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 Defence League
wRanter.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 readingThe Canadian Progressive: Harper must clarify ‘zero tolerance’ for Israel boycotters: Church
The United Church of Canada wants “clear reassurance” that Prime minister Stephen Harper does not intend to criminalize Canadians critical of Israel. The post Harper must clarify ‘zero tolerance’ for Israel boycotters: Church appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Harper’s effort to criminalize legitimate Canadian criticism of Israel is diabolical
Canadians have a moral obligation to revolt against Stephen Harper’s efforts to criminalize both legitimate criticism of Israel and support for Palestinians. The post Harper’s effort to criminalize legitimate Canadian criticism of Israel is diabolical appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: “Violent extremist Jewish organization” wants Harper to win 2015 federal election
The Canadian chapter of the Jewish Defence League is set to open a Montreal office dedicated to delivering the 2015 federal election to Stephen Harper. The post “Violent extremist Jewish organization” wants Harper to win 2015 federal election appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAndy Lehrer's Firebrand blog: JDL allies with Austrian Freedom Party
“it’s always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.” — Lone Star On the heels of the Jewish Defence League’s rally in support of the fascist English Defence League comes the news that the JDL and Meir Weinstein is cozying up with another group of extremists –
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: JDL allies with Austrian Freedom Party
“it’s always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.”
— Lone Star
On the heels of the Jewish Defence League’s rally in support of the fascist English Defence League comes the news that the JDL and Meir Weinstein is cozying up with another group of extremists – none other than the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO). You may remember their founder late, longtime leader Jörg Haider who praised Waffen-SS veterans, praised the Nazis, described concentration camps as “punishment camps” and compared the wartime deportation of Austria’s Jews to concentration camps to the postwar expulsion of Sudentland Germans from Czechoslovakia. The Freedom Party’s entry into Austria’s ruling coalition government in 2000 resulted in a widespread diplomatic boycott of the country.
Well, it seems that as much as the FPO hates Jews, they hate Muslims more and that’s good enough for the JDL and Meir Weinstein who seems to be working under the rallying call “Muslim-haters of the world unite!” Of course, it’s not only the JDL that is building links with fascist parties, Israel’s ruling Likud Party is as well. Deputy Minister Ayoub Kara visited Austria at the invitation of the FPO late last year. All this is in spite of the fact that as recently as last April, an FPO candidate found herself in hot water for making “ambiguous statements about the Holocaust and criticism of Austria’s tough 1947 anti-Nazi law.” The Archbishop of Vienna weighed in to say “Someone who questions the National Socialism prohibition law and fails to make clear statements regarding the Holocaust is not an option for me personally.”
Words fail to describe the irony when a party condemned by a Catholic Archbishop for its anti-Semitism is embraced by the JDL or Likud who are quite happy to overlook a little bit of Judenhasse as long as the party in question supports Israel against the Palestinians because while they hate Jews, they hate Muslims so much more.
65 years after the end of World War II, European fascists have come to learn that campaigning on anti-Semitism is now a non-starter. The Jewish population of Europe is a fraction of what it once was due to the Nazi genocide and emigration and most of the Jews who remain are assimilated to the degree that they are indistinguishable from other Europeans. Furthermore, the right used to associate Jews with Communism and use that association to argue that Jews posed a dire threat to European civilization. The fall of the Soviet Union has removed the Communist spectre from Europe and, in any case, Jews today tend to be more conservative then previous generations, so trying to build a xenophobic wave with fear of Jews as its centrepiece does not hold the potential it would have had 80 years ago. Fear of Muslims however, that has potential to light a mass panic, and so today’s fascist parties from Britain to Holland to France to Germany have put anti-Semitism on the back shelf in favour of Islamophobia and some, like the EDL, the Dutch Freedom Party and now the Austrian Freedom Party have gone as far as embracing the Israeli right and the Zionist right, is happy to return the embrace.
Canadian Firebrand: JDL allies with Austrian Freedom Party
“it’s always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.” — Lone Star On the heels of the Jewish Defence League’s rally in support of the fascist English Defence League comes the news that the JDL and Meir Weinstein is cozying up with another group of extremists –
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: JDL allies with Austrian Freedom Party
“it’s always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.” — Lone Star On the heels of the Jewish Defence League’s rally in support of the fascist English Defence League comes the news that the JDL and Meir Weinstein is cozying up with another group of extremists –
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: At long last, Farber forced to denounce JDL
After years of treating the Jewish Defence League as if they were a rogueish but loveable younger brother, Canadian Jewish Congress supremo Bernie Farber has finally said something about the JDL that’s stronger than “they’re not my cup of tea” or that he’s “disappointed” by them.
