November 24, 2014: New film explains connections between Judaism, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel

By Michael Regenstreif

One of the ugliest aspects of the movement to delegitimize the State of Israel is the denial of the deep historical and religious connections of Judaism and the Jewish people to the Holy Land – a denial that also seems to be at the root of the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the nation-state of the Jewish people. The late Palestinian Authority (PA) president Yasser Arafat, for example, rejected the historical existence of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, a deceit that seems to remain as PA policy.

American filmmaker Gloria Greenfield has responded brilliantly to this effort at delegitimization with Body and Soul: The State of the Jewish Nation, a documentary in which 36 talking heads – including academic, religious and legal experts – explain the ongoing centrality of the Land of Israel, and of Jerusalem, to Judaism and the Jewish people, the constant presence of Jewish people there from ancient biblical times to the present, and the legal case for the modern state.

Earlier this month, I attended the Canadian premiere of Body and Soul, presented by the Free Thinking Film Society at the Library and Archives Canada auditorium – an evening that also included a question-and-answer period with Greenfield and Rabbi Reuven Bulka.

Although there is little in Body and Soul that will surprise anyone who has studied Jewish history seriously, the commentaries are fascinating. Among those interviewed in the film are such religious experts as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, and Rabbi Jeffrey Woolf, an authority on the relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam; renowned academics, including historian Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University and Robert S. Wistrich of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, probably the world’s leading expert on antisemitism; and legal experts, including MP Irwin Cotler, a former minister of justice of Canada, renowned Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, and Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador to Canada.

The evidence these and the other experts in the film cite – including religious texts, archeology and historical records – is compelling, and Greenfield has woven all of the various strands and commentaries together beautifully in the 65-minute presentation. This is a film I strongly encourage all in the community to see at the earliest opportunity. It seems to me this is a film that should be shown at schools, synagogues and community centres. It is also available on DVD. Visit www.bodyandsoulthemovie.com for more information about the film and to view the trailer.

Mazel Tov, Harvey Glatt!

As some know, I have long been active in the Canadian folk music scene. So, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I extend a hearty mazel tov to community member Harvey Glatt, who will receive the Unsung Hero Award at the 2014 Canadian Folk Music Awards ceremony on Saturday night, November 29. The annual event moves from city to city and region to region around the country and takes place this year at the Bronson Centre in Ottawa.

The Unsung Hero Award is presented in recognition of “the exceptional contribution of an individual, group or organization to any aspect of the Canadian folk music scene.”

That Ottawa, today, boasts one of the most active folk music scenes in Canada is, in many ways, due to Harvey’s pioneering efforts as a concert producer, artist manager, record store owner and radio station owner. For many decades, he, along with his wife Louise, has been one of Ottawa’s most important and influential patrons of the arts. Their patronage, I would add, is equally significant in the folk, classical and jazz worlds, and in the theatre scene, too.

There are three major awards of this type on the Canadian folk scene, and, with the Unsung Hero Award, Harvey will have received all three. Just last month, he received Folk Music Ontario’s Estelle Klein Award, which is presented annually for “significant contributions to Ontario’s folk music community,” and he was the 2010 recipient of the Ottawa Folk Festival’s Helen Verger Award, which is presented annually to “an individual who has made significant, sustained contributions to folk/roots music in Canada.”

November 10, 2014: A day that strengthened our understanding of what it means to be Canadian

By Michael Regenstreif

It was a sad, scary and strange day here in Ottawa.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014 was so very sad, of course, because Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a Canadian Forces reservist standing ceremonial guard at our National War Memorial, was murdered, shot cowardly in the back by a terrorist, leaving behind a five-year-old son he was, by all accounts, devoted to.

It was a scary day. As quickly as the news broke of the attack at the War Memorial, we heard that Parliament itself – the very seat of our Canadian democracy – was under attack. The Hill and much of downtown Ottawa was locked down as reports of gunfire in Centre Block quickly spread through the city.

It was, we learned, the same gunman who shot Cirillo at the War Memorial that launched the attack on Parliament. And it all happened so fast, apparently less than two minutes from the time of the Cirillo murder until he entered Centre Block. Samearn Son, a brave security guard on duty at the door, saw the gun and tried to wrestle it away. Son was shot in the foot (he was treated at the Ottawa Hospital and released), but his actions alerted security staff to the danger.

House of Commons Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, a veteran former RCMP officer, quickly went to his office, retrieved his firearm and, with other security officers and RCMP officers, engaged the attacker in a gunfight killing him.

All this took place while the parties were holding their weekly Wednesday morning caucus meetings. The Conservative Party – including the prime minister and cabinet ministers – and New Democratic Party meetings, in fact, were taking place behind closed doors in the very corridor, the Hall of Honour, where the shoot-out took place.

Although the terrorist was killed just moments after his spree began at the War Memorial before 10 am, Ottawa remained a scary place for many more hours through the rest of the morning, the afternoon and well into the evening.

Although it turned out he was a lone wolf, there were initial reports of two, possibly three terrorists on the loose in downtown Ottawa or in the wooded areas behind the Parliament buildings.

There was an early report of shots fired near the Château Laurier Hotel, literally just steps from both the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill, which turned out not to be true. Then there were reports of shots fired in the nearby Rideau Centre shopping mall. Later, those reports changed to shots fired somewhere outside the Rideau Centre. These reports also turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, cell phone networks all over Ottawa were overloaded and jammed for hours. MPs, Hill staffers and people working in offices blocks away remained under lockdown as rumours swirled through the city. And, when the Ottawa Police and RCMP held a news conference at 2:15 pm, they did not seem to yet know how many suspects were involved. The situation, they said, was “ongoing.”

Not just sad and scary, it was an altogether strange day in Ottawa. The normal rhythms of our city were thrown off as we tried to understand and cope with the brutal murder of the soldier at the War Memorial, the attack on Parliament, and of just not knowing what was going on.

The prime minister, we were told, had been taken to an undisclosed safe location. It would be 10 hours before we heard from him.

And it was on Twitter at 12:40 pm from Employment and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney that we learned the soldier shot at the War Memorial had died. Why were we hearing this in a tweet from the employment minister and not from an announcement by the defence minister or the minister of public safety?

It was also a day that brought us together. We came together in grief over the heartbreaking loss of Nathan Cirillo, in admiration for the valiant efforts of those on the scene who tried to save him, and in awe of the bravery of Kevin Vickers and the police and security officials who protected Parliament and the city.

It was a sad, scary and strange day. A day we will not soon forget. But it was a day that strengthened our understanding of what it means to be Canadian.