Page? 4-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, March 4, 1993
_ By RONCSILLAG
TORONTO — By ail official accounts. Israel and Canada's Jewish community are losing one of the best friends they ever had in Brian Mulroney.
The prime minister, who last week announced he will step down when a new Conservative leader is chosen in June, was as sensitive to the needs and desires of Canadian Jewry and as staunch a supponer of Israel as anyone coiild hope for. Jewish communal leaders agree.
Despite polls showing he was the most unpopular prime minister ever. Mulroney should be "fondly remembered" by Jews in this counir>', Canadian Jewish Congress president lr\'ing Abella told ne UN.
"He understood the needs of our community. He was very .sensitive to them and he had a visceral attachment to Israel."* said Abella, "On more than one occasion, he called JewMsh leaders to offer encouragement." -
Mulroney was keen on issues of mulii-culturalism and anti-racism and "would go out of his way to make his feelings known. We appreciate that.
"We've lost a gcxKJ friend;"
In a statement: CJC said Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, while meeting with. Abella in Jerusalem last month, commended Mulroney for supponive statements the Canadian PM made about Israel during his recent parley with U.S. President Bill Clinton.
In a letter to Mulroney. B'naiBrith Canada president Gabriel Nachman and executive vice-president Frank Dimant commended the prime minister for setting up the Deschenes Commissionof Inquiry' into prosecuting Nazi war criminals living in this countr\'. introducing legislation that prevents using a (Jewish religious divorce) as a bargaining chip in civil proceedings and for his leadership on multicultural matters.
BB took special note of Mulroney's "uniquely honest and clear-thinking approach which characterized [his] intenentions on Israel and the Middle East peace process.
"No other Western leader has so plainly and so clearly affirmed reality and affirmed a commitment to fairness and honesty as you have in this area," BB said.
Canada's Jews "have never had anyone in the upper reaches of power as positive to our coirimunity as Brian Mulroney. and the com-
munity should know that," commented former Congress president Milton Harris, now chair of CJC's war crimes committee.
"It will be very difficult from a Jewish point of view to replace him. It may be hard for Jews to accept that.!'
Harris said he received assurances from Mulroney on war criminals when Mulroney was still opposition leader in 1983.
"I took it with a large grain of salt," Harris recalled. "But he delivered."
Indeed. Mulroney set up the Deschenes Commission barely five months into his first term, accomplishing something the Liberals before him could not or would not do through 16 years of ])ower.
; Prime Minister Mulroney
Despite the fact that war crimes trials have netted no convictions to date. Mulroney seems genuinelyxommitted to the issue. When then justice minister Kim Campbell-stormed out of a meeting with Jewish groups last year because television cameras and media were in tow, Mulroney telephoned Harris to personally assure the Jewish community that the government regards the matter as a priority.
The prime minister "demonstrated genuine concern about the wellbeing of the people of Israel," cornmented Rob Hitter, national director of the Canada-Israel Committee. "He's been a good friend."
Mulroney made his feelings about Israel known early. Just days after being chosien PC leader in 1983. he announced his "firm and uhshakeable commitment to the integrity and
survival" oflsrael. Later that year, he criticized the Liberals' record on Israel, saying support for the Jewish slate must "rest upon a moral foundation."
Mulroney repeated both themes in a C^iV interview in August, 1984, just before becoming prime minister.
During an October, 1985 meeting in New York with then Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Mulroney accepted an invitation to visit Israel the following year.
Despite at least one other invitation extended by Israeli President Chaim Herzpg while in Canada in 1989, Mulroney never visited Israel. But then, no Canadian PM ever has.
On Israel and Mideast policy, the Mulroney years will doubtless bring to mind the many and public disagreements the prime minister's office had with the department of external affairs and its longtime mini.ster, Joe Clark.
In the early days of the intifada. External conveyed Ottawa's disapproval of Israel's handling of the uprising to then ambassador Israel Gur Arieh.
But Mulroney then told the media that Israel was using "restraint" and that '"the prime minister states the policy of the government of Canada."
Perhaps the noisiest fiap took place in March. 1988, wheii Clark delivered a stinging attack against Israel at the annual Canada-Israel Committee conference.
Clark blasted Israel's policy pn the intifada and accused the Jewish state of "unacceptable," "illegal" and "shocking" human rights violations.
The speech had the Jewish community reeling for weeks.
It was later reported that Mulroney's office had toned down Clark's speech to make it less critical of Israel.
