The Jewish community has a long tradition of fighting racism, not only because it has been the victim of hatred and discrimination, but also because of a commitment to equality and human rights.
That remains, but a new and disturbing anti-Muslim element has crept into the discussion.
One of the reasons for this is the situation in Israel, and the frequent tension over the policies of the Jewish state towards Palestinians. It’s a complex issue, but often brings out the worst in people.
But there has also been a notable rise in prominence in the Jewish community of the ultra-Zionist Jewish Defense League (labelled a terrorist group by the FBI) and a growing ambivalence toward anti-Muslim rhetoric, as seen by the support of a few for white nationalist Faith Goldy during the recent municipal election.
Beth Tikvah Synagogue, a conservative congregation whose founders chose as its name Shaarei Tikvah, after a synagogue in Amsterdam that had been razed by the Nazis, is hosting an “All-Day National Teach-In” by a group called the Canadians for the Rule of Law (CFTRL) next March.
The CFTRL website promoting the event states in rather glutinous prose that, “there are certain organizations and ‘political tribes’ that threaten the Rule of Law in Canada.” The most serious among them being “the radical left, Islamists and the radical right.”
According to the website, “agents” challenging the rule of law include a long list of “free speech disruptors and deniers on campuses, terrorist-funded Canadian jihadi organizers, Muslim Brotherhood public curriculum developers, hate speakers on social media [and] returning ISIL fighters.”
The description includes in those threats “victimized me-first exceptionalism that overrides the survival of Canadian values, violence-promoting anti-Semites, and deniers of religious pluralism and freedom and much more.”
The conference promises “extensive, in-depth and sensitive content about who are those disruptors.” Tickets to the event range from $50–$1,000. The CFTRL describes itself as a charitable organization. It website lists an Adelaide Street address. The contact number on its website is answered by a voicemail message that directs callers to call back later. Most among the roster of speakers scheduled for the group’s March event, including Donald Carr, David Matas and Anita Bromberg, are familiar names in anti-racism circles, but not all.
Notable among the latter are Calgary lawyer John Carpay from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, who recently compared the swastika to the rainbow flag, and Charles McVety, the president of Canada Christian College, who has long been at the forefront of anti-gay and anti-Muslim campaigns and more recently the Ford government’s crusade against the modern sex-ed curriculum.
Carpay spoke last month at an event organized by Rebel Media, where he asked rhetorically “How do we defeat today’s totalitarianism?” before offering “You’ve got to think about the common characteristics. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a hammer and sickle for communism, or whether it’s the swastika for Nazi Germany or whether it’s a rainbow flag – the underlying thing is a hostility to individual freedoms.”
The ubiquitous McVety, meanwhile, disputes evolution, writing in 2009, that “this taxing and trading of air will fund the one world government of the Anti-christ.”
He’s also stated in the past that, “Islam is not just a religion, it’s a political and cultural system” whose mandate is “a hostile takeover.”
ACT! For Canada, a group sponsoring the event, has posted links on its website to articles from the Rebel, and items supporting far-right British rabble-rouser Tommy Robinson.
Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms, another event participant, declares on its website that the term Islamophobia “is part of a well-funded Muslim Brotherhood public relations campaign to deflect legitimately founded criticism of Islamic extremists who seek to replace Canadian Law with sharia law, strike fear into the majority of Muslim leaders and clergy in Canada, and put a chill on legitimate criticism of political Islam.”
Then there’s the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, a Christian Zionist organization supported by the likes of ultra-conservative U.S. figures like Pat Robertson. And the conference’s media sponsor is Mantua books, whose titles include The Vatican Against Israel, Delectable Lie: A Liberal Repudiation Of Multiculturalism and The Qur’an Problem And Islamism.
Bernie Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says it’s “disappointing to see some otherwise respected players within Toronto’s Jewish leadership lending their good names to those who preach anti-Muslim hatred, homophobia and bigotry.”
It’s a troubling mingling of the usual suspects, repeating the same paranoia and familiar fears and theories. Only this time more reasonable and moderate people seem to have wandered onstage. Let’s hope that they come to their senses before March.
@nowtoronto
