OPINION
The unspeakable silence of the Canadian
Jewish establishment
ANDREW COHEN
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE
AND MAIL
PUBLISHED YESTERDAY
Andrew Cohen is a journalist and professor of
journalism at Carleton University. His most recent book is Two Days in
June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.
In its 75 years of nationhood, Israel has
lived under a regime of unrelenting threat. Challenges to its security, unity
and prosperity are as old as the country itself. Whatever the danger –
invasion, war, terrorism, intifadas, boycotts, sanctions – it has come from
beyond Israel’s borders.
No longer. The forces convulsing Israel over the
past 10 weeks are made in Israel. They come from citizens protesting a
religious, revolutionary government that wants to make the judiciary less
independent, weakening the checks and balances that have protected minority
rights. If Israel is in upheaval today, blame not marauding infidels, foreign
armies or fifth columnists. Blame Israelis.
Oh, the irony. The power of its military,
diplomacy and economy ensures Israel dominates the neighbourhood. As political
scientist Steven A. Cook has noted, Israel has broadened relations with
regional partners while ensuring Israel’s armed forces, brandishing nuclear
weapons, are matchless. There is a mortal threat from Iran, yes. But Israel is
less vulnerable than it was during the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973,
or any other time. “Israel is in a better strategic position than ever,” Mr.
Cook argues. “And its sovereignty is beyond question.”
At home, though, Israel is roiling with
insurrection. Its soul is under siege. Ehud Barak, the former prime
minister, calls for “civil disobedience” if the new
government passes its agenda; he says Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition
is using “the tools of democracy in order to destroy [Israel] from within.”
From afar, the Jewish diaspora watches this unravelling with a mix of
acquiescence, incredulity, resignation, helplessness, fear and anger.
Among Canada’s 400,000 or so Jews, the
response is muted. Some have voiced their opposition to Mr. Netanyahu’s plans
through the campaigns of progressive Jewish organizations. From more centrist
Jewish groups: silence.
It has come to this: In Israel’s hour of
crisis, as thousands fill the streets, protesting the assault on democracy and
human rights, mainstream Jews in Canada are unseen and unheard. They have been
orphaned by timid, tepid leadership out of step with their views. This is the
unspeakable silence of the Canadian Jewish establishment.
The emblem of that establishment is the Centre
for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). It calls itself the “advocacy agent” of
the Jewish Federations of Canada, an umbrella of organizations providing social
services and advancing Jewish interests.
CIJA initially called itself “the exclusive
agent” of Canadian Jews. Now, more modestly, it “represents the diverse
perspectives of more than 150,000 Jewish Canadians affiliated with their local
Jewish Federation.” That claim is dubious. Is every one of these 150,000
individuals “affiliated” with a federation (presumably as donors or volunteers)
duly represented by CIJA? How does CIJA know? And even if all were aligned with
CIJA, this would still represent less than half of Canadian Jewry, suggesting
that CIJA – for all its hopes and boasts – is far less relevant than it admits.
Then again, CIJA has overstated its stature
since it was created in 2011, when it absorbed the Canadian Jewish Congress
(CJC) and the Canada-Israel Committee. Discarding its “legacy name” like
day-old bagels, CIJA dropped “Canadian” and added “Israel.” It insisted its restructuring had “the
overwhelmingly support of the community.” Not necessarily. Bernie Farber,
who was at Congress (as it was called) for most of his long, distinguished
career in Jewish advocacy, calls it a hostile takeover of what was known as
“the parliament of Canadian Jewry.”
For many Canadian Jews, the end of Congress
was an affront, reflecting the agenda of wealthy Jews sympathetic to Stephen
Harper’s Conservatives. For me, it was a loss. Congress was founded by my great
uncle, Lyon Cohen, among others, in 1919. He was president until 1934,
supported by my grandfather, Abraham Zebulon Cohen. Although at first the CJC
did little beyond establishing the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society, Congress
eventually became a spirited democratic voice led by prominent Jews in
business, law, the clergy and the academy. Among them were Samuel Bronfman,
Gunther Plaut, Reuven Bulka, Irving Abella, Dorothy Reitman and Irwin Cotler.
Prof. Abella, the late eminent historian, called
it “a unique organization” with “no parallel anywhere else in the Jewish
world.” It was a forum “where all the problems of Canadian Jewry could be
debated,” including human rights, equity, immigration, free speech, social
justice and interfaith dialogue. “No one doubted that when the CJC spoke, it
spoke on behalf of all Canadian Jewry,” he said.
