Just over 10 years after the Canadian Jewish Congress was dissolved, former leadership from across the country convened via an enthusiastic Zoom call to discuss how the legacy of the once prestigious organization could be maintained.
The so-called “Parliament of Canadian Jewry” had a unique structure that provided for Canada-wide representation. Delegates from national, regional and local Jewish organizations as well as synagogues and service clubs from across the country were able to have meaningful input into national and regional policy through regular local meetings, regional conferences and annual consultations culminating in a plenary assembly every three years.
Some of the former CJC leadership on the screen.
Taking part of the call were: Jack Silverstone, Ottawa (former National Executive Vice-President and General Counsel); Bernie Farber, Toronto (former Chief Executive Officer); Les Scheininger, Toronto (former National President); Eric Vernon, Ottawa (former Director of Government Relations); Michael Crelinsten, Montreal (former Quebec Region Executive Director); Dorothy Zalcman Howard, Montreal (former Quebec Region Chair); Mike Cohen, Montreal (former National Director of Communications); Michael Elterman and Renee Switzer, Vancouver (former Pacific Region Chairs); Joseph J. Wilder, Winnipeg (former National Community Relations Committee Chair); Jon Goldberg, Halifax (former Atlantic Jewish Council Executive Director); and Hal Joffe, Calgary (former National Community Relations Chair).
The main consensus from this call was to find a way to share the many achievements of CJC during its 90 years of existence: combatting anti-Semitism; steering the Nazi war criminals dossier; Israel advocacy; the Soviet/Syrian/Ethiopian Jewry advocacy efforts; the coalition of Jewish, Italian and Greek communities which advocated for Canadian unity; and standing up for other minority communities. It is hoped that initially a lecture series can be launched to both remind the community of these milestones while informing the next generation who may be too young to know about the CJC mandate.
Since this call, a number of others have stepped forward to be added to the list of those seeking to get involved.
By Zach Paikin and James Gutman - November 20, 2015
In the recent federal election, we witnessed the continuation of a trend that has been apparent within Canada’s Jewish community for the past several years: division between the left and the right.
Division isn’t a bad thing when it is accompanied by meaningful and respectful dialogue. The problem today is that our community is in the midst of a dialogue of the deaf. There is very little overlap between the policy priorities, general worldviews and public pronouncements of the Canadian Jewish left and right.
Members of the Canadian Jewish Congress met on the stage of "His Majesty's Theatre" on Guy Street in Montreal on June 20, 1946. The Israeli flag and a flag with the Canadian Coat of Arms are suspended from the ceiling. WIKI COMMONS PHOT
Our community is in need of a political institution that can unite Jewish Canadians from across the spectrum. Instead of polarization and cacophony, we need a vehicle that truly reflects our community’s diversity. That is why we are calling for the re-establishment of an elected Canadian Jewish Congress.
For most of its history, the CJC was a truly democratic and representative organization. Just like Canada itself, the organization was a parliamentary democracy formed of several regional components. Each region was allocated a certain number of representatives based on the size of their local Jewish population.
Every three years, elections would be held, in which every member of the Jewish community – above the age of 18 and in good standing with their local United Jewish Appeal – would vote for their representatives on the CJC executive. The executive was, in effect, the Canadian Jewish community’s parliament.
In its heyday, the executive boasted nearly 160 individuals. On a triennial cycle, it would meet in a plenary session to vote for the CJC’s officers, which included a president, a chair and sitting representative officers of each region. This smaller group of officers ran the day-to-day affairs of the CJC, while ultimately remaining accountable to the executive.
Later on in its history, after the CJC was incorporated into the umbrella organization that wouldeventually become known as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), its democratic component largely faded away. This was an unfortunate development, as it gave grounds for many to criticize the organization as being too focused on progressive causes and not enough on Israel- and Jewish-specific issues.
Similarly, many progressive and centrist Jews believe today that their community’s leading advocacy organizations are too Israel-centric and thus unrepresentative of the political diversity of Canadian Jewry. This is why the re-establishment of an elected, democratic CJC is so important. We need to build a Jewish community in which all feel welcome.
If we fail to bring our community’s present-day polarization to an end, there could be significant long-term consequences. Growing numbers of Jewish Canadians will feel increasingly alienated from their community’s leadership and institutions, an alienation they may pass on to the next generation. Some may end up feeling the divide so strongly that they will fail to give their children a Jewish education.
