “A world conference against racism and hate turned into a conference of racism and hate against Israel and the Jewish people. A conference that was to commemorate the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa turned into a conference calling for the dismantling of the ‘apartheid state’ Israel.

“Those of us who personally witnessed this Durban festival of hate have been forever transformed by the pamphlets and posters of hatred and antisemitism, by the cartoons and the leaflets portraying not only the Jews as Nazis, but the classical antisemitic tropes of Jews with hooked noses, with fangs, with fingers dipped in blood from the killing of children. Where we were accosted with pamphlets of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Where we witnessed demonstrators with signs – incredibly for a human rights conference or for any conference – signs which said, ‘Too bad Hitler didn’t finish the job.’ Where we witnessed Jewish students – and I witnessed this personally – being physically assaulted and being told, ‘You don’t belong to the human race,’” said Cotler.

Durban was the first tipping point and the global surge of antisemitism during last spring’s conflict between Hamas and Israel was a second, he said.

“Jews were targeted and threatened in their own neighbourhoods and on their own streets,” said Cotler. During and after that conflict, Cotler said, Jewish memorials were defaced, synagogues were torched, cemeteries were vandalized, Jewish institutions found themselves under assault and incendiary hate speech – such as 17,000 tweets that “Hitler was right” – exploded.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated antisemitism, or at least has been exploited by antisemites, who have “instrumentalized one of the more ancient tropes of the Jews as the poisoners of wells,” said Cotler. The health crisis has also seen conspiracies of Jews profiting from vaccines and anti-vaxxers posing “as if they were victims of Nazi persecution,” he added.

Cotler lamented what he calls “the mainstreaming, the normalization – in effect, the legitimization of antisemitism in the political culture.” During the conflict last spring, convoys of vehicles in London, U.K., drove through Jewish neighbourhoods screaming, “F–k the Jews, rape their daughters!” This was a convoy and a message that was replicated in Toronto days later and which resulted in, Cotler said, an “utter absence of outrage.”

The legalist also spoke of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

“If you can’t define it, you can’t combat it,” he said. The IHRA definition was adopted after 15 years of discussion and debate by intergovernmental bodies, governments, parliaments, scholars and civil society leaders, he said.

The task of fighting antisemitism must not fall only to Jews, Cotler stressed.

“As we’ve learned only too painfully, and have repeated too often, that, while it begins with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews,” he said. “Therefore, we need this collective global constituency of conscience to combat it.”

Action over words needed most

Action over words was what was most needed at this week’s National Summit on Antisemitism, hosted by the federal government. That was the consensus at a July 14 townhall in the lead-up to the summit. Hosted by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the virtual meeting drew about 1,300 Canadian Jews, some of whom expressed outright fear at spiraling antisemitism in their communities and on campuses.

The July 21 summit, and one on Islamophobia the following day, were announced earlier this month by Bardish Chagger, minister of diversity and inclusion, in the wake of a surge in antisemitic incidents this spring and the hate-driven murder of a Muslim family in London, Ont.

Addressing the townhall, Chagger listed Liberal achievements on fighting antisemitism, including Canada’s adoption in 2019 of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, and the appointment last November of former justice minister and human rights advocate Irwin Cotler as Canada’s first special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism.

In a statement announcing the summits, Chagger said invitations to attend were extended to her cabinet colleagues, members of Parliament “and officials throughout all orders of government to hear directly from Muslim and Jewish community leaders.”

The meetings were to assemble “a diverse group of community and political leaders, academics, activists and members with intersectional identities within these communities.”

Both summits were to be held virtually and take place “in a closed door environment to ensure the safety of those participating,” a spokesperson for Chagger told The CJN.

Live-streaming details had not been confirmed by press time, and a list of invitees had not yet been finalized, the spokesperson said, adding, though, that the federal Anti-Racism Secretariat is working directly with “community stakeholders,” while Chagger is working with MPs “to ensure a wide range of voices are represented” at the summit.

Cotler, who was to co-chair the national summit with Chagger, pulled no punches at the townhall, warning of an “old-new, global, escalating, virulent, sophisticated, and even lethal antisemitism” that reached “a tipping point” during the Israel-Hamas war in May.

