September 22, 2014: ‘Story of Isaac’ – A new understanding of an old Leonard Cohen song

By Michael Regenstreif

Leonard Cohen, the great singer-songwriter, poet and novelist from Montreal, turns 80 this week. A decade ago (three years before I moved to Ottawa to work at the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin), I was asked to write a feature for the Canadian Jewish News celebrating Cohen’s 70th birthday and highlighting some of the Jewish themes in his work.

One of the works I highlighted was “Story of Isaac,” a song from the 1960s, which was inspired by the biblical story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son to God. The song is written in the first-person from Isaac’s perspective and ultimately, I noted, Cohen turns the song into a rabbinic-style morality lesson on the ethics of one generation sacrificing the lives of the next.

One of the things that has always drawn me to Cohen’s songs is that so many of them reveal even more meaning and nuance over time and repeated listening. I suspect that particular aspect of Cohen’s work is rooted in his boyhood study with his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Klinitsky-Klein – known as the Sar ha Dikdook, the Prince of the Grammarians, a prominent Talmudic scholar in both Eastern Europe and North America.

Written at the time the anti-Vietnam War movement was at its zenith, “Story of Isaac” was widely interpreted to be an anti-war song.

However, listening to the song now, just after Israel’s war with Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza, I am again discovering more to be discerned from Cohen’s words.

“You who build these altars now/To sacrifice these children/You must not do it anymore,” he sings in one passage. This is the key passage I was referring to in the 2004 article about one generation sacrificing the lives of the next. This is the passage that gives the song its anti-war message.

But, now, in these words, I see a message about Gaza’s Islamist terrorists launching their barrages of rockets at Israel knowing full well that Israel will ultimately defend itself and that a consequence will be the sacrifice of innocent Palestinian children. But that was the goal of those terrorists: to score some sort of symbolic victory through the deaths of innocent children.

And no matter how hard Israel tried to prevent such deaths – and not to excuse certain incidents, such as the four children killed playing soccer on the Gaza beach, which Israel acknowledges should never have happened – they were inevitable in a war being fought against an enemy that deliberately hides its military targets in homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim to be religiously motivated. But what they did was build altars to sacrifice their children. This is in direct contradiction to the lesson from the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac – God does not want the wanton sacrifice of children.

I was struck by another passage in “Story of Isaac” in light of the Gaza conflict.

“And if you call me brother now/ Forgive me if I inquire/‘Just according to whose plan?’/When it all comes down to dust/I will kill you if I must/ I will help you if I can.”

Isaac’s biblical half-brother was Ishmael, regarded as the patriarch of the Arab people and the direct ancestor of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Seen in that light, Cohen, singing as Isaac, the Jewish patriarch, seems to be speaking prophetically, telling the descendants of Ishmael: “I will kill you if I must,” meaning that Isaac’s descendants, the Children of Israel, if forced to, will act defensively in such manners as Operation Protective Edge with its consequences; and “I will help you if I can,” meaning what will flow from a peace between the two peoples descended from Abraham.

As I mentioned, Cohen wrote “Story of Isaac” at the time of the Vietnam War, and the song has been widely interpreted in the context of the anti-war movement of that era. But he also wrote the song not too long after the Six Day War of 1967. Listening now, I think it is really the Arab-Israeli conflict he was singing about. “I will kill you if I must, I will help you if I can,” the choice, war or peace, is there for the children of Isaac’s brother to make.

September 8, 2014: Fire trucks and ambulances were a reminder that we all need to be vigilant

By Michael Regenstreif

 The Ottawa Jewish Bulletin office is in the Joseph and Rose Ages Family Building – the location of the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC) – on the Jewish Community Campus. I try to arrive an hour or so early several times per week so that I can swim in the SJCC’s terrific indoor pool. (How lucky am I to have such facilities downstairs from my offi ce?)

