Media Fallout From Carney’s Antisemitism Speech

I don’t really see myself as a media outlet, but rather as an ordinary Jewish Canadian living in extraordinary times and facing extraordinary pressures. I hope that my arguments and experiences are somehow informative and representative of yours. And in some small way, I hope they contribute to our public interest, in Canada and Israel and around the world.

As a human rights advocate and pro-Israel advocate, I have often sought to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, and to advocate for what I hope are just causes, with some international and enduring success. Like my family, which was always glued to the news, especially if it was about Jews or Israel, I am still glued to the news, especially if it is about Jews or Israel.

My earliest lesson in current events was not to talk while my Daddy was watching Walter Cronkite talking about Israel on the CBS News, especially if it was June 1967 and the Six Day War was on. I miss my father. And Walter Cronkite. And people we can trust. Don’t you?

In public life, when one is approached by strangers (my mother often warned me against talking to them or trusting them or taking candy from them), I had to learn the concept of due diligence and doing the background research to avoid embarrassment, risk and harm, to myself and to our community. One of the ironies of public life is that the more public one becomes, the more private one becomes, as a matter of necessity and safety.

My colleague at the Canadian Jewish Congress, Prof. Ed Morgan (now Mr. Justice Ed Morgan) suggested that I find out ‘what they want’ or enquire about their agendas when I was approached by strangers in the community. CIJA should start doing the same.

For human rights advocates like me, schooled on the equity principles ‘the personal is political’, it is sometimes hard to draw the line between the personal and the political, and public and private interests. We live in an age of over-disclosure on social media, and I am a security minded private citizen who has faced more than my share of security threats and attempts to intimidate me or silence me in my lawful work. It won’t ever happen. Buy a vowel. We won. Permanently and internationally. And we plan to keep it that way. Get used to it.

Andy Warhol once said that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes.  I would suggest probably less time than that (mercifully) and I miss the days when most adults and our government and community leaders and news anchors and journalists had a greater sense of restraint and personal dignity and respect for the public spaces they occupy.  Remember when people actually did their jobs rather than tweeting about them or posting pictures of their lunch on social media?  Me too.  Those were the days!

As the comedian Fran Lebowitz once suggested in the 1970s about detesting t-shirts with writing on them, “I don’t really want to hear from you. What makes you think I want to hear from your t-shirt?” This was written before the age of non-stop self-promotion on social media. I tune most of it out and try to retain a sense of balance and remain grounded. Because I am real and multifaceted and am not a performative identity or token political identity to be exploited by anyone.

I’ll be staying away from Pride marches. Because Pride Day Is Every Day in human rights law and Pride Festivals are like watching TV for the commercials and an exercise in exploitation by straight folks and obstructive ‘allies’ who behave like bad and obnoxious houseguests, especially the fly-by politicians. If you like that sort of thing. I am not a tourist attraction, but thanks for the compliment. The most exciting moments about LGBTQ identity are private, loving, meaningful, and far from your madding crowds. Take note. Once again, please join me in supporting the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance this Pride Season. Donations are easiest through JGive in US dollars. Here are those links:

https://www.joh.org.il/en/homepage/

https://www.jgive.com/new/en/gbp/charity-organizations/2905

I advocate for Israel and Jewish interests. I advocate for women’s interests. I advocate for LGBTQ interests. I advocate for human rights. I am a human being at risk in Canada. I am a proud Canadian and have never been more alienated from our pathetic lowest common denominator notions of Canadian identity. This is stressful, especially these days in which the daily news brings wave after wave of ignorance and anti-semitism and harassment and hate crimes threatening our very lives in Canada, and mine in particular. Elbows up, Canaduh!

I’m glad the Montreal Canadiens are out of the NHL Playoffs. Can we get back to work now? I’ll be wearing my Team Israel Soccer jersey for the FIFA World Cup. With my matching blue and white Zionist sneakers. Safely. At home. Far away from troglodyte Canadian anti-semites and their enablers. So there. As my Bubbie and George Herbert always said, “Living well is the best revenge.” That’s what I am going to do.

