Keith Landy

SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Oral Opening Submission

CANADIAN JEWISH CONGRESS ORAL SUBMISSION
ON ANTISEMITISM IN CANADA
TO
THE SENATE’S STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Re resolution encapsulating the 2002 Berlin OSCE (PA) Resolution.

April 19, 2004

Good evening. I am Keith Landy, National President of Canadian Jewish Congress, and I am accompanied by Manuel Prutschi, CJC’s National Executive Director pro tem and National Director of Community Relations, and Eric Vernon, our Director of Government Relations.

Let me begin by thanking the leaders of both parties in the Senate, who have made these hearings possible.

Allow me furthermore, Mme. Chair, to thank you in particular and all the members of this Committee for recognizing the pressing concern that is antisemitism, both in Canada and the rest of the world, and for holding these hearings.

We very much appreciate the opportunity to contribute our expertise and experience to this truly historic parliamentary review of the nature of contemporary antisemitism in Canada.

We also take this opportunity to thank Clifford Lincoln for his role as one of Canada’s parliamentary representatives to the OSCE as well as his colleague on this organization, Senator Jerry Grafstein, whose commitment to the issue of antisemitism is perhaps only surpassed by his tenacity in seeing the 2002 OSCE Berlin resolution find its way to this committee.

It is our sincere hope that this Committee will recommend that the senate of Canada endorse the OSCE resolution on antisemitism prior to next week’s follow-up conference in Berlin. It is further our hope that our testimony here tonight will help you in this important task.

The presence of Jews in Canada dates back to the 18th century and today we number approximately 370,000 souls, amounting to 1.1% of the population. Well over half of us reside in the country’s three largest cities – Toronto (180,000), Montréal (93,000) and Vancouver (22,500). There are many other cities with smaller yet self-sufficient Jewish populations of varying size.

The Canadian Jewish community, I am proud to say, is among the most thriving in the Diaspora. It constitutes an excellent example, we think, of a well-adjusted minority in a western democracy. While retaining our unique identity, we are proud to be Canadian Jews.

As a minority community we understand there to be a fundamental Canadian social contract, which involves the state eschewing a policy of assimilation while minority communities pursue the path of full integration. Distinctiveness is encouraged with the understanding that there is an adoption of and a loyalty to an overarching Canadianism.

Canadianism means subscribing to values centrally identified with being Canadian. These values include: democratic government; fundamental freedoms; individual liberty and the dignity and security of the person; the rule of law; a division between church and state that fosters the parallel growth of distinct spiritual and civic identities, free from religious fiat and control and the opting for civility and compromise in dealing with disputes.

It is in this context, Honourable Senators, that we approach our examination of antisemitism, a scourge that has confronted the Canadian Jewish community from its inception. Its contemporary threatening presence forms part of a continuum dating back to the community’s origins and only temporarily interrupted in the early 1940s, when Canada went to war against the Axis powers.

Canadian Jewish Congress, since its inception in 1919, as an organization concerned with the rights of all Canadians, and especially those of ethnic, religious and other minorities and equality-seeking groups, has had the fight against antisemitism as a central preoccupation.

CJC defines antisemitism as the irrational, differential, negative treatment of Jews individually and as a collectivity because of their Jewishness, including the State of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is crucial to stress that one cannot understand contemporary or the “new” antisemitism as it has come to be called, either in Canada or elsewhere, without an appreciation of its international, and particularly its Middle Eastern, context.

Zionism, through the State of Israel — its tangible expression — constitutes for the Jewish people the culmination of its striving for liberation from perennial persecution, self-determination and self-realization and the fulfillment of its destiny. For the Canadian Jewish community, therefore, Israel is central and the ties with it are very strong.

The antisemitism of the last three years, the likes of which has not been seen since after the end of the Second World War, is a global phenomenon that transcends borders. It combines traditional anti-Jewishness with anti-Zionism, that is, the denial of Jewish national self-determination in our ancestral homeland and of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in the Middle East.

The Jewish community is twice targeted: as part of its fellow citizenry and as perhaps the only ethno-religious community globally singled out for terrorist violence. Anti- Jewish terror is but an extension of the murderous terrorist campaign directed against the State of Israel in what is an unrelenting geopolitical war. Conversely, antisemitism, which had been a Diaspora phenomenon, also came to target Israel after the re-establishment in 1948 of the modern Jewish state.

The new antisemitism is found among sectors of both the left and the right on the one hand and the Arab and Muslim worlds (including the west, with Canada no exception) on the other. It is at the core of Christian and Muslim theologians of hate and visceral, rather than ideological loathers. The antisemitic poison also has overcome elements of the New Age and anti-globalization movements as well as all too many anti-Americans. The new antisemitism is the glue that binds these otherwise disparate, if not outright antagonistic, groups.

The Canadian situation is not as bad as Europe and elsewhere, but Canada has not been immune. Hatred has been propagated and incited, synagogues have been desecrated and firebombed, schools and other property have been vandalized and targeted for arson, tombstones have been violated and individuals and groups, as well as the community as a whole, have been harassed, abused, threatened and assaulted.

The latest (March-April 2004) antisemitic outrages in Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland have demonstrated starkly that antisemitism is alive and well in Canada. Crimes have included the firebombing of a school library in Montréal, vandalism against synagogues in Toronto and St. John’s and a school in Toronto), the overturning of tombstones in four Jewish cemeteries, two in Toronto and one each in Kitchener and Brantford and the defacement of homes, cars, signs and other property in the Greater Toronto Area.

