March 24, 2008: There can be no excuse for revenge terrorism

By Michael Regenstreif

The massacre, earlier this month, of eight students at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem was a heinous act. The students – all but one were just teenagers – were slaughtered as they studied Torah. The lone terrorist, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, was killed on the scene by an off-duty Israeli soldier.

News reports from Israel after the massacre said the family of the murderer, Ala Abu Dhaim, claimed he was not a member of any terrorist organization. Hamas, the supposedly religious terrorist organization that controls Gaza, denied involvement in the attack, all the while celebrating the killings, just as they celebrate any attack on Jewish Israelis. There were parties in the streets of Gaza with celebratory gunfire and the passing out of sweet treats to children.

What a lesson to teach their children. Go out and kill some Jews and we’ll dance in the streets and eat some chocolate.

In the absence of late-breaking evidence that may have come out in the days between the deadline for writing this column and when you’ll have the opportunity to read it, it doesn’t appear that Hamas was directly involved in the attack.

While sickeningly overjoyed at the result of the act, Hamas probably wasn’t directly involved as they’ve never been particularly shy about claiming credit for the terrorist acts they have perpetrated over the years.

In fact, there have been no credible reports of any real terrorist group’s involvement in the terrible crime. Maybe he was just a delusional, hate-filled individual with a stockpile of guns.

When delusional, hate-filled individuals have access to guns, innocent people die. We’ve seen it time and again. Think of Baruch Goldstein, a delusional, Orthodox Jew who hated Arabs and murdered 29 of them and wounded 150 more as they prayed at a mosque in Hebron in 1994.

Closer to home, there was Mark Lepine, yet another hate-filled, delusional individual with a gun. Lepine hated women and killed 14 female engineering students in 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. How many other such senseless school shootings have we witnessed in recent years in Canada, in the United States? All committed by hate-filled, delusional individuals with access to guns.

Given the realities of the Middle East, we’re quick to assume that every attack against Israeli Jews is the work of an organized terrorist group. An assumption that comes easily because we know there have been so many terrorist attacks perpetrated by such groups.

But maybe this one was just the work of a delusional individual who lost it like Baruch Goldstein lost it, like Mark Lepine lost it, like so many others have lost it.

I fear that as long as hate-filled, delusional individuals have access to guns, we will see senseless massacres of innocent people.

I’m sure Dhaim’s attack was well-planned. There are reports that he had stockpiled weapons and had been to the yeshiva as part of his work as a delivery driver in Jerusalem. Whether he acted alone, or was following the orders of puppet masters, he was a terrorist.

Dhaim is dead. In the absence of any evidence that he was part of an organized terrorist group, there is no one to bring to justice for his terrible crime.

However, Israel’s Channel One television has reported on March 11 that three alumni of Mercaz Harav secretly met with an unnamed rabbi from the yeshiva who encouraged them to seek revenge. The report said two others rabbis endorsed the call to revenge as religiously sound.

A day later, leaflets signed by several rabbis were posted in Jerusalem that called on Jews to extract revenge for the murders at Mercaz Harav by matching them “measure for measure.” An Agence France-Presse report said one of the rabbis signing the leaflet was Uzi Sharvaf, “a rabbi who received a presidential pardon in 1985 after being convicted for a 1983 attack on a West Bank university that left three students dead.”

Vigilante Jewish terrorists, under the direction or blessing of rabbis, killing innocent Arabs in revenge for the killing of innocent Jews: the thought sickens.

Israel has a democratically-elected government, intelligence services, army, police force and justice system to deal with terrorism and terrorists. Given the magnitude of the constant threats, they do a remarkable job. Just as there is no excuse for terrorist attacks against Jews, there can be no excuse for terrorist attacks by Jews.

March 10, 2008: Poll shows attitudes toward Jews are distinct in Quebec

By Michael Regenstreif

I’ve just seen some recent national polling results on attitudes toward Jews that are encouraging for most of Canada but distinctly dismaying when it comes to Quebec, the province I spent most of my life in.

The poll was commissioned by the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies and was conducted by the Quebec firm Léger Marketing in late-January and early-February. Léger surveyed 1,500 people across the country, including 500 in Quebec. The margin of error was plus/minus 3.5 per cent 19 times out of 20.

Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “Jews want to impose their customs and traditions on others.”

In Quebec, 41 per cent of those surveyed agreed with statement while an equal number disagreed. As many Quebecers as not, in 2008, seem to think that Jews want to impose their customs and traditions on the rest of the population.

That rather depressing poll result in Quebec does not apply to the rest of the country where only 11 per cent of respondents – a comparatively insignificant number, probably less than those who think that Elvis is still alive – agreed with the statement. The overwhelming majority outside of Quebec, 74 per cent, do not think Jews want to impose our customs and traditions on everyone else.

While there may have been a negative premise built into that first statement, there certainly wasn’t in the next statement, “Jews want to participate fully in society.”

Only 31 per cent of Quebecers surveyed agreed that Jews aspire to full participation in society. Significantly more Quebecers, 41 per cent, think that Jews do not want to be full participants in the wider society.

Again, the dismaying results in Quebec do not apply to the rest of Canada where another overwhelming majority, 74 per cent, think that Jews do want to participate fully and only 10 per cent of those surveyed think they don’t.

“Jews have made an important contribution to society,” was a third statement that respondents were asked to agree or disagree with.

In Quebec, only 41 per cent agreed with the statement, while 74 per cent agreed in the rest of Canada.

When it comes to attitudes toward Jews, Quebec is, indeed, a distinct society.

Although the survey focussed specifically on attitudes toward Jews, I’d be willing to bet that substituting most other minorities would have netted similar results.

The poll was conducted in the wake of the so-called reasonable accommodation hearings that dominated the news in Quebec for much of last year. Commissioners Gérard Bouchard, an historian and brother of former Parti Québécois premier Lucien Bouchard, and Charles Taylor, a philosopher long associated with McGill University, travelled the province listening to people in regions where there are few, if any, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs, rant about Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.

The hearings exposed the fact that a significant portion of the Quebec population remains overtly hostile to minorities; a portion of the population that too many Quebec politicians seem all too willing to pander to.

Despite the fact that the survey results are much more encouraging for the rest of Canada than they were for Quebec, we mustn’t feel complacent about the results. While problems of prejudice may be less exaggerated in the English-speaking provinces, they do exist and do need to be constantly addressed.

*****

I would like to take this opportunity to offer my great appreciation and deep admiration to Barry Fishman, who is now the editor emeritus of the Bulletin.

When I joined the Bulletin last summer as assistant editor, I came in with many years of experience working in the mainstream, alternative and Jewish media, primarily in Montreal. But although I’d visited Ottawa many times, and liked the city very much, I’d never lived here.

From Barry, I’ve learned much about Ottawa, about the Jewish community here, and about the workings of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin and the important role it plays in the community.

All the while, I’ve watched Barry face his illness with uncommon courage and dignity. I look forward to his friendship and to his continued guidance in the affairs of the Bulletin.

I would also like to say that the thoughts of all of us at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin are with Bulletin contributor Nicola Hamer and her family as she faces her battle back to good health.