New Israel Fund of Canada

Surveying Canadian Jews

“Canada’s Jewish community is divided over Israeli and domestic Canadian politics, even though rising antisemitism and war seem to have increased the emotional attachment of Canada’s Jews to Israel,” writes sociologist Robert Brym in the executive summary of Arguments for the Sake of Heaven: A Jewish Community Divided. The report imparts the results of a poll sponsored by the New Israel Fund of Canada, JSpaceCanada, and Canadian Friends of Peace Now.

From Aug. 28 to Sept. 16, 2024, the polling firm Leger surveyed 588 Canadian Jews. The sample “was drawn from a large online panel of Canadian adults. It was weighted by characteristics of the Canadian Jewish population based on the 2021 Census of Canada and the 2018 Survey of Jews in Canada,” which was prepared by Brym, Keith Neuman and Rhonda Lenton for the Environics Institute, University of Toronto, and York University. The composition of the sample “is believed to be broadly representative of Canadian Jewry.”

“We undertook this survey in response to conservative establishment Jewish institutions and anti-Zionist Jewish groups co-creating a polarized, black-and-white public debate that didn’t reflect the diverse, nuanced Jewish community we know and love,” write Maytal Kowalski, JSpaceCanada executive director, Gabriella Goliger, national chair of Canadian Friends of Peace Now, and Ben Murane, executive director of NIF Canada, in the introduction to the report, which was released last month.

“Our research confirms that there is no such thing as ‘the Jewish community’s opinion’ as a monolith, nor can any segment of the community (or any institution) claim to speak for all others. In many cases, we see no majority opinion as well as high levels of uncertainty. Therefore, not only are claims of monolithic support misrepresentations of Canadian Jewish diversity, they also erase the spirited nature of Jewish life in Canada.”

Explaining the report’s title, they note: “One of the noblest ideals in Judaism is ‘arguments for the sake of heaven’ – that disagreement and debate are in fact coveted and celebrated as long as the disagreement is ‘for the sake of heaven,’ meaning an argument that seeks to uncover truth.”

They call upon “Jewish communal leaders to uphold and support the variety of opinions and ideas held by Canadian Jews – and to foster arguments for the sake of heaven,” and warn that “Canadian political leaders must engage all of Canada’s Jewish communities and not stereotype us based on a false monolith.”

Brym lists the poll’s highlights, which include that “Canadian Jews express stronger emotional attachment to Israel than in four previous surveys dating back to 2018. Specifically, 84% of Canada’s Jews say they are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ emotionally attached to Israel [compared to 79% in 2018]. Ninety-four percent support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.”

Brym notes, “Just 3% say Israel lacks that right, while another 3% say they don’t know or don’t answer the question. Belief in Israel’s right to exist does not vary significantly by gender, educational attainment, income or denomination. It does vary significantly by age and political party support. Ninety-eight percent of those over the age of 34 say Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, compared to 81% of those under the age of 35. Ninety-seven percent of Conservative and Liberal party supporters say that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. Some 79% of NDP supporters concur, although the number of NDP supporters in the sample is too small to provide a highly reliable estimate.”

When asked “Do you consider yourself a Zionist?” however, 51% of respondents said yes, 15% claimed ambivalence, 27% said no and 7% said they didn’t know, or didn’t answer the question.

“Given their strong emotional attachment to Israel and their nearly universal belief that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, one might be tempted to speculate that more Canadian Jews do not consider themselves Zionists because they confuse Zionism with certain policies of the Netanyahu government that they find objectionable,” writes Brym. “Future research needs to probe this issue.”

When asked whether continued building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank helped, harmed or didn’t make a difference to the security of Israel, 34% of respondents said it hurts Israel’s security while 27% said it helps, 22% thought it made no difference and 18% didn’t know or didn’t answer.

Half of respondents favoured a two-state solution, while 25% wanted an Israeli state (the annexation of West Bank and Gaza), while 8% believe that “the best resolution to the conflict is a single, secular, binational state that favours equal rights for Jews and Palestinians.”

“When asked whether Canadian politicians should increase pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to engage in a meaningful peace process, 55% of Canadian Jews agree and 23% disagree,” summarizes Brym. “When asked whether politicians should sanction Jewish West Bank settlers who engage in acts of vigilante violence against Palestinian civilians, 35% of Canadian Jews agree and 41% disagree. When asked whether politicians should recognize a Palestinian state in the near future, 21% of Canadian Jews agree and 53% disagree. When asked whether Canadian politicians should impose an embargo on the arms trade with Israel, 69% of Canadian Jews say no and 10% say yes.”