He pointed out that last year saw the highest levels of antisemitic hate crimes since being measured, and that those numbers have already been eclipsed this year.

He cited “incendiary” antisemitic hate on social media, where, in one week this past spring, there were 17,000 tweets saying “Hitler was right,” or some variation of it. This makes the national summit “as timely as it is necessary.”

Cotler said the framework for an action plan would have to include a mandate to teach about the Holocaust and antisemitism in public schools; enhancing the adoption and implementation of the IHRA definition of antisemitism; fighting all hate crimes; holding social media platforms accountable for their content; zero tolerance of antisemitism in any political party; and to “appreciate that Jews alone cannot fight antisemitism. We need a constituency of conscience and of action.”

The summit was to provide “not only an opportunity to address antisemitism in words, but it must be what it is intended to be: an action summit, where words are translated into action, and not as a one-time [event] but as an ongoing combating of the scourge of antisemitism.”

An informal poll conducted during the townhall suggested that most respondents believe Jewish university students will feel excluded when they return to class this fall. Another poll during the townhall had 25% of respondents saying the rise of antisemitism here has caused them to consider leaving Canada, while a third question revealed that 39% of those answering said they have recently removed outward signs of their Jewish identity, such as Stars of David and kippot.

One participant spoke of keeping his passport up to date and handy just in case, while others wondered about the role governments can play in fighting antisemitism.

In his remarks to the townhall, Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of CIJA, noted that what distinguishes the challenge Jews face is that they face hatred “from all sides”: the far left, far right, and from segments of the Muslim community.

“We have to challenge where necessary. We have to educate where the opportunity exists. But what we cannot do is surrender. We cannot be passive,” Fogel said.

The national summit’s focus was to be security and public safety, education and “civil society – issues of inclusion, acceptance, of not invalidating or delegitimizing the Jewish lived experience. We want the capacity to take increased ownership of our own institutional and community safety and security,” said Fogel.

He also hopes the summit will lead to a national campaign to enhance social media literacy. What’s most important, he added, is to see all levels of government work together to combat antisemitism. The “unprecedented” summit is not the end of the process, Fogel said. “If anything, it is simply the beginning.”

B’nai Brith Canada said it received in advance ideas for discussion at this week’s summit. They included:

Combating antisemitism must go beyond the principles enshrined in the federal Anti-Racism Strategy;
An emphasis on the importance of fostering Jewish life in Canada, recognizing the historical and contemporary contributions of Canadian Jews;
Promoting positive narratives about the contribution of the Jewish community to Canadian society;
Recognition that new forms of antisemitism are distinct from the traditional antisemitism to which Canadians are more accustomed;
Acknowledgement that anti-Zionism is a main driver of the new antisemitism and must be vigorously countered;
A commitment to mainstream the fight against antisemitism across all federal departments and agencies. This would include the Canadian Human Rights Commission and, by extension, involve provincial human rights commissions;
A commitment to create a national Holocaust, genocide and antisemitism advisory commission;
A commitment to implement the IHRA definition of antisemitism (and the IHRA definition of Holocaust denial and distortion) in a meaningful way and to actively promote adoption by the provinces/territories and municipalities;
And a commitment to convening a special forum and ongoing dialogue with the Council of Ministers of Education Canada to work with schools to develop effective methods to combat antisemitism.

In a statement, Michael Levitt, chief executive officer of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, also stressed that it’s important the summit “leads to real action, not words, including clear and defined next steps and funding to support initiatives to combat Jew-hatred, whether it’s in education, law enforcement, social media or another area.”

The townhall took place just as the Inter-Parliamentary Task Force to Combat Online Antisemitism released an interim report on how social media giants should handle online hate. Read more about it in Janice Arnold’s story for The CJN, which can be found at thecjn.ca/international-lawmakers-urge-action-on-online-anti-semitism.

– For more national Jewish news, visit thecjn.ca

Human rights above all

A poster in Marseille, France, in July 2020, calling for Nasrin Sotoudeh’s release from prison.

The National Council of Jewish Women of Canada spotlighted the remarkable story of Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh during a showing of the eponymously titled film, Nasrin, on Jan. 10.

