March 25, 2005
By: Pat Johnson
The next chapter of activism
Canadian Jewish Congress re-examines what defines a "Jewish issue."
What is a "Jewish issue"? That is a question that has been facing Canada's Jewish communal agencies for decades, but with changes to the national infrastructure of Jewish communal life, the answer is about to get a lot broader.
Bernie Farber, the new chief executive officer of Canadian Jewish Congress, was in Vancouver recently, laying some of the groundwork for a major redirection of his organization's agenda.
The changes are partly a result of the massive adjustment made in recent years to the structure of Jewish life in Canada. The national organizations that make up much of the Jewish community's institutional presence are now united under the umbrella of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA).
Though best know for fighting anti-Semitism, Canadian Jewish Congress has long been involved in a vast array of parallel and seemingly unrelated issues. In Ontario, where Farber was until January the executive director of the regional CJC office, the organization has already become one of the leading advocates for children living in poverty. That's an example Farber wants to emulate at the national level.
To do this, Farber aims to build better alliances with the various Jewish federations in Canada. Already, groups like the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver are deeply involved in issues of poverty and affordable housing. While federations do much of the "on the ground" work on issues like these, CJC, as the country's primary and oldest lobbying group, will now more actively take up the charge in pressing governments and other decision-makers to respond to issues of social justice that go beyond what would traditionally have been dubbed "Jewish issues."
"Congress is best situated to do the professional advocacy for the community because we've been doing it for almost 100 years," Farber told the Bulletin March 15. "What we haven't focused on are the kinds of issues that are vital to federations. In Ontario, we have. We have for the last number of years worked on issues like child welfare, elder care, social housing. What I want to do is transport that concept into other areas across the country so that Congress develops the kind of expertise that's needed."
Though CJC has long been involved in a range of issues, this is a rallying cry for a host of new initiatives, Farber said.
"I would say it's a new chapter of activism," said Farber.
Back to the question of what is a Jewish issue, Farber replied, any issue that you consider a Jewish issue is a Jewish issue.
"For example, when people say to me, how is child poverty a Jewish issue? Well, it's a Jewish issue because there are Jewish children who are poor. And even if there weren't, all these issues are human issues," he said. CJC's priorities are not just self-interest, but the larger Jewish imperative of tikkun olam, the repair of the world, he said.
"If there is a mission for Congress, that's what it is: to help repair the world," he said.
With a streamlined national umbrella, increased funding and the unification of national lobbying efforts, Farber believes CJC can do more than ever.
"We have a brand name, people expect good work of us and usually we don't let them down," he said. His goals include having a full-time lobbyist on Parliament Hill and, eventually, similar individuals in provincial capitals.
Farber cited the work of Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, as a model for future national endeavors.
"People look to the Jewish community to be a leader on those issues," said Farber. "For example, here in the Pacific region, Mark Weintraub [the regional chair] and a number of our leadership here in the Pacific region are really leading on the matter of Darfur. Not, by the way, just in Canada. They are being recognized literally around the world as a strong advocate [for] dealing with his terrible genocide that's going on three-quarters of the way around the world. That's not a Jewish issue per se, but it is a Jewish issue because, of all people, we understand what it is to be victimized like this and to be killed in such numbers. It is an example of the kinds of thing that I want to see."
Though CJC can be expected to speak out more forcefully on things that do not seem like traditional "Jewish issues," the old standbys are not going to disappear, Farber said. Anti-Semitism, to the surprise and dismay of the Jewish community, has proved enduring and adaptive.
"We understand that anti-Semitism is different today than it was 10, even 15 years ago," he said. "It is one of the most redoubtable of viruses that finds a host and can mutate in any kind of a way."
A surprising and disappointing development, he said, is the emergence of anti-Semitism in the anti-Zionist movement of the left.
"Much of what we're seeing today in relation to this anti-Zionism bleeding into anti-Semitism is happening as much on the extreme left as it is on the extreme right and sometimes even on the centre-left," said Farber.
"In the past, we knew who our enemies were," he said, citing white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. "We fought them arm-in-arm with the trade union movement, with people on the left. They were our soldiers on the road to dealing with these issues. Something happened along the road. We lost sight of each other. We went down separate paths."
One of the priorities of CJC is to rebuild bridges and co-operation with the left in Canada.
"We have to find a way to be back there, even if we passionately disagree with each other," he said. "Friends can passionately disagree with each other, but we have to be there to put Israel's best face forward, to help people understand that there are two sides to every issue."
Working with police, hate crimes units, Internet service providers (ISPs) and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, CJC has helped identify and shut down many web-based hate sites, often simply by appealing to the goodwill of the ISP.
CJC officials are also working on an anti-Semitism awareness program for school curricula, beginning in Ontario but intended to spread across Canada.
All of these efforts might give the impression that CJC is taking a more vigilant political orientation. Not so, said Farber.
"I don't see this as political," he said. "I really see this as human rights matters."
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