A year later, Mulroney and Clark were at odds again. The prime minister apparently contradicted Clark when he told reporters that Canada was not contemplating improved relations with the PLO.
When SciJd missiles rained down on Israel during the Gulf War, Mulroney rushed to the Houseof Commons to convey Canada's support for the Jewish state.
In 199.1, more mixai signals: Clark said the ■ PLO should take part in Mideast peace talks while his boss called the organization and its leader "substantially if not completely discredited" and that Ottawa's enthusiasm for the PLO leadership was "zero."
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By DAVID LAZARUS
MONTREAL — For the first time in its history, Mac-cabi Canada (MC) is asking Canadian Jewish athletes to indirectly chip in for their trips to this summer's Mac-cabiah Games (MC) in Israel by taking part in the organization's $1.25 million national fundraising campaign.
The athletes are being asked lo help raise 25 percent, about 51200 each, of the total cost of sending, housing and equiping Canada's 250 Jewish athletes, said Gary Ul-rich, MC's national fundrai.sing chair.
At the .same time, Ulrich promised that no deserving athlete will be left at home or team numbers cut back if the campaign goal is not met before, the July 5 start of the games In that event, he .said, the shortfall would be made'up by extending the campaign after the games conclude. ^ .
Ulrich, however; was confident the situation would not come lo that. "We're holding our own," he said. "1 think goals will be met across the country."
Ulrich said Maccabi Canada always took pride in being the only national body withi,n the Maccabi movement to completely finance the cost of sending its athletes to Israel.
But recessionary pressures made Maccabi Canada rethink its position about leaving athletes out of the fundraising process.
It costs about $5,000 to send, equip, feed and house each athlete, and Ulrich said kthletes who have made the team are being asked to assume some fundraising responsibilities.: : /
Every other country attending the Maccabiah has long required its athletes to participate in fundraising, with many having to pay their own way to the games.
Ulrich rejected any notion that any one athlete could somehow buy his way onto the team by raising more money than another. Almost all the athletes who will take part in the campaign, he emphasized, will already have secured themselves a place on the team.
By the same token, Maccabi Canada will also expect athletes to put in a sincere effort on behalf of the campaign, even if they don't all meet the $1,200 goal. "Most of these kids come from hard working families," he said. "These kids we're investing in is also an investment in the future of the community!"
In Quebec, where the campaign (chaired by Harold Browristeiii) is aiming to raise $450^000, a series of fundraising events willtake place over the coming months, including a May 20 golf tournament at the Hillsdale Golf and Country Club sponsored by Silver Star Automobiles.
A series of fundraising receptions is also planned which will include the participation of hockey legend Jean Be-liveau, the Canadian team's chef de mission in 1989.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: 1993 J.I. Segal Literary Awards of the Jewish Public Library
Med by tiKi late Dr. Hirsb and Dora Rosenfeid
Competition in 2 categories: 1 English and French Literature on Jewish themes.
Authors must reside in Canada. Books must have been published In 1992.
2. Hebrew and Yiddish Literatura ^ Authors may be North American. Books must have been published in 1992.
Submissions should include 2 copies of materials at no cost to the Library and will remain the property of the Jewish Public Library.
Submissions must be maileLbjefore April 30, 1993 to the J.I. Segal Awards, c/o Jewish Public Library, 5151 Cote Ste. Catherine Rd., Montreal. Que. H3W1M6. > ;
For further information, call: (514) 345-2627.
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MONTREAL — McGill University faculty of medicine professors Theodore Sourkes and Ivan Barry Pless have been named to the Order of Canada.
Sourkes, a professor in the departments of biocheriiis-try and psychiatry, was named an officer and Pless, of pediatrics and epidemiology, a member of the Order.
Sourkes, one of McGill's longest-serving professors.-began a research career after completing his PhD under Nobel laureate J.B. Summer at Cornell University.
He played a major role in the development of alpha-methyldopa, a substance later used to treat high blood • pressure. He also researched the process at work in the brain of Parkinson's disease sufferers, and the effectiveness of L-dopa in controlling its symptoms.
In 1990, Sourkes received the Medal of the Canadian
College of Neuropsychopharmacology and. in 1992, McGill named him an emeritus professor.
Director of the Montreal Children's Hospital's Injury Prevention Centre. Pless is regarded as_ one of the top experts in Canada on injuries to children.
His research has pointed to a highliumber oXprevent-able accident-related deaths. He was an advocate for the creation of the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program, a computerized system linking emergency-rooms across the country to monitor the kinds of injuries children suffer.