Those who gathered for the weekly rally to call for the release of the Israeli hostages take their message down Georgia Street on Sunday, March 17. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
After five months of attending almost every one of the weekly rallies for the Israeli hostages, I found myself Sunday on the other side of the crowd. Daphna Kedem, the organizer of these events, invited me to address the audience on March 17, alongside Rabbi Philip Bregman and Michael Lee, member of the Legislative Assembly for Vancouver-Langara.
I was speaking on nobody’s behalf but my own, although my nearly 30 years of writing for this Jewish newspaper, my being the director of Upstanders Canada, which fights antisemitism, and just generally my being a non-Jew who is a keen Zionist, were presumably the reasons I was asked to speak.
Someone whose primary role is reporter does not like to become part of the story. This is different. I am a journalist (among other things) but there are identities and values that, in my view, supersede journalistic constraints – support for democracy, for example, and free expression. Zionism covers a wide swath of opinion and experience and I fall on that spectrum. There is no point in pretending I don’t.
Several people have requested that the Independent print the full text of my remarks. We have not done this for other speakers over the past five months, and this issue is jam-packed with news around related topics of allegations of antisemitism in the province so there is not space to run the entire speech. However, we have posted it on the paper’s website, with apologies to the dozens of speakers whose words have not been shared in their entirety over the past five months. Insider privilege, undoubtedly.
Even though the audience at these vigils is overwhelmingly Jewish, I felt my message should be aimed at non-Jewish people.
I’m also angry, and I decided to let that show. In addressing those gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the weekly rallies for the Israeli hostages are held, I observed that I was standing on the same steps where, days after the pogrom of Oct. 7, people stood and celebrated murder, rape, beheadings and kidnappings.
“We mourn,” I said, “We grieve every single innocent life lost. We do not celebrate dead innocents. Neither do we tally up bodies in a grotesque competition where the side with the most dead wins moral victory.”
I warned that it is not only Jews and Israelis who are threatened by the behaviours of anti-Israel activists.
“The violence, coercion, intimidation and racism these people embody is a threat to Canada … to our civility, our peace, our multiculturalism and political discourse,” I said.
Maybe, I suggested, there are Canadians who don’t care if the Jewish people lose their country.
“But when they wake up and see that Canadians have lost ours … Jewish Canadians and their allies will be asking: Where were you? Where were you when we were standing up for the values that Israelis and Canadians share? Where were you when we demanded ‘bring them home’? Because, if you are not standing with Israelis against extremism … you are emboldening extremism in Canada.
“This is not about choosing between Israelis and Palestinians,” I said. “Unlike the extremists, we want peace for everyone. This is about choosing between civilization and barbarism. And we need to ask every Canadian: Which side are you on?”
Before I spoke, Kedem shared comments made the night before at the weekly rally in Tel Aviv, with relatives of living and dead hostages urging Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to do everything in his power to negotiate their release.
Kedem told the crowd that former cabinet minister Selina Robinson was to address the rally but security concerns prevented her from attending.
“I think it’s very, very sad moment for us that we can’t have a Jewish representative walk the streets of Vancouver in 2024,” said Kedem.
Robinson sent remarks, which were read by Kamiel Kruse. Those remarks can also be read in their entirety on the Independent’s website. Robinson stressed the rally’s theme of resilience, sharing many examples of where she finds resilience.
“Resilience comes from seeing the Oct. 7 survivors of rape and torture pick up the pieces of their lives. It comes from seeing Israelis gather once again to protest their government. It comes from so many of you who have reached out with words of support, encouragement and love,” wrote Robinson.
“Resilience comes from us gathering our collective strength as we lift each other up and remind ourselves that we are not alone – that together we will find the strength – the strength to bring peace,” she concluded.
Bregman – who was the senior rabbi of Temple Sholom from 1980 until 2013 and then was executive director of Hillel BC and created the Other People, an interfaith and multicultural group that has spoken to some 7,500 students and faculty about racism and bigotry – also spoke of resilience.
He contextualized current events as part of a very long Jewish history, with almost 4,000 years of steadfastness in the face of challenges, Temple destructions, expulsions, Crusades, pogroms and worse. He spoke of his own experiences growing up with antisemitism in rural Ontario, and the firebombing of Temple Sholom synagogue, then on West 10th Avenue, on Jan. 25, 1985.
Through all this ancient and modern history, Bregman said, one thing has remained constant.
“The message is clear. We are not going anywhere,” he said. “We are here.”
Lee had just returned from Germany and a meeting of state and provincial legislators from the United States, Germany and Canada. He reflected on the extremism that is rising in places around the world.
Part of the BC United party, Lee said he strives to avoid partisanship when speaking at these rallies to help ensure “that the Jewish community is not made a political football” and he assured Jewish community members that they have allies on both sides of the Legislature.
Lee called for the province to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism because it would clarify discussions. Some of the commentary being heard today falls directly into at least one of the examples accompanying that definition, he said.
“Denying Jewish people the right of self-determination by calling the state of Israel a racist endeavour is an example of antisemitism,” he said.
Lee was recently shuffled into the role of opposition critic for the attorney general, a position he had held before, and he said he has called on the AG to take a stronger line in the justice system against potential hate crimes.
“We need the attorney general to direct Crown counsel to prosecute the Criminal Code violations which are antisemitic and hate crimes incitement to public violence that are antisemitic in nature on our streets,” he said.
Lee lauded Robinson’s work in the Legislature, especially her commitment to the Jewish community.
“I am very disappointed, like so many of you, that she is not able to be here with you,” said Lee, who has spoken admiringly in the Legislature and elsewhere about Robinson. “But she is with you, you know that. Selina has always been with you. She will always be with you.”
Throughout the afternoon, Mia Mor sang and Richard Lowy joined on guitar and vocals.
