February 21, 2011: Will Egypt rise to democracy or fall to Islamism?

By Michael Regenstreif

Like most news junkies, I’ve watched many hours of television coverage and read countless news articles and commentaries about the situation that has been unfolding in Egypt since January 25, when mass protesters clamouring for democracy, and for the immediate end to President Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade-long grip on power, began to assemble in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Early in the protests, Mubarak vowed to finish his current term in office, but agreed not to stand for re-election in September.

This was not enough for the protesters, who remained determined not to give up as long as Mubarak remained in power. Friday, February 4 was promoted by protest organizers as Mubarak’s Day of Departure and, indeed, many media outlets that morning were predicting Mubarak would be gone by day’s end. He wasn’t.

It was widely expected that Mubarak would step down on February 10. Instead, he went on television and made a long speech in which he defiantly promised to finish his term. Suddenly, the next day, his resignation was announced, the army had assumed transitional power, and the protests in Tahrir Square, and throughout the country, turned into celebrations.

Hopefully, the process of real democratization will now begin in Egypt.

It was hard not to sympathize with the Egyptian protesters.

Mubarak was a brutal dictator these past 30 years. All of the freedoms and rights we enjoy in Western democracies like Canada, the United States and Israel were denied the Egyptians.

There was no free press, there was no free vote in elections, people faced torture and imprisonment without trial, and corruption was rampant. In a country where poverty is the norm, the Mubarak family is worth, according to estimates, upwards of $70 billion.

According to many security experts, the best hope for a positive outcome – a transition to democracy – was Mubarak’s early departure. And now that that has happened, we will watch anxiously to see how the situation develops.

The Egyptian people demonstrating in Tahrir Square seemed anxious for real democracy. Their movement did not seem to have been motivated by Islamism or anti-Zionism.

A democratic Egypt would be in Israel’s best interest and would likely maintain the state of peace – as cold as it may be – that has endured since Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, and Israel’s then-prime minister, Menachem Begin, signed the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty in 1979.

Israelis recognize that.

Sallai Meridor, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, wrote in a February 10 Washington Post op-ed, “If a real democracy, committed to the values of freedom and peace, were to emerge in Egypt, Israelis would overwhelmingly support it.”

But, as I’ve written before, nothing is simple in the Middle East.

While U.S. President Barack Obama has promised the Americans will stand by Egypt as it transitions to democracy, many Israeli pundits and pro-Israel advocates have expressed deep fears that the democracy movement in Egypt could well fail and lead to a takeover by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Almost certainly, such an outcome would be disastrous for Israel and for the peace process. And, if history is any indicator, it would also be disastrous for the Egyptian people, as an Islamist regime – witness Iran since 1979 – would be undoubtedly as brutal, if not more so, as Mubarak’s long reign has been.

It is often pointed out that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. As I continue to watch the events in Egypt unfold, it is with the hope that, soon, this will no longer be the case.

Iranium revisited

The threatened protests that caused Library and Archives Canada officials to cancel the Free Thinking Film Society’s screening of Iranium on January 18 did not materialize when the film finally was shown to a sold-out audience on February 6; a much larger audience, no doubt, than the film would have attracted before the Iranian Embassy turned the screening into a major media event.

If you missed the screening, Iranium is being shown for “free online for a limited time,” at iraniumthemovie.com. Not only is it a stark reminder of the threats posed by a nuclear Iran, given the unfolding events in Egypt, it is also a warning of what can happen when a democracy movement fails.

February 7, 2011: Iranian Embassy garners national attention for local film society

By Michael Regenstreif

The Free Thinking Film Society was thrust into the national media spotlight last month, thanks, it seems, to the interference of the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, questionable responses from Library and Archives Canada, and unequivocal support from members of the federal cabinet.

I left the Bulletin office a few minutes after 5 pm on January 18 and was about to head downtown to grab a quick bite to eat before heading to Library and Archives for the Free Thinking Film Society’s screening of Iranium, a new documentary critical of Iran’s Islamist regime, including its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb, a matter of paramount concern to Israel and most other Western democracies, including Canada and the United States, as well as to moderate Arab regimes in the Middle East.

The event was also to feature a presentation by Clare Lopez, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer and expert on Middle East and counter-terrorism issues.

I was tuned to CBC Radio and heard an announcement that the Iranium event was cancelled under circumstances that included an objection from the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, a couple of envelopes with mysterious white powder that had been dropped off at the Library and Archives building (the white powder turned out to be harmless), and calls to Library and Archives from “members of the public” threatening protests if the film screening was allowed to proceed.

