Irwin Cotler

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 [email protected] program that is supported by Jewish Federation. Through [email protected], 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.

Government about halfway there in recognizing Jewish refugees

In 1948, there were an estimated 856,000 Jews in Arab and Muslim countries, from Algeria to Iraq. The estimated Jewish population in 2012 was 4,315 – 3,000 of whom are in Morocco alone.

Four months after the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development’s November 2013 report “Recognizing Jewish Refugees from the Middle East and North Africa,” Canada’s Cabinet accepted one of its two recommendations. The next day, on March 4, Parliament “concurred in” the report.

As the United States pushes for at least a framework for a peace agreement in the coming weeks, the Palestinian side will continue to use as a significant bargaining chip the millions (under the unique definition of “Palestinian refugee”) of people seeking a “right of return.” The parliamentary committee recommended that Canada officially recognize these displaced persons and, secondly, that our federal government “encourage the direct negotiating parties to take into account all refugee populations as part of any just and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts.”

Responding to the committee’s recommendations, Cabinet made nice noises, concurring heartily with the first recognition, which is, ultimately, merely symbolic. On the second recommendation, the Conservative government resorted to diplomatic verbiage, saying, it “understands the positive intent underlying this recommendation but, at this time, Canada has offered its support to the peace process as presently structured.”

During the Israeli War of Independence in 1948-49, somewhere between 700,000 and 900,000 Arab Palestinians were made refugees. History – and the Arab countries in which these refugees found themselves – has not been kind to them. The 1967 war created more refugees, while placing those Arab Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under Israeli control.

This history, which includes a definition of refugee known nowhere else in the world – one that is passed down from generation to generation, exacerbating rather than ameliorating the refugee situation – is well known. Yet, it is remarkable how many otherwise well-informed people are unaware of the Jewish refugees throughout the Middle East in the same era. To varying degrees, life for Jews in Arab- and Muslim-majority countries deteriorated rapidly after the 1948 war, and hundreds of thousands were either forced to leave their homelands or found it prudent to do so. The 1967 war finished the job.

But even the Jews who migrated to Israel during this period have often acknowledged that they were not comfortable assuming the role of historical victim. First of all, Jews who were forced from Arab and Muslim countries were welcomed (discrimination and economic disparities affecting Mizrahi Jews notwithstanding) by the new state of Israel, which they helped to build and strengthen.

Compared with the Arab Palestinians who had been displaced and who were, and still are, held in a form of statelessness, the Jewish emigrants were absorbed by Israel and the other countries to which they migrated, including Canada. More significantly, those who went to Israel joined a country that was absorbing refugees from Europe, whose experiences of statelessness had been more harrowing and catastrophic. Faced with new fellow citizens who had lost not only their material possessions and their ancestral villages, but also entire extended families, most of their civilization and even their mother tongue, the Jews who migrated from the Middle East and North Africa often found it best to keep their own tragic experiences closer to the vest.

Small nonprofit groups like JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) have kept this history alive. On the political front, in 2008, the United States became the first (and so far only) country to official recognize the Jewish refugees. More than a year ago, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler tabled a motion that Canada should recognize these forgotten refugees. In the parliamentary committee hearings, Canadians, including some refugees themselves, told personal stories of this history.

The government is on the right track. It is a matter of righting the historical record and of simple justice that, when Palestinian refugees are considered in the process of reconciliation, so should Jews who were forced from their homelands in the same era. But it is necessary for Canada, as the vaunted “honest broker” we claim to be, to demand that Jewish refugees also be considered among the many difficult historical realities that must be resolved for a lasting and just peace to be realized.