The survey also asked respondents to rank, in view of an upcoming federal election, their priorities among 11 different issues. From most to least important were cost of living, antisemitism, health care, housing, Israel-Palestine conflict, climate change and environment, crime and public safety, immigration, threats posed by China and Russia, discrimination against Indigenous people, and Islamophobia.

The question was asked, “Which political party did you vote for in the last (2021) federal election?” and also “If a Canadian federal election were held tomorrow, which party, if any, would you vote for?”

“Among decided voters, support for the New Democratic Party remained steady at about 9% between 2021 and 2024,” writes Brym. “Support for the Liberal party fell from 39% to 26%. And support for the Conservative party increased from 36% to 55%. These trends are similar to those in the general population, but the decline in Liberal support and increase in Conservative support is more pronounced among Jews.”

The whole report can be found at jspacecanada.ca/arguments_sake_of_heaven. It includes much more data – including more analysis of responses according to age, gender, level of education, household income, denominational identification and political party support – as well as commentary and recommendations from the survey’s three sponsoring organizations.

Thought-provoking speakers

Dr. Gil Murciano of Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, and Uri Weltmann of Standing Together, spoke April 17 at Temple Sholom. (photo by Pat Johnson)

For months, weekly rallies across Israel after Shabbat have demanded the return of the hostages from Gaza. These rallies have often coincided with separate protests, which have been going on much longer, against the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu generally and its proposed judicial reforms specifically. These two streams of protesters have coalesced in recent weeks, according to an Israeli activist leader who spoke in Vancouver last week, because, he said, many Israelis are convinced that Netanyahu is not advancing freedom for the hostages, but hindering it, for his own political advantage.

Uri Weltmann, field organizer of Standing Together, made the claim April 17 during an event at Temple Sholom organized by New Israel Fund Canada.

“What happened three weeks ago is that it stopped being two different protest movements,” said Weltmann. “They are basically changing their strategy. They are calling for early elections and for [Netanyahu’s] government to be removed and replaced with a different government. [Activists are] pointing their finger at him as the obstruction, as the obstacle toward advancing to a ceasefire agreement.”

Weltmann argues that Netanyahu is concerned not only for his political survival, but for his freedom.

“For Netanyahu, the protraction of this war, the continuation of this war, is in his political interest,” said Weltmann. “He knows that a temporary ceasefire might lead to a permanent ceasefire. A permanent ceasefire would mean an end to the war. An end to this war would bring an end to this coalition government because the extremists he huddled with have already said publicly that, if they will end the war before total victory, they will topple the government.”

The end of the current government and the ousting of Netanyahu, he said, would have more than just political ramifications for the prime minister, who opinion polls suggest would be soundly routed if an election were held now.

“New elections mean him losing the majority and him losing the majority is not only Netanyahu the politician being ousted from office. It’s also Netanyahu facing corruption charges, having his trial resume, [and he] might lose his personal liberty. For him, it’s intimately linked to the continuation of the war.”

The consensus among these activists is that Netanyahu is seeking to prolong the war and the captivity of the hostages to protect his political and personal interests, said Weltmann.

“It’s an incredibly important political development within Israel that a broad movement around the families and friends of the hostages have made this link,” he said.

Weltmann’s group, Standing Together (known in Hebrew and Arabic as Omdim Beyachad-Naqif Ma’an), was founded in 2015 and is one of the on-the-ground groups New Israel Fund supports.

Among the goals of the group is to build a grassroots movement for peace and progressive politics in Israel, including in rural and peripheral areas of the country. Making such a movement successful beyond the activist hub in Tel Aviv is the only way to advance Standing Together’s goals, Weltmann said. Even a more centrist or progressive government, if elected tomorrow, would not necessarily advance meaningful steps to peace and coexistence if there is not a broad popular movement in support of such a policy shift, he said.

Without a national movement for peace, he said, a new prime minister, however well-intentioned, would not feel the pressure to abandon the status quo and take steps for a changed future.

“We must, as a strategic starting point in our process of progressive transformation of Israeli society, be present in the Negev, be present in the Galilee, be present in those parts of Israeli society that for too long have been the playing ground of the right-wing with left-wing actors completely non-present,” he said. “We must be there organizing local communities.”

