April 25, 2011: Commemorations and celebrations – A busy time of the Jewish year

By Michael Regenstreif

This is one of those particularly busy times of the Jewish year.

I’m writing this column just before we celebrate Passover. By the time you read it, the seder nights will have passed. Although the issue is dated April 25 in keeping with our official Monday publication dates, we have timed the production of this issue so that we go to press before Passover and so that the newspaper will arrive – if Canada Post cooperates – in Ottawa subscribers’ homes on April 21, the first of the intermediate days.

Less than a week after the end of Passover, we’ll gather, Sunday, May 1, 7:00 pm, at the Joseph and Rose Ages Family Building, for Ottawa’s Yom HaShoah Commemoration featuring keynote speaker Ada Wynston, a child survivor of the Holocaust whose many years of dedication to Christian-Jewish dialogue, and for recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations, led Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands to honour her with knighthood.

On Sunday, May 8, 7:30 pm, Yom Hazikaron, the memorial day for Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, will be marked at the Joseph and Rose Ages Family Building.

The solemnity of Yom HaShoah and Yom Hazikaron give way to the celebrations of Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day.

Although Yom Ha’Atzmaut actually falls on May 9 this year, Ottawa’s major Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration will be at Lansdowne Park’s Aberdeen Pavilion on Tuesday, May 10, beginning at 5:00 pm and continuing through the evening with activities for all ages.

Goldstone and Dylan

Speaking of Israel, a major conclusion of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, known as the Goldstone Report, that Israel committed war crimes by targeting civilians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, has now been disavowed by none other than Richard Goldstone, the retired South African judge who chaired the UN fact-finding mission.

“If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document,” Goldstone wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on April 1.

Goldstone now says the evidence shows that Israel did not target civilians during the conflict.

The Goldstone Report has been a major factor in the delegitimization campaign against Israel since its release in September 2009. Goldstone, who is Jewish, became a hero to the anti-Zionist hard left. No more. Anti-Zionist activists have turned on Goldstone as quickly as they embraced him.

Another current target of anti-Zionists is legendary folk-rock singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Dylan has announced that he’ll return to Israel on June 20 to perform a concert at Ramat Gan Stadium in Tel Aviv. This despite the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign applying heavy pressure on artists not to appear in Israel.

Actually, Dylan has been a target of anti-Zionists at least since releasing “Neighborhood Bully,” his 1983 allegorical song about Israel and the Jewish people that left no doubt as to where he stood.