By Michael Regenstreif
Shana Tova!
Although Erev Rosh Hashanah falls 11 days after the September 7 publication date for this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, this is our community-wide Rosh Hashanah edition of the newspaper.
As the final issue for the Jewish year 5769, we have articles that look back at some of the major news stories in our community, and in Israel. We also have our usual array of news stories, articles from community organizations and agencies about their activities, many centring around the upcoming High Holidays, features on interesting people in the community and lively columns covering a gamut of beats from Canadian politics to world affairs, values and ethical issues, book and music reviews, food and humour.
Two new monthly columns we’ve introduced recently are Did You Know?, in which Benita Baker covers notable achievements, milestones and comings and goings of people in the community, and World Affairs, Oliver Javanpour’s informed critiques of issues on the world stage.
I mentioned this is a “community-wide” issue of the Bulletin. We do two – sometimes three – community-wide issues each year, which are distributed to many more people than the rest of our 19 issues per year. If you’re not one of our regular subscribers, I hope you’ll become one. The Ottawa Jewish Bulletin is the best way to keep up with what’s going on in Ottawa’s vibrant Jewish community.
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Like any newspaper, we strive to stay as current as possible with our content. However, we’re not a daily and need to work with deadlines that are many days ahead of publication; so, occasionally, developing stories change between deadline day and publication. For example, the Israel year in review article that appears on pages 1 and 2 notes that “as the Jewish year drew to a close, there was still no sign of reaching the freeze-for-normalization deal the Americans were seeking as a prelude to serious peacemaking.”
That article, which has, or will, run in many Jewish newspapers around the world, was prepared by JTA, the Jewish news wire service, in early-August. Since then, there have been indications from the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem and the Obama administration in the United States that such a deal may be in the offing. There have even been a couple of signs from the Palestinian Authority that they understand and accept that their road to peace and statehood lies in negotiation and responsible governance.
So, it’s possible that, by the time you read this, or perhaps sometime soon after, some sort of preliminary agreement leading to serious peacemaking will be announced. It would, should it come to pass, be most welcome news.
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Another JTA article, on page 14, analyzes the controversy that erupted after a Swedish newspaper published a pair of totally unsubstantiated and seemingly ridiculous articles claiming Israel returns the bodies of dead Palestinians to their families after harvesting them for body parts.
With absolutely no substantiation, the Swedish newspaper editor should have consigned the articles to the waste basket under his or her desk. But, as explained in the JTA analysis, the reactions of certain Israeli and Swedish politicians have turned what could have been an easy refutation – if, indeed, such absurdity even merits refuting – into an issue of free speech and freedom of the press.
That reminds me of several incidents that unfolded here over the past year. In February, the administrations at both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa banned an offensive Israel Apartheid Week poster that directly suggested Israel targeted Palestinian children during the war in Gaza.
Had the posters not been banned, they would have been seen by few people beyond the campuses. Instead, the banning of the posters became the story and virtually everyone who reads mainstream newspapers or watches television news saw them. And it gave anti-Israel activists yet another platform as they press a free speech complaint forward at the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
Similarly, when the Canadian government denied fringe British MP (and Iranian regime propagandist) George Galloway entry into Canada for four speaking engagements that would have played to, maybe, a couple of thousand people in total, they gave Galloway a platform to spout his views on every newscast and interview program in the country. Instead of a few thousand of his fellow travellers, Galloway was seen and heard by millions.
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Again, Shana Tova from all of us at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin. May this New Year be one of peace, health and prosperity for all.
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