Jonathan Kay: Shariah with a Jewish face | National Post

2014/03/14 2 Comments

Good piece by the parallel fundamentalism of the Haredim by Jonathan Kay:

What’s worse, Haredim exhibit a level of misogyny and sexual phobia that is more commonly associated with militant Muslim fundamentalists. Public spaces in Haredi communities are rigidly segregated by sex. In extreme cases, the women even dress in Jewish burquas (colloquially referred to as “frumkas,” a play on a Yiddish word indicating piety). What’s worse, Haredim have demanded that the wider Israeli society adapt to their primitive views — insisting, for instance, that bus lines offer sex-segregated service, that advertising should be free of female faces or bodies, and that beaches maintain separate areas for men and women.

Haredi publications routinely censor out women — including, in the most appalling examples, the faces of female Holocaust victims in reprinted photos from the 1940s. The editorial policies of such publications are dictated by a board of religious censors, much like in Saudi Arabia. Haredi communities even have their own Jewish small-scale versions of the ministries of vice and virtue imposed by the Mullahs of Iran and other Muslim theocrats. This is, in essence, shariah with a Jewish face. And it is destroying Israel’s hard-earned reputation as an island of Western values in the heart of the Middle East.

Jonathan Kay: Shariah with a Jewish face | National Post.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

Jonathan Kay: Even some Zionists should find the Tories’ Israel zeal to be disturbingly manic | National Post

2014/01/23 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary by Jonathan Kay of the National Post on the messaging of PM Harper and the Conservative government. Ironically, it is possible that such unqualified support may, over time, undermine support for the Government’s activities and initiatives against antisemitism, given the relative silence of the important linkages with other forms of discrimination that impact on a wide range of communities in Canada:

Perhaps the best adjective I can use to describe the Conservatives’ zeal for Israel — and, indeed for all things Jewish — is manic. In interpersonal terms, it reminds me of a couple that professes their status as soul mates — loudly, and very repeatedly — as they bask in the bloom of first love (as opposed to the occasional bickering that characterizes the long, solid marriage between Israel and the United States). In my email inbox, I have lost count of the number of messages from Jason Kenney advertising his government’s support of Israel, its steadfast opposition to anti-Semitism, and its diligent observance of some anniversary or memorial day honouring a figure connected to Judaism. Many times, whole days pass in which this is the only type of message I get from his office. In each individual case, the spirit is admirable. But the overall effect comes across as a sort of monomania.

This fixation is beginning to express itself in somewhat reckless gestures. One of the members of Harper’s official delegation in Israel, for instance, is a Rabbi who has offered public support to Pamela Geller, an anti-Islamic conspiracy theorist. When taken to task for the Rabbi’s inclusion, the PMO shot back with the lazy, apparently baseless, and possibly libelous charge that the Muslim group raising the objections has “ties” to Hamas. This is the not the way a serious government responds to the legitimate concerns of its citizens.

The Harper government is to be lauded for the overall tendency of its foreign policy — which is to offer full-throated support for democratic nations that share our values. But where the Jewish state is concerned, our support is crossing the line into a sort of emotional mania. And it has never been on fuller display than this week, during the Prime Minister’s trip to Israel.

Jonathan Kay: Even some Zionists should find the Tories’ Israel zeal to be disturbingly manic | National Post.

Filed under Antisemitism, Hate crimes, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Jonathan Kay: Judaism’s fundamentalism problem

2013/11/22 Leave a comment

Good piece by Jonathan Kay that all religions have fundamentalists, and the impact on women in particular:

Since the dawn of modern feminism, social liberals have sought to liberate women from the clutches of conservative Christian doctrines that keep them under their husbands’ thumbs. Since 9/11, a similar project has been underway in regard to Muslims. It is time to take a broader view toward this project. All patriarchal religious traditions that make a fetish of separating the sexes, that entertain phobic and repressed attitudes to human sexuality, that privilege group solidarity over the well-being of children, and that treat women as debased creatures who cannot be trusted to walk among us, except under wig or veil, must be subject to the same scrutiny.

Jonathan Kay: Judaism’s fundamentalism problem | National Post.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , , ,

Jonathan Kay: ‘In all thy sons command’ has had its day | National Post

2013/10/03 Leave a comment

Good commentary by Jonathan Kay on the campaign (Restore Our Anthem) to make our national anthem gender neutral, given the reality of today’s military and society. The government clumsily floated this idea a few years ago, but perhaps this time can manage the pressure from the traditionalists (who forget that the “sons” reference dates from WW 1) was in fact an addition deemed appropriate to the times.

A way for the government to reinforce its attachment to all things military while showing a more contemporary perspective on gender.

Jonathan Kay: ‘In all thy sons command’ has had its day | National Post.

Filed under Citizenship, Government Tagged with , , ,

Newer posts →