Narrated by actress Olivia Colman, the film takes us into Sotoudeh’s life in Tehran, where she has been a stalwart in defending a wide array of people: political activists, women who refused to wear a hijab, members of the religiously oppressed Baha’i faith, and prisoners sentenced to the death penalty for crimes allegedly committed while they were minors. Her work has come with a tremendous amount of personal sacrifice, including prolonged periods in jail.

Among the notable cases brought up in the film is that of Narges Hosseini, who, in 2018, stood on an electricity box on Tehran’s Revolution Street and removed her headscarf to protest Iran’s mandatory hijab law. She was immediately arrested, and Sotoudeh soon took up her cause. At her trial, the prosecutor claimed she was trying to “encourage corruption through the removal of the hijab in public.”

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi is another of Sotoudeh’s clients. In 2010, Panahi was given a 20-year ban on making films, but he has nonetheless continued to create widely praised cinematic works, such as Taxi, in which he played a Tehran taxi driver – Sotoudeh was one of his passengers. The movie won the top prize at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in 2015. Together with Sotoudeh, Panahi was co-winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2012.

And there is the unassuming hero we encounter in Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan. His unflagging loyalty to his wife and family is underscored throughout the film. He, too, has been imprisoned several times, most recently from September to December 2018, after he wrote about human rights violations in Iran on Facebook. He was accused of operating against Iran’s national security by backing the “anti-hijab” movement. Khandan currently faces a six-year prison sentence.

The film relies on secret footage, made possible by intrepid camerapeople within Iran who took on incredible risk to record Sotoudeh in both her professional and private lives. In the midst of filming, in June 2018, Sotoudeh was arrested for representing several women protesting Iran’s mandatory hijab law. Due to health concerns, she was briefly released from prison late last year, but has since been incarcerated again.

During Sotoudeh’s furlough, she was scheduled to undergo tests to monitor her heart. At one time, she was moved to intensive care in a Tehran hospital after a 46-day hunger strike, protesting the conditions political prisoners in Iran have to endure. She also has pressed for their release during the time of the pandemic.

Shortly before her own release from the Qarchak women’s prison, Sotoudeh contracted COVID-19 but has since recovered.

Following the film’s presentation, a panel discussion took place with the film’s director, Jeff Kaufman; its producer, Marcia Ross; activist Shaparak Shajarizadeh; and former Canadian minister of justice Irwin Cotler. The discussion was led by NCJWC president Debbie Wasserman.

“One of the intents of the film is to say it is not just about Sotoudeh and Iran, it is about applying her standards to our countries and ourselves. Let’s take her example and make it global,” said Kaufman.

The filmmakers said they wanted to tell Sotoudeh’s story because she personifies a commitment to democracy and justice, and represents the power of women to shape society. Further, Sotoudeh holds a deep conviction that people of all faiths and backgrounds deserve equal opportunity and protection.

Both Kaufman and Ross spoke of the extraordinary caution taken to preserve the anonymity and security of those shooting the footage in Iran.

Asked about her reaction upon seeing the screening, Shajarizadeh said, “I cried the whole time. We could see ourselves in every minute of the movement.” Shajarizadeh, who now resides in Canada, was a women’s rights activist and political prisoner in Iran – she fought against the country’s mandatory hijab law for women.

“Nasrin is not only the embodiment of human rights in Iran, but a looking-glass into the persecution of all those who are imprisoned in Iran,” Cotler said.

Cotler advocated for “showing the film as much as we can, and [to] have the sort of conversations we are having now, and mobilize the different constituencies that she has been helping.”

Ross said the film will be out later in the year on Amazon and iTunes.

Established in 1897, NCJWC is a voluntary organization dedicated to furthering human welfare in the Jewish and general communities locally, nationally and internationally. To learn more, visit ncjwc.org.

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

FEDtalks launches annual campaign

Left to right are Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver CEO Ezra Shanken, campaign chair Dr. Neil Pollock, women’s philanthropy chair Lisa Pullan, board chair Stephen Gaerber and major donors co-chairs Alex Cristall and Andrew Merkur. (photo from JFGV)

On Sept. 17, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver kicked off this year’s annual campaign with a new event: FEDtalks. Featuring brief TED-style talks from four speakers – the Hon. Irwin Cotler, Eli Winkelman, Dafna Lifshitz and Rabbi David Wolpe – more than 700 community members attended the event at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

photo - Audience members take their seats at FEDtalks on Sept. 17 — Audience members take their seats at FEDtalks on Sept. 17. *(photo from JFGV)*

“Each speaker delivered a message that was Federation related, from the refugee and migrant crisis, to caring for those facing hunger, to leveling the playing field in Israel’s periphery, to inspiring people to connect more fully with their Jewish identity and values,” said Jewish Federation chief executive officer Ezra S. Shanken. “Their messages were our messages, and they reflected the soul of who we are as a Federation.”

