Farber aids pro-Roma group against Kenney, Haifa U

Joanne Hill, a journalist whom I usually admire, has used some highly questionable techniques in her article about Bernie Farber’s support of the Roma community in Canada against the viscious remarks of Ezra Levant and the insidious and contrary to Jewish values changes in the Immigration Act and the Interim Federal Health Program fomented by Minister Kenney and his boss, Prime MInister Harper.

For example, Hill uses ‘guilt by association’ when she points out that Gina Csányi-Robah, executive director of the Roma Community Centre “was a featured speaker at a Never Again for Anyone event whose sponsors included” several “anti-Israel activist” groups, who may be in favour of justice for Palestinians but within a context that is NOT against the existence of Israel. Are Israel’s behaviour and her actions always beyond the pale of criticism? Does criticising Israel simply equate to being anti-Israel? If the answers to those questions are “yes”, then that would place J-Space and the Canadian Friends of Peace Now, for example, in the “anti-Israel” camp. How absurd that would be, since both of those organizations firmly declare themselves to be Zionist!

Hill also uses sly inuendo, for example when she calls Farber a “failed Liberal political candidate”. On the face of it this is factually correct, but any student of rhetoric would agree that her use of the pejorative word “failed” carries a taint that unjustly smears Farber’s name, compared to other words she could have used, such as “unsuccessful”. Other examples can be found, such as her describing Farber as “former CEO of the NOW DEFUNCT Canadian Jewish Congress” (my emphasis), and that he “has recently taken up the cause of the Roma community”, as if he would not have supported the Roma community against people like Kenney and Levant under other circumstances.

I have known Bernie Farber for close to 40 years and though we are not usually on the same page of the siddur we are certainly davening from the same siddur. Ezra Levant and Jason Kenney are completely off the scale of what constitutes, in Jewish terms, menchlikhkayt and social justice for all people who are under the same forms of racism and discrimination as Jews have been so often in the past and indeed in living memory. There is more evidence than ever before about what the Roma are experiencing in so-called “safe countries” such as Hungary – they are a people who have suffered dreadfully from bigotry and racism, and during WW2 experienced their own shoa side by side with ours. Bernie Farber knows this, so he’s helping in any way he can.

It is the Canadian Friends of Haifa University and the University of Haifa itself who shouild be deeply ashamed of themselves for this honour they are bestowing on Kenney. Dr. Arnie Aberman, tribute committee chair, reports Joanne Hill in her usual good journalistic style, “said neither his organization nor the University of Haifa would take a position, or comment, on Canadian immigration policies”. She goes on to quote Aberman saying Kenney is being recognized, “for his steadfast position against antisemitism and for his solidarity with the state of Israel” etc. Hoiwever, she does not report that CFHU has also publically stated in print that Kenney was receiving the honour “in appreciation of his REVERED LEADERSHIP AS MINISTER OF CITIZENSHIP, IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURALISM” (my emphasis), which Dr. Aberman somehow neglected to mention. So Kenney’s actions as minister responsible for immigration is directly part of this event and the event richly deserves being castigated and picketed.

The fact that there will be groups involved in the protest whose views of Israel and Israel’s actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians and the occupied West Bank, etc. is not germain to the core question of whether CFHU and U of H itself did the right thing. It isn’t even a question of whether for other reasons you’re a fan of Kenney or not. It has to do with Jewish values not being espoused by a Canadian Jewish organization and the Jewish institute of higher education which it represents in this country. I think Bernie Farber understands this difference, as does the Toronto Board of Rabbis, the 70-some leading members of our Jewish community whose names appeared in an “open letter” published full-page (and paid for by them) in the May 24, 2012 issue of the Canadian Jewish News, and Eli Weisel, yes Eli Weisel, whose remarks about the issue were solicited and published by the Globe and Mail. Pity that Joanne Hill did not choose to include some of his remarks in her article.

This article is a new low for the Jewish Tribune. The Roma suffered alongside us during the Holocaust, only they and us were put through the gas chambers. We should be showing them more respect and defending them against bigots like Ezra Levant.

Does one even has to ask whether the Tribune is a real newspaper? Of course it isn’t – never was. It’s a shanda in the community. Never mind its shrill, strident tone, utterly transparent bias, and nonexistent journalistic standards (yeah — let’s write a hatchet job about Bernie Farber, filled with accusations and hearsay – but not bother calling him for comment or input). Consistently and reliably, this house organ of BBC is horribly written and maybe not edited at all. But hey — its graphics are nice…

I liked to believe that the Jewish Tribune was an honest alternative newspaper to the Canadian Jewish News. However any editor that would sanction this scurrilous tpe of journalism tells me that its no alternative at all. It is what I feared it wouldn’t be, a house newsletter used in this case to cast unwarranted suspicion on both an entire ethnic community and a respected Jewish leader.

The Jewish Tribune owes all its readers an apology and retraction.