April 6, 2020: Ottawa Jewish Bulletin to temporarily suspend print edition

By Michael Regenstreif

Paraphrasing the beginning of the Four Questions in the Haggadah, we all might be asking, “Ma nishtanah ha-Pesach ha-zeh, mi-kol ha-Pesachim – Why is this Passover different from all other Passovers?”

The answer, as everyone knows, is the COVID-19 pandemic which has gripped the entire planet sending virtually all of us into social-distancing mode and, for many of us, some degree of self-isolation, for weeks now.

The Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, of course, has been affected. With our office at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC) closed since March 13, this Passover edition of the paper was produced under difficult circumstances with everyone working from our homes – sharing files electronically as we received submissions, wrote and edited the paper, collected the ads, did the layout and proofreading, made corrections, had online meetings, etc., all without any direct in-person contact. Much of that would have been impossible not that many years ago before we had highspeed internet connections with sufficient bandwidth to handle the load.

You will, no doubt, also notice that this Passover edition of the Bulletin is much smaller than in years past. The size of the paper always reflects the number of ads that are generated and this spring so many of the events that would normally be advertised are just not taking place, and most of the retail businesses that might have advertised are temporarily closed. As well, many of the organizations that would have normally used the opportunity of the Passover edition to submit articles about their spring activities did not submit such articles, or asked us to withdraw them, because their plans have been put on hold or cancelled.

All of this leads me to announce that we are regretfully suspending the scheduled print editions of the Bulletin until we are back in our office at the SJCC and the community begins to return to normal activity. All subscriptions will be extended for however many issues we are unable to publish.

However, while the print edition is suspended, we will continue to post articles and columns on the Bulletin website and will continue to report on important community initiatives. Many of our columnists will continue to submit their columns on a regular – perhaps even more than regular – basis.

We also welcome your letters, guest columns and articles to share with the community. We particularly welcome articles that will tell the community about how organizations, groups, families and individuals, friends and neighbours, are rising to the occasion of these circumstances. Already, in this edition of the Bulletin, we’ve published some of those stories about how we and our agencies – although practicing safe social-distancing – have been coming together as a community to help each other, and, especially the vulnerable among us, during the COVID-19 pandemic; and of how classes and discussions, and even some prayer services, are taking place online. I’ve no doubt there will be more stories to tell in the weeks ahead.

It’s ironic, I suppose, that this year as we observe Passover, a holiday that celebrates freedom, we are adhering to needed measures that restrict our freedom to gather and celebrate as we are used to doing, and as we would like to be doing. Congregations cannot hold their usual communal seders. Friends and extended families cannot gather together for seders as they normally would. For the first time since we moved to Ottawa, my wife Sylvie and I are unable to return to gather around my mother’s table in Montreal on the seder nights. Most of us will spend the seder nights with just those in our immediate households. This will be difficult for all of us – but especially difficult for the many among us who live alone.

While we might talk with physically distant family and friends on the phone, and using apps like Zoom, Skype, Messenger or FaceTime, or keep in touch over Facebook, the holiday this year, just won’t be the same.

But while me must keep our physical distance from each other right now, we also know that great challenges can also bring us closer together in our communal solidarity – and we’ve already seen so much evidence of that.

Israel

Meanwhile, some commentators in Israel are pointing to needed stability during the COVID-19 crisis for Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz finally – after three inconclusive elections in less than a year – seeming to agree to form a unity government in Israel.

As I write, on March 27, the negotiations are still ongoing but reports are that Netanyahu will remain Israeli prime minister for the next 18 months and then hand the office over to Gantz. (Of course, anyone following Israeli politics knows that no deal is done until it’s really done – and even then, you can’t always be sure it will hold from one day to the next.)

It appears, though, that Gantz is paying a price for his pact with Netanyahu as the Blue and White factions led by his now-former allies Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon will sit in the opposition benches in the Knesset.

Bear in mind, nothing is simple in Israeli politics and a big what-if are the three corruption indictments facing Netanyahu. The prime minister had done all that he could to avoid going to trial on the charges and was scheduled to be in court last month to finally face them. However, his trial had to be postponed due to COVID-19.

February 10, 2020: Israel’s election and Trump’s peace plan

By Michael Regenstreif

It’s been three months since I last wrote about the political situation in Israel. In my November 11 column, I noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader, had failed to form a governing coalition in the weeks after the September 17 election – Israel’s second inconclusive election of 2019. The mandate to attempt to form a government had passed to Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz.

“It is unlikely that Gantz will be any more successful than Netanyahu in putting together a coalition that commands at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats,” I predicted, noting two possibilities: a unity government alternating the premiership or a third Israeli election in less than a year.

Attempts to form a unity government failed. Blue and White insisted that it would not form a unity government with Likud under Netanyahu as long as Netanyahu faced the possibility of criminal charges in several corruption cases. They would have been open to an agreement with Likud if the prime minister stepped aside, at least until he was cleared of criminal wrongdoing. Netanyahu, for his part, refused to accommodate the demand.

So Israelis will go to the polls on March 2 for the third time in less than a year – and the country remains under a Netanyahu caretaker government with a limited mandate to act in many areas.

Polls taken in late January once again suggest a stalemate similar to the previous two elections (assuming that Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman once again refuses to support anything but a unity government).