•tThe impact on the Jewish community is psychological and financial. An apprehensive community is forced to undertake costly security measures at our schools, synagogues and other institutions. We encourage governments to consider how to assist us in this process. We note also that this extraordinary need for Jewish communal security constitutes an infringement on our rights as Canadians.

•tAt the root of the phenomenon is an intellectual and emotional attitude that first finds expression in hate propaganda and the teaching of contempt. Words that are recklessly irresponsible, inflammatory and downright evil are the necessary precondition for the execution of evil deeds.

•tGuy Gavriel Kay, noted Canadian Jewish novelist and poet, perceptively places the root of current Canadian antisemitism in what he identifies as “the climate of discourse,” an atmosphere “today where things can be said in public that are loathsome….” We must strive to remove the cloak of impunity that many people today feel entitles them to say or do things in distinctly un-Canadian ways.

•tThe tone of public discourse on the Arab-Israeli conflict has certainly degenerated significantly, crossing the line from legitimate vigorous expression of political opinion to antisemitism.

•tThis blending of anti-Zionism and antisemitism has manifested itself most concretely on Canadian university campuses. Hostility, vilification, confrontation and intimidation, in some cases, have often supplanted the normative salutary exchange of ideas and intellectual debate.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a truism that although antisemitism begins with the Jews, it never ends with them. While today it has started by threatening the status of Jewish communities and of the world’s only Jewish state, its ultimate aim or consequence is the destruction of democratic, open and pluralistic societies like Canada’s that we have all built together and equally hold dear.

It is in the nature of antisemitism, both domestically and internationally, always to attempt a move from the periphery to the centre. While in Europe it may already partially have succeeded in this attempt, in Canada we believe that thus far it has failed to effect this move. It is our responsibility to keep it out of the mainstream or, where the centre has been breached, we must push it back to the margins. t

Recommendations:

tActions to counter antisemitism must at once be national and international in scope and bear on all necessary aspects of society including political, intellectual, cultural, legal, educational d economic.

t Manifestations of antisemitism must be publicly and unequivocally denounced by the political sector at all levels to demonstrate Canada’s policy of zero tolerance for such actions.

tToday, Canada is a community of communities– racism can no longer be viewed as an “us” versus “them” phenomenon–members of minority communities are as much prey to the racism temptation and are both part of the problem and part of the solution.

otEthnocultural and faith communities, therefore, must recognize the seriousness of antisemitism and speak out against it — there has to be a “front of human solidarity” in society so that no targeted community should ever have to feel isolated in its victimization.

tEducational programmes are vital in sensitizing people, especially the young, to the unmitigated dangers of antisemitism and racism and teaching universal and enduring lessons on human rights, tolerance and multiculturalism.

tAntisemitism (and all expressions of racism and hate) runs counter to Canadian values, as does a lack of civility and respect for diversity.

otThe government should promote a values-based approach to citizenship and civil discourse, whereby the maintenance of heritage and identity encouraged by our multicultural society must be accompanied by an acceptance and endorsement of core Canadian values.

otWe need to restore civil discourse in Canada to engender an atmosphere of trust and respect while “Canadianizing” debate on contentious geo-political issues, that is, develop a framework for talking with each other while respecting core Canadian values.

otCJC, with the generous support of Canadian heritage, is organizing this fall three conferences on civil discourse, slated for central, western and eastern Canada, to address this very issue.

tOver the last half century, Canada has developed an evolving body of human rights jurisprudence to counter hate and bias activity against identifiable groups.

otAuthorities must continue to use this arsenal of legal recourses against perpetrators of antisemitism, with the important understanding that crimes that appear to be of a “political” nature, such as pamphlets with Judeophobic themes, allegations of a world Jewish conspiracy and graffiti equating the star of David with the swastika are, in fact, antisemitic acts.

tThe legal remedies include:

otThe Criminal Code of Canada, particularly the anti-hate package that proscribes advocacy of genocide, incitement or wilful promotion of hatred and mischief relating to religious property, as well as the sentence enhancement provisions for hate crimes.

ot The interpretive guidelines of Canada customs for the enforcement of sections of the customs tariff.

ot Human rights legislation, regulations of the Canadian Radio-Television and telecommunications Commission, other acts in the areas of broadcasting, education and immigration and other relevant provisions.

tCanada should use the moral authority we have gained over the years as a nation dedicated to human rights, democracy and the security of the person to enhance our leadership role in the international campaign against antisemitism. this includes:

otCondemning its manifestation at every opportunity in multilateral forums, including the United Nations and the OSCE, and in the context of its global bilateral relations.

tCanada has taken a number of important steps in the wake of 9/11 to bolster domestic security and do its share in the war against international terrorism. It must do more. For example:

otThe government should provide a context for its counter-terrorism campaign that situates these efforts as protective of human rights and core Canadian values and as upholding the Canadian way of life — by protecting Canadians from terrorism, the government is securing the most fundamental right of all–the right to life and the security of the person.

otGovernments must ensure that the antisemitic hatred driving so much of the world’s terrorists continues to be recognized and taken into consideration in Canada’s overall security preparedness.

otGovernments at all levels must be sensitized to the security burden being borne by the Jewish community and consider ways to assist in this process.

We know, honourable senators that you share with us our profound concerns over resurgent antisemitism. We look to you, as parliamentarians who champion decency, civility, pluralism and human rights, to take an activist approach to ridding Canada and the world of this scourge.