In much of the Diaspora,preserving and nourishing Jewish identity is one of our community’s paramount and most difficult challenges. Community is one of the bedrocks of Jewish life. We cannot let our personal ideological preferences get in the way of building a Canadian Jewish community that will remain strong, welcoming and forward-looking over the long term.
Do not misunderstand our position: the work that CIJA does on Israel-related and other issues is professional, important and needs to continue. The connection between Canadian Jewry and Israel is strong, and we need an organization that will help to ensure that the Canada-Israel friendship remains a durable one.
But ultimately, for the sake of the long-term health of the Canadian Jewish community, we need to establish an advocacy organization that is democratic, multi-faceted and representative of our community’s many voices and passions. Our community can band together to tackle domestic and international issues, in accordance with both spiritual and secular values. Our love for Israel and our devotion to other causes need not be mutually exclusive.
The choice with which our community is presented is clear. If both left-leaning and right-leaning Jewish Canadians continue to place ideology over unity, then public perception of our community will worsen, and the pillars that support it will weaken. We need to recognize and embrace our community’s diversity of opinion, and channel that diversity into something rich and positive with the help of a truly representative institution.
We need to bring back an elected, democratic Canadian Jewish Congress.
Zach Paikin is a columnist for The Hill Times. James Gutman is a Jewish educator and community organizer.
Following the publication of an opinion piece on The Suburban website (see below) about the Canadian Jewish Congress, there has been a lot of talk generated about possibly reviving the brand. We speak to former National Executive Vice-President and General Counsel Jack Silverstone, former President Les Scheininger and former National Executive Committee Chairs Dorothy Zalcman Howard and Renee Switzer.
Canadians continue to mourn the passing of former Canadian Jewish Congress president Goldie Hershon.
Hershon served in a wide array of important roles for CJC, recognized as the Parliament of Canadian Jewry. She had a dynamic personality and during the three years she served as national president she travelled across the globe and met with world leaders. Goldie never developed into a politician per se. She was merely your down to earth mom, wife and community activist. Following her term in office at CJC she could have run for elected office in Hampstead, where she resided, and won handily.
By Goldie’s side was her devoted husband of 61 years, Shelly. Theirs was a true love story. Possessed with an equally dynamic personality. Goldie had Alzheimer’s Disease . As her condition worsened over time Shelly refused to have her placed. Instead, he and his family, along with round the clock caregivers, kept her at home.
Hershon was a pioneer in the Soviet Jewry movement, organizing important rallies to free Jews from anti-Semitic conditions they experienced in the former Soviet Union. It was never her idea to seek the national presidency of CJC. In 1995, Thomas O. Hecht declared his candidacy. What made the CJC different from any other organization is that leaders were elected and policies adopted by delegates at a triennial Plenary. Hershon was a last minute entry in the race. She narrowly defeated Hecht in an election that garnered national media attention.
Born to Polish Jewish immigrants in the Park Avenue district of Montreal, Goldie attended United Talmud Torahs and Baron Byng, Herzliah High School. She received a certificate in family life education from Concordia University.
Hershon became involved in Jewish advocacy after a 1979 visit to Auschwitz. Prior to seeking the presidency, Goldie served as national vice-president of CJC, Chair of the CJC National Plenary Assembly, Vice-Chair of the North American branch of the World Jewish Congress and member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. From 1989 to 1992, she was chair of the CJC Quebec Region. Besides the Soviet Jewry Movement, Goldie chaired Combined Jewish Appeal Super Sunday and helped spearhead the creation of Hebrew Foundation School in Dollard des Ormeaux.
In fighting against Quebec separatism, Hershon made her mark as part of the CJC’s national unity strategy when we formed a national coalition of Canada’s Italian, Greek and Jewish communities during the debate on the Charlottetown Accord. When then Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau blamed the “ethnic vote” for his team’s referendum loss on taking Quebec out of Canada he meant us.
Hershon leaves her husband Shelly, children Cindy (Eric) and David (Sandy) and seven grandchildren.Contributions in Goldie’s memory may be made to the “Goldie Hershon Memorial Fund” c/o Alzheimer’s Groupe A.G.I., (514) 485-7233.
Had it not been dissolved in 2011, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) would have celebrated its 100th anniversary last year as an organization recognized and respected worldwide for its strong and successful advocacy role.
