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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 12, 1989-Page 9
Opinion
J. B. SALSBERG
In recent months our country has gone through its periodic re-examination of its identity. It was triggered by Premier Robert Bouras-sa's proclamation of new rules and regulations governing the place and usage of the French language in the province of Quebec.
His new course amounts to the transformation of Quebec from a bilingual province to a uni-lipgual one; from French-English into French only.
While he did not outlaw English usage, nor did he restrict English, educational, cultural, or media functions (press, radio, television, etc.), he did introduced restrictions on the usage of English (like signs and' posters) that shocked the English-speaking' sector of that province and that surprised most Canadians outside Quebec.
The anti-French bigots in the rest of the coun^ try worked themselves into a frenzy. The rednecks in certain parts of our country shouted thatlT Quebec doesn't like to be Canadian (they mean English-speaking Canadian) then let them
J. B.Salsberg
go. Fortunately those "English only" Canadians are a minority in the country and even their anger is subsiding with the passage of time;
My own opinion is that Bourassa went beyond the real needs for the protection and flourishing of the French language and French culture in Quebec or in the rest of Canada. Some of his regulations appear to " be vengeful to some English-speaking Que-becers, for example, the outlawing, of English signs Lri store windows.
The intention of this column is to provide-some overriding aspects of the language issue in the heartland of French-speaking Canadians in Quebec. And, above it all, to deal with the French Canadian issue from a Jewish viewpoint.
Yes, I believethat Canadian Jews, more than any other minority group in the country, should be able to look sympathetically on Quebec's ef-
, forts to safeguard its language and its cultural
J heritage. Let us see:
The French were the first Europeans to land and to open up the: northern part of the newly discovered continent of America. The French were the first to sail up the St. Lawrence River
, and to establish settlements along that great river's coastline and the first to establish trading posts in What is now Ontario. They were the first to establish their agricultural communities along that waterway and they were the first traders.with the native Indian Settlements.
France's loss of the war to the English in Europe actually ended France's presence in continental North America. The peace treaty that followed assured the French community of religious and language/protection. The French Canadians, to their credit, guarded their language and'culliiral heritage with determination, courage and success. ;
To these early French settlers, Quebec became their new motheriand, their guarantee for linguistic, religious and cultural survival. They weren't going to let themselves be assimilated by the English-speaking United States nor by the English-speaking British colony of what eventually became the Dominion of Canada.
It was a long and arduous struggle for the French-speaking society in North America to survive.
Again, to their credit, they did survive and their dream of being "masters in our own community, has never been more fulfilled than it is' now. And may it ever be so.
I also want to add my solemn hope that the French civilization in Canada, Quebec, will be ever a free and equal partner in Canada.
If the present trends in the country should be allowed to continue, Canada will really become a bilingual country. Much of it already is, in New Brunswick, in Northern Ontario and in some regions in Western Canada.
As for bilingual countries, there are many aill
over the world. Belgium is bilingual; the Soviet Union is multilingual; so is Switzerland. Ireland and parts of Scotland are bilingual and Israel is, in practice, bilingual, if not multilingual.
The artificially.creat^"fe3r" of Canada becoming a country-wide bilingual (English and French) country is fanned by extremist.partisans from whom we, Canadian Jews, should keep a recognizable distance.
That is not to say that there aren't extremist treridls in both camps of our cultural spheres. In Quebec it is expressed by the separatist rninority and in English Canada by the yahoo fringes that say: "Let them
go-":-'.
At this time Canada is discussing the Meech Lake accord that recognizes the French-Canadian community as a "distinct society." All but three provinces have endorsed and accepted that accord — and that includes Ontario, the largest province in the land. Failure of the three hold-out provinces to give their approval in the new year may sink the accord and throw the country i^ito a quarrelsome condition. This must not be allowed to happen.
