September 3, 2018: What were they thinking?

By Michael Regenstreif

I was recently reminded of “What Was I Thinking,” a clever piece written in the 1990s by New York City singer-songwriter Christine Lavin. In a series of verses, Lavin documents some dumb choices made by various people that lead into a chorus that variously asks, “What was I-he-she thinking?”

The song came to mind when news surfaced about a fashion photo shoot that was held here in Ottawa at the National Holocaust Monument.

On August 12, Montreal-based designer Michèle Beaudoin posted a photo on Instagram of a model at the National Holocaust Monument wearing a rather revealing dress. She credited the model, the makeup artist and the photographer, and promised more photos to come.

The Instragram post was deleted later that same day after several irate people who witnessed the photo shoot contacted the media. Community leaders – including Rabbi Reuven Bulka, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Machzikei Hadas, and Mina Cohen, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship at the Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies at Carleton University – spoke out about how absurdly inappropriate it was to do a fashion photo shoot at what must be regarded as a sacred place.

What, indeed, were the designer and her associates thinking? In response to an Ottawa Citizen enquiry, photographer Richard Tardif told the reporter via email, “After further consideration, we decided to end the session and discontinue the project. Also, all material has been deleted.”

That sad incident in Ottawa was not the only inappropriate event related to a Holocaust site that day. Two young Israelis, on a school trip to Poland to learn about the Holocaust, were caught on video dancing naked at the site of the Majdanek concentration camp, where an estimated 78,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

A statement from Israel’s Education Ministry said it views “with great severity any behaviour that could harm the status and values represented by the trips to Poland. In the case in question, due to the students’ improper and inappropriate behavior, disciplinary actions have been taken against them to the fullest.”

Surely, one would think that Jewish students, studying the Holocaust, would know better. What were they thinking?

Corbyn and Trump

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, observers have been attempting to understand the hold that Donald Trump has over his right-wing base. No matter how outrageous, offensive, or even racist Trump’s statements and actions have been, his base has remained fiercely loyal.

Watching the steady stream of revelations about antisemitism in the British Labour Party, particularly as it relates to party leader Jeremy Corbyn – who might well be the United Kingdom’s next prime minister if the polls are correct – one begins to understand the hold that Trump has over his base. Corbyn, whose left-wing populism seems to parallel Trump’s right-wing populism, has a similar hold over his base.

No matter how disturbing the revelations are about Corbyn’s associations with Hamas, Hezbollah or Black September terrorists. No matter the revelation that he has appeared on the Iranian government’s propaganda TV station to denounce the BBC for recognizing Israel’s right to exist. No matter the revelation that his principal secretary advised his supporters not to vote for candidates who have appeared in Jewish newspapers – the list of examples grows longer by the day – Corbyn’s base sticks by him with unwavering loyalty.

In late-July, the United Kingdom’s three Jewish newspapers jointly published front-page editorials declaring that a Corbyn-led government would pose an “existential threat to Jewish life” in their country.

Historically, most British Jews have found a political home in the Labour Party. But, now in 2018, Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said, “It’s like Jeremy Corbyn has declared war on the Jews.”

It is a frightening situation for the Jewish community in the U.K.

August 13, 2018: We must protect democratic values

By Michael Regenstreif

About 25 years ago, I returned to Concordia University in Montreal to do a master’s degree in political science. One of my courses, “Impediments to Democracy,” examined challenges to democratic systems posed by institutions like the Canadian Senate in which appointed senators have the power to delay or even stop legislation passed by the elected members of the House of Commons.

I have thought of that course lately while observing new impediments to democracy being thrown up by powerful politicians in advanced democracies – including the United States, Israel, and right here in Ontario.

On July 27, the very day that the nomination-filing period for Ontario’s municipal elections on October 22 ended, Premier Doug Ford announced that the size of the city council in Toronto would be slashed from 47 councillors to 25.

Changing the size of Toronto’s city council was not something Ford mentioned even once in the campaign for the June 7 Ontario election that brought him to power; or in his new government’s Speech from the Throne delivered by Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell on July 12 – just two weeks earlier.

Moreover, the announcement that the number of city council seats in Toronto would be cut almost in half was made without any consultation with the people of Toronto or their elected representatives at the municipal or even provincial levels. With nominations for the mayoralty and city council seats open since May and closing that day, Ford, essentially, announced he was unilaterally changing the rules in the middle of the game.

Prior to taking office as premier, Ford’s only previous experience in elected office was as a one-term Toronto city councillor from 2010 to 2014. During that term, he also served as the righthand man to then-mayor Rob Ford, his late brother. Few will deny that Rob Ford’s tenure in office, fuelled by substance abuse and marked by sometimes-bizarre behaviour, was less than successful. The Ford brothers were frequently at odds with their city council colleagues. When Rob Ford withdrew his candidacy during the 2014 election campaign due to a cancer diagnosis, to which he later succumbed, Doug Ford stepped in but lost the election to John Tory (ironically, a former Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader).

