LECTURE SERIES, FORUMS, WORKSHOPS & FILM NIGHTS
Throughout the calendar year, the Winchevky Centre holds various lectures, workshops and forums on current and provocative topics. Recent events have focused on such timely issues as:
Whether it's part of our "Bagels and Banter" Sunday bagel brunch series, or our "Jews Around the World" lecture series, we try to offer something for everyone.
The Global Rise of Anti-Semitism
Excerpts from a lecture by Ronnee Jaeger
On Sunday March 20th the Winchevsky Centre hosted a lecture titled "The Global Rise of Anti-Semitism", featuring special guest lecturer Ronnee Jaeger. A long-time activist in both Toronto and Israel, Ronnee led a very informative discussion about the frightening escalation of both racism and anti-Semitism in the wake of September 11th, the war on Iraq, and the situation in Israel and the Middle East. We wish to thank Ronnee for sharing with us her insights, her wisdom, and her passion.
Racism involves negative attitudes and behaviours towards people based on colour, ethnicity, national identity, handicaps and gender...We [also] need to keep in mind the serious distinction between individual, public acts of racism and government-sanctioned or even legalized racism...Personal and external factors make it more acceptable to voice these attitudes, to act on them, and to intensify racist behaviour...
Arundhati Roy, the writer and activist, writes of "the violent ventures of empire." She reminds us of how facism grows - it begins with the slow erosion of liberties and human rights, small unspectacular but growing injustices. It doesn't start with the cancelling of free elections and imprisonment of dissidents. The export of democracy tied to free trade has created new forms of economic misery. Two terms of the Harris government have widened the gaps between the classes in Canada and have dismantled what were essential services such as hospital beds and public housing. The cost of free market democracy at home and abroad is high, and we know who pays the price in Latin America, in the Middle East and in Asia... In Israel, 40% of Jewish Israeli children live below the poverty line, as do 55% of non-Jewish Israeli children. Is it a surprise that Arab hatred and Jew hatred are growing?...
Racism against any group in our Judeo-Christian-informed society will very quickly include Jews, as we see today. One cannot be unaffected by the alarming increase in anti-Semitic instances, in Europe, in the Middle East, in Canada, and here in Vaughan Township. Wherever and whenever racist acts occur, anti-Semitic acts will surely be among them. B'nai B'rith cites a 60% increase in complaints. In Hungary, 1000 neo-Nazis demonstrated against the "Jewish threat to Christianity" in Budapest. In France, the Middle East conflict has entered the schools and French life. Both Jews and Muslims are oppressed and oppressors. Many Jews are leaving. Articles in many European magazines cite a "Jewish lobby" to blame for the Bush government policies. We haven't forgotten the anti-Semitic urban legend of 9/11...
From the EV Monitoring Centre, studies indicate anti-Semitic expression by the far right and by Muslim youth. They cite anti-Semitic verbal expression by a particular "set of anti-American, anti-Zionist extreme left." They mention email as a purveyor of hate literature. A respected poll in Italy described 35% of the population as having anti-Semitic attitudes, e.g. Jews control economic power and the media. This is the 'old' anti-Semitism I am speaking about...
We are on tricky ground in the new anti-Semitism. We see that it is defined as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel. Israel's harsh occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, as seen on television, certainly contributes to criticism and to anti-Semitism. At every synagogue there are signs claiming that we not only support the state of Israel, but also that "We are one". This breaks down any separation between Jews and Israeli government policy... Many Jewish intellectuals have spoken out about the damaging effects of the Israeli occupation on European Jews. They feel that Israel is endangering Europe and the world by its provocation of the Arabs and Muslims... With all of this, the Italy-Euriskes Research Institute describes "the existence of a combination of anti-Zionism and anti-American views that form an important element in the emergence of an anti-Semitic mood in Europe." This research contends that there are waves of anti-Semitism, not necessarily a long-term increase. These are tied to the Israel-Palestine conflict...
These are frightening facts. All this points to a need to publicize and prosecute hate messages and hate crimes. But we must be careful not to lose our perspective. We have to beware of closing ourselves off into our own victimhood. Today, while I am wary as a Jew of what may arise tomorrow, I would not wish to be Native, Black or Muslim either. As a minority, we are still among the advantaged. As a group, we continue to be successful in the arts and sciences, and are represented in government. As such, we need to be active in fighting all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism...
