I couldn’t let Remembrance week go by without commenting on the outrageous fundraising ad B’nai Brith ran in November 9’s National Post.
Blaring the headline The Unholy Alliance, it compares the objectives of radical Islam with those of Nazi Germany. B’nai Brith touts itself as a human rights organization out to fight anti-Semitism and racism. Funny that, since the ad itself borders on racist.
To see the offensive ad, click here. Note, though, it’s pretty offensive.
It features a photo of Adoph Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, as if it was only Islamic leaders who were complicit while the Nazis herded Jews into the gas chambers. History tells us the Catholic Pope sat back quietly, knowing exactly what was going on. And didn’t every single western democracy refuse to take Jews into their countries when it was obvious they were in grave danger? So why single out the Mufti?
The ad is misleading, inflammatory and, worse, reflects terribly on an the Jewish community. So let it be known that there are many Jewish people, including myself, horrifed by the ad.
Even what I refer to as official Jewry opposes these kind of tactics.
Start with the most important organization in this context. Co-president of the Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors SIdney Zoltak says he’s furious.
“The world is full of terrible things – genocide and oppression,” he tells me on the phone from Montreal, “but the comparison between those things and Nazis shouldn’t be made for the sake of raising funds. As a representative of Canadian Jewish Holocaust survivors, I’m sure my fellow survivors would feel the same way. It trivializes the Shoah.
“Let me be clear. The extremists of the Islamic leadership are a danger. They’re certainly a group that has to be watched – we have to be vigilant. It’s alarming to have lived through the Holocaust and still feel this kind of threat.”
But that doesn’t mean we should make irrational statements.
Last month, more than 300 Conservative rabbis signed a statement urging Americans to renounce the use of Nazi imagery in political discourse.
Back here at home, Bernie Farber, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote an article in the Toronto Sun that catalogues the many occasions the analogy has been made in inappropriate ways.
The feeling behind both the petition, Farber’s newspaper article and mostly the CJHS is that these kinds of comparisons diminish and belittle the tragedy of the Holocaust.
And that applies when Jewish organizations do it too. [rssbreak]
