Lederman: What the Israeli flag debacle at Auschwitz really says about this moment

2025/08/09 Leave a comment

Good observation:

…Mr. Bartyzel did not answer my question about whether this has happened before. Have unauthorized Israeli flags entered the site previously by people marching in? Has anyone been forced to return their flags to their vehicles and then enter without them? Has such an order been given before Israel became the global pariah it is now? If so, I missed the global outrage.

Today, the Jewish community is on high alert, frightened that antisemitism is lurking around every corner. Here in Canada, B’nai Brith reports that antisemitism has reached “perilous, record-setting heights.” The same thing is happening in the U.S., the U.K., around the world. 

In the midst of this, it is easy for Jews to assume antisemitic intent. While this is often true, it is not always the case. We need to be thoughtful in each circumstance. 

That said, if there is a spot where the consequences of antisemitism can be felt viscerally, it is at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the absolute worst happened.

I visited the site in 1998 during the March of the Living, with family members including my mother, who survived Birkenau. It was a difficult day for her, but she drew comfort from not just her own descendants, but from seeing so many young Jews from around the world – and the sea of Israeli flags. They were a symbol of what rose from all she had lost: her parents, her little brother, her home, every single possession, her freedom, her youth, her education, her health, her life as she had known it.

Nobody should have to experience such staggering losses. Nobody.

Source: What the Israeli flag debacle at Auschwitz really says about this moment

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Lederman: There is an abundance of shame – and rightly so – over the calamity in Gaza

2025/08/02 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…As more than 170 former Canadian diplomats, including former ambassador to Israel Jon Allen, wrote in an open letter this week: “If Israel continues on this path, it will lose its standing with the world community, placing the security and the future of the Israeli people in jeopardy.”

This isn’t the most important reason to speak out about the suffering of so many people, of course. That would be the killings, the starvation, the inhumanity.

“Food and health are basic rights,” Dorit Nitzan, director of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told Haaretz. “When we turned them into a bargaining chip, we harmed ourselves, not just our values and morals.” 

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak has issued an “emergency call” for “massive nonviolent civil disobedience” to bring a total shutdown of Israel until there is a change in government. “The Israel of the Declaration of Independence and the Zionist vision is collapsing,” he wrote.

The Union for Reform Judaism also issued a statement this week: “Blocking food, water, medicine, and power—especially for children – is indefensible. Let us not allow our grief to harden into indifference, nor our love for Israel to blind us to the cries of the vulnerable. Let us rise to the moral challenge of this moment.”

Yes. Let us. The moral tragedy of this moment is abundantly clear. 

Source: There is an abundance of shame – and rightly so – over the calamity in Gaza

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia Tagged with , ,

Lederman: The Giller Prize was a rare CanLit success story. Now it might become a casualty of a foreign war

2025/07/19 Leave a comment

Sad (hope the authors who won previous Gillers and protested Scotiabank involvement with Israel have some second thoughts):

…Deep-pocketed institutions don’t sponsor culture to get embroiled in controversy. Who wants to pay all that money only to get booed and a PR black eye?

Who would want to sponsor the prize now? As the Giller people are finding out, what organization with that kind of money wants to risk being drawn into this drama? Which financial institution wants people scouring its records for any connection to Israel, followed by angry taunts and tweets? 

So now, the Giller wants the government to rescue it. Ha. In this economy? Ottawa is currently looking to cut spending. The federally funded Canada Council for the Arts already supports the Governor-General’s Literary Awards. And no doubt the Canada Council will also be looking for funding cuts. If Ottawa has more for CanLit, there are some struggling Canadian writers, publishers and independent bookstores that might like a word (and some cash). The arts are struggling right now, period – including the CanLit ecosystem. With fewer book reviews, and festivals under financial pressure, the Giller was a rare success story. 

Maybe the Giller reinvents itself, ditches the splashy gala, the pricey author tours. Maybe the prize money is reduced. Maybe the Giller folds, altogether.

That would be a big loss. And a very sad ending, indeed.

Source: The Giller Prize was a rare CanLit success story. Now it might become a casualty of a foreign war

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Lederman: We need to talk about antisemitism

2025/07/12 Leave a comment

Comments highlight need:

…What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic. But comparisons to the Holocaust are inaccurate, unnecessary and damaging. And, arguably, antisemitic.

