Click here for the PDF version of the September 2, 2019 edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.
Click here for the PDF version of the August 19, 2019 edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.
Friday, August 30, 2019
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
From the Editor: The news is now stranger than fiction
 |
| Michael Regenstreif, Editor |
By Michael Regenstreif
Editor
My
column in our August 19 issue discussed the explicitly racist attacks of U.S.
President Donald Trump on four rookie members of the U.S. House of
Representatives, all of whom are women of colour. In the days and weeks after
that issue went to press, there have been some downright bizarre developments
to the story.
Two
of the congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who both support the
anti-Israel BDS movement, were scheduled to visit East Jerusalem and the West
Bank in August. In July, despite a law allowing Israel to bar BDS supporters
from entering the country, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States
(who is known to be extremely close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu),
announced, “Out of respect for the U.S. Congress, and the great alliance
between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress
into Israel.”
That
changed on August 15 when Trump tweeted, “It would show great weakness if
Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all
Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their
minds.”
Immediately
following Trump’s tweet, Israel announced that Omar and Tlaib would not be
allowed to visit after all. Although Netanyahu and his ministers claimed the
change had nothing to do with Trump’s tweet, few analysts believed that.
The
decision was immediately condemned by mainstream American Jewish organizations
including AIPAC, Jewish Federations of North America, the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Israel
Policy Forum, and J Street as contradicting democratic values.
Barring
Omar and Tlaib may well have provided more PR value to the BDS movement than
the visit itself would have.
Then
the story got even weirder. On August 20, Trump proclaimed, “I think any Jewish
people that vote for a Democrat; I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge
or great disloyalty.” (According to the Pew Research Center, Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 71 per cent of the Jewish vote
in 2016, compared to 24 per cent for Republican candidate Trump. In the 2018
midterm elections, after two years of the Trump administration, 79 per cent of
the Jewish vote went to Democratic candidates, compared to just 17 per cent for
Republicans.)
Trump
invoked the antisemitic trope about the loyalty of Jews – one of the most
common expressions of antisemitism throughout history. In the following days,
Trump doubled-down and tripled-down on the trope elaborating that Jewish
Democratic voters (in other words, Jews who don’t support Trump) are disloyal
to the Jewish people and to Israel.
“In
my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat you’re being very disloyal to Jewish
people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would
say anything other than that,” he declared on the White House lawn.
And
in a tweet, Trump quoted and thanked talk radio conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn
Root for his “very nice words”: “President Trump is the greatest President for
Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the
best President for Israel in the history of the world and the Jewish people in
Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the
second coming of God.”
The
nightly news – in these Trumpian times – is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
Thanks Stephanie
As Stephanie Shefrin notes in her column, she is stepping back from being a
regular contributor to Modern Mishpocha, the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin parenting
column she created six years ago. Stephanie’s insights and discussions of
various family and parenting issues have made her columns compelling reading
for parents, grandparents and others.
One
of Stephanie’s innovations was to recruit other contributors to the column and
we’ll continue to publish Modern Mishpocha columns from Jen Perzow and Shirlee
Press. In the coming months, we’ll also introduce a couple of new contributors
Stephanie has recruited.
Federation Report: Kickoff to feature comedian Elon Gold
 |
| Evelyn and Howard Silverman, Co-Chairs,
Annual
Campaign Kickoff
|
By Evelyn and Howard Silverman
Co-Chairs
Jewish Federation of Ottawa Annual
Campaign Kickoff
We
are so pleased to be co-chairing the Jewish Federation of Ottawa Annual Campaign Kickoff on September 10 at the Algonquin Commons Theatre, featuring Hollywood actor and comedian Elon Gold.
Elon
has an extensive list of film roles and on such TV shows as “Stacked,”
“In-Laws” and the hit show, “Bones.” He also has a Netflix special, and
appeared at the Just for Laughs comedy festival this summer in Montreal. He is
well known for his modern take on Jewish humour, and we are so excited to share
a light-hearted and enjoyable evening with him.
