Working with Other Communities

In a country as diverse as Canada, with many different faiths and cultures coming together, there are many areas where these communities may intersect and make our country stronger.  Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) regularly partners with other faith and ethno-cultural communities to deal with matters of public or social policy that affect us as communities directly or, more broadly, that have an impact on Canadian society.    Canadian Jewish Congress has for decades been involved in outreach to other communities. This has taken many forms, and its key purpose is to ensure that we can stand together and support one another when issues arise in the public square that affect any one of us. This is part of our Canadian value system and it makes our country stronger.

Our excellent volunteers are the backbone of our interfaith and intercultural exchanges. These outstanding Jewish leaders have connections in a variety of communities, which allow us to establish meaningful dialogue on matters of common concern.

Since 2001, Canadian Jewish Congress Charities Committee - Pacific Region has sponsored a Jewish-Christian Dialogue comprised of Jewish and Christian Faith leaders with the aim of establishing new relationships, strengthening existing ones, identifying issues of concern to our various faith groups and to seek creative ways to work together on an ongoing basis to explore possible solutions.  The Committee gathers monthly to discuss issues of theology and issues of common concern and to plan Trialogues with other religious communities.

Interfaith and Ethno-Cultural Connections

Canadian Jewish Congress is a partner in many interfaith and ethno-cultural initiatives from the national to the grassroots local levels. Examples at the national level include the Canadian Christian Jewish Consultation and the Canadian Ethnocultural Council. Our regional offices and merged community partners are also involved in local dialogue opportunities, including the Christian Jewish Dialogue of Toronto, the Phoenix Society in Edmonton (which includes Jewish, Muslim and Catholic representatives), and a multifaith women’s group in St. John’s, to name but a few.  We also undertake less formal partnerships with other minority communities where and when the opportunities arise. For example, Quebec Jewish Congress is working with the leadership of the Kanawake Reserve in Quebec on a counselling service pairing Holocaust survivors with Aboriginal School survivors.

Advocacy Partnerships

One of the most common reasons CJC partners with other communities is to strengthen our advocacy efforts on matters of importance to the Jewish community. For example, in the summer of 2009, CJC worked with a vast number of other community groups in connection with the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism.  Many groups, both Jewish and non-Jewish, provided written submissions to the Coalition describing the danger antisemitism poses to all Canadians because it erodes our Canadian values and creates an environment where hate becomes acceptable.

In 2007, Canadian Jewish Congress Ontario Region partnered with a number of other groups, including representatives in the Ontario Muslim, Sikh, and Armenian communities to advocate for public funding for all faith-based schools, rather than a selective system where Catholic schools receive funding, but the vast majority of other faith-based schools do not. Although the group was not able to secure this funding, it was an important initiative that brought very diverse communities together on a common issue and in a positive way.

Interfaith partnerships are also an important vehicle through which CJC has undertaken advocacy initiatives.  We regularly partner with Christian faith leaders to promote an end to the genocide in Darfur and with Muslim imams on protecting religious rights regarding the ritual preparation of food, to cite two examples.

CJC has also developed an important and meaningful connection with Canada’s First Nations.  At the national level this has taken place through a strong relationship with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN). Relationships between the Jewish and First Nations communities also take place on the local level in a variety of communities across Canada.  Through the CJC Charities Committee, a number of AFN Chiefs have taken educational trips in Israel focused on social advocacy, language retention and women’s empowerment.  Former AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine has spoken at a CJC annual general meeting, and CJC leadership has done the same for the AFN.  We have also co-authored an op-ed that appeared in the Globe and Mail.

Standing Together in the Face of Hate

Sadly, one of the most common reasons around which Canadian Jewish Congress builds relationships with other faith and ethno-cultural communities is to provide and receive support when one of these groups has been attacked. No community should feel alone in the face of hatred, because an attack on one of us is an attack on all Canadians.

In the early part of 2004, the Jewish community of Canada was the victim of a series of antisemitic incidents that reached an intensity that had not been seen for decades. In response to the incidents, including a graffiti spree in the Toronto area, the overturning of gravestones in a Jewish cemetery, and most frightening of all, the firebombing of a Jewish school in Montreal, Canadian Jewish Congress partnered with UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to organize a community rally.  Although the intention of the event was to give our own community an opportunity to come together, it turned out be so much more.  Politicians from all parties and representatives from virtually every faith and ethno-cultural community in Toronto came to the event and filled the building, standing together and ensure that it was not the victims of hate that were isolated, but the perpetrators.

Of course, CJC comes to the aid of other communities too.  In the fall of 2008, deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, claimed dozens of lives, including a number of Jewish victims at the local Chabad House. Canadian Jewish Congress joined with the Indo-Canadian community at an event to denounce the horrific terror attacks at a solidarity rally in Toronto.  CJC also spoke out publicly when the Devi Mandir Hindu temple in Pickering, ON was desecrated.. And when the Almhadi mosque, also in Pickering, was vandalized and set on fire in March 2004, CJC participated in a solidarity rally at the mosque.