Would any of this be okay if it was directed at any other minority group? 

One could argue it’s Zionists being targeted, not Jews. But most Jews are Zionists, believing a State of Israel has a right to exist. Further, too often, “Zionist” is a convenient substitute for “Jew.”

Criticism of the Israeli government is absolutely fair. But veering into antisemitism does nothing for the worthy Palestinian cause. If anything, it taints it. It is distracting, divisive and counterproductive. 

The same “fixed it” social-media crowd might write, about this column, “I’m not reading all that. Free Palestine.”

Yes, Palestinians deserve to be free. And Jews in Canada deserve to feel safe in their own country.

Source: We need to talk about antisemitism

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Lederman: Welcome to the slavery memorial. Enjoy the beautiful view

2025/06/21 Leave a comment

Sadly, all too true:

…The placement of these Orwellian signs follows Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” part of the President’s crusade against wokeness. The new signs also encourage visitors to report any information that fails to “emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” Be complimentary, or else.

Rather than rat out tour guides or wall plaques, visitors are being urged by the NPCA to use their voices to tell the government to stop meddling. And good news: The publication Government Executive reports that almost all of the nearly 200 submissions received in the first few days urged the government not to censor history. 

In Canada, we are learning the value of telling history accurately, in particular the history of Indigenous people. The Truth and Reconciliation process has been bumpy at times, sure, but it has exposed this country’s real history to many Canadians (not just students) who simply didn’t know about the harms of colonialism, including residential schools.

We are seeing this reflected in school curricula, at museums, on the calendar (we mark National Indigenous Peoples Day on Saturday) and, consequently, in the zeitgeist. That’s how it works.

“If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes,” said Ms. Pierno in a news release. Exactly.

What if they did this in, say, Germany – where monuments and museums tell the country’s chilling Nazi history, along with tens of thousands of Stolpersteins (literally “stumbling stones”), small brass plates marking places from which people were deported? (Memorials that speak to the despicable actions of past governments of that period are also prominent in Hungary, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and France.)

Imagine if, in an effort by a hypothetical German government to avoid casting shade upon its history, those sites were watered down. What if Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was renamed to play down the murder part? Any thinking person would be outraged – even much of the MAGA set, too. 

Picture Minidoka, currently billed as “An American Concentration Camp,” instead being described as “a unique visiting experience in the scenic Gem State, along the refreshing waters of Clover Creek with its fine fishing?” What an insult to the memory of all who suffered there. What a disservice to any visitor.

This move to sanitize historic sites is a testament to the idiocy of this U.S. administration – as history, one hopes, will show.

Source: Welcome to the slavery memorial. Enjoy the beautiful view

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Lederman: When Hollywood’s voice was needed the most, it shied away

2025/03/05 Leave a comment

Didn’t watch but this is a good take:

….Hollywood does not usually shy away from the political – not in the content it creates and not in speeches past. The self-righteousness can be cringey, sure. But right now, it would be useful – a high-profile spotlight to drive some sort of protest movement. Regrettably, on Sunday night, the urgency of the moment was buried under obligatory thank-yous, shiny sequins and fuzzy platitudes.

Source: When Hollywood’s voice was needed the most, it shied away

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Lederman: Powerful documentary No Other Land provides important context to Trump’s musings on Gaza 

2025/02/07 Leave a comment

Hopefully will make it to a streaming platform:

…For Palestinians and Muslims, this is a difficult film, documenting their people’s pain. But any viewer with a pulse will feel anguish – including, maybe especially, anyone who cares for and about Israel. In one charged scene, Mr. Abraham challenges the Israeli army for taking the Palestinians’ building tools. A soldier asks the Israeli why he cares. “I care because it’s all done in my name,” Mr. Abraham says.

No Other Land has won many festival prizes and is nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary. But it couldn’t land a North American distribution deal, no doubt because of the subject matter. So the filmmakers are releasing the film independently; it lands in Toronto and Vancouver theatres on Friday.

In the film, Mr. Adra says documenting the destruction may force the U.S. to press Israel to stop the expulsions.

Today, the threat is coming from the would-be saviour.

Mr. Trump called Gaza a “hellhole” as he floated his plan at a news conference Tuesday. What kind of god complex allows for this kind of unilateral, devilish declaration?