The situation with Netanyahu’s indictments came to a head last month. The prime minister had been trying to engineer a vote in the Knesset that would have given him immunity from prosecution while still in office. On January 28, with it obvious that a majority of the Knesset would not support him, Netanyahu withdrew the immunity request and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit immediately filed charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery against Netanyahu.

The charges were filed as Netanyahu was in Washington for U.S. President Donald Trump’s unveiling of what he’d promoted for three years as the “Deal of the Century” for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Although embraced enthusiastically by Netanyahu, the Palestinians, who did not participate in its drafting, have rejected the plan.

Here in Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne released a statement that Canada “will carefully examine the details of the U.S. initiative for the Middle East peace process,” but reiterated, “Canada has long maintained that peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties. We urge the parties to create the conditions for such negotiations to take place.”

However, it is very interesting to note that ambassadors from three small Arab countries – Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Oman – attended the White House event unveiling that plan. I would agree with analysts who suggest their attendance signals that the Palestinian issue has become less important to them than threats from Iran. Opposition to Iranian hegemony in the Middle East has opened the door to improved relations between Israel and parts of the Arab world.

The timing of the plan’s release was telling. It came on a day when Trump was on trial in the U.S. Senate for impeachment from office for abuse of power, and Netanyahu, due to face voters five weeks later, was charged with criminal offences that, if he is convicted, could lead to a prison term. It’s hard not to see the timing as an attempt to change the conversations in both the United States and Israel – and, to some extent, it did, at least briefly.

I don’t expect anything to change very soon based on the Trump plan. First, there needs to be an Israeli government with a real mandate to govern. And while it’s a foregone conclusion that Trump won’t be removed from office after his Senate trial, he may or may not be in office a year from now following the U.S. election in November.

November 11, 2019: Notes from the election(s) front

By Michael Regenstreif

I wrote my last Ottawa Jewish Bulletin column three days before the October 21 federal election and noted opinion polls showed the Liberal and Conservative parties virtually tied with both parties in the range of taking 132 seats – far short of the 170 seats needed to form a majority government.

While the popular vote nationally gave the Conservatives a slight edge, the way the vote broke across the country gave the Liberals a much stronger minority government than expected with 157 seats. The Conservatives took only 121.

Here in Ottawa, the Liberals won seven of eight seats – with only MP Pierre Poilievre holding Carleton for the Conservatives.

While Jews make up about one per cent of the population nationally, the Canadian Jewish News reported there are 14 ridings – mostly in the greater Toronto and Montreal areas, but also one in Winnipeg – where Jews constitute between five and 37 per cent of the population. The Liberals won 13 of those ridings – with only MP Peter Kent holding Thornhill for the Conservatives.

Among the most interesting of the election races in those 14 ridings were in the Toronto riding of York Centre, where Jewish MP Michael Levitt was running for re-election, and the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, where Jewish MP Anthony Housefather was running for re-election.

In those ridings the Conservatives targeted many Jewish voters with a direct-mail pamphlet featuring a photo of leader Andrew Scheer and a headline reading “Jewish community in Canada?” in block letters. The pamphlet painted the Conservatives as very strong and the Liberals as very weak on issues such as Israel and antisemitism.

The pamphlet didn’t seem to have the effect the Conservatives hoped for. Both Levitt – the chair of the Canada-Israel Parliamentary Group – and Housefather were re-elected with significant increases in the proportions of their votes from the 2015 election.

The direct-mail pamphlet was also sent to some Jewish voters in several other ridings across the country. I live in Ottawa West–Nepean and received one. Several other people I know in Ottawa told me they also received the pamphlet. Anecdotally, everyone I talked to who received the pamphlet was unhappy about being directly targeted as a Jew.

In Quebec, the Bloc Québécois’ singular defence of the province’s Bill 21 – which bans certain public servants, including teachers, police officers, prosecutors and judges from wearing such religious symbols as the Muslim hijab, the Sikh turban and Jewish kippah – led to the separatist party’s resurgence under a banner of Quebec nationalism.

However, as popular as Bill 21 is said to be in Quebec, the Liberals – the only party whose leader said his or her government might join a court case against a law for which a provincial government invoked the notwithstanding clause to suspend provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – won more seats and a higher proportion of the popular vote than the Bloc.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party leader, has failed to form a governing coalition in Israel following the September 17 election there (the second inconclusive Israeli election in 2019) and the mandate to try and form a government has been passed to Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz.

It is unlikely that Gantz will be any more successful than Netanyahu in putting together a coalition that commands at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. It is probable, as I’ve suggested before, Likud and Blue and White will form a unity government alternating the premiership or there will be a third Israeli election.

And, in the United Kingdom, voters will go to the polls on December 12 with the leadership of both major parties in the hands of highly polarizing figures.

The Conservative Party is led by Boris Johnson, whose major issue is achieving Brexit, the so-called exit of the U.K. from the European Union (while Brexit was approved by 51.9 per cent of voters in a 2016 referendum, current polling suggests support has fallen to about 44 per cent).

And the Labour Party is led by Jeremy Corbyn, a once fringe figure whose anti-Zionism has frequently flirted with antisemitism and who has allowed antisemitism to fester in the British Labour Party.