August 20, 2012: A moment of Olympic-sized Jewish pride

By Michael Regenstreif

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) proved itself less than Olympian in the lead-up to the opening ceremonies of 2012 Olympic Games in London by refusing to hold a moment of silence in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Black September – a Palestinian terrorist faction linked to the PLO – at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

But Jews around the world positively kvelled with pride on August 7 watching Jewish American gymnast Aly Raisman win a gold medal performing her floor routine to the joyous sounds of “Hava Nagila.”

From Facebook and Twitter, to the hallways and locker rooms here at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre, we were talking about Raisman, her gold medal and “Hava Nagila.”

Gymnastics, and the women’s floor exercise in particular, are perhaps the most artistic events of the summer Olympics, and Raisman performed her routine almost flawlessly, from the seemingly impossible and lightning-fast leaps, bounds and flips, to slower movements that seemed to be inspired by both ballet and Israeli folk dancing.

That individual gold medal was just part of the Raisman and “Hava Nagila” story at the London Olympics.

Earlier in the Games, Raisman, who was captain of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, performed her “Hava Nagila” routine as she led the Americans to the gold medal in women’s team gymnastics. And just 90 minutes before winning the gold medal, she also won the bronze in the balance beam competition.

The choices gymnasts make, from their costumes, to the choreography and the music are quite deliberate. Could the 18-year-old have been making a statement by performing her floor exercise to that most famous of all Hebrew folk songs?

Her rabbi, who has known Raisman since she was three years old, thought so.

In an interview with the Boston Globe, Rabbi Keith Stern of Temple Beth Avodah, the Reform synagogue in suburban Boston attended by the Raisman family – and where she graduated from Hebrew school – speculated she may well have been paying tribute to the Israeli Olympians murdered at the Munich Games 40 years ago.

However, Raisman told reporters that, while she supported the campaign to hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies for the murdered Israeli athletes, her choice of “Hava Nagila” was not made with the intent of marking the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre. But, she said, performing to “Hava Nagila” 40 years later was “special” for her.

It takes many, many months, if not years, of training and practice to perfect an Olympian gymnastics floor exercise, so Raisman probably chose “Hava Nagila” as the music for her routine long before the campaign to honour the murdered Israelis at the London opening ceremonies came to the fore.

But, coming from a Jewishly-involved family, having attended her synagogue’s Hebrew school, being just a few years past her bat mitzvah, and having three younger siblings who have celebrated more recently, or will celebrate soon, their own bar and bat mitzvahs, how could her choice of “Hava Nagila,” perhaps the most celebratory of Jewish celebration songs, be anything but a statement of how thoroughly Raisman’s Jewish identity is interwoven with her identities as an American and as a world-class athlete? There’s just too much other music she could have chosen.

So, at an Olympics where the IOC refused to devote just one minute of silence at the opening ceremonies to remember and honour the 11 Jewish Olympians murdered at the 1972 Games, young Aly Raisman stood much taller than her five feet, two inches and was someone Jews around the world could kvell about at the 2012 Olympic Games.

July 23, 2012: United Church meeting in Ottawa may be dominated by Israeli-Palestinian conflict

By Michael Regenstreif

The 41st General Council of the United Church of Canada will be held at Carleton University in Ottawa from August 11 to 18 and virtually all of the advance attention has focussed on a United Church working group’s report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which – not surprisingly – lays almost all responsibility for the situation at Israel’s feet and calls for boycott of goods produced by Israeli settlements in the West Bank and some measure of divestment from Israel.

The report questions the validity of Israel as a Jewish state and even finds moral equivalency between the current situations of the Palestinians with the plight of the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust:

“The deepest meaning of the Holocaust was the denial of human dignity to Jews. ‘Never again’ is a call that must continue to echo throughout the world. The implication of this call is not that Israel will be free from accountability for unjust policies, but rather that there will be no question or doubt that Israel and Jewish people throughout the world are deeply respected. The working group is also aware that the occupation has meant a loss of dignity for Palestinian people. This loss of dignity is evidenced not just by the occupation but also in the denial of the legitimacy of the Palestinian experience. This is accentuated by the view that any form of Palestinian resistance, even non-violent resistance, is unacceptable. Palestinians must be afforded dignity and respect for the struggles they face.”

As the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs noted in a response to the report, “the ‘deepest meaning’ of the Shoah (Holocaust) was the industrialized mass murder of six million Jewish men, women and children whose only crime was that they were Jewish,” and that such “moral equivalence is deeply offensive to Jewish Canadians and individuals of conscience from all backgrounds.”

While the report has enjoyed the expected support of the anti-Zionist left, including Independent Jewish Voices, it remains to be seen how widespread its support is among United Church members. An Ottawa-area minister, Reverend Andrew Love of Grace St. Andrew’s United Church in Arnprior, has spoken out against the mostly one-sided report and has organized a United Church petition calling for its rejection at the General Council. Reverend Love, instead, calls for support for those on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide who are actively working for peace.

Late last month, a group of nine Canadian senators – five Conservatives and four Liberals – all members of the United Church, published a letter condemning the report, which “does not mention a single expectation of the Palestinians in its recommendations. To put it bluntly, the Church cannot maintain credibility in criticizing Israeli policies (such as settlements and the security barrier) while relieving the Palestinian leadership of its own duty to advance peace.”

It will be interesting to see which path the United Church will choose to take at its General Council.

Thank you Laurie Dougherty

As editor of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, I rely on the collaboration of many people and one of my most important collaborators is the archivist of the Ottawa Jewish Archives. Almost everything that appears in the Bulletin pertaining to the history of Ottawa’s Jewish community is done with the help of the archivist.

For the past three-and-a-half-years, the archivist has been Laurie Dougherty. Laurie also spent 18 months as assistant archivist before that. As we were finishing production of this edition, we bade farewell to Laurie who left the Ottawa Jewish Archives on July 12 to become archivist for the town of Arnprior, where she lives.

Laurie has been a great person to work with – particularly on big projects like the 2009 supplement celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa or the year-long page 5 reprint features we’ve been doing throughout 2012 to mark the 75th year of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin (with a special supplement to come with our Chanukah community-wide issue on November 26).

There have also been many occasions when I’ve called on Laurie to find or verify all kinds of information. For example, I wanted to add the late Erwin Koranyi’s date of birth to the remembrance of him, which appears on page 4 of this issue. When an Internet search only turned up the year, I dialled Laurie’s extension and she was able to quickly find the exact date in the Archives files.

As well, the From the Archives photos Laurie regularly submitted to the Bulletin and the feature articles she wrote about Archives projects and displays have been greatly appreciated. See Laurie’s article about the Archives’ current display on page 13 of this issue.

Thanks for everything, Laurie! All the best in your new job. We’re going to miss you.