Jewish citizens cannot do it by themselves, said Weltmann, and neither can Arab citizens.

“We must have Jewish-Palestinian unity and cooperation within Israel for this change to be effective,” he said. An example of this strategy was a slogan adopted by a joint Jewish-Arab slate in Haifa during the recent municipal elections. The far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party of Itamar Ben-Gvir ran slates across the country trying to solidify the party’s roots at the civic level. The joint slate in Haifa played off Otzma Yehudit’s xenophobia with the slogan “Jewish Arab Power.”

“We are at a crossroads,” said Weltmann. “Every Israeli should choose which side am I on: the side that leads to a continuation of the status quo, a continuation of the state of affairs in which the Palestinians live in the occupied territories under military rule devoid of citizenship, devoid of rights, a situation that can lead to Oct. 7 one after another unless we put an end to it, or the reality of an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will guarantee both people safety, security and an imaginable, livable future?”

Weltmann spoke alongside Dr. Gil Murciano, an Iran expert and chief executive officer of the think-tank Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, which one journalist has called “the diplomatic wing of the protest movement.”

Like Weltmann, Murciano longs for a “new majority” in Israel’s body politic. “A new majority that will allow us to advance toward a state where we live in peace, we live in dignity, we live in equality, without the occupation, without the injustices, throughout our society,” he said.

A fundamental shift in perspective is needed, argued Murciano.

“We used to speak about ‘wars of no choice’ in Israel,” he said. “We need to start thinking in terms of ‘peace of no choice.’”

On the one side, he said, the extreme right has a plan of annexation, with Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s minister of finance and head of the far-right National Religious Party, calling for the government to “encourage” migration from Gaza to Egypt. On the other side, he said, since Oct. 7, people on the left have been motivated to seek an alternative to the status quo.

Dr. Maayan Kreitzman, a local food systems researcher and activist who moderated the event, challenged Murciano on this point. Rather than progressive voices calling for more coexistence, she said, she has heard the opposite. People that are “quite dovish” have had second thoughts about their worldview and transformed into a more hawkish, securitized attitude, she suggested.

Murciano acknowledged that all Israelis share one overriding priority. “For Israelis, it’s pretty clear,” he said. “The first, second and third priority of Israelis right now is security.”

That is a prerequisite to any advancement, he said.

Murciano proposes something he acknowledges to be “a little bit symbolic,” an international peace conference to kick off a new process between moderate Israelis and moderate Palestinians. This could be a first step to breaking an impasse that has existed in recent years, he said.

“Some people have described the last decade as the lost decade of Israeli diplomacy,” he said, a period where “conflict management” has been the priority; effectively, a maintenance of the status quo.

“I think that’s the right description, actually. It’s a strategy of not having a strategy,” said Murciano. “Coming to terms with the fact that there is no political way out and basically every couple of years we’re going to have a bit of violence.”

This approach sees Israelis forfeiting the initiative to Hezbollah and Hamas, he said, “Basically setting yourself in a situation where you only respond to a reality that is forced upon you.”

Oct. 7, he said, destroyed this conceptual framing.

Part of any future needs to include a multilateral project to “rebuild life-sustaining systems” in Gaza, he said, not a “peace-keeping force” but a “multinational force” that will be an on-the-ground part of a larger process toward peace and coexistence.

Ben Murane, executive director of New Israel Fund Canada, spoke of the emotional impacts of recent months.

“If you’re like me, what has been excruciating the past six months has been not just holding my pain, our Jewish pain, the pain of my Israeli coworkers, my family, my friends there, the pain of the Israeli people, but also, in my heart, holding the pain of the Palestinian people too,” he said.

Since the earliest days of the current war, Murane said, there have been countless glimmers of hope in the form of cross-cultural dialogue.

“In the first few months, we were astounded to see, across Israel, dozens of gatherings, conferences, events with hundreds of Jews and Palestinians standing together holding up those now-iconic purple signs saying ‘Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,’ ‘Jews and Arabs stand together’ or just simply ‘B’Yachad,’ together,” said Murane. “We were astounded to see Jewish citizens of Israel respond to the needs of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinian citizens of Israel making calls to families of the hostages, joint Jewish-Arab humanitarian aid missions to the south and to the north. As the war in Gaza accelerated, those Israeli voices also said, ‘We do have choices, even now. We have lots of choices with how we execute a just war justly.’”