Today – I’m writing on August 29 just before this issue goes to press – was one of those mornings I came early to swim. But, as I arrived at about 8 am, I saw several fire trucks and ambulances from the Ottawa Fire Services’ Hazardous Material Unit pulling into the parking lot.

Those of us who work in Jewish facilities have a heightened awareness of security. “While there is no indication of an increased threat in Ottawa,” as Jewish Federation of Ottawa President and CEO Andrea Freedman wrote in a message to the community this week about security issues, we are aware of the increased incidents of antisemitism that occurred around the world this summer during Israel’s war with Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. And the horrible and senseless murders by a neo-Nazi outside a JCC in Kansas this past April remain a vivid memory.

So, when I saw the ambulances and fire trucks pull up beside Hillel Lodge, I assumed there must have been some sort of threat or emergency there.

But my minded quickly started to ease when I didn’t see the first responders acting with any sense of urgency – and I also quickly realized there were no police cars on the scene. Surely, in the event of an emergency, the police would be there.

Before I could walk over to see what was what, the fire trucks and ambulances pulled out of the parking lot, turned onto Broadview Avenue and parked again in the Ottawa Jewish Community School parking lot near the SJCC’s outdoor pool.

“Was there a problem at the school?” I wondered.

It turned out the firefighters and paramedics from the Hazardous Materials Unit were at the SJCC to spend the morning working with the teenagers taking an SJCC training course for potential lifeguards.

So, while, thankfully, the first responders were not on the Jewish Community Campus for an emergency situation, seeing them arrive before I knew the reason they were there was a powerful reminder that we should all be vigilant as we go about our business – whether on the Jewish Community Campus or anywhere.

Operation Protective Edge

With the seeming end of Operation Protective Edge, one can only hope that Palestinians will come to understand that the road to a future for their children lies in building a constructive society and state, not in attempting to destroy Israel. Terrorism only leads to more hate, more destruction and more death. Two states for two people – no matter how hard it is to achieve – remains the way forward.

August 25, 2014: Israel’s war with Hamas also plays out in the media, online and in the streets

By Michael Regenstreif

In the book review on page 38, I write about Nora Gold’s fine new book, Fields of Exile. Set 14 years ago as the Second Intifada was breaking out, the main theme of the novel is the effect on a Jewish graduate student at a Toronto-area university of campaigns meant to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel – campaigns that too often cross the thin line into what is now referred to as the “new antisemitism.”

Despite the fact that Judith, the book’s protagonist, is a committed liberal who had just returned to Canada after a decade in Israel where she had been active in the peace and civil rights movements and in Jewish-Arab dialogue efforts, to the anti-Zionists among her professors and fellow students, she was just a Zionist.

To those who would demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel, a Zionist is a Zionist. A liberal Zionist working for a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and for fully realized civil rights and equality for Israeli Arabs is no different from an extremist who would annex the West Bank and Gaza while offering no rights to the Palestinians living there.

Fields of Exile proved to be timely reading this summer as war raged between Israel and Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza – groups that have subjected Israelis to unrelenting rocket fire aimed almost exclusively at civilians and who have poured so much of their resources into building an extensive network of cross-border tunnels to be used to commit acts of terrorism.

While Israel has been fighting the Gaza-based terrorists, battles have also raged in the media, in social media and in public demonstrations. The kind of marginalization and antisemitism experienced by Judith in Fields of Exile, and by pro-Israel university students around the time of campus events like the so-called Israel Apartheid Week, have also been experienced by many of us who have Facebook or Twitter feeds or who follow the news – especially by reading articles online at sites with un-moderated comments.

This summer, Europe has witnessed levels of widespread antisemitism unheard of in the post-Holocaust era and too many disturbing reports of antisemitism have surfaced close to home in places like Calgary where a small group of pro-Israel demonstrators were assaulted, in Toronto where antisemitic rhetoric was spouted at a Al-Quds Day rally at Queen’s Park, and even here in Ottawa where the Hamas flag was proudly carried at an anti-Israel march past Parliament Hill.

