scaramouche

...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

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User: scaramouche
Irreverent, contrarian, delighted to be out of synch with the zeitgeist, I depend on my sense of humour (such as it is) to keep me sane in this wacky world.

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Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Table manners: In a column in the Jerusalem Post, Issi Leibler unpacked the strategy of CIJA, the umbrella which shelters Jewish advocacy organizations in Canada. He attributed its reluctance to speak up for Israel to a “sha shtill” mentality. (“Sha shtill” is Yiddish for “stay still”—i.e. shut yo’ mouth—the approach employed by mainstream North American Jewish groups in the lead-up to what turned out to be the Holocaust.)  A letter to the Post’s editor suggests that another factor is in play (h/t BCF):

No place at the table

Sir, - Two important points need to be added to Isi Leibler's excellent "Canadian Israel advocacy in turmoil" (September 21). The takeover by a small group of fund-raisers and main donors was really a coup, without any consultation with the Canadian Jewish Congress, a body elected by all Jews across Canada, or with the Canada Israel Committee (the Canadian AIPAC), a group of volunteers comprising supporters of all Israeli political points of view.

Both organizations had highly qualified staff with excellent PR qualifications, and were very efficient. But the new group - the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) - controls the purse-strings and the budgets; and the message to other organizations, who were doing a much better job than CIJA is now doing, was to go along, or be cut off.

Most of the "machers" are good friends of Shimon Peres and want only his agenda as the policy of the Canadian Jewish community. It is thus not so much the "sha shtil" approach, as leftist-only ideas. Political centrists, even more so those a little to the right, have not only lost their place at the decision-making table. They cannot even approach the table.

Sometimes it seems that this new entity is a branch of the Israeli Labor Party.

Happily, as Leibler points out, there are a number of smaller groups in Canada carrying the message Israel needs to be sent to the Canadian Jewish community, and to the Israel-friendly Canadian government.

DAVID ROTENBERG 
Jerusalem /Toronto

As someone who belongs to one of these smaller groups and who votes Conservative—something that sets me apart from the majority of Canadian Jews, who, like their American counterparts, continue to vote left—I can vouch for the accuracy of Rotenberg’s observation about those on the right having been banished from the table. No matter. We are currently in the process of regrouping at another table—a smaller one, to be sure—but one where the company and food for thought are far more congenial.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:53 | link | comments (2)


Comments:
#1  23 September 2008 - 12:29
 
Oh, great, the four of you can take the corner banquet at Bagel World.

Seriously, Canadian Jews need a good stiff clip on the ear, or 1) the community will be vilified due to Official Jewry's abetting of curtailment of Canadian freedom of speech, and 2) the State of Israel will be further imperiled due to a lack of a forceful voice (ie., canadian Jews).
Anonymous
#2  23 September 2008 - 12:45
 
Actually, "the four of us" usually meet at another venue.
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