Any long-term solution to the decades-long conflict must bring safety and dignity to both peoples, said Murane, “and anything else, anything short of fairness to both sides, will perpetuate this for another generation.”

New Israel Fund partners with and supports, according to its website, “organizations in Israel that fight for socioeconomic equality, religious freedom, civil and human rights, shared society and anti-racism, Palestinian citizens, and democracy itself.”

The April 17 event was hosted by Temple Sholom and co-sponsored by JSpaceCanada, which calls itself the advocacy voice of Liberal Zionism, Ameinu Canada, described as the voice of labour Zionism in Canada, and Canadian Friends of Peace Now, as well as the speakers’ organizations.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, said he had received emails expressing concerns about hosting a perceived left-wing event.

“I get the same emails when we host people to the right of centre,” he said.

One of the purposes of a synagogue, he said, is to engage with ideas that “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

“You may find your truth by agreeing with what you here tonight,” he said. “You may find your truth by disagreeing with what you hear tonight. The important part is to engage with it.”

Vancouver activist David Berson promoted the opportunity to listen to the Israeli guests as a chance to gain a perspective apart from the most common refrain he hears on social media and WhatsApp threads.

“There’s another way you can look at what’s going on,” he told the Independent after the event. “Come out and hear a different perspective. I invited people to come tonight and listen to a different narrative.”

The 200 to 300 people at the event was about double what organizers had earlier expected, he said.

Celebrating defiance – Shira Herzog Symposium

The 13th annual Shira Herzog Symposium, hosted by New Israel Fund of Canada, took place on Oct. 15. Originally intended to be a discussion about the challenges facing Israeli democracy, the topic was changed to Celebrating Defiance, in light of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

NIFC president Linda Hershkovitz said the new focus was an opportunity “to comfort each other, to grieve and to hear how our community in Israel is responding to this moment.”

She said, “Today, we still gather to celebrate defiance – defiance against terror and extremism, against giving up hope, and against allowing violence to drive Jews and Arabs further apart.”

Opening remarks underscored that among the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas was ivian Silver, a 74-year-old Canadian-Israeli activist for peace and women’s rights, known to many of those in the audience.

The main speakers at the symposium were Orly Erez-Likhovski, director of the Israel Religious Action Centre (IRAC); Eran Nissan, a peace activist and executive director of Mehazkim, a progressive digital group in Israel; and Amal Oraby, a Palestinian lawyer, human rights activist and member of the board of directors of Amnesty International Israel. Journalist Andrew Cohen was the moderator.

“I stand before you with a lot of fear, a fear that our lives will never be the same and a fear for the safety of my family, my friends in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In Israel, there is no room for voices who seek to see the reality with open eyes and acknowledge the occupation, and to refuse making the same mistake and expecting different results,” said Oraby, who serves as NIF’s Arabic media coordinator and has written extensively for the Israeli media.

Nissan, who was a combat soldier in the special forces canine unit, said every time there is a flare-up of violence, it represents a setback for both Israeli and Palestinian societies which will, in turn, drive more anger, animosity and distrust.

“In the days since Oct. 7, we identified narratives that we needed to push through our social media platforms,” Nissan said when asked what his organization did immediately following the attacks. “We understood that the first days after such an event are a crucial time when the heroes and the villains are being chosen.”

The Israeli government, he said, was framing the narrative as a struggle between Jews and Arabs. His counter-narrative is to highlight stories of shared experiences and heroism, such as Bedouin truck drivers who risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Hamas attacks and paramedics in the Negev fighting to save lives while under fire.

“This not a popular time to talk about a shared society or about empathy,” said Nissan. “Civil society organizations have been under attack. The amount of hatred and incitement we see is horrific. What we are trying to do is boost our capacity to tackle the challenges that we have right now.”

“We are very concerned about the rise in racism and violence,” said Erez-Likhovski, whose organization aims to defend equality, social justice and religious pluralism in Israel and serves as the public advocacy arm of the Reform movement.

“It’s important to talk about the current feeling in Israel,” she added. “People feel they have been abandoned by the government and by the state. The feeling is that the state system is not functioning. It’s a direct result of this government bringing in incompetent people to any post possible. And it’s taken its toll over the past year.”

Since the attacks, IRAC has worked to help the people who were evacuated, assisting with food and clothing, and helping with pastoral care, among other services.