Make no mistake, waving the flag of a terrorist organization whose charter explicitly calls for the killing of Jews is a profoundly antisemitic act.

I’ve read several articles and blogs this summer by people who have seen their social media feeds disintegrate into confrontations – sometimes ugly confrontations – over the conflict. I’ve seen it on my own Facebook feed where I have unfriended a couple of people after they’ve posted articles or written comments that I perceive as having crossed the line into antisemitism.

Like Judith in Fields of Exile, I see myself as a liberal person committed to peace, to universal civil rights and to the two-state solution, which I believe is the key to both Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state and to the future prosperity of the Palestinian people.

It is because I am a liberal that I support Israel – seemingly the only bastion of liberalism in the Middle East – and am profoundly disappointed to see anyone who claims to be committed to peace and civil rights finding common cause with groups with Hamas or Islamic Jihad, which have no interest in anything to do with peace, civil rights, or justice.

Those marching alongside the Hamas flag, or cheering at the Al-Quds rally, or even posting a stream of one-sided articles on Facebook that blame Israel alone for all of the ills in the Middle East, are not really advocating for peace or civil rights.

As I write on August 15, there is a cease-fire in effect and rumours that a long-term truce is close. I pray that it will have come by the time you read these words.

July 28, 2014: When terrorists attack, there is no choice but to respond

By Michael Regenstreif

I’m writing this column on July 18, the day this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin goes to press. Hopefully, by the time you read these words, Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s mission to stop the seemingly constant barrage of rocket fire from Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza will have ended.

As Jewish Federation of Ottawa President and CEO Andrea Freedman said at Ottawa’s Rally for the People of Israel on July 16, “This has been a hard few weeks, hard to be a Jew, hard to be a human being,” as we’ve watched the news come in from Israel.

First, there was the 18-day search for Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped on June 12, and then the tragic discovery that they were murdered, likely almost immediately after they were taken hostage, allegedly by Hamas-affiliated terrorists from Hebron who – as I write – are yet to be captured.

Then, there was the brutal torture and murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian boy from east Jerusalem, by three Jewish Israelis who reportedly confessed to this horrible crime of revenge – which has been, quite rightly, classified as an act of terrorism by Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

And, in the aftermath of these crimes, Hamas and like-minded groups in Gaza dramatically increased their rocket attacks aimed at terrorizing Israelis and ultimately forcing Israel to launch Operation Protective Edge, it’s third such campaign – after Operation Cast Lead in late-2008 and early-2009 and Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 – to stop the barrage of rockets.

I have no doubt Israel would have preferred not to have been forced into these operations. So many innocent lives are lost – every one of them a tragedy – when the terrorists use civilians, including children, as human shields for their rocket installations or when horrifying mistakes are made, which should not take place, such as the four children playing soccer on the beach killed by Israeli fire.

When terrorists persistently attack a country, they do so in full awareness that the country will have no choice but to respond. The terrorists know that, in a situation like Gaza, when their rockets are hidden in populated neighbourhoods, in homes, schools, hospitals and mosques, the response will inevitably lead to much suffering and innocent lives lost among their own people.

But that is what they want. They are zealots whose goal it is to destroy Israel, no matter what the cost in suffering or innocent lives lost for their own people. While any caring human being sees such suffering and every innocent life lost as a tragedy, they are some sort of depraved victory to the terrorists. If Hamas cared about their own people they – as Israel did – would have accepted the cease-fire brokered by Egypt early in the conflict.

But, as MP Marc Garneau, a former military officer, pointed out, “to argue that you can’t attack Hamas terrorists because of the risk of killing innocent Palestinian civilians is equivalent to saying, you’re not allowed to defend yourself.”

It really is heartbreaking to see what is going on in Gaza. But Hamas knew what it was doing in bringing on this situation. Hopefully, it will be over by the time you read these words.