At a time when acts of intolerance in an unstable world seem only to grow worse, we believe there is an important role for a body like CJC. While existing Jewish organizations serve the community well, none can truly present itself as being democratically elected.
Delegates to the first CJC Plenary in Montreal in 1919.
CJC stood out from the time of its founding in Montreal in 1919 for exactly that. Its officers were not appointed, but rather elected. Triennial plenary assemblies allowed for members of the Jewish community from coast to coast to register as delegates and vote for representatives as well as on policy matters. Their work was vital. As historian and former CJC national president Professor Irving Abella stated in Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper: “On March 16, 1919, 209 Canadian Jews gathered in the Monument National Theatre in Montreal to take part in the founding of the Canadian Jewish Congress. This was, at the time, a country of quotas, restrictions and boycotts. It was and would, for most of the next 50 years, remain a nation blanketed by a stifling and seemingly impenetrable antisemitism and xenophobia.”
The so-called “Parliament of Canadian Jewry” had a unique structure that provided for Canada-wide representation. Delegates from national, regional and local Jewish organizations as well as synagogues and service clubs from across the country were able to have meaningful input into national and regional policy through regular local meetings, regional conferences and annual consultations culminating in a plenary assembly every three years. Although this was a complex process, especially at the national level, given the vast size of the country, it provided for a truly valuable mechanism for discussion and policy-making on critical issues. With the advent of online meetings, it is easy to surmise that a continued CJC would have been able not only to maintain but also to expand its grassroots consultative role in the finest democratic tradition.
Largely for this reason, as well as for the excellence and professionalism of CJC’s representations, the doors of government officials of all political stripes—federally, provincially and across the world—opened widely for CJC delegations. The same was true for diplomatic missions and international organizations.
After its founding, CJC functioned for only about a year, during which time its major accomplishment was creating the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society before a lack of funding and administrative resources caused CJC to pause operations. As former CJC Ontario Region Chair Frank Bialystok explained in an article that appeared in the now defunct Canadian Jewish News, “Congress was reconstituted in 1934, at which point what are now local Jewish federations had already come to the fore.” He added that the period between 1967 and 2000 was characterized by competitiveness and overlapping mandates among Jewish organizations in Canada.
CJC was constantly in the news with its proactive approach when it came to denouncing and combating antisemitism, racism and Holocaust denial, ensuring that Nazi war criminals in our midst were brought to justice, standing up for Israel, and reaching out to small Jewish communities scattered throughout the country. For decades CJC spearheaded advocacy for Jews who desperately needed help in the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Syria and elsewhere.
At the same time, CJC was very much a human-rights organization. This was perhaps best exemplified in its legal interventions in significant court proceedings and commissions of inquiry. In more than thirty major cases, the organization was able to assemble top legal talent from across most regions of the country to participate on its behalf.
CJC intervened in legal matters where the interests of the Jewish community and of all those in a free and democratic Canadian society were at issue. Participation by CJC in cases that might not at first glance have appeared to bear a direct link to its constituency exemplifies the power and importance of outside party intervention and the value of solidarity among all Canadians in upholding the laws and principles upon which a just society is built. CJC’s broad-minded approach resulted in the development of a solid and diverse history of participation in the Canadian judicial arena. CJC successfully utilized the role of intervenor to advance the interests of minorities for the ultimate benefit of all Canadians. Without the leadership and active participation of intervenors such as CJC, Canadian law and indeed Canadian society would not be what they are today.
As Professor Abella noted: “It began as an organization for Canadian Jews, but soon after its founding became an organization for all Canadians who needed its help. Throughout its history, the congress was in the forefront of epic battles for human rights, equality, immigration reform and civility in this country. It stood arm in arm with Indigenous peoples in Canada fighting for their rights and dignity, with Canadian Sikhs demanding their right to wear turbans at their jobs and in Legion halls, and with a host of minority groups making their way in Canada. To each of them, the CJC has been a mentor, sharing its expertise and experience.”
Today we believe that the name and, even more importantly, the mission of the Canadian Jewish Congress are missed. The void of its departure from the Canadian scene has not been filled. Over a century after its founding and a decade after its demise, perhaps the time has come to reconstitute this exceptional organization.
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Jack Silverstone served as national executive director and general counsel and then as executive vice-president of CJC from 1985 to 2003. Mike Cohen was CJC’s national director of communications from 1988 to 1999.