Oraby was not optimistic about the latest change in the Israeli cabinet: bringing in opposition leader Benny Gantz. He views it as a “war government,” not an “emergency government,” and pointed to a strong civil society as the way to deescalate the situation. “Where Israeli and Palestinian leadership have failed, the civil society is succeeding,” he said.

Nissan agreed that the current cabinet is only setting military objectives, adding that it is not considering what will happen following the conflict.

Erez-Likhovski also commented that the new coalition was not presenting any long-term vision of how to solve the conflict.

At the end of the discussion, Nissan acknowledged the gravity of what occurred on Oct. 7 in terms of Israeli history and its effects on the national psyche. His hope, he said, is that a new story for Israel can be written out of the pain, and the crisis the country is confronting.

The event was co-presented with ARZA Canada, Canadian Friends of Peace Now and JSpaceCanada. It was held at the Toronto Reference Library and on Zoom.

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

Dialogue on democracy

Next week, Temple Sholom and UnXeptable Vancouver, with Israeli protest group Safeguarding our Shared Home and US-based registered charity America-Israel Democracy Coalition, will host a discussion about how the Jewish community in Vancouver can support the pro-democracy protest efforts in Israel.

The event, scheduled to take place at Temple Sholom on Sept. 26, beginning at 7 p.m., will feature a discussion with Michal Muszkat-Barkan, PhD, of Safeguarding Our Shared Home, and Ora Peled Nakash of the America-Israel Democracy Coalition. Attendees will hear their perspectives and engage in a dialogue about the efforts by the Israeli democracy movement to build a strong civil society upholding Israel’s Declaration of Independence and its commitments to Jewish history, Jewish values, democracy, equality and justice.

Israel’s pro-democracy movement brings together nearly 200 different organizations. These organizations span various facets of Israeli society, including religious and secular groups, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights advocates, military veterans, medical professionals, anti-occupation activists, and many community-specific groups.

“The pro-democracy movement isn’t about politics, it is about the soul of the country,” said Jonathan Barsade, president of the America-Israel Democracy Coalition. “In modern history, the soul of Israel has been a critical element for the well-being of the Jewish community worldwide. That is why it is so important for the Israeli movement to engage and include the international Jewish community in this momentous event.”

In partnership with JSpaceCanada, Arza Canada, Ameinu Canada and the New Israel Fund of Canada, the gathering at Temple Sholom mirrors in many ways the inclusivity of Israel’s pro-democracy movement, by bringing together the leading organizations of progressive Jewry in Canada to engage in dialogue at a critical time in the history of the Israel-Canada relationship. It will be the first opportunity in Canada for Canadian Jews to meet with Israeli protest leaders live and in-person.

“We are honoured to host this event at Temple Sholom, which provides a platform for open dialogue and the exchange of ideas,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom. “By bringing together these influential Israeli protest leaders and showcasing the multifaceted nature of Israel’s pro-democracy movement, we aim to promote understanding and empathy while answering their call for solidarity from diaspora Jews.”

Daphna Kedem, lead organizer of UnXeptable Vancouver, added, “as an Israeli expat and proud member of the Vancouver Jewish community, I know how much pain both these communities feel about the current political climate in Israel. It is my hope that, through listening to those on the ground most affected by the potential regime change in Israel, we can work together – diaspora and Israeli Jews – to keep Israel Jewish and democratic, as stated in its Declaration of Independence.”

The Sept. 26 event is open to the public, and all interested individuals are encouraged to attend. Admission is free, and light refreshments will be provided following the discussion. All those wishing to attend should RSVP at bit.ly/SaveIsraeliDemocracy.

– Courtesy Maytal Kowalski, Press Pause Collective

Sharing views on Israel

More than 100 people were at the Museum of Vancouver on Sept. 9 for a New Israel Fund of Canada-hosted panel discussion, The Backstory: Behind What You Know About Israel. Moderated by Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, the evening featured Ronit Heyd, executive director of Shatil, an Israeli nonprofit supported by NIF, and Canadian journalist and editor Jonathan Kay of The Walrus.

The night before their Vancouver talk, Kay and Heyd spoke to a large crowd in Toronto, where they were joined by Haaretz editor-in-chief and journalist Aluf Benn. In Vancouver, the two were introduced by NIFC board president Joan Garson and executive director Orit Sarfaty. They covered a range of issues, including the rise of women in the Knesset, how North Americans talk about Israel, the problem of racism in Israeli society, the lasting impacts of 2011’s social justice protests and the influence of feminism and the Women of the Wall.

photo - Ronit Heyd — Ronit Heyd *(photo from New Israel Fund of Canada)*

Starting with a bit of good news, Moskovitz asked Heyd to talk about the fact that, at 31 members, the current Israeli Knesset has more women MKs than any prior government. “It’s not just in the Knesset,” said Heyd, “more women than ever ran in the last municipal elections.” Women are also trying to participate more equally in local religious councils, a task not for the faint-hearted, she said, due to the “very strong political power in the Knesset [and the Israeli establishment] that is still being held by the ultra-Orthodox parties. The ultra-Orthodox do not have – I want to add, yet – do not have women in the parties.”

The impact of the rise of women in politics extends beyond the makeup of parliament, Heyd said. “It is important to note that when a woman enters a very masculine environment, it changes” in several ways, including shifting the agenda. It is changed by raising, for example, the notion of transparency, “of the need to have a more just distribution of resources, of having a more open governance … and we see that especially with the religious councils.”

Though the pace of change is slow, she said, “This is not happening just out of the blue; they needed training. One of the things that Shatil does is work with a group of women who want to be elected to the religious councils – they want to have their voice heard. They need support, they need to know how to build alliances, how to read a budget.”

Kay added that, while there are certain parallels, the situation in Canada is very different, and bringing women into Israeli politics is a “much more urgent project.” Unlike in Israel, he said, “in Canada, there is no significant mainstream constituency that believes that women cannot occupy the public sphere. It’s a fringe, not mainstream, view. In Israel, you have these people who ideologically don’t believe that women should have a role in public life.”

However, though women in Israel are participating at unprecedented levels in government, their voices are still not equally heard in the male-dominated policy landscape. Of the main issues in the Knesset, Heyd said, “The first one is security. The second one is security. The third one is also security. And women are not brought into that conversation.” The impact of women will be more fully realized, she said, once they have influence in policies around pay equality, security and the economy.

Moskovitz asked each panelist to comment on the polarization of the conversation about Israel and how the divisiveness impacts the Canadian and Israeli Jewish communities.

photo - Jonathan Kay — Jonathan Kay *(photo from New Israel Fund of Canada)*

Part of what creates the tense atmosphere is that “Zionism itself in its most potent form has become a form of religion,” Kay said. “What do religions provide? They provide a theory of evil, they provide a theory of good, they provide a tribal identity, they provide a liturgy … many of the fundamental elements of a religion are provided by the most militant aspects of Zionism as they are projected in the Diaspora.

“By the way,” he continued, “I consider myself a Zionist. I’ve written columns in support of Israel, I’ve raised the flag in time of war. However, I know when I see people’s opinions on geopolitics become so strong that they take on the character of religious beliefs. And you see this with the Iran nuclear deal. It is not only, ‘I don’t like Clause 7, but I do like Clause 8.’ The dialogue is, ‘It’s 1938, are you with Churchill or are you with Chamberlain?’ … the imagery of Hitler, the imagery of black, white, good, evil. And, again, I know there’s this well-intentioned idea among many liberal Jews, ‘Well, if only we had the right press release, or the right argument and we could frame things in the right way.’… To a certain extent, that’s not happening because the people on the other side of the debate have chosen another faith.”

The speakers agreed that the polarization of the debate in the Diaspora impacts Israeli society; it matters. “There is a direct line that goes from the conversation that is being held here in North America and what’s happening in Israel,” said Heyd.

Can Jews in North America find a way to talk about Israel, asked Moskovitz?

“Email is the destruction of dialogue,” Kay said. “Stop sending each other articles! Take 30 seconds and actually put your own thoughts in your own words. You don’t have to send it to 50 people…. Don’t call me an imperialist if you think I’m right wing. Don’t call me a useful idiot if you think I’m left wing…. Don’t fall back on those tropes…. In the ’90s, you actually had to find someone to argue with! Now, you can actually do it from your desk, and I think that has raised the temperature because it has created tribalism. It’s one thing to lose an argument with one person, it’s another thing to lose an argument with 50 people on a reply-all email chain. It sounds silly, but the medium is the message.”

Another issue that has made news is the problem of racism. While there are few parallels between the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and the protests of Ethiopian Israelis earlier this year, both countries still need to find a way to better integrate and respect racial diversity. The issue is especially acute when it comes to integrating Arab-Israelis into Israeli society.

Kay said he believes that Canada has done an excellent job of assimilating various groups, with some exceptions, but it helps that many immigrants come to Canada from urban centres, and are well educated. “Regardless of their skin color, they’re capitalists…. That’s the main thing,” he said.

On the question of what changes Israel has undergone since the 2011 summer economic protests, Heyd said there is still no economic relief for average Israelis, who are increasingly burdened by the cost of living, but Israelis have received more coverage for childcare, and the centralization of the market is back on the political agenda.

Overall, whether it’s the ways in which Israel is meeting its challenges or struggling to balance security with social justice, what is apparent, Heyd said, is that there is “a mini flourishing of civil society … people in the periphery are becoming involved, not just Tel Aviv, the big cities,” and that is cause of cautious optimism.

NIFC hosts Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Centre, on Nov. 17 at Temple Sholom.

Basya Laye is a former editor of the Jewish Independent.

Narrowing the housing gap

Gil Gan-Mor of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel will be one of the speakers at Gimme Shelter on Nov. 20. (photo from Gil Gan-Mor)

A condominium used to be a potentially affordable alternative to a home for buyers in Vancouver, but condo prices are now so high that the vast majority of Vancouverites cannot afford them.

The most recent Strategics’ Vancouver Condo Report, released last week, noted that, in Vancouver, “The average low-rise project … asking price is $632,000, which eliminates many of the young couples and single buyers in this market.” Other reports using other factors have come to similar conclusions. And housing affordability is not just a problem facing this city.

On Nov. 20, New Israel Fund of Canada is hosting the event Gimme Shelter: Closing the Middle Class Housing Gap in Israel and Canada, co-sponsored by Temple Sholom, Generation Squeeze and Tikva Housing Society. It will feature speakers Gil Gan-Mor of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Dr. Penelope Gurstein of the University of British Columbia and Dr. Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze.

Gan-Mor, an attorney, will talk about the situation in Israel and provide an update on the government’s actions there since the social protests that took place in 2011. He spoke with the Independent in anticipation of his visit.

According to Gan-Mor, ACRI is the only human rights organization in Israel “that engages with the full spectrum of human rights and civil liberties.” A nonprofit, it is funded through donations and grants, but receives no financial support from the government. Its goals, Gan-Mor said, “are to protect and promote human rights in Israel through a combination of litigation, policy advocacy and public outreach. Specifically, in the Right to Housing Project, our goals are to ensure equal access to housing, fight housing discrimination, protect the right to affordable housing, promote inclusionary policies in housing and reduce segregation, combat homelessness and protect the rights of homeless people.”

Gan-Mor began working with ACRI during his second year of an NIF fellowship for graduates of its Civil Liberties Law program. He was “given the opportunity to develop a new project in ACRI,” he said, “the Right to Housing Project, which fit in with ACRI’s efforts to increase its involvement in social and economic rights.” He “didn’t expect at that time that, four years later, the right to affordable housing would be at the centre of the social protests that drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets.”

About the current situation, he explained, “In Israel, housing affordability is a big issue, because of two processes. First, in the last two decades, the governments in Israel dramatically withdrew from their past involvement in the housing market, leaving the role of providing housing to private market forces…. The second process is the dramatic increase in housing prices, which were already expensive…. These two processes led to a growing inequality in Israel,” as “more and more families must spend an increasing share of their income to ensure decent housing at the expense of other basic needs,” as well as “a growing polarization of residential neighborhoods, which are becoming increasingly separated on a socioeconomic level.”

Gan-Mor added, “We in ACRI view those aspects with great concern and are acting to force the government to become more active in realizing the right to housing, a right which cannot be ensured only through private market forces.”

The Gimme Shelter event will give attendees an opportunity “to question how Israel expresses the values of human rights in its domestic policy, and how they as international supporters of Israel can participate in this dialogue on building a more just society inside Israel,” said Gan-Mor. And it will offer a similar opportunity for Vancouverites to participate in the dialogue about how to build a more just society here, too, at least as far as housing is concerned.