With that history in mind, it is hard not to see the premier’s move to slash the size of Toronto’s city council as anything but vindictive payback to his former colleagues. Such vindictiveness is profoundly undemocratic.

If this measure is passed (as I write on August 3 it hasn’t yet), Toronto – with a population more than three times larger – will have a city council almost the same size as Ottawa: we have a mayor and 23 councillors. Following Ford’s Toronto logic, we should have about eight councillors. But, Ford says, he has no plans to tamper with the size of Ottawa’s city council – thus adding credence to the theory that the Toronto move is simple vindictiveness.

Meanwhile, south of the border, the daily news is dominated by myriad challenges to democracy posed by U.S. President Donald Trump – too many to mention but not the least of which is his constant campaign to discredit the mainstream media as “the enemy of the people” or “fake news.” A free press is essential to the functioning of democracy and it is protected by the first amendment to the United States Constitution, which, as president, Trump has sworn to protect and defend.

And, in Israel, whose inspiring 1948 Declaration of Independence established the country as a Jewish state while guaranteeing “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,” as well as guaranteeing “freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture,” there are aspects of the new nation-state law that serve to contradict those notions of equality.

Even Jews in the Jewish state do not seem to have complete freedom of religion given the monopoly the haredi Orthodox Chief Rabbinate holds over so many aspects of Jewish life in Israel. Just last month, a Conservative rabbi was arrested in Haifa for performing a non-Orthodox Jewish wedding.

In these times, we need to be increasingly vigilant about protecting our democratic values and in holding our elected officials to high standards of democratic conduct.

July 23, 2018: A few troubling sore spots

By Michael Regenstreif

Almost three years ago, after Justin Trudeau led the Liberal Party to victory in the federal election, I wrote a column suggesting Canada’s strong friendship with Israel would continue unabated under the new government (From the Editor, November 9, 2015). Stephen Harper, then the outgoing prime minister, had often been lauded for his strong support of Israel.

Indeed, Canada and Israel have maintained strong ties since Trudeau became prime minister. Just a few months after taking office, Trudeau’s Liberals joined with the Conservatives in passing a motion strongly denouncing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. In the debate, Liberal cabinet ministers denounced the BDS movement as a modern-day form of antisemitism. And, on May 28, a modernized and more comprehensive Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement was announced by the two countries.

So while the relationship between Canada and Israel has remained strong, there have been a few “sore spots” in the relationship, which have troubled many in the Canadian Jewish community.

One is that the Trudeau government declined to follow the U.S. lead and move the Canadian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That decision reflects the policy that “Canada considers the status of Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of a general settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Canada does not recognize Israel’s unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem,” and that an Embassy move should only take place after a settlement has been reached.

Former prime minister Harper has since stated that Canada should follow the U.S. lead and move our Embassy to Jerusalem as well. However, Harper made no move to take that lead himself while he was in office from 2006 until 2015 – and the official policy on Jerusalem quoted above is unchanged from the Harper era.

Two other sore spots came up recently over Canada’s response to Palestinian deaths during the violent protests on Israel’s border with Gaza.

On May 16, Trudeau issued a statement condemning the use of excessive force against the demonstrators and the loss of life and injuries. Trudeau’s statement came in the wake of a Palestinian-Canadian doctor being wounded while treating injured Palestinians on the front lines in Gaza. Trudeau’s major sin of omission was that he failed to mention the role of Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza, in engineering the violence or that many of the Palestinians killed were actually Hamas terrorists.

Then, on June 13, Canada abstained from a United Nations General Assembly vote condemning Israel for the violence in Gaza. The vote passed by a margin of 120-8 with Canada being one of 45 countries that abstained. (Canada did however support a failed U.S. amendment that would have recognized the role of Hamas and its ongoing campaign of rocket attacks in the conflict.)

There was a not-unjustified feeling among many in the community that Canada abstained rather than voted against the resolution condemning Israel because of Canada’s campaign to win one of the temporary seats on the UN Security Council in 2021. Canada’s support for Israel was seen as a reason it failed to win a seat in 2010. If that was the motivation, I doubt that an abstention will be seen as enough for the overwhelming anti-Israel bloc at the UN.

Disturbed by Trudeau’s statement and the UN abstention, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) arranged a meeting with the prime minister on July 5.

After the meeting CIJA CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel issued a statement saying, “The discussion was frank, constructive, and encouraging. The prime minister was very receptive and responsive to the issues we raised. He absolutely recognized the destructive role played by Hamas. He expressed full confidence in Israel’s capacity and will to hold its troops to a high ethical standard, rather than be singled out for an inherently biased international investigation. And he reaffirmed Canada’s support for Israel, and committed to be more vigilant in countering anti-Israel resolutions at the UN.”

Although we’ll have to see how future developments unfold, I would certainly feel encouraged by the results of the July 5 meeting.