It is well known that some Jews are either indifferent to, confused about, or ashamed of their Jewishness.
Underpinning these sentiments is the “progressive” leftist social and political allegiance that has characterized Judaism at least since the Enlightenment. Although funded by wealthy Jewish Americans and Europeans, Israel itself began mainly as a socialist experiment, best symbolized by the egalitarian socialist Kibbutz experiment.
The leftist-inspired indifference, confusion, and shame about their Jewishness, albeit firmly held by relatively few Jews, does not justify converting these feelings to a level of anti-Zionism that approaches or reaches outright antisemitic self-hatred.
This self-loathing was on full display last week when some 130 Jewish Canadians illegally occupied Parliament Hill’s Confederation Building demanding an arms embargo against the sovereign nation of Israel in its never-ending conflict with the people of the non-state spuriously called Palestine.
Three New Democrat members of Parliament – Heather McPherson, Matthew Green and Leah Gazan – joined the protesters who invaded the lobby of the building.
The hour-plus protest ended after 15 to 20 people were arrested. They were released without charges soon after, though issued tickets for trespassing.
“Gazan said that she was so proud to be there as a Jewish person and to come together and community (sic) with all of us,” protest spokeswoman Rachel Small said.
“I’m not trying to speak on her behalf, but I was very touched by that.”
When asked what the group was trying to accomplish, spokeswoman Marlee Wasser, a member of the radical Jewish organization called IfNotNow Toronto, said they were “Jews working to end our community’s support for occupation, apartheid and genocide” by Israel against the Palestinians.
Retired Rabbi David Mivasair, of rabidly anti-Zionist Independent Jewish Voices – “the first national Jewish organization to endorse the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement” – opined Israel was not living up to its identity as a Jewish state.
“So (Israel) is a state of Jewish people. But it’s not being a Jewish state,” Mivasair said.
“And Canada is still shipping arms to Israel that are being used to kill innocent people and destroy their homes and hospitals. It’s wrong; it needs to stop.”
Mivasair made no mention of the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists who conducted unspeakable horrors, blatant war crimes, and crimes against humanity against the country’s Israeli civilians. The cold-blooded murder of some 1,200 Israelis, the wounding of nearly 3,000 non-combatants, the rape and torture of women, the desecration and parading of dead bodies, the beheading of infants, the violent hostage-taking of elderly people, women and children alike, and the horrific massacre of at least 260 young people at a music festival, much of it intentionally filmed by the perpetrators, provoked the same military response by Israel that any other nation would have undertaken if attacked in the same way.
When asked how the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) should handle Hamas terrorists, Mivasair said the question was “way off.”
“Jews in Israel need to acknowledge that they’re living on Palestinians’ land in Palestine,” he said.
“They need to make room for the people who were there before the State of Israel.”
He said he wasn’t talking just about Gaza: “No, all. All is Palestine. From the river to the sea has been taken over by Jews. They took it away from the Palestinians who have lived there for centuries. It’s the theft of an entire country,” said Mivasair.
For a former rabbi, Mivasair displays a painful ignorance of the region’s history with these remarks.
The Muslim Arabs now living in Gaza have only self-identified as Palestinians in recent decades, increasingly flaunting this new distinctiveness despite the absence of a unique Palestinian history, culture, or identity since the United Nations approved the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1947.
Conversely, the Nouveau Palestinians never had a country of their own that was taken from them by alien invaders.
For most of human history, Palestine has only been a Western Christian term to describe the Jewish Holy Land and its ever-present Hebrew and Christian inhabitants. From the beginning of recorded history until nearly 1948, neither foreigners nor residents recognized a unique people — other than the Jews themselves — called “Palestinians” living in a place called Palestine.
On these and other grounds, 19 different Jewish groups quickly condemned the December 3 “Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition” occupation on Parliament Hill, saying the “fringe coalition” is aligned with anti-Israel movements and not representative of the Canadian Jewish mainstream.
“Their actions represent an egregious distortion of Jewish values and a calculated attempt to hijack Jewish identity to serve a hateful anti-Zionist and antisemitic agenda,” the 19 groups said in a joint statement on December 4.
The 19 groups also pointed out that some 91 percent of Canadian Jews believe Israel has a right to exist, citing numbers from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. They said the Jews’ connection to Israel is a core part of their identity.
“We refuse to remain silent as Independent Jewish Voices and their partners recklessly endanger Jewish Canadians by perpetuating lies and fomenting hostility. Their shameful antics today, which trivialize genocide and vilify Israel, undermine Jewish safety and foster the very antisemitism they claim to oppose,” they said in the joint statement.
The 19 groups urged Parliament and Canadians to see the protesters as “fringe activists operating outside the mainstream Jewish community,” an assertion any objective and informed observer would support.
Hymie Rubenstein, editor of REAL Indigenous Report, is a retired professor of anthropology, University of Manitoba, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
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