Today no one believes CIJA speaks for Canadian
Jewry. It is not a parliament. Its officers are unelected. Its annual budget is
secret. It is evasive (after pleasantly acknowledging my queries, none were
answered.) The organization does admirable things, such as fighting
antisemitism. It also champions Israel, about which, let it be said, its chief
executive officer, Shimon Fogel, cannot utter a discouraging word.
Scour CIJA’s Twitter account, its news
releases and Mr. Fogel’s interviews, and it’s hard to find a single criticism
of the Netanyahu government (except, recently discovering intestinal fortitude,
it denounced Israel’s hateful Finance Minister for urging the eradication of a
Palestinian village.) CIJA presumably believes its subtlety and caution serves
the community, whose views on the unrest in Israel have been unclear.
Now, though, we know more. A
comprehensive poll by EKOS Research Associates finds that
Canadian Jews overwhelmingly oppose changes to Israel’s high court and other
proposed measures, such as banning gay pride parades and imposing gender
segregation in public spaces. That is just one poll, commissioned by
JSpaceCanada and the New Israel Fund of Canada (NIFC). Still, it provides “a
fair baseline representation of Jewish community perspectives in issues of
vital importance,” says Robert Brym, a sociologist at the University of Toronto
who oversaw the survey.
If this is a correct reading of Jewish
attitudes, CIJA is ignoring them, even as Mr. Fogel insists otherwise. “While
marginal groups may heckle from the sidelines,” he told the Canadian Jewish
News, “in fact, CIJA not only has the access but has used its privileged
position to meet with senior Israeli leadership” in and out of government.
Those recent meetings were preceded by other private interventions, he
reported.
Mr. Fogel, who lacks the influence of the
luminaries who ran Congress, suggests his quiet diplomacy is more effective
than public pressure. His scorn for other Jewish voices – heckling from the
sidelines – reflects an erosion of civility within the community. Relations are
so fraught that CIJA has threatened, in writing, to sue the NIFC and
JSpaceCanada for attributing statements to Mr. Fogel that he denies are his.
Mr. Farber, who was CEO of the CJC, says this
level of rancour is unprecedented in Canada. “There were always differences,
sometimes prickly, but it was always ‘Macy’s versus Gimbels.’ It was always
kept within the community. There was an unwritten rule that we ought not air
our dirty laundry in public. We kept things unzera, in Yiddish, ‘among
ourselves.’”
Then, again, it’s understandable that
some Jews are reluctant to speak out, even though Jews are acutely sensitive to
injustice and have historically protested it everywhere, notably as leading
participants in the U.S. civil rights movement. They were raised to revere
Israel and to remember the Holocaust. They don’t want to give ammunition to
antisemites. The rabbi of my synagogue, who presides over a large, conservative
congregation, says that were he an Israeli, he would join the protests. From
his pulpit, though, he argues Israel is “a liberal democracy” that will get by
without his advice.
There are other explanations for this
reticence. It may be our character, which is less assertive than Americans,
Australians and Britons. It may be that shutting up is the price of access, be
it in Ottawa (which has been less critical of Israel than other governments) or
Jerusalem. It may be the absence of a lively Jewish press as a forum for
liberal Zionist voices.
And what good, skeptics might ask, is rushing
to the ramparts anyway? Do we think Jerusalem really cares? Actually, Mr.
Netanyahu might listen to the diaspora and foreign governments, if they made
enough noise – and some threats, too. Meanwhile, he pushes his illiberal
project forward because he can.
It isn’t that there are no critics among
prominent Canadian Jews. Former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella has warned of the dangers to the independence of
Israel’s judiciary. So has Mr. Cotler among about 175 jurists who have signed a petition. The NIFC
and JSpaceCanada are rallying opposition and raising public awareness,
vigorously and effectively, as are Canadian
Friends of Peace Now. To them, CIJA and its silent partners are
marginal while they are mainstream, and this is no time for nuance.
But where are other Jews – entrepreneurs,
doctors, artists, professors? Where are the philanthropists declaring their
alarm, as Charles Bronfman, the Canadian co-founder of Birthright, and other Jewish billionaires and foundations have
in the U.S.? Where are rabbis as passionate as Micah Streiffer of Toronto,
who says it is our obligation to speak up when
Israel abandons basic values, a response that is the real expression “of our
love”?
In 1965, a young Elie Wiesel visited the
Soviet Union to observe the life of its three million Jews. That produced his
haunting cri de coeur, The Jews of Silence. Curiously, he confessed
that he was less concerned about Soviet Jews than the detachment of his
American co-religionists, a lament that has an eerie contemporary resonance
amid Israel’s moral crisis.
“What torments me most is not the silence of the Jews I met in
Russia,” he wrote, “but the silence of the Jews I live among today.”
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