January 23, 2012: Jewish LGBT community marks several milestones

By Michael Regenstreif

There is a letter in this issue’s Mailbag (page 8) from Rabbi Mordechai Bulua of Montreal objecting to Rabbi Steven Greenberg’s being referred to as an Orthodox rabbi, despite, as he notes, Rabbi Greenberg’s Orthodox ordination.

Rabbi Greenberg, who was featured in several Bulletin articles and columns recently because he spent several days in Ottawa as scholar-in-residence at Agudath Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue, made headlines throughout the Jewish world – including the JTA story we carried and to which Rabbi Bulua was responding – in November when he officiated at what was described in the article as a “same-sex wedding,” but which Rabbi Greenberg called a “same-sex commitment ceremony” in an article he wrote for the Jewish Daily Forward in New York (A Place for Gays in Orthodoxy, January 13).

Whether it was a “wedding” or a “commitment ceremony” may be a matter of semantics, but the JTA report, echoed in other news stories, said, “It is believed to be the first time that an ordained Orthodox rabbi has officiated at a same-sex marriage in North America.”

It should probably be noted, in case there was any doubt, that the same-sex ceremony in question did not take place in an Orthodox synagogue. The Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C. describes itself as “non-denominational, non-membership, non-traditional.”

In response to the news that Rabbi Greenberg had performed the ceremony, a group of 100 Orthodox rabbis released an unequivocal statement rejecting the possibility of an Orthodox-sanctioned gay marriage.

“By definition, a union that is not sanctioned by Torah law is not an Orthodox wedding, and by definition a person who conducts such a ceremony is not an Orthodox rabbi,” the rabbis wrote.

Their opinion is reflected in Rabbi Bulula’s letter to the Bulletin.

The rabbis also emphatically state, “The public should not be misled into thinking that Orthodox Jewish views on this issue can change, are changing, or might someday change. The Rabbinical Council of America recently declared that ‘the Torah, which forbids homosexual activity, sanctions only the union of a man and a woman in matrimony.’ This is the only statement on this matter that can reflect Orthodox Judaism. Any claims or statements to the contrary are inaccurate and false.”

In his Forward article, written in response to the rabbis’ statement, Rabbi Greenberg argues for “a generous sense of the possible” in the interpretation and application of Halacha on the matters under discussion. And, acknowledging that he doesn’t “expect any other Orthodox rabbi to conduct a commitment ceremony,” he also argues for the acceptance of gays in Orthodox life.

While Rabbi Greenberg would seem to be a quixotic figure on the periphery of the Orthodox world, the Jewish LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community is becoming increasingly mainstreamed and continues to mark milestones in other denominations and in the big tent of the Jewish world-at-large.

This month, Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Winnipeg became the first Conservative shul in Canada to host a same-sex marriage – with the synagogue’s associate rabbi officiating.

And Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, the large Reform congregation in Montreal, has announced that, beginning July 1, its new senior rabbi will be Ottawa-born Rabbi Lisa J. Grushcow, who will move to Montreal from New York with her partner, Rabbi Andrea Myers, and their two daughters.

Meanwhile, the Gaycities.com website – sponsored by American Airlines – recently announced the results of its annual Best Gay City poll for 2011. The over-whelming winner was Tel Aviv with 43 per cent of the vote. New York City placed second with 14 per cent and Toronto was third at 7 per cent.

December 12, 2011: We’re in an ‘epoch of transition’ for Jewish communities

 By Michael Regenstreif

The Jewish Federation of Ottawa held one of the most interesting of its semi-annual members’ meetings in recent memory, November 29, thanks to a dynamic presentation by Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky, executive director of the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute.

I’ll summarize some of Rabbi Olitzky’s most important points.

• Jewish communities in North America – including ours in Ottawa – are in an “epoch of transition. I’m not sure how long this epoch will last,” he said, “but, when it’s over, Jewish communities will look nothing like they did when it began. All factors of the community will change and some institutions will go out of business.”

The key to both survival and a thriving future for Jewish institutions in this period of great change is that they must be driven by their missions. The organizations that will fall to the wayside are those whose missions are no longer seen – by their constituents and their communities – as relevant in these times, or that do not redefine or re-imagine themselves for the present and future in ways that make them relevant and vital.

Leadership groups, such as Jewish federations can lead the way in helping organizations and institutions adapt and thrive in the future, but they will have to “blow up the models of the past” in which power and decision-making was increasingly centralized. “Decentralization is the new direction.”

• With increasing decentralization, it is already not unusual to see seemingly opposing trends that are not in contradiction with each other. For example, increasing intermarriage rates at the same time there is resurgence in Orthodox observance.

Small groups are already increasingly creating independent opportunities within Jewish communities. This is certainly something that has been identified as happening within Ottawa’s community of young adults.

And many of those things are happening among people regarded as unaffiliated, people who are not necessarily members of a synagogue or Jewish community centre (JCC) or donors to federation campaigns.

The key, Rabbi Olitzky said, is to stop talking about affiliation and focus on engagement. “Engagement leads to affiliation, not the other way around.”

• He said that established institutions like synagogues and JCCs will have to “turn themselves inside out” and become community-based rather than continuing to rely on membership dues for core financing.

“Every Jew in the community should be given a JCC membership,” he said.

• The majority of Jewish marriages in North America are intermarriages, Rabbi Olitzky said. He differentiated between what he termed “inter-faithless” marriages, in which the religion of neither partner is practised and intermarriages in which a commitment is made to raise the children Jewishly.

Intermarried families, he said, “are Jewish families,” and the intermarried need Jewish institutional support.

• “Don’t forget the boomers,” Rabbi Olitzky said. With all the important work being done to engage the emerging generation of young adults, we need to remember that baby boomers – those of us, born between 1946 and 1964 – will continue to be the largest segment of the Jewish community for another two decades, and we must continue to have meaningful roles and opportunities within the community at the same time that opportunities are being extended to young people.

• Acknowledging that “the dream of Israel is alive” and important among Diaspora Jewry, Rabbi Olitzky said it’s important that organized Jewish communities allow honest debate about Israel.

“We have to begin to talk about Israel comfortably. I believe in Big Tent Judaism, and there has to be room in the tent for all of those people I disagree with, or who disagree with me.”

If Rabbi Olitzky’s analyses are correct, and I suspect most, if not all of them, are, these will continue to be challenging, but potentially exciting and rewarding years for Jewish communities.

November 28, 2011: Two compelling documentaries you should see

By Michael Regenstreif

Although Ottawa’s Free Thinking Film Society – spearheaded by Fred Litwin – is best known for showing films from conservative perspectives, there were a number of films at the second annual Free Thinking Film Festival, held earlier this month at Library and Archives Canada and the Bronson Centre, which were equally from centrist or liberal viewpoints.

Two of those films were particularly impressive and I highly recommend them.

The Making of a Martyr, released in 2005, is a powerful examination of how vulnerable children are recruited and brainwashed by terrorist organizations to martyr themselves as suicide bombers.

In particular, the film focuses on the story of Hussam Abdu, a 14-year-old would-be Palestinian suicide bomber who ended up with a long sentence in an Israeli prison rather than enjoying the 72 virgins his Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade handlers had promised him when Israeli soldiers intercepted him at a West Bank checkpoint with 18 pounds of explosives strapped to his small body.

The film opens with news footage from the incident. Brooke Goldstein, the documentary’s director – then a Toronto law student on track to a career in entertainment law – interviewed the boy twice in prison for the film. She and her small crew also travelled far into Palestinian territory and interviewed, among others, members of his family and leaders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade. There is a deep examination of the conditions that give rise to such forms of terrorism.

Goldstein – now a New York-based human rights lawyer particularly concerned with the exploitation of children for terrorism – spoke after the screening. She made a compelling case that such children are themselves among the victims of the terrorist masters who recruit them.

Goldstein was one of the most powerful speakers I’ve heard recently. I hope she returns to Ottawa and is heard by a wider audience.

The other film I want to draw to your attention is Unmasked: Judeophobia and the Threat to Civilization, a new documentary by director Gloria Greenfield. It examines antisemitism in both historical and contemporary contexts via talking-heads commentaries by a most impressive collection of activists, academics and political leaders.

The doc was shot at various locations around the world, including Ottawa during the 2010 Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism conference, and demonstrates how legitimate criticism of specific Israeli government policies is differentiated from thinly disguised antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.

This is a film that should be seen by wider audiences.

After the screening, Greenfield spoke briefly about why she made Unmasked and introduced one of the experts featured in the film, MP Irwin Cotler – a former justice minister, McGill University law professor and one of the world’s leading human rights lawyers – who delivered a brief talk about the consequences of contemporary antisemitism.

Addendum: Israeli scientists

Last issue I wrote about a reception I attended that Israeli Ambassador Miriam Ziv hosted in honour of two scientists, Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who were in Canada to receive the Canada Gairdner International Award, this country’s most important award for medical research.

I neglected to mention that another of Israel’s most distinguished medical researchers, Michael Sela, of the Weizmann Institute’s department of immunology, was also honoured at the reception. Sela, still vitally active at Weizmann at the age of 87, received the Canada Gairdner International Award in 1980. He also has a long list of other international awards received over a 50-year period, further testament to Israel’s remarkable record of achievement in areas that benefit all of humankind.

Welcome Jason Moscovitz

I’m very pleased to welcome Jason Moscovitz to the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin as our new page 7 columnist. His first column for us is in the space below. Although he’s been out of the media spotlight for the past decade, Jason is well remembered as one of Canada’s best broadcast journalists, particularly for his years on Parliament Hill as the CBC’s always insightful chief political correspondent.

People have been asking me over the past couple of weeks who our new page 7 columnist will be and have reacted with enthusiasm and excitement when I’ve told them who it is. I know I’m not alone in looking forward to reading Jason’s reflections on whatever topics strike his fancy.

November 14, 2011: Remarkable Israeli scientists receive the Canada Gairdner International Award

By Michael Regenstreif

On the last Sunday evening in October, I joined about 50 people, mostly drawn from the scientific and academic communities – including the University of Ottawa, Carleton University and Canadian Friends organizations of some of Israel’s top academic centres – in attending a reception at Kinneret, the official residence in Ottawa of Israel’s ambassador to Canada.

Ambassador Miriam Ziv hosted the reception in honour of two renowned scientists – Howard Cedar, MD, PhD, and Aharon Razin, PhD, of the Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – who were visiting Canada as recipients of the 2011 Canada Gairdner International Award. They received the award at a gala dinner, October 27, hosted by the Gairdner Foundation at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

The Gairdner International Award recognizes and rewards “the achievements of medical researchers whose work contributes significantly to improving the quality of human life.” The Gairdner is Canada’s foremost award for medical research and is often a precursor to the Nobel Prize. Since 1959, 298 scientists from 13 countries have received the Gairdner and 76 of them have later added the Nobel to their distinguished resumés.

Collaborators Cedar and Razin received the Gairdner for their “pioneering discoveries on DNA methylation and its role in gene expression.”

For more than three decades, Cedar and Razin have worked together on DNA methylation at Hebrew University. Their discoveries have had important implications in explaining “how genes are regulated and have led to better understanding of human development and the molecular basis of many diseases,” particularly various forms of cancer.

Their work will almost surely advance the treatment possibilities for cancer and other diseases in the years to come.

Israel is probably in the news more than any other country, relative to its size, in the world; mostly because of the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. What too often gets overlooked is that Israel, also relative to its size, may well be one of the world’s most accomplished countries in such areas as arts and culture, and is most certainly one of the world’s most accomplished countries in scientific, medical and technological research and development.

Israel has a remarkable record of such achievement that affects all of us, from day-to-day ways, like how we use our computers and cell phones, to more profound life-saving and life-altering ways made possible by the work of such scientists as Cedar and Razin.

Library and Archives Canada

I’ve attended many events in the lovely auditorium at Library and Archives Canada, including some excellent concerts, film screenings, lectures and panel discussions.

It’s a great space, and a popular one, booked solidly about 350 days per year, mostly for events sponsored by a wide variety of non-profit community groups and organizations.

The news broke this month that it would soon become much harder for such groups to use the auditorium. Each event would have to receive ministerial approval from Public Works and Government Services Minister Rona Ambrose and, even if ministerial approval was forthcoming, groups would have to pay much higher fees to use the space.

At first, the new policy was to take effect at the beginning of 2012. That has now been put off for a year to 2013.

The government should reverse this action. The space should remain accessible – it is an important facility – and its day-to-day use should not be subject to the complicated process of ministerial approval or even the possibility of political whims.

Farewell to Alan Echenberg

As our long-time page 7 columnist Alan Echenberg notes in his swan song below, he is making a career change, which will preclude him from writing for newspapers.

Speaking as a fellow “Canadian politics geek” (I primarily focused on Canadian politics while doing my MA in public policy), I have always enjoyed reading Alan’s takes on some of the issues that have dominated our political scene in recent years – as well as on the other topics he’s written about over the years – and am sorry to see him leave us.

On behalf of all of us at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, I wish Alan well in his new job.