The Ganadian Jewish News, Thureday, May 23, 1991-Page 3
Minister uncomfo with extremists
Gerry Weiner, Canada's Minister for Multicultural-ism and Citizenship, last week agreed to cm interview with CJN Editor Patricia Rucker, news editor Jeff Rosen land repori-;er Ron Csillag. Our conversation with the minister focused on the sta-pis^iethnic communities in Canada, the constitutional debate, Quebec, and the very future of the country.
^ ' ^Byv■:■■;■■ RON CSILLAG
TORONTO—
By all appearances, Gerry Weiner is one very de-termined man.
He is determined to save Canada from itself, resolute in his belief that the country will weather the current constitutional crisis and be the stronger for it.
" Canada is worth saving. Canada works. Canada will stay together because we want' to stay together," Weiner notes, punctuating each remark with a soft slap of the table, with his palm. "The federal government is not attempting to sell a model of Canada that doesn't work."
An affable one-time pharmacist and former mayor of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, a Montreal bedroom community, Weiner, 58, has held a variety of ticklish but powerful posts in Ottawa since his election in the Tory sweep of 1984.
Immediately, he was named Parliamentary Secretary to then Extern^ Affairs Minister Joe Clark and later, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration and Employ-
ment. In 1986, he was appointed Minister of State for Immigration.
In '88, Weiner was named Minister of State for Multiculturalism, with Citizenship tacked onto that title later that year. In '89
came the title of Secretary of State of Canada.
But now, it seems Ottawa has attached more importance to multiculturalism. b^ause in the recent cabinet shuffle, it was removed from the aegis of
the Secretary of State and made a ftill-fledged, freestanding ministry.
For Weiner, the lone Jewish Tory member and one of five Jewish MPs, that means an even stronger mandate to go to
.■; By SHELDON KIRSHNER
TORONTO -
An exhibition of rare Holocaust photographs scheduled to continue its tour in the United States was^ inaugurated at the University of Toronto last week.
A Da'y in the Warsaw Ghetto consists of 85 enlarged black-and-white photos taken by German army sergeant Heinz Jost on Sept, 19,1941, less than two years before the outbreak of the doomed ghetto uprising.
They can be viewed at the Jiistina M. Bamicke Gallery in Hart House until June 13. The exhibition is accompanied by a 20-minute video of the ghetto.
A Day in the Warsaw Ghetto, which will tour through March of 1995, will not appear in any other Canadian city.
The grim, non-propagandistic {^ogr^hs were in Jost's possession until the early 1980s, when he gave them to the mass-circulation German maga-
to raise
MONTREAL-
Following recommendations from its national executive committee and national officers conunit-tee, Canadian Jewish Congress has implemented a plan to raise monies for Kurdish relief.
CJChas already kicked off the filnd with an initial donation. Many members of the community started calling the CJC office last month, asking what they could do to help. Members of the executive and officers bodies have begun contributing on an individual basis.
"The Jewish community yiews'with distress the anguish of the Kurds who are suffering so grievously at the hands of Saddam Hussein," Canadian Jewish Congress president Les Scheininger stated in a letter last month to Prime Minister Brian Mulrpney.
The CJC National Holocaust Remembrance Committee has viewed the plight of the Kurds with particular concern. Nate Leipciger, the committee chairman, stated: "The Jewish community of Canada inust do whatever it can to assist these thou-sartds of refugees who have been on the move for months, wounded, exhausted, hungry and in -desperate need of food, shelter, clothing and medical attention." _„ - Cheques should be made to the Canadian Jewish Congress Charities Committee, 1590 Avenue Dr. Penfield, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1C5. A cover note should indicate "Kurdish relief." Tax receipts will be issued. CJC will direct the funds it receives to one or more international relief agencies to act as the Congress agent in conducting direct relief programs.
zine Der Stem.
Der Stem did not publish them, but made them available to Yad Vashem, the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, where they were put on exhibit in 1988. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, held the first North American showing.
The graphic photographs are of street life in the crowded ghetto and portray the suffering and degradation of its Jewish inhabitants.
The exhibition was officially unveiled here at a reception organized by the Canadian Society For Yad Vashem. Its national chairman. Dr. Joel Dimitry, is the son' of Holocaust survivors, a fact he mentioned in a brief address.
Among the dignitaries in attendance were Gerry Weiner, the federal minister of multiculturalism and citizenship; Hen-, ning Leopold von Hassell, the German consul general; Andrzej Brzozowski, the Polish consul general; and Benjamin Abileah, the Israeli consul general.