For
those of you who don’t know us, our family has a relatively short history here
in Ottawa (only 20 years!), although Howard grew up in Alta Vista. We are so
happy to have chosen Ottawa as our home, largely because of the vibrant Jewish
life and community that has been so welcoming to us. Like so many Ottawa
ex-pats, we began our lives together in Toronto, and then lived in the United
States while we pursued Howard’s education and began building our family of
four children. When it came time to launch Howard’s career, we returned to
Ottawa with our young family and have enjoyed it ever since.
We
reconnected with old friends and found so many new ones. All of our children
attended and graduated from Hillel Academy/Ottawa Jewish Community School, and
Evelyn, already an experienced teacher, worked there for many years, further
connecting us with the community. Our kids attended and eventually worked at
Camp B’nai Brith of Ottawa, and we were active members of Agudath
Israel/Kehillat Beth Israel where each of our kids trained and achieved their
b’nai mitzvot. We are currently members of Machzikei Hadas, which brings Howard
back to his roots as a child, where his family belonged.
Our
family has now grown up and is currently dispersed, pursuing education and
careers in Montreal, Toronto, Kingston and Tel Aviv, and our parents, Flora
Silverman and Linda and Dan Moss, live in Ottawa and Toronto respectively,
leaving us firmly ensconced in the sandwich generation.
We
must confess that when we were asked to co-chair this year’s Kickoff, our
immediate response was, “Why us?” We are more of a behind-the-scenes kind of
couple, and the thought of taking on this role was a bit unnerving.
Nonetheless, we were honoured to be asked, and decided to go for it. Our family
has benefitted so much from this community that we felt it was time for us to
contribute in a more tangible fashion, and happily accepted.
The
Federation team – including Andrea Freedman, Micah Garten and Tanya Poirier –
has been phenomenal in guiding us, and we are so enjoying the process. We are
so grateful for our happy life here in Ottawa, and as we have become more
involved in Federation, we have come to realize how much hard work, effort and
passion is delivered from those of us who regularly contribute their time,
energy and resources.
As
such, we encourage all of you to join us September 10 for Kickoff with Elon
Gold. Come on out, see some old friends, say hi to some new ones, and have a
great evening!
Visit
https://jewishottawa.com/home/kickoff
for tickets.
From the Pulpit: We are all in this together
 |
| Rabbi Idan Scher, Machzikei Hadas |
By Rabbi Idan Scher
Congregation Machzikei Hadas
Sometimes
you read a story and it seems so simple. But on reflection, you realize how
powerful it actually is. That happened to me when I read this little fable:
There
was once an old farmer living on his farm with his animals. One day, a mouse
looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a
package. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating
to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning to all of his fellow animals.
“There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The
chicken heard the mouse’s warning, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can
tell this is of grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. A
mousetrap won’t trap me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The
mouse turned to the sheep and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house.”
The
sheep sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is
nothing I can do about it but pray for you. Be assured you are in my prayers.
But honestly, I am little affected by it.”
The
mouse turned to the cow and pleaded for help. She said, “Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry
for you, trust me you will be in my thoughts and prayers.”
So,
the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s
mousetrap alone.
That
very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a
mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught.
In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap
had caught.
The
snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she
returned home with a fever.
Now
of course, hot chicken soup is the best medicine for a fever. So the farmer
walked off to the farmyard to fetch the soup’s main ingredient.
But
his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her
around the clock. To feed all of the visitors, the farmer slaughtered the
sheep.
The
farmer’s wife did not get well and she passed away. So many people came for her
funeral the farmer had to have the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for
all of them.
We
pray every day. And on the High Holy Days, which are soon upon us, we pray even
more. And so many of our prayers are not said in the singular only for
ourselves. Rather, they are said in the plural, for all of humanity.
But
as we pray, and as we pledge allegiance to this holy endeavour of caring about
others, it cannot be just lip service – “You are in my thoughts and prayers.”
Radical and active empathy is called for, just as if we or someone very close
to us was suffering. This story warns us that if we don’t take this seriously
then we ourselves may eventually be struck, because we are all in this
together. But more importantly, as much as we may try to convince ourselves
otherwise, if we truly cared about our fellow human beings we would respond to
their suffering just as we would respond to the suffering of someone who we are
very close with.
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