The CBC had Fred Litwin, the Free Thinking Film Society’s director, on the line and he said he’d received a call at 4 pm from Library and Archives telling him there were protesters inside and outside the building, that security could not be assured, so the event was cancelled.

My first thought was to wonder just who the “pro-nuclear Iran” protesters would be.

In a chronology that he repeated to me on the phone a few days later, Litwin said that he immediately headed to the Library and Archives building, arriving at 4:50 pm. There were no protesters, just employees leaving.

Litwin was then told there were no actual protesters, just the supposed “threat of protests.”

It turned out that the cancellation that day was the second time Library and Archives Canada officials had pulled the plug on the scheduled screening.

The day before, Litwin was notified that the screening was being cancelled because of “complaints.” The complaints, he later learned, were from the Iranian Embassy.

Litwin contacted the office of Federal Heritage Minister James Moore, which wasted no time in having Library and Archives Canada reverse the cancellation.

At first, the Library and Archives Canada officials tried to get the Free Thinking Film Society to move the screening to the Museum of Nature (at a substantially increased rental fee), but the society held its ground and, within hours, and with obvious pressure from Moore’s office, the screening was reinstated at the Library and Archives auditorium.

The cancellation and reinstatement the day before happened so quickly that news of it didn’t circulate widely until after the subsequent cancellation the next day, just three hours before the Iranium event was to take place, in the wake of the threat of protests and the white powder hoax.

Given the circumstances of the cancellation, it was inevitable, and entirely predictable, that it would become a major story. It was equally inevitable and predictable that the federal government could not allow the Iranian Embassy or threats from protesters to have veto power over an event in a federal government building mere steps from Parliament Hill.

How could the Library and Archives Canada officials not understand that? How could they have capitulated to a complaint from the Iranian Embassy so easily?

The Free Thinking Film Society’s screening of Iranium, including the presentation by Clare Lopez, was rescheduled for Sunday, February 6, 7:00 pm, at Library and Archives Canada.

Had the Iranian Embassy not interfered in the first place, a few hundred people would have seen Iranium on January 18. Instead, millions of people across Canada were made aware of the film thanks to the news reports.

That’s what happens in a free society when you try to suppress free speech or, in this case, free thinking.

January 24, 2011: Gabriella Giffords – shaped by Jewish traditions and values

By Michael Regenstreif

I spent much of the day, January 8, glued to the non-stop cable news coverage of the terrible mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona. A seemingly deranged young man walked up to U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was hosting a routine meet-and-greet for constituents outside a supermarket, shot her in the head at point-blank range and then opened fire on the crowd around her.

Six people, including a respected federal court judge and a nine-year-old girl, recently elected to her student council and eager to meet her congresswoman, were killed in the senseless rampage. Another 14 were wounded, most seriously among them Giffords who miraculously survived the bullet that passed through her brain (as well as the “confirmation” of her death by CNN).

In the five days that have passed between the shooting and the writing of these words, Giffords has remained in critical condition, but her doctors have been encouraged by her “remarkable progress” and remain optimistic about her recovery.

On that first day, there did not seem to be any reporting of the fact that Giffords, the great-granddaughter of a Lithuanian rabbi, is Jewish or that she has credited Jewish values for shaping her approach to political life.

In 2006, just before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time, Giffords wrote an article for the Arizona Jewish Post in which she said, “Growing up, my family’s Jewish roots and tradition played an important role in shaping my values. The women in my family served as strong role models for me as a girl. In my family, if you want to get something done, you take it to the women relatives!

“Like my grandmother, I am a lifetime member of Hadassah and now a member of Congregation Chaverim.”

In the article, Giffords also wrote about her strong commitment to Israel and about the state legislation she sponsored in Arizona on behalf of Holocaust survivors. Elsewhere, she has referred to Jewish values helping to shape her compassionate stands on health care and immigrants’ rights, difficult issues in a conservative border state like Arizona.

Giffords was moved, said Rabbi Stephanie Aaron of Tucson’s Congregation Chaverim, “by the notion of tzedek, tzedek, tirdof – the Jewish pursuit of justice.”

Well before the shooting, Giffords had emerged as an outspoken voice of moderation, civility and toned-down rhetoric on the American political scene. Political figures in her country, and in ours, would do well to follow Giffords’ lead in helping to restore civility to political discourse.