In an impassioned speech, Weiner—the only
Jewish minister in the cabinet — said that the exhibition should ideally be seen in thousands of cities.
The men, women and children in the photographs, whose faces are frozen into timelessness, are not objects, fie added.
enstve
Their humanity cannot be repressed. They will not be forgotten
Blasting racism, Weiner declared it can neither be ' 'tolerated and tempered" nor "modified and accommodated."
"It's up to us in public life to challenge Holocaust deniers and hatemongers.''
Weiner expressed "deep and sincere gratitude'' to Yad Vashem for its "unceasing work."
Von Hassell described as catastrophic Adolf Hitler's accession to power and the cold-blooded crimes that were committed in Germany's name.
The German nation, he observed, has accepted "the idea of parliamentary democracy" so . that totalitarianism cannot rear its ugly head again.
The exhibition, he concluded, shows what cmelty, hatred, prejudice and indifference can
produce.
' Brzozowski, a former Solidarity trade union official, said that A Day in the Warsaw Ghetto is "not only a historical document of the Nazi horror and the tragedy of the Jews during the Second World War, but a warning for present and fiiture generations in which thefeeling of superiority of one nation over others still exists."
Abileah paid tribute to Yad Vashem, commending it for educating the public about the Holocaust.
By
PAUL LUNGEN
TORONTO -
Canada Customs officials are planning to view neo-Nazi computer video games to determine whether they violate regulations prohibiting the import of hate propaganda.
Canada Customs com-municati6ns advisor Diana Adams said' department spokesmen had arranged "With Sol Littman, Canadian representative of the Si-moh Wiesenthal Centre, to' see at' least one of the games.
"Naturally we're very concerned about this kind oftnateriai," she said.
Customs regulations prohibit the importation of niaterials that are deemed hate propaganda, she said.
adding the definition of hate materials is modeled on that in the Criminal Code, which prohibits the promotion of hatred against identifiable groups.
The video games denigrate Jews and Turks, and promote their mass murder, Littman has said (CJN May 16).
In a letter to Minister of National Revenue Otto Jelinek, Littman asked that the video games be stopped-at theborder. _
The games, which are
available primarily in Austria and Germany, employ Nazi symbols and illustrations of Hitler. The goal of one of the games is to be the hiost efficient commander of a concentration camp while killing prisoners.
Canada's ethno-cultural communities and enlist their aid in rescuing a nation threatening to tear itself apart.
He especially appreciates Ottawa's ™hew focus" on citizenship, which the minister feels "forms the basis of a multicultural society.
"A huge portion of the country has a heritage outside the British isles. Those communities are saying they don't want to be left out of the process. Now, Canadians have had a chance to examine themselves in the mirror and they're saying, 'What have we become?'
"The core Canadian values have changed. There's no such thing as French Canada and no such thing as English Canada anymore. Our diversity maybe the glue that holds us together."
But neither does Weiner delude himself about some of the wrenching questions Canadian are asking, and are being asked. He's especially keen about the future of the anglophone Jewish community in Quebec.
"There is unease," he sighs. "I'd be fooling you if I said I didn't hear it. We're a very cantankerous nation."
In addition to the 200,000 or so anglos who have left Quebec since 1976, a recent poll indicates up to 40 per cent more are considering leaving. V
'T think "that's quite sad," Weiner comments. "The Jewish community has had a long history of nation-building. Now, it has to reach out, perhaps beyond the bounds of its own conrimunity."
Weiner says he is more uncomfortable with some of the "extreniists" in
Gerry Weiner
Preston Manning's Reform Party than with Quebec separatists.
But overall, the minister points to what he says is a successful Tory record on multicultural issues
The Conservatives, Weiner points out, have tripled immigration levels since taking power in 1984, enacted the world's first national multiculturalism act and negotiated redress packages with Japanese-Canadians and Italian-Canadians for their treatments during the Second World War.: ;
They're also responsible for the imminent birth of the Canadian Race Rela-
tions Foundation, which will promote harmonious relations between Canadians of different backgrounds, and of the Canadian Heritage Languages Institute, which will, promote the use of lan-gtiages other than English and French. . •
"The message of Canadians seems to be 'Don't leave us out,' '' Weiner ; isays. "I'm confident we'll remain united and we'll come up with a solution. It won't be easy. We'll have to be resourceful and innovative.
' 'Let's not pack our bags just yet. Let's stay ler."
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