Click here for the PDF version of the September 23, 2019 (Rosh Hashanah) edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.
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.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
From the Editor: Who will form Israel’s next government?
 |
| Michael Regenstreif |
By Michael Regenstreif
As a student of
politics (my BA and MA are in political science), this is a fascinating time
for me with the second Israeli election in
less than five months about to take place on September 17 (after this issue of
the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin goes to press but before it comes out), the October
21 federal election campaign here in Canada underway, and a possible election
on the horizon in the United Kingdom. As well, of course, the battle in the
Democratic Party to see who will take on Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S.
presidential election is well underway.
This
Israeli election was called because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not
put together a governing coalition of at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats in
the weeks following the April 9 election. The stumbling block was Yisrael
Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Liberman (a former defence and foreign minister)
who insists that exemptions from military service for haredi men studying Torah
be ended. With that demand, Yisrael Beiteinu members will not serve in a
coalition with the haredi Orthodox parties – whose support is crucial to
Netanyahu’s coalition numbers.
The last Smith Research poll published before the
election suggests Netanyahu’s Likud Party could win 33 seats and that his
potential coalition partners (Yamina, Shas, and United Torah Judaism) could win
a total of 24 seats for a possible coalition of 57 seats. If those predictions
are accurate, Netanyahu will again not have enough support to govern.
Netanyahu’s
rival for the prime minister’s office is Benny Gantz, a former chief of the
Israel Defense Forces, who leads the Blue and White Party. That last Smith
Research poll suggests Blue and White could win 32 seats, putting them in a
neck-and-neck horserace with Likud.
The
poll suggests Blue and White’s likely coalition partners (the Democratic Union
and Labor-Gesher) could win another 11 seats. The wild cards are the Joint List
(an alliance of Arab parties) which is predicted to take 12 seats and Yisrael
Beiteinu which is predicted to win eight seats. If the Joint List and Yisrael
Beiteinu join Gantz’s potential coalition (and that’s a very big if), he will
be in a position to unseat Netanyahu and form a government. Such a coalition
would be precedent-setting as
Israel’s Arab parties have never before participated in a governing coalition.
Another scenario being discussed is Blue and White
forming a power-sharing unity government with Likud. This is a scenario
Liberman is said to favour, as it would mean the haredi parties could be sidelined
on the opposition benches. However, there has been speculation that both Gantz
and Liberman would insist that Netanyahu step down from the Likud leadership.
And Netanyahu has indicated that he’s not interested in such a unity
government.
In
all likelihood, it will be some time before we know what’s to be. It typically
takes weeks of wheeling and dealing after an Israeli election to form a
governing coalition. But if neither block is able to form a governing
coalition, there may be no other choice but a unity government, as it is
doubtful the public would stand for a third election in less than a year.
Editor’s notes
This Rosh Hashanah edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin
is one of the two community-wide issues of the paper that we publish each year
– the other is at Passover – so the paper has been distributed to many in the
community beyond our regular subscribers. We hope you’ll want to subscribe and
receive all 19 of the issues we publish each year. It’s the best way to stay
informed and engage with Ottawa’s vibrant Jewish community. An annual
subscription is still just $36 per year in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. You can
subscribe by calling our business manager, Eddie Peltzman, at 613-798-4616,
ext. 256.
Unfortunately,
for technical reasons beyond our control, we have been unable to add or update
content to our website since August 9. We hope to unveil a new version of the
site in the coming months. In the meantime, we have created a blog – www.ojbulletin.blogspot.com
– to post our columns, some local articles and PDF versions of new print
issues.
Federation Report: Get involved – it is our responsibility to preserve, build, enhance our community
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| Michael Polowin |
By Michael Polowin
Chair – Jewish Federation of Ottawa
Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe are a time when we at once look back
and forward. Our traditions of looking back include asking for forgiveness of
our fellow man, and of Hashem, for wrongs committed in the past year. We visit
our departed loved ones. Yet at the same time, we look forward. The formula for
the request we make of Hashem at Kol Nidre is expressed in terms of the future,
not the past.
New
years are like that. We look forward and back, at once. Indeed, in the secular
calendar, January is named for the Roman god Janus, whose two heads looked
forward and back.
In
the first few months of my term as chair of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, I
have spent some real time looking back. I have had meetings with a number of
our larger community agencies, to learn more about who they are and what great
work they do in our community. I have learned a great deal, and the esteem in
which I hold our agencies has grown as a result.
Yet
I have also spent time looking forward. Over the spring, we finalized our new
five-year strategic plan, which is looking forward in a significant way. We
have tried to envision what will truly enhance our community over that period,
and set our goals to achieve that enhancement. Truly, what our community needs
is more engagement. Engagement can be at the individual level, or in larger
groups.
