When we sat down in early summer to discuss how we’d cover what was expected to be a five-week fall campaign, CJN editor Yoni Goldstein asked me to write a weekly column about election topics of Jewish interest. The idea – a departure from past practice of mostly limiting ourselves
Continue readingTag: Jewish Culture
wRanter.com: Cultural and religious issues dominate as election day nears
Thank God for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I say that not because trade is an inherently Jewish issue, nor because I know for certain the recently negotiated deal will be good for Canada, especially since its details have yet to be released. Irrespective of its long-term effects, the TPP might
Continue readingwRanter.com: A national icon takes his leave
One of the questions I posed in this space a few weeks ago was: who will be the next big-name Jewish MP? With apologies to Joe Oliver, Canada’s first Jewish federal finance minister, what I may subconsciously have been asking is who will be the next Irwin Cotler, now that
Continue readingwRanter.com: Refugees: a Jewish issue comes to the fore
A quintessentially Jewish issue has dominated the news and become a prominent election issue ever since the picture of three-year-old Alan Kurdi lying dead in the Mediterranean surf generated headlines worldwide earlier this month. For many, the painful image has crystallized the ongoing question of what the world ought to
Continue readingwRanter.com: Can we talk politics without lashon hara?
Over the course of the election campaign to this point, the Jewish community has seen repeated and sometimes flagrant violations of halachic and ethical prohibitions against lashon hara – wicked speech – and some of the 31 transgressions related to it, such as unnecessarily engendering controversy and division. But although
Continue readingwRanter.com: Israel shouldn’t be a political football or litmus test
Despite public and private appeals to call off the event, the Jewish Defence League (JDL) went ahead with its unfortunate decision to picket a Liberal fundraiser at the Toronto home of pharmaceutical magnate and Jewish philanthropist Barry Sherman. Before the Aug. 26 protest, Sherman was viciously attacked on social media,
Continue readingwRanter.com: Jewish issues at centre of partisan sniping
Jewish issues and candidates made headlines last week and became the subject of some distasteful political rhetoric on the campaign trail. In Alberta, a 21-year-old hijab-wearing university student resigned Aug. 18 as the Liberal candidate in the Tory stronghold of Calgary Nose Hill a day after conservative activists publicized noxious
Continue readingwRanter.com: Who will be the next big-name Jewish MP?
Last week, we examined four “Jewish” battleground ridings, including two – York Centre in Toronto and Mount Royal in Montreal – where, one way or another, a Jewish candidate is likely to win. This week, we look at Jews running for all four major parties across the country. Jews have
Continue readingwRanter.com: The PQ is embarrassing itself
Share this: It’s been an inauspicious month for Premier Pauline Marois’ minority government. First it tabled its so-called charter of Quebec values. Bill 60 – whose full, Orwellian name is the “Charter affirming the values of state secularism and religious neutrality and of equality between women and men, and providing a
Continue readingwRanter.com: Preparing for the unlikely
Share this: A version of this post appeared as a signed editorial in The Canadian Jewish News on Sept. 12. As a new Jewish year begins, renewed U.S.-led peace talks continue between Israel and the Palestinians. Much has been written about the low expectations surrounding these negotiations on both sides. Certainly,
Continue readingwRanter.com: Slicing through ignorant anti-circumcision rhetoric
Share this: Every once in a while, the subject of circumcising male newborns and boys rears its ugly head – no pun intended – and the discussion rarely takes long to veer into ethnocentrism, if not outright intolerance. With the best of intentions, and without realizing it, many people who
Continue readingwRanter.com: Church settlement boycott becomes interfaith train wreck
Share this: This past August, the General Council of the United Church of Canada, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, adopted a motion urging its members to boycott goods produced in West Bank settlements. The proposal was part of a larger, rather one-sided report prepared by the church’s Working Group on Israel/Palestine
Continue readingwRanter.com: Why seek validation from the IOC? Instead, flip it the bird
Share this: I love the Olympics, but not for the reasons you might think. It can be truly inspiring to watch the best athletes in the world – and the best Canada has to offer – compete against one another at the highest levels of sport. And I’m proud when
Continue readingwRanter.com: Why Thomas Mulcair gets it when it comes to Israel
Not surprisingly, Thomas Mulcair won the NDP leadership last month, replacing Saint Jack Layton as the man social democrats hope can rally left-of-centre voters to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Here’s hoping he’s successful, but as I argued in an earlier post, it seems unlikely that he will be, because
Continue readingwRanter.com: Things that make me go arghhhh! Part 1
I figure that this wouldn’t be a true blog without random kvetching about nothing in particular. So in that spirit, I present semi-aimless carping about disconnected aspects of modern life, or, with apologies to Arsenio Hall, what I like to call “Things that make me go arghhhh!”: • When a
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