Cotler addressed issues important to the Vancouver Jewish community – and, indeed, to the world – with particular emphasis on Syria and the refugee and migrant crisis. As a well-respected parliamentarian and human rights lawyer, he brought depth and breadth of knowledge on the crisis.

Winkelman shared her story of turning the simple act of baking challah into acts of social justice by founding Challah for Hunger, which now has 90 chapters on college campuses in three countries. Her work was recognized by President Bill Clinton, who highlighted Challah for Hunger in his book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World.

Lifshitz, CEO of Appleseeds Academy, addressed her organization’s work bridging the digital divide in Israel’s periphery and, in particular, the Net@ program that is supported by Jewish Federation. Through Net@, at-risk youth in our partnership region of the Upper Galilee receive specialized computer training that catapults them into highly-skilled, well-paying jobs, thus helping break the cycle of poverty.

Wolpe, who was named the most influential rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine, also addressed the refugee and migrant crisis, but from a Jewish perspective. He closed the evening with an inspirational message that united the community through the shared values of chesed, tzedaka and tikkun olam.

The Vancouver Jewish community’s central fundraising initiative, the annual campaign supports critical social services, Jewish education, seniors programs and young adults programs, and fosters ties with our partnership region in Israel. To donate or volunteer, visit jewishvancouver.com/what-to-give/annual-campaign.

Cotler speaks at FEDtalks

Irwin Cotler, left, with Bob Rae. Cotler is one of four speakers who will participate in FEDtalks, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign launch on Sept. 17. (photo from irwincotler.liberal.ca)

Irwin Cotler, one of the foremost figures in international human rights, will speak here next month on global trends impacting the Jewish community. He is one of four guest speakers at FEDtalks, an innovative new opening event for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign.

When the new Parliament is sworn in after the Oct. 19 election, Cotler’s career as an elected politician will end. He has served as MP for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal since 1999, and as minister of justice and attorney general for Canada. He is not seeking reelection.

His proudest achievements in politics, he told the Independent, include legislation against human trafficking, particularly of women and children. He also cited the legislated equality of marriage for gays and lesbians, which he shepherded through the House. “We were at the time only the fourth country in the world, in 2005, to do so and it was very divisive at the time,” Cotler said of the civil marriage law.

He also takes pride in being the attorney general when Steven Truscott’s conviction for rape and murder was overturned and declared a miscarriage of justice. Truscott was a 14-year-old Ontario boy sentenced to death in 1959 for the rape and murder of a classmate. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was jailed for a decade before being paroled, but it was another four decades before his name was cleared and he was acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

In addition to landmark acts, Cotler said his proudest roles in public office have included helping individuals in ways that never make the news. “I think the one [achievement] that remains unheralded and that is true for all MPs is the one in which we try as best we can on a daily basis to act as an ombudsperson for the constituents in our riding,” he said.

After he leaves office, he will devote more time to the defence of political prisoners, he said. In his role as an international human rights lawyer, Cotler has been central to some of the most prominent cases in the world, including those of Andrei Sakharov, Nathan Sharansky and Nelson Mandela. He is currently on the legal team for Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, the Venezuelan political prisoner Leopoldo López and the Iranian Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi. He has been recognized with numerous honorary degrees and other awards, including Parliamentarian of the Year by his colleagues in the House of Commons. He chaired the International Commission of Inquiry into the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg.

“I am even exploring establishing a Raoul Wallenberg Centre for International Justice named after the first [Canadian] honorary citizen, a unique international consortium of politicians, scholars and jurists, human rights defenders, NGOs united in the pursuit of justice, inspired by and anchored in Wallenberg’s humanitarian legacy,” he said. “Those are some of the things I’m looking forward to.”

At the FEDtalks event, Cotler said he will address “mega-trends” affecting the Jewish people worldwide, foremost being what he calls the “Iranian five-fold threat.”

The nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers, “both in the process of arriving at the agreement with Iran and the agreement itself, has overshadowed, if not sanitized, the other four threats,” he said.

Those overshadowed or sanitized threats, he continued, include Iran being the leading sponsor of international terrorism, “the hegemonic threat in terms of its destabilization of the Middle East and beyond,” the danger posed by Iran’s state-sanctioned incitement to hate and to genocide, and the “massive domestic repression” in Iran.

“While the nuclear negotiations have been going on, for example, Iran, which already was executing more people per capita than any other country in the world in the time of [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, has almost doubled the execution rate and yet we hear very little about it, and that’s only one example,” said Cotler. “I’ll be speaking about the criminalization of dissent, the prosecution and persecution of Baha’is and other religious and ethnic minorities.”

The second mega-theme, he said, will be terrorism, security and human rights, including how we combat terrorism without undermining civil liberties, and a third theme will probably address antisemitism in what he calls its old and new forms. “The old, or classic, antisemitism being the discrimination against, denial of, assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal citizens within any society that they inhabit,” he explained, “and the new antisemitism being the discrimination against, denial of and assault upon the right of Israel and the Jewish people to live as an equal member among the family of nations or, at its worst, to even to live.”

FEDtalks, the opening event of the annual campaign for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, takes place Sept. 17 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. More information is available at jewishvancouver.com and tickets are available at ticketpeak.com/JFGV. Interviews with the other speakers will appear in successive issues of the Independent.

Canada hosts Limmud FSU

Left to right: Chaim Chesler, Diane Wohl, Matthew Bronfman and Sandra Cahn. (photo by Yossi Aloni)

Canadian Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler said the country needs to toughen security measures against terrorism, while preserving the nation’s democratic freedoms. Cotler addressed the recent attacks in Canada in remarks to some 500 Russian-speaking Jews participating in the inaugural Limmud FSU Canada, a dynamic and pluralistic Jewish festival of learning, culture and creativity.

Cotler, a Canadian Jewish leader and human rights activist who served as the honorary chair of Limmud FSU Canada, spoke alongside such public figures as Limor Livnat, Israel’s minister of culture and sport; Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, bestselling author and media personality; entrepreneur Marat Ressin; Matthew Bronfman, Limmud FSU chair; Chaim Chesler, founder of Limmud FSU; and Sandra Cahn, co-founder.

“Canada is a country that takes pride in its openness, freedom and democracy but, at this point, the Canadian government needs to take the right measures to ensure that it remains not only peaceful but also secured in a way that we combat the threats,” said Cotler. “Security has to be expanded, but not at the expense of freedom. We need to protect democracy, but also to protect our citizens,” he added.

Livnat added: “I salute the prime minister of Canada on his strong support of Israel. The recent terrorist event in Ottawa was not only directed against the Canadian Parliament, it was also directed against the democracies of the free world.”

Limmud FSU Canada, in collaboration with UJA-Federation of Greater Toronto and Jewish Agency for Israel, took place Oct. 25-27 at the Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ont., site of the 2010 G8 Summit. Limmud FSU Canada offered a wide array of sessions, from Not Just ISIS and Hamas: The Threat of Islamic Radicalization on Israel and on the Western World, to Canadian Jews: A Unique Community or Just American Jews in the Making? Other sessions focused on the crisis in Ukraine, Jewish life in the Russian Empire, the Russian-speaking Jewish elite in Russia, and such esoteric topics as The Shadchan: The Art of Jewish Matchmaking, and a kosher wine workshop. Limmud FSU Canada also featured nature walks, theatre and programs for children.

This was the first time the global conference for Russian-speaking Jews was held in Canada, home to about 330,000 Jews, including an estimated 70,000-plus Russian speakers, many in the Greater Toronto area. The contemporary Russian-speaking Jewish community in Canada – among the centres of Russian-Jewish immigration globally – is shaped by three waves of immigration, starting with the major exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, Jews from countries of the former Soviet Union, including those who first went to Israel, between 1990 and 2001, and since then those who first immigrated to Israel in the 1990s. A large percentage, nearly 220,000, of the country’s overall Jewish population lives in the Greater Toronto Area, including about 20,000-30,000 Israelis.

Now, Canadian Russian-speaking Jews are seeking to develop their own conference, geared to this unique community. Local community organizers include conference co-chairs Karina Rondberg and Leon Martynenko, chair of the governing council Galina Sandler, and council members Julia Koschitzky and Shoel Silver.

קנדה מגנה את הפיגוע בירושלים

Canadians pray for teens

As three abducted Israeli teens ended their first week of captivity, communities from across Canada and around the world held vigils, gathered in solidarity and said prayers for their safe return; prayers that continue.

From Halifax to Vancouver, Jews gathered in support of Gilad Shaar, 16, Naftali Frenkel, 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, who were kidnapped by suspected Hamas terrorists while hitchhiking near Hebron June 12.

The largest of the events was held June 19 in the Toronto area, where as many as 1,000 people came together at the Schwartz/Reisman Centre at the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus. The rally was sponsored by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto in conjunction with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler spoke. He was in Israel when news of the teens’ abduction broke. Reports in Israeli newspapers were dominated “by a sense of angst and anguish,” he said.

Cotler attributed the kidnapping to Hamas, pointing out that the Islamic terrorist group is pledged to destroy Israel and kill Jews. He noted that, even before the kidnappings, Israeli media had reported that security forces had foiled 44 attempts to kidnap Israelis in the last year alone.

He said former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, whom he met during his visit, stressed how important it was for his family and for him to know that Jews from around the world were rallying to his cause when he was in a Soviet prison.

Cotler said the operation to locate the teens is code-named “Brother’s Keeper,” and Israelis of all denominations are united in praying for the boys’ safe return.

Demonstrating support for the families of the three victims was a key motivation for many of those at the rally. “Those kids could have been any of ours,” Roz Lofsky said. “We all feel for those boys and we want to show solidarity with them.”

“We’re here to say that we are in support of those parents so they know they are not alone,” added Gladys Isenberg.

Conservative MP Mark Adler brought a message from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and drew a loud round of applause when he said, “Canada will stand with Israel through fire and water.” He called on the Palestinian Authority to disarm Hamas, take control of smuggling tunnels in Gaza and demonstrate its commitment to peace by reuniting the boys with their families.

Consul General D.J. Schneeweiss spoke and, in addition to members of the Jewish community, the event was attended by Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria, vice-president of the World Sikh Organization of Canada, Ontario Region. Messages of support were received from the United Macedonians Organization of Canada and from Dominic Campione, past national president of the National Congress of Italian Canadians.

In Halifax, Rabbi Ari Isenberg, spiritual leader of Shaar Shalom Congregation, in conjunction with CIJA, officiated at a community-wide vigil of hope for the boys’ safe return. At the same time, Rabbi Amram Maccabi of Beth Israel Synagogue said special prayers for the teens.

In Montreal, about 400 people attended a June 15 prayer vigil at Congregation Beth Israel-Beth Aaron in Côte St. Luc. The vigil was sponsored by Israeli Consul General Joel Lion in cooperation with CIJA. Chana Landau, a relative living in Montreal, relayed the thanks of the Frenkel family to Jews around the world for their expressions of solidarity. Chaviva Lifson read a message of gratitude from the Shaar family, who live a block from her sister in Israel.

In Hamilton, Temple Anshe Sholom, in conjunction with the Hamilton Jewish Federation, hosted a community gathering “in solidarity with the families of the three Israeli students.”

In Winnipeg, congregations Shaarey Zedek, Etz Chayim, Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun, Chevra Mishnayes and Temple Shalom co-sponsored a prayer vigil in conjunction with the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg.

The vigil, held at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, included a candlelighting ceremony, the recitation of psalms, a prayer for captives, the singing of Hatikvah and cantorial renditions of “Acheinu Kol Beit Yisrael ” (“All Israel are Brothers”) and “Bring Back our Boys,” a song written in the last two weeks in Israel.

Rena Elbaze, Jewish engagement specialist at the Winnipeg Federation, said the participation of a range of community organizations spanning a variety of denominations shows “we pray as a community and we’re united as a community when faced with these problems.

“We prayed for the sake of the boys, but also to make people present feel they are not alone and to show the families of the people who were kidnapped that people care about them.”

The Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, with support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and other community organizations, sponsored a community prayer service at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

Valder Belgrave, a spokesperson for JFGV, said, “Our sympathies are with the families, and it’s sad that they are drawn into the larger issue. They’re innocent victims in the larger scheme of things.”

– With files from Janice Arnold in Montreal. A longer version of this article can be found at cjnews.com/node/126049.

UNESCO finally runs “Holy Land” exhibit

Canadian participants in a meeting earlier this month with French President François Hollande came away impressed with the French leader’s sincerity and determination to address the terrorism and antisemitism that has France’s Jews on edge.

Avi Benlolo, president and chief executive officer of the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and Member of Parliament and former justice minister Irwin Cotler said Hollande was empathetic to the concerns of the country’s Jews and was forthright in discussing the threat posed by French-born jihadists returning from Syria.

“Hollande spoke about the barbaric attack on the Jewish museum in Belgium” and about the protection of Jewish schools, synagogues and other community buildings, Cotler said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

Cotler and Benlolo were part of a 20-member delegation assembled by the Los Angeles-based

Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which met with Hollande prior to officially inaugurating an historic exhibition at UNESCO’s Paris offices. The exhibit, mounted by historian Robert Wistrich, is titled, People, Book, Land: The 3,500-Year Relationship of the Jewish People to the Holy Land.

The exhibit was sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre along with the governments of Canada, Israel, the United States and Montenegro, and it launched this month after pressure from Arab countries forced its cancellation in January.

Benlolo said the reception by French officials and Hollande at the Élysée Palace was warm and welcoming. The delegates were anxious to express their concerns about the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels by a French gunman, who killed four people.

“Hollande believes there are more than 1,000 French nationals who went to fight in Syria and joined radical groups,” Benlolo said. Three hundred remain. Many came back and he’s concerned about their radicalization and if they will take action against the Jewish community.

Mehdi Nemmouche, the man accused in the Brussels attack, is believed to have spent 2013 fighting with Islamic radicals in Syria.

Hollande assured the delegates that he is working closely with intelligence and security services to track returning jihadists and to ensure the safety of the country’s Jews.

“I believe Hollande was very sincere,” Benlolo said. “The Jewish community received substantial grants to secure their schools and synagogues,” he added.

Cotler, who has visited France three times in the last six months, said, “People spoke well of Hollande and his genuineness, his commitment to combat antisemitism, to bring perpetrators of antisemitism to justice and his appreciation of jihadist acts as threatening to French Jews and France alike. He took the position that it’s a joint struggle, a part of the protection of French democracy and all of France.”

During the meeting, Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Wiesenthal Centre, told the president, “We meet at a pivotal time in history, when the Jewish community and France’s democratic values are under unprecedented attack by the forces of extremism both from the far right and from extreme Islamist purveyors of religious intolerance and murder.”

He applauded Hollande and his predecessor, president Nicolas Sarkozy, for denouncing an earlier terrorist attack in Toulouse that claimed the life of a rabbi and four children, but he lamented the failure of Muslim religious leaders to condemn the attacks.

Meanwhile, Cotler was effusive in his description of the Wistrich exhibit, which he called “historic.”

“It is a remarkable dramatization of history and heritage, of people, book, land, memory and state,” said Cotler.

In 24 panels, the exhibit traces Jewish history back to the patriarch Abraham, through Moses, King David and all the way through to the struggle for Soviet Jewry, the birth of Zionism and the reconstitution of the state of Israel.

The nine-day exhibit had been scheduled to open last January. Pressure from 22 Arab countries, who argued it would prejudice the peace process, prompted UNESCO to cancel it.

Responding to that decision, Hier stated, “It is ironic that, while the Arab League was trying to kill this exhibition and all the attention was focused on Paris, the UN headquarters in New York [was] hosting an exhibit entitled, Palestine, based entirely on the Arab narrative, which was not criticized as an interference with Secretary [John] Kerry’s mission.”

Following public criticism from Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and U.S. envoy Samantha Power, the exhibit was rescheduled to open early this month, but with the name Israel removed from the title and replaced with “Holy Land.” UNESCO also required the removal of an image of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had been part of the initial exhibit prepared by Wistrich, a professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.