A shame he and other self-appointed leaders of the Canadian Jewish community have looked the other way or been quietly encouraging of them over the past few years as the JDL has organized and grown and been busy on campuses and even high schools recruiting youth.
The JDL is and always has been a hate group and a violent one at that and Farber et al’s insistence that the Canadian JDL is somehow different than its US counterpart has only given them cover and allowed them to work unopposed within the Jewish community. Had any other group said about Jews what the JDL has long said about Muslims the CJC would have been rightly outraged and insisted that the group in question be ostracised.
Instead, Farber has always quietly defended the JDL or, at worst, issued the mildest of rebuke. This is perhaps his greatest failure as a “liberal” who has been too opportunistic and too wary of being outflanked on the right to say anything. Indeed, he has been so reticent to be critical that JDL head Meir Weinstein actually thinks of Farber as a friend and speaks glowingly of him to others.
Now that the JDL’s extremism is undeniable will Farber finally do what he should have done years ago and work to ostracise the JDL within the Jewish community and try to deny them the space to organize? Somehow, I doubt it. There would be a political price to pay and Farber lacks the integrity needed to expend the political capital needed to root out the JDL. He’d much rather ostracise and marginalize Independent Jewish Voices for the crime of criticising Israel than to consistently oppose the JDL, an organization rooted in a variety of ultra-nationalism that can only be called fascism.
Still, good that he had this printed in the Toronto Sun, it’s a modest step. Let’s see if he issues a similar, or hopefully stronger, missive in the Canadian Jewish News. Will he actually meet with the principals of Jewish Day Schools and urge them to ban the JDL from their schools? Will he ask Jewish campus groups to refuse to work with the JDL? Will he ask the UJA to freeze them out? Or can we expect this summer, yet again, the sight of Meir Weinstein walking down the route of the annual Walk With Israel like a conquring hero or some fascist version of the King of Kensington kibbitzing and patting the back of every “community leader” he encounters, including Farber, as if Weinstein is a somebody, a Big Man on the Jewish Campus? Independent Jewish Voices and its predecessor, the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, have warned about the JDL and urged Farber and others to denounce them. While I’m sure we’re gratified that, however late in the day, Farber has finally seen the light let’s see if this epiphany will last. Farber’s started talking the talk. Will he and the “leadership” of the Jewish community now walk the walk?
Troubling marriage for T.O.’s Jews
The EDL is well-known throughout Europe for its anti-Muslim street protests
By Bernie Farber and Benjamin Shinewald, Guest Columnists
Continue readingCanadian Firebrand: At long last, Farber forced to denounce JDL
After years of treating the Jewish Defence League as if they were a rogueish but loveable younger brother, Canadian Jewish Congress supremo Bernie Farber has finally said something about the JDL that’s stronger than “they’re not my cup of tea” or that he’s “disappointed” by them. A shame he and
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: At long last, Farber forced to denounce JDL
After years of treating the Jewish Defence League as if they were a rogueish but loveable younger brother, Canadian Jewish Congress supremo Bernie Farber has finally said something about the JDL that’s stronger than “they’re not my cup of tea” or that he’s “disappointed” by them. A shame he and
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: "As long as they kill Muslims, I don’t care"
BCL’s post on today’s JDL rally for the neo-Nazi English Defence League and Ron Banerjee’s promise to bring out “security” for the rally got me rememberin’…About a year ago, I happened by a JDL rally outside Ryeson and got into an argument with Ron B…
Continue readingCanadian Firebrand: "As long as they kill Muslims, I don’t care"
BCL’s post on today’s JDL rally for the neo-Nazi English Defence League and Ron Banerjee’s promise to bring out “security” for the rally got me rememberin’ About a year ago, I happened by a JDL rally outside Ryeson and got into an argument with Ron Banerjee, leader and likely the
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: "As long as they kill Muslims, I don’t care"
BCL’s post on today’s JDL rally for the neo-Nazi English Defence League and Ron Banerjee’s promise to bring out “security” for the rally got me rememberin’… About a year ago, I happened by a JDL rally outside Ryeson and got into an argument with Ron Banerjee, leader and likely the
Continue readingAndy Lehrer: Meir Weinstein of JDL nailed by CBC Radio News World at Six
CBC Radio News has a report this evening on Meir Weinstein and the Jewish Defence League. Where other media outlets have failed to dig further into Weinstein’s past or that of the JDL the CBC managed to put Weinstein on the spot. Weinstein tries to wiggle away with some rather
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