I’m sure I’ll get no arguments from anyone in wishing R’fuah Shlema to Gabrielle Giffords.  

Debbie Friedman

Just hours after the shooting, Giffords’ synagogue, Tucson’s Congregation Chaverim, held a prayer service for her and the other victims at which they sang “Mi Shebeirach,” Debbie Friedman’s translation and musical setting of a prayer for healing.

Ironically and sadly, Friedman, a major figure in Jewish music since the 1970s, died the next morning following hospitalization for pneumonia. She was just 59 years old.

Friedman, who was influenced by folksingers like Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary, was largely responsible for bringing participatory song to synagogue worship, particularly to many congregations in the Reform and Reconstructionist movements. She was also a singer, songwriter and guitarist with 20 albums and thousands of concerts to her credit.

In 2007, Friedman became an instructor at the School of Sacred Music at the Reform Movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

“Her gifts were not always accepted with grace by the [Jewish] musical establishment, but the Jewish community voted with their voices and made her songs part of the mainstream of Jewish worship,” Rabbi Daniel Freelander, senior vice-president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told JTA at the time of her appointment to the school.

AHAVA and the Bay

Earlier this month, Hudson Bay Company (HBC) stores across Canada removed Israeli-made AHAVA beauty products from their stores. AHAVA products are made from mud and minerals from the Dead Sea and have been a particular target of the anti-Israel BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement. BDS activists were quick to claim the disappearance of AHAVA products as a major victory. It seems, however, that their celebrations were a tad premature. The next day, HBC CEO Bonnie Brooks categorically stated that the line of AHAVA products was discontinued because of several years of declining sales. She said the line was being “reformulated and redesigned” and that the new AHAVA products would be relaunched at HBC stores in mid-spring.

“HBC neither subscribes to nor endorses politically motivated boycotts of merchandise from countries with whom Canada has open and established trading relationships, including Israel,” wrote Brooks in her statement.

December 13, 2010: National Jewish advocacy organizations likely to be merged

By Michael Regenstreif

Sometimes, deadlines and the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin publication schedule don’t co-operate with the news we’d like to bring you.

A case in point is the proposed new structure for the organization overseeing national advocacy for the Canadian Jewish community, which, if all goes according to the organizers’ plans, will be presented to the boards of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) on December 8 and UIA-Federations Canada on December 12.

This issue, dated December 13, actually went to press on December 3. So, we do not have coverage yet of whether or not the new structure has been approved or precisely what form it will take.

CIJA, the entity being reorganized, is a relatively new body. It was established seven years ago by UIA Federations Canada – the national organization of the Jewish federations in Canada, including the Jewish Federation of Ottawa – as an umbrella organization to co-ordinate the advocacy efforts of the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee, the Quebec-Israel Committee, National Campus Jewish Life and the University Outreach Committee.

Although the plan was not to be made public before the December meetings I referred to, some information – or, at least, speculation – emerged a few weeks ago when the Canadian Jewish Congress posted a document on its website expressing concerns about its brand, structure and future, should CIJA reorganize all of the advocacy organizations into a single body with a single board of directors. (The document has since been removed from the Congress website.)

Apparently, in a brief submitted to the CIJA reorganization committee, Congress suggested that the name, “Canadian Jewish Congress,” be retained for the new advocacy entity in order to preserve the history and branding built by Congress over the 91 years since its 1919 founding.

The issue of the proposed reorganization gained some mainstream attention when Andrew Cohen wrote an op-ed column in the Ottawa Citizen, November 30, headlined “Saving the Canadian Jewish Congress.” Cohen argued that Congress was an effective organization with a rich history and that “only fools and amnesiacs would dissolve it.”

Cohen also admitted to a sentimental attachment to Congress in that his great-uncle, Lyon Cohen (songwriter Leonard Cohen’s grandfather), was the founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

The next day, the National Post ran a front page story speculating that the future of Congress was in doubt.

While it’s true that Congress has nearly a century of history to be proud of, changing times do demand that our organizations evolve to meet the needs of contemporary times. There is much logic to the idea of consolidating national Jewish advocacy activity.

It’s also true that, of the various bodies falling under the reorganization plan, including CIJA itself, the Canadian Jewish Congress does have, by far, the longest history and the best-known brand name.

Maybe “Canadian Jewish Congress” wouldn’t be a bad name for the reorganized umbrella. We should know soon what’s to be.