As a Canadian Jew I recognize, and Indeed did so throughout my public life of more than a half-century, the special (distinct) character of Quebac. It is, therefore, my sincere hope that, if for no other reason, the Meech Lake accord will foe approved by the three "hold-out" provinces.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters are welcome if they are brief, in English or French, typewritten with lines double spaced, and of interest to oiir reading: public. Readers are cautioned not to make sweeping claims against persons or institutions which they cannot verify, as libel laws are very stringent. We reser\r the right, to edit and condense letters, which must bear the sender's address, phone number and both handwritten and typed signatures.
URGE MOSCOW TO CURB PAMYAT
The Soviet newspaper "Evening Moscow" of Aug; 23 carried an article entitled^".Once again concerning the Stalinists.'' The'article deals with the court suit by a certain I. T. Shekhovtsov, a supporter of the dead Stalin and the Stalinist . epoch and a judicial investigator in the pre-Gorbachev period, against "Evening Moscow" for quoting someone calling him a "protector of executioners." ■
What impressed me most was not the court proceedings as such, but the vivid descriptionof the behavior of a group of supporters of Shekhovtsov during an intermission. The article quotes them spouting loudly and openly virulent anti-Semitic remarks, calumny and ridiculous lies (e.g; Elvis Presley was a Zionist agent, rock'n'roll is a Zionist plot to subvert the worid, etc.). It isclearthat Russian anti-Semitism allies itself with anti-perestroika and anti-glasnost.-movements and with a longing for the Stalinist era.
There is a photograph of a young man wearing a sweater with imprinted messages: "If you smoke or dHnk beer or wine, you are aiding Tei Aviv (rhyming in Russian);'■ "Down with the domination by the 0.69 per cent (presumably the percentage of the Jewish population in the USSR);" "Down with the occupation by Jewish nazis;" and "Let us de-zionize;" signed^'Pamyat," This photograph is more eloquent thian the iarticle itself since it illustrates the degree of rabid anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, led by this infamous organization "Pamyat" (memory), the name obviously chosen to evoke nostalgia for the endemic fierce anti-Semitic Russian nationalism. ^ Jews in the Soviet .Union are in danger of overt anti-Semitic attacks, arid even fear pogroms. We in the West must fee aware of the potentiality of another Holocaust there. We must do ourutrnost to alleviate the plight of Soviet Jews and try to influence our governments to put miore pressure . on the Soviet government to cur6 such groups and their excesses.
E. Meerovitch Montreal
IF THEY COULD SPEAK
The Montreal Gazette of Sept 20 carried a front page story "Postwar camps were grim, survivors say." One might immediately think the; story-following is about the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons who found themsejve.s after the war in DP camps all over Europe, most of whom were inmates, victjmsand survivors of Nazi death camps and concentration camps.
The story had its p.idgin:l?ased ort a sensational
book Other Losses by James Bacque and was picked up by two Montreal veterans of the "German Wehrmacht, corroborating how badly the German war prisoners were treated right after the war in camps for "disarmed enemy forces."
It is too bad the six million Jews and many millions of Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Cziechs, Slavs, Baits and other Europeans who were starved, beaten, humiliated and then killed by the Hitler Wehrmacht are not here to respond and complain how badly they were treated by the Nazis.
I also wonder what the entire Jewish community of my hometown of Ukmerges (Vilkomir) in Lithuania consisting of 8,500 Jews, who were. taken en masse in the local Pavoiner forest arid completely annihilated, would say if they were alive today. „, '
One of the two ex-Germari prisoners-Of-war complains that they were given powdered coffee, cocoa, milk, eggs, flour, sugar and raisins — how - dreadful. The 20 million who perished under the Nazi Wehrmacht must be turning in their graves. David Kunigis Montreal
WON'T BRING ISRAEL TO KNEES
Never before in the annals of history have two
■ differententities claimed their rights to the same-piece of land, quoting the Bible and the name of
, their ancestors.
The conflict resembles two fighting families, pretending and demanding to live in the same house. This is the substance in the Arab-Israeli
■ conflict. In November 1947 after the termination of the British mandate in Palestine, two stales were established, an Arab and an Israeli one. