December 15, 2008: OPIRG reinforces perception leftist anti-Zionism is antisemitic

By Michael Regenstreif

Reporter Liana Shlien has a story on page 13 of this issue of the Bulletin about a visit to Ottawa on November 20 by Israel Siriri, the chair of the small Abayudaya Jewish community in Uganda, and a talk that he gave about his community at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre. The primary sponsor of Siriri’s visit here was Hillel Ottawa – the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.

In advance of Siriri’s visit, Hillel approached the Ontario Public Interest Research Group at the University of Ottawa (OPIRG-Ottawa), a group funded by a $3.38 annual levy on every uOttawa student, and asked for assistance in promoting the event with the African Jewish leader.

OPIRG-Ottawa states that its “mission is to bring together and build upon a broad-based community dedicated to social, economic and environmental justice. OPIRG is concerned with the contribution that students, the university and the community can make towards social change.”

Given OPIRG-Ottawa’s mandate, it is quite logical to assume they would be anxious to lend their support to a presentation by the leader of a small community in Africa about the history of his community, and about the kinds of projects it undertakes to sustain the community, its infrastructure, its schools and its outreach to other communities in the region.

Hillel didn’t hear back from OPIRG-Ottawa in advance of Siriri’s visit. Later, though, Hillel received an e-mail from the OPIRG-Ottawa board of directors explaining they had decided not to offer their endorsement of the event or to promote it.

The OPIRG-Ottawa email went on to say they rejected the event because of Hillel’s “relationship to apartheid Israel” adding that “Zionist Ideology [sic] does not fit within OPIRG’s mandate of human right’s [sic], social justice.”

Leaving aside the nonsense about “Israeli apartheid” – for that, see the article by Dan Schloss, Hillel Ottawa’s Israel advocacy coordinator on page 26 – OPIRG-Ottawa’s flapping about Zionist ideology wouldn’t have been a surprise had Hillel been asking for their support for an appearance by Benjamin Netanyahu. But other than the fact that Siriri’s first name is ‘Israel,’ his talk had absolutely nothing to do with Israel or Zionism. One of Hillel’s co-sponsors of the event was the Kurdish Youth Association of Canada, hardly a Zionist organization.

By promoting a Jewish-oriented event perfectly in tune with its proclaimed mandate, the evening with Siriri would have provided OPIRG-Ottawa with the perfect opportunity to show that the perception that leftist campus anti-Zionism is not tinged with the antisemitism many people perceive. Instead of seizing the opportunity, OPIRG-Ottawa reinforced that perception.

November 24, 2008: Please allow me to introduce myself

By Michael Regenstreif

I’ve been in Ottawa, working at the Bulletin, for almost 16 months now. As a newcomer to the community, I kind of just plunged into working from the deadlines of one issue to the next, first as assistant editor, working with Barry Fishman, and then as editor when Barry had to go on disability in February.

Along the way, of course, I’ve had a chance to meet and talk with many people in the community. I meet new people – new, at least, to me – almost every day when they drop by the office, when I attend community events or go out to cover a story for the Bulletin or in the hallways of the Joseph and Rose Ages Family Building as people arrive for and leave the many programs and events taking place at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC).

Of course, though, there are so many more people I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, so I thought I’d take a few paragraphs to tell you about myself.

I was born in Calgary and spent parts of my childhood in Calgary and Vancouver before my family moved back to my parents’ hometown of Montreal when I was in high school in 1968. I lived in Montreal for almost 40 years before coming to Ottawa. I went to Jewish day schools in Calgary and Vancouver and then public high schools.

I went through the CEGEP system in Montreal, took some time off from school to work at journalism and arts administration, and then went back and got my BA in political science and my MA in public policy from Concordia University.

My father, who is now retired, was a Jewish community professional, so I’ve been around Jewish communal organizations all my life. I’ve even worked for some myself.

I spent four summers working at Camp B’nai Brith of Montreal and did two stints working with Hillel in Montreal in the 1970s and ‘80s directing their Golem Coffee House project.

As an editor and author, I’ve worked with a number of organizations, including Canadian Hadassah-WIZO, the Jewish General Hospital and the YM-YWHA in Montreal on magazine and book projects.

I first got into journalism as a music critic for the Montreal Gazette in 1975 and have been at it – sometimes full-time, sometimes as a sideline – ever since.