No Other Land is a stark reminder that the Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war and now under threat of permanent displacement by Mr. Trump’s ambitions are in fact people. They are not pawns or faceless figures in a geopolitical dust-up. They are people who want to live their lives in peace, and to live those lives at home. And home is Gaza.

Source: Powerful documentary No Other Land provides important context to Trump’s musings on Gaza

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Lederman: At Auschwitz, there was no why

2025/01/28 Leave a comment

Lest we forget:

…Some of those lucky enough to survive Auschwitz not completely broken – many were – emerged with various whys as they sought a reason to go on. Primo Levi needed to tell the world. Elie Wiesel made it his mission to stop such horrors from happening ever again.

My mother’s why was simpler, less grandiose – if no less extraordinary. She met another survivor, they married, had three daughters. My parents, no longer alive, now have 23 descendants walking (or, in one sweet case, still just crawling) the Earth. We are her why.

I keep searching for mine. An obvious lesson of Auschwitz – beyond “do not murder” – could be to show kindness, care and respect for our fellow human beings. (I’ve had my moments, I know. I’m working on it.)

These can be small gestures, or they can be very big ones. But they must trump cruelty. I don’t think I need to explain why.

Source: At Auschwitz, there was no why

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Lederman: What happened in Amsterdam is antisemitism, Regg Cohn: There are no excuses for what happened to Jews in Amsterdam. Period

2024/11/14 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…Of course, the supposed justification for Kristallnacht was a pretext for a highly organized attack. Of course, what happened in Amsterdam was a dark night of extreme antisemitism, fuelled by anger over the war in Gaza. It has continued. On Monday night, rioters set a tram on fire, and yelled about cancerous Jews.

Here’s a hopeful thought: the people who did this are thugs, just as the Nazis were thugs. But on Kristallnacht, they were government-sponsored thugs, organized and supported by the men in charge.

The antisemites running rampant through Amsterdam have been condemned by the city’s mayor, the country’s prime minister and the king of the Netherlands. I’m taking some heart in that. But the gaslighting and victim-blaming – arguing that this was not antisemitism, that the Jews started it and deserved it – that is just heartbreaking.

Source: What happened in Amsterdam is antisemitism

…And so when protesters showed up earlier this year at the opening of the new Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam — home of Anne Frank — they claimed their demonstration was entirely anti-Israeli and utterly anti-Zionist, but couldn’t possibly be antisemitic. Which means the Holocaust is now fair game not merely for deniers but provocateurs.

During the Nazi occupation of Holland, three-quarters of the country’s Jews — 102,000 human beings — were deported to concentration camps. That’s history.

With an eye on that shared history, Dutch King Willem-Alexander publicly apologized for the latest antisemitic outburst: “Our history has taught us how intimidation goes from bad to worse.”

Prime Minister Dick Schoof described the violence as “unadulterated antisemitism,” but went one step further for the benefit of those trying to explain and excuse:

“Nothing is an excuse for hunting Jews.”

Nothing.

Source: Regg Cohn | There are no excuses for what happened to Jews in Amsterdam. Period

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Lederman: Trump’s MSG rally was a horror show on its own – no Nazi comparisons necessary

2024/10/31 Leave a comment

Hard to understand support for this invective and hatred among so many speakers and tolerated, if not shared, by Trump supporters:

…While comparisons are unhelpful, the lessons of that Nazi rally should be heeded. As A Night at the Garden filmmaker Marshall Curry said, the 1939 rally “made clear how the tactics of demagogues have been the same throughout the ages. They attack the press, using sarcasm and humour. They tell their followers that they are the true Americans … And they encourage their followers to “take their country back” from whatever minority group is ruining it.” Sound familiar?

Even if it was unsurprising by MAGA standards, perhaps this rally will turn out to be the October surprise that pundits have been waiting for – a last-minute event that has a big effect on the election result. Perhaps some voters can still be swayed from Mr. Trump’s odious message, even if he and his ever-changing team have shown us again and again who and what they are. What happened on Sunday should matter.

The former wrestler Hulk Hogan, one of the esteemed speakers at the Trump event, looked out at the crowd and declared “I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis.”

Call them what you will (or won’t), but the stench is palpable. A little, one might say, like foul, reeking garbage.

Source: Trump’s MSG rally was a horror show on its own – no Nazi comparisons necessary

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