Gimme Shelter will take place at Temple Sholom on Nov. 20, 7 p.m. For more information about the speakers and to register for the event, visit nifcan.org/our-events/upcoming.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Liberal Zionism still critical

Israel Defence Forces soldiers debrief during the Israel-Hamas conflict. New Israel Fund of Canada’s president Joan Garson discussed the painful war of this past summer and the ongoing responsibility of liberal Zionists in Canada to push for Israel to be a model of democracy, pluralism and tolerance. (photo from IDF via Ashernet)

The Jewish state won’t survive without a Zionism that’s liberal and a liberalism that’s Zionist. Such was the recurrent assertion of Haaretz reporter and columnist Ari Shavit at the New Israel Fund of Canada’s (NIFC’s) annual symposium, held on Sept. 14.

Entitled The Future of Israel Starts Here and held at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, the free event drew almost 1,000 people and marked the fourth annual symposium for NIFC, an organization founded 29 years ago that describes itself as being committed to fostering the development of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state “as envisioned in her Declaration of Independence.”

The symposium was moderated by Joseph Rosen, who recently wrote an article called “The Israel taboo” in an issue of the Canadian magazine The Walrus.

The event featured Rosen interviewing Shavit via Skype, as well facilitating a lively discussion between Shavit and Akiva Eldar, chief political columnist at the online magazine Al-Monitor, who attended in person. NIFC president Joan Garson also spoke.

photo - Ari Shavit — Ari Shavit *(photo by Sharon Bareket)*

Shavit spoke passionately about how the Zionist community needs to “talk seriously and honestly about our own mistakes” and to acknowledge where the government of Israel has committed wrongs both on a moral and political level, such as with ongoing settlement building in the West Bank. He argued this must be frozen to give the Palestinians space economically and geographically and “to move toward a two-state solution.”

It’s imperative that Zionists stop treating Israel as being above criticism, he stressed. Zionists must look its sins in the face, address the arguments made on the other side of the conflict and “limit injustice to Palestinians as much as possible.”

Further, Shavit spoke about restoring Israel to its former “state of wonder,” its promise to serve as a refuge for Jews – “a home for our homeless” – and to be as just as possible.

“What happened in 1948 [when thousands of Arabs ran from or were driven from their homes and villages during the country’s founding] was in the context of the brutal history of the 1940s,” he said. “But after that, after we secured our existence at a terrible human cost for us and for them [the Palestinians], to go into the other 22 percent of the land and to try to co-opt it [through occupation and settlement building] is a huge mistake.”

But Shavit also argued that it’s unacceptable to exclusively demonize Israel for its injustices, as its critics often do, or to use the history of its founding to delegitimize it.

“Some of the world’s best democracies were founded on the terrible treatment of indigenous people. Israel can’t be singled out,” he said. “But let us remember our democratic past and try to build a future for the Palestinians.”

Garson discussed the painful war of this past summer and the ongoing responsibility of liberal Zionists in Canada to push for Israel to be a model of democracy, pluralism and tolerance.

“As liberals, we are activists,” she said. “We think it’s our job not just to sit on the sidelines, but to engage … to make Israel the country of its founders dreams…. When we see [Israeli] policies in need of change, we speak and we act.”

She added: “We must be honest with ourselves, our children and our congregations … to bring intelligence and clear thinking to Israel as we do to other issues … and to commit to telling the truth about the country to ensure there will be another generation of lovers of Israel.”

Rosen subsequently posed questions to Eldar and Shavit about whether liberal Zionism is “dead” and about the position of Israeli left-wing “peaceniks.”

Eldar, who described himself as a “radical peacenik,” argued that liberal Zionism is crucial to the future of Israel, but that it can’t coexist with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

It’s not enough to decry the settlements, he said, “we have to do something about it and call on every government in the world to do something.”

Eldar explained that he, therefore, does not buy products made in the settlements.

“If, God forbid, one of your friends was about to commit suicide, you would do everything to stop it,” he said “This [settlement expansion] is a suicidal project.”

Shavit later spoke about how many Israelis feel that Israeli “peaceniks” don’t care about them, that they’re more concerned with the well-being of the Palestinians than that of their own countrymen.

“We Israelis who advocate for peace need to love all our people, to go out and canvas and tell them why their future is connected to peace,” he said.

Eldar said the central problem is that fear seems to have become more effective than hope in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We on the left are trying to sell hope,” he said. “I’m upset that people are trying to sell fear. Why not look at the glass half full? Look, for example, at how Egypt has worked with us [in the latest ceasefire negotiation between Israel and Hamas] instead of injecting more fear and saying we don’t have partners for peace in the region?”

He said that Israel needs to withdraw from the settlements, but not unilaterally. “We need to do it by making peace.”

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