B’nai Brith campaigns to stop Queen’s Park Al-Quds rally

2015/04/11 Leave a comment

Interesting to see C-51 being invoked in this way:

B’nai Brith Canada thinks that getting an early start and the introduction of Bill C-51 might give it a real shot this year at persuading the Ontario Legislative Assembly to prohibit an Al-Quds Day anti-Israel rally from taking place at Queen’s Park this summer.

In association with a number of partner organizations, B’nai Brith launched its first “Stop Al-Quds Day” online petition March 25, and by April 1, it had collected more than 1,200 signatures.

Critics of the annual rallies say they promote hatred and anti-Semitism and that a protest calling for Israel’s destruction should not be allowed at Queen’s Park.

Jewish groups have tried unsuccessfully to have the events banned in the past, and they’ve brought comments made there to the attention of police, who also monitor the events, but no hate charges have been laid.

B’nai Brith communications officer Sam Eskenasi said that since 2009, his group has lobbied Ontario’s three provincial political parties to push the Legislative Assembly to refuse a public permit to Al-Quds Day protesters.

He cited the federal government’s recently proposed anti-terror law, Bill C-51, as a reason B’nai Brith’s online campaign could gain traction with the legislature.

“We’re trying to get our voices heard early this year, because in the past, the [Jewish] community only heard about the rally in the news or in a press release just before it happened,” he told The CJN.

The online petition is addressed to David Joseph Levac, speaker of the Legislative Assembly, who is in charge of the grounds where the rally usually takes place: “We the undersigned… demand that you no longer allow hateful rallies promoting propaganda contrary to Canadian values at the seat of government power.”

It continues: “With the increasing threat of home-grown radicalization, we cannot allow this anti-western rhetoric to continue unabated on the grounds of our legislature.”

International Al-Quds Day, typically celebrated after the fast month of Ramadan, was started in 1979 by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in solidarity with the Palestinians and in opposition to Zionism and the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

Al-Quds Day rallies are held annually in cities across Canada and the United States. Last year’s rally at Queen’s Park was held July 26. Ramadan ends this year on July 17.

According to an International Al-Quds Day website, “International Day of al-Quds is an annual event supporting a just peace for Palestine, and opposing apartheid Israel’s control of Jerusalem.”

The website’s authors are not specifically identified, and the “About us” section says the Al-Quds Day events are “funded through many small, individual private donations within the U.S. and Canada.”

B’nai Brith CEO Michael Mostyn said that “as Canadians, we can no longer tolerate the grounds of our legislature being used for promoting Iranian government propaganda and supporting international terror as can be seen [at past years’ protests] by things such as the waving of Hezbollah flags.”

Partners of the “Stop Al-Quds Day” initiative include the groups One Free World International, Canadian Thinkers’ Forum, Christians United for Israel Canada, Hasbara York and Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights.

B’nai Brith campaigns to stop Queen’s Park Al-Quds rally | The Canadian Jewish News.

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FAST launches high school anti-racism curriculum

2015/02/06 Leave a comment

Good cross-linkages between antisemitism, Holocaust awareness, and all forms of racism, bigotry and hate:

Voices into Action, an interactive site developed in accordance with provincial curriculum standards by a team of teachers, curriculum experts, graduate students, university professors, and consultants, contains five units that focus on issues related to human rights, genocide, prejudice and discrimination.

“It’s divided into five units and the Holocaust is a major feature throughout. It is at least a third of the content,” Miller said.

Although the program addresses racism, bigotry and hate in all forms, there is a special emphasis on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

The founders of FAST, Elizabeth Comper, and her husband Tony, a retired Bank of Montreal CEO, were inspired to create the organization after a series of anti-Semitic attacks in Toronto and Montreal, including the 2004 firebombing of Montreal’s United Talmud Torah Jewish day school.

“It was important to address other human rights issues, to put them on a scale, to understand that the Holocaust was as far as you could go with hatred,” Miller said.

“The Holocaust is the first chapter of units 1, 2, 3 and 4, and unit 5 is entirely about the Holocaust and it ends with a conclusion on contemporary anti-Semitism.”

Miller added that most important is the fact that the high school program is curriculum-based and completely free of charge.

FAST launches high school anti-racism curriculum | The Canadian Jewish News.

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Holocaust Education: Who will tell the story?

2014/04/22 Leave a comment

Good overview on some of the work the Canadian Holocaust centres are doing on Holocaust eduction given that fewer survivors are available to provide personal testimony:

Eyewitness testimony has played a central role in Holocaust education, says Adara Goldberg, education director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. The challenge now is to transition to telling their story without them.

For a recent exhibit called Enemy Aliens about Jewish refugees interned in Canada during the war, a curator recorded internees’ experiences, and those voices were the first ones visitors heard upon entering the exhibit. Three of those interviewed died before the exhibition opened, Goldberg says.

The centre, like others across the country, is consulting with survivors on the best ways to use videotaped testimony. “We don’t want to exploit the voices [of survivors]. We want to make sure there is some pedagogical value in what we do.”…

At Toronto’s Holocaust centre, staff are using the 50,000 testimonies, some of them Canadian, recorded by the U.S-based Shoah Foundation. For the generation of digital natives at home with technology, “that’s an automatic point of access,” Phillips says.

The Toronto centre, aided by a grant from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, has begun organizing some of the testimonies into short, searchable sections, and presenting workshops to adult immigrants learning English. Few of the newcomers had much knowledge about Jews or the Holocaust, but they could relate to the stories of persecution and starting over in a new land, and understand what the survivors contributed to Canadian society. “For many of the… students, this was very inspirational,” Phillips says.

Who will tell the story? | The Canadian Jewish News.

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Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitic? | My take

2014/03/21 Leave a comment

One of my recommendations on the approach to antisemitism from my piece in the CJN:

Secondly, we must strengthen messaging on the commonalities between anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred and intolerance. Some of the pioneering work by Jewish communities is being lost in the focus on anti-Semitism. More express links among all forms of hatred, racism and discrimination can help combat anti-Semitism through engagement of a broader range of communities. The activities of the Holocaust centres in Canada in educating our increasingly diverse population are good examples. Perceived exclusive government focus on anti-Semitism may undermine understanding and support among other communities.

Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitic? | The Canadian Jewish News.

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