Our
community is embarking on a range of exciting initiatives that will ensure the
future and make it better and better. Smaller initiatives like Jewish Jumpstart
and Federation Microgrants enhance Jewish engagement at the micro level. Larger
initiatives, like our largest-ever endowment to preserve and enhance Jewish
education in Ottawa, will increase engagement and benefit our community for
years to come.
All
of this, however, is built on the foundation given us by those who have come
before. Our community is a trust, given to us to hold for a time, and then
passed on, stronger than how we found it, to our children and grandchildren.
Our forebears, both actual and notional, were giants. They built a community
from nothing, often having not much themselves. Can we, who have personally
benefited from their labours, do anything less?
Community is our responsibility. We all must pitch in to
help. In a time where the pressures of the outside world seem to be growing;
where we are feeling the ancient wounds of antisemitism more and more, none of
us can stand idly by and not get involved. Involvement can take a variety of
forms. Attend community and agency events; get involved with our various
agencies and Federation as a volunteer; donate your time, and yes, your money,
to help others, and your community.
None
of us can stand to the side waiting for community to be given to us. It is the
responsibility of all of us to preserve, build and enhance. Get involved. Like
getting into the water, it can be intimidating at first, and then it’s just
wonderful. We have schools, shuls, camps, and social agencies that would love
to have you join the effort!
Melanie,
our children, and I wish you and those you love, a Shana Tova Umetukah, and
Gmar Chatimah Tova.
Michael Polowin is the chair of the
board of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa. He can be reached at chair@jewishottawa.com.
Ideas and Impressions: Trump’s claims of disloyalty are an outrage
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| Jason Moscovitch |
By Jason Moscovitch
|
The recent rising
intensity in tone and content from the president of the United States about the
State of Israel can’t possibly go to a good place – even if the words are supportive.
The divisiveness of the president in using Israel for his own domestic
political reasons is why nothing good will come of it.
|
When
President Donald Trump takes the few visceral anti-Israel voices in the
Democratic Party to say American Jews can’t vote Democratic without being
“disloyal,” as so many commentators have noted, those words conjure up old and
ugly antisemitic boogiemen and women from the past. It proves, how, when it
comes to antisemitism, the past and the present can so easily blend into one.
Most thinking Jews never forget that.
But
when the proven pro-Israel president, the president who moved the U.S. Embassy
to Jerusalem, launched a loyalty grenade into the American election cycle, it
was the act of a crass and politically unsophisticated despot.
Despots
don’t measure their words. Despots dispose of subtlety as if it were poison.
Despots laugh at political compromise, and sometimes at necessary political
nuance and ambiguity. The problem is, if there ever was a country that needs subtlety,
compromise, nuance and ambiguity, it is the State of Israel. So, thank you
President Trump for your help.
In
this High Holy Day period you can imagine the renewed tension that will exist
in U.S. synagogues when the subject of Israel comes up, if it comes up. Can you
imagine the reluctance of rabbis to mention the state of affairs in the Holy
Land? Tension is running high in all Jewish communities across the U.S. Bluntly
put, not all American Jews support Israel’s perceived hardline views as their president
does.
Traditionally,
most American Jews support the Democratic Party although there has always been
a good number of Jews who support the Republican Party. The stereotype that all
Jews support the Democratic Party in the United States is as misguided as the
long-held view in Canada that Jews vote Liberal. Increasingly, not all Jews
think the same, pray the same, or vote the same.
And
on both sides of the border, support for Israel is not the only consideration
when Jews cast their ballots. If that were the case, every Jewish vote would
have gone to former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party, which
we know didn’t happen.
What
Trump has done fits the pattern of his taking down long held ways of doing
politics. This time Israel and Jewish voters are made targets as the president
wings his way through another outrage to get attention and, he thinks,
political advantage.
Talking
about Jewish voters being disloyal to Israel, to America, or to both, is such a
disgusting outrage that you have to wonder if it is just a bad dream. But it’s
not – not when Trump is the most powerful leader in the world.
Trump’s
support of Israel is good to have – but it is necessary to note there is not
another world leader who supports what he is doing or saying about Israel.
Israel is so alone in the world, and when the United States has a president who
is often over the top on Israeli matters, the question for the medium and long
term is whether Trump is causing more harm than good.
Since the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, every
Rosh Hashanah has seen Israel in a state of war with most of its neighbours,
and this year, 71 years later, there is not a glitter of hope that peace is
anywhere on the horizon. The difference this year is the unworthy spectacle of
Trump stirring the pot so ferociously.
There
are those who think Trump says what needs to be said. The problem is that so
much time has passed without resolution and, rightly or wrongly, the fires of
frustration with Israel burn around the world.
The
reality is how there is so much difficulty for Israel in the world and while
Trump may think he is helping, there is no evidence of that.
Perhaps,
on this Rosh Hashanah, we need to face the sad reality that our loud and
powerful friend is not making anyone feel any better.
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