As a ‘Jewish journalist,’ I did general reporting and feature writing for the Canadian Jewish News in Montreal for nearly two decades.

I’ve done some other things along the way, but that’s basically the path that led me to the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. It’s a newspaper with an incredibly rich history having served and documented Ottawa’s Jewish community for more than 70 years.

And I’m happy to be here.

As Ottawa’s Jewish community newspaper, the Bulletin fulfils a number of roles. We report the news of our own community and use the resources of JTA to report important and interesting stories from the wider Jewish world. We’re an outlet for all manner of Jewish agencies and organizations active in Ottawa to get their news out to the rest of the community.

If your organization has news, please make sure we know about it. If you’re presenting an interesting speaker, we may well want to cover the event as a news story.

And in our various columns we try to provide you with food for thought about issues of concern, amuse you with humour, give you some great recipes to try, and turn you on to books you may want to read (or avoid) or music or films you might enjoy (or want to skip).

Your letters to the editor are welcome if you’ve got something to say about what you read in the Bulletin or on an issue of concern to the community. We’re also open to guest columns.

I mentioned in the first paragraph that Barry Fishman went on disability in February. The most frequently asked question I get is, “How’s Barry?”

Barry continues to face up to the extremely difficult medical circumstances of ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease – with an awe-inspiring combination of determination, courage and dignity.

As editor emeritus of the Bulletin, Barry continues to be an invaluable source of guidance and advice as we strive to maintain, and build on, the standards he set during his tenure as editor. Most of what I’ve learned, and continue to learn, about how the Bulletin works, and about how it should work, and much of what I’ve learned about Ottawa’s Jewish community, comes from my ongoing conversations with Barry.

November 10, 2008: Canadian, U.S. and Israeli elections make this a fascinating time

By Michael Regenstreif

This season has – and will continue to be – a fascinating time for those of us who are highly interested in politics.

As I write, we’re about two weeks past the Canadian federal election and, in a few days, Americans will head into their voting booths. And the Israeli election date has now been set for February 10.

By the time you read this column, the results of the U.S. election will be known. If the polling data available three days before the election holds up – and I’ll be highly surprised if it doesn’t – Senator Barack Obama of Illinois will be the president-elect.

Obama’s election will be a watershed moment in American history – a moment whose great hope and promise Obama will have to work hard to fulfil in the coming years.

The question has been raised often during the very long presidential campaign about what an Obama presidency will mean for Israel. No less an authority than Joe the Plumber, a man Republican candidate Senator John McCain called his “hero,” was quick to agree with the poppycockish statement that “a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel.”

Obama has been a great friend to Israel and I’ve no doubt he will continue to be. His promised engagement in the Middle East peace process, from the very beginning of his mandate – as opposed to George W. Bush, who engaged only at the tail end of his already-failed presidency – is the best hope for peace since Yitzhak Rabin’s tragic assassination.

Ambassador Dennis Ross, a highly respected veteran of Middle East peace negotiations in the administrations of the first George Bush and Bill Clinton, is Obama’s top adviser on Middle East issues. He will be in Ottawa on November 24 to deliver the keynote address at the Negev Dinner. It should be fascinating to hear what he has to say at this important time.

Of course, much will depend on who wins the Israeli election (and whether there will be a Palestinian leadership able to act authoritatively on behalf of its people). Will Israelis choose Kadima’s Livni or Likud’s Netanyahu? They have very different agendas.

And, given Israel’s proportional representation system, to whom will the next Israeli prime minister be beholden when it comes to putting together a governing coalition?

Speaking of proportional representation, it’s been pointed out that, if Canada had such a system, rather than our first-past-the-post system, Parliament would look very different than it does today. The October 14 election results would have given us fewer Conservative and Bloc members and more from the Liberals and NDP. The Green Party, with nearly seven per cent of the popular vote, would have elected about 21 MPs.

Taking the logic to its limit, a party with one-third of one per cent of the vote could be entitled to an MP. Imagine all the single-interest groups who could garner one-third of one per cent of the vote. While Israeli electoral law demands that a party garner two per cent of the vote to be represented in the 120-seat Knesset, the percentage in Canada, with 308 parliamentary seats, would have to be much lower.

Having watched Israeli politics for many years, and having seen how the major Israeli parties have had to dicker for the support of narrowly focused or single-issue parties, I’d think long and hard before introducing such a system here.