As a pro-Israel Jewish woman and LGBTQ person of modest means, I know that I am even more vulnerable than our more well-heeled Jewish counterparts and their well-meaning but obtuse and often dangerously exploitative community organizations and leaders. They are not selling Jewish identity or community. Someone should tell them and their major donors and governing boards. Firmly and finally. They have failed to do their ‘due diligence’ and have repeatedly put vulnerable members and even leaders of our Jewish communities at risk in their desperate and misguided ego-driven attempts to advocate for Israel. Please stop. And think.

As we learn in Pirkei Avot, The Ethics of the Sages, sitting in assemblies of the ignorant can put a person out of the world. Literally. Especially today. Guide yourselves accordingly.  https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.3.10?lang=bi

I pity former Canadian Senator Marc Gold who has been thrown to the Liberal wolves in this new cross-cultural committee endorsed by the Liberal party and CIJA. Mr. Gold is a well-respected community philanthropist and former head of Canada’s national network of Jewish Federations. I have nothing against him.

He has been put into place in a token position that is bound to fail in what is likely to be a go-nowhere bureaucratic initiative and exercise in continued and futile debates of attrition and distraction by this Liberal government. Check out who he will be working with by reviewing these news analyses. This is called open source intelligence. If only our Jewish leaders made use of it and due diligence more often. This is why I keep my distance from them.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-898051

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-898138

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-at-a-synagogue-carney-tells-the-wrong-people-to-abandon-their-ethnic-rivalries

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/tasha-kheiriddin-mark-carney-in-denial-over-whats-behind-antisemitism

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-newman-carney-isnt-serious-about-antisemitism-and-neither-is-cbc

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jesse-kline-carney-admits-antisemitism-crisis-but-wont-do-much-about-it

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/carney-offers-up-words-that-head-in-the-right-direction-but-he-must-do-more

https://torontosun.com/news/national/mark-carney-antisemitism-council-not-new-leaves-much-to-be-desired

I rest my case for now and thank these journalists, many of them non-Jewish and good friends of our Jewish community and Israel, for their research and for their efforts on our behalf. But those efforts and background research should have been done in advance by the likes of CIJA (which likes to congratulate itself on its proximity to government leaders) and Senator Marc Gold.

It was a gay postmodern political theorist named Michel Foucault who coined the expression that ‘Knowledge Is Power’. With our high education rates in the Jewish community one would hope that we could become more powerful. But first we will need to question our assumptions and the self-perpetuating character of our Jewish institutional bureaucracies and our knee jerk instincts to attack any critic of Israel and its agenda.

I am proud to support Israel and Jewish concerns within my means. But there is a time to step back and reflect and learn from our mistakes, and I think this is one of them. And that’s what I am going to do. How about you?

I once suggested to a legal colleague that it would have been easier for me in my human rights advocacy if I had been advocating for blue dolphins (and I care about dolphins and try to buy dolphin safe tuna) because I am not a dolphin.

It would have been easier to shrug it off at the end of the day and return to my regularly scheduled programming, or private life, or catch up with my laundry and personal interests. But it wasn’t and I wasn’t.

I have an imaginary character named Bob McLaughlin. He’s a nice fellow, much like the non-Jewish boys with whom I went to high school. Canada was made for him. It was never meant for me, the game was always stacked against us, and this is abundantly clear today. Oh. Canaduh. Who stands on guard for thee? This is a chilling question today.

I tend to feel most healthy and most myself when I am just going about my everyday business as a human being living in Hamilton and pursuing activities which do not have much risk or stigma associated with them. I still like to read and play guitar. No one is attacking those identities or seeking to exploit them, within or without our community. It’s a refreshing change, and I am expecting delivery today of a new high-tech acoustic-electric guitar and plan to spend much of the summer writing music in my home studio.

It’s time for me to return to my regularly scheduled programming and to catch up with my housework and everyday life and let Israel and our Jewish and LGBTQ communities fend for themselves for awhile. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for your time and attention. Stay well and strong. Remember that Pride Day Is Every Day. Live well and without regret. Be careful out there. Am Yisrael Chai. We send our love from Canada.