November 12, 2012: We were lucky to escape Sandy’s wrath

By Michael Regenstreif

Here in Ottawa, it rained a little and it was somewhat windier than usual, but we were lucky enough to escape the devastation that wreaked havoc on much of the American northeast just a few hundred miles from here. Particularly hard hit were many areas with large Jewish communities in the New York and New Jersey areas.

As we prepare to go to press four days after the storm, the death toll has reached 100, many have been left homeless, there are still many millions without power, gasoline is scarce, and there are many buildings, including some synagogues and Jewish community centres, which are too damaged to be used.

On November 1, three days after Sandy blew through Manhattan, a friend of mine who lives there managed to post a message on Facebook about how she and her family were making out.

“We have no power, no water, no cell phone service here in lower Manhattan, no subways. But we’re fine and, of course, we’re incredibly lucky compared to so many people. We’re so grateful to be safe and together and our building is fine. It’s horrifying how awful things are for so many people,” she wrote.

As has so often been the case at the time of natural disasters, Jewish communities have mobilized quickly to do whatever is possible to help. The Jewish Federation of Ottawa has set up the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund and is working with Jewish Federations of North America to help bring immediate aid where it is needed most and to support recovery and rebuilding efforts.

Antisemitism on campus

Last issue in this space I discussed a Carleton University report on inter-cultural, inter-religious and inter-racial relations on campus. The report noted Jewish students and staff were more likely than most other groups to be made uncomfortable or face discrimination on campus, largely because of tensions surrounding anti-Israel events and campaigns.

A few days after I wrote that column, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, publishers of the Jewish Virtual Library, released a study – Israel and the Campus: The Real Story – that looked at 4,000 university campuses in North America and found all of the anti-Israel incidents took place at just 108 universities in the U.S. and 25 in Canada (Carleton among them) and the vast majority of those incidents took place during events like the so-called Israel Apartheid Week.

There were no anti-Israel events at 97 per cent of North American campuses according to the study.