Understanding and defining anti-Semitism doesn't make it less dangerous to all of us. It goes without saying that we have to stand up for our principles for peace with justice, and we must fight racism and anti-Semitism at the same time. S'iz shver tzu zine a progressive Yid in our day, as in all times.
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ISRAEL- WHAT YOU WON'T FIND IN THE NEWSPAPERS
On December 8, 2003 Ronnee Jaeger, activist and founder of Machsom Watch, led a powerful and highly informative forum discussion about the Middle East conflict. The following are excerpts from her text:
Machsom Watch is a group of 85 women who provide two shifts daily to observe at checkpoints within Jerusalem. It is an effort to oppose the occupation by our presence, to protect Palestinian civilians who must pass these checkpoints several times a day. Our presence stops soldiers from committing atrocities which they will carry with them forever. These checkpoints are located between Israel and the territories, between Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian towns, or even within an Israeli-Palestinian town.
Ta'auysh - Jews and Palestinians cooperating in resistance to the occupation by delivering medical and food supplies to West Bank Palestinian communities under siege. The fact of meeting together, Jews and Palestinians, travelling in convoys of cars (with Jews taking responsibility for our Palestinian colleagues) is a treat. There are so few occasions for the two groups to meet. Since it is illegal for Israelis to enter the West Bank and Gaza (except for the settlers or their guests), these actions are not always successful.
On a rainy June day, 800 of us, Jews and Israeli-Palestinians, were chased with tear gas canisters, gassed and some beaten, while our transport of food and medicine was broken, trampled and spilled by soldiers at the Kalandia checkpoint. The gifts so carefully gathered never reached the needy of Ramallah. But we helped one another return to our buses and we passed lemons and onion to ease painful eyes and throats.
However, when we do get the supplies and ourselves into Palestinian villages under siege, it feels almost positive - we unload the trucks, passing sugar, oil and flour from hand to hand into a community hall or mosque. Speeches are made from both sides and refreshments are served. We get to chat with people we only read about.
I want to close by asking for your support for the Israeli movement against the occupation. This support can be by creating and signing petitions, speaking out and whatever more you can do. Israelis and world Jewry need to work together against anti-Semitism by naming it when we see it.
I do not know how to make peace in the Middle East, but I do know that ending the occupation is a first and necessary step.
I do not know how to stop anti-Semitism, but I know that we need to fight it together and to keep the issues separate. We need to fight the occupation as we need to fight anti-Semitism.
S'iz shver tsu zine a yid.
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Jewish Genealogy
On the morning of Tuesday August 10, the Winchevsky Centre hosted the first installment of our new "Bagels & Banter" lecture series with a talk on Jewish genealogy by Board member Gord Meslin. The following is an excerpt from the Toronto Star article on the event written by Sarah Jane Growe (Aug. 16, 2004):
Interest in Jewish genealogy is burgeoning, as new online search techniques provide alternate routes around access to data buried by anti-Semitic erasure of history.
"Jews changed their names. Soldiers used Jewish records for cigarette paper," Gord Meslin tells a recent seminar on Jewish genealogy. "The use of the Internet for genealogy is second only to pornography, and Jewish users are the largest single cultural group."
Meslin, a high school history teacher, has drawn on computer software, genealogy websites (there are hundreds), shtetl (village) records, parish files, family letters, immigration documents and ships' rosters to trace his ancestry back to 1760 Ukraine. Meslin is a board member of the local chapter of the Jewish Genealogy Society. In addition to its monthly meetings, its international website http://www.jewishgen.org provides a myriad of useful links.
The disappearance not only of records but also of relatives, without a trace, is a powerful impetus. "I have nobody left," explains Sol Hermolin, 63. "Most were killed in the Holocaust. I know nothing about them. I have only a few old photos, and I want to know who is in them." "I don't even know what our real family name was," adds Lee Schechter, 78.
Interview family relatives, Meslin tells the group, adding that software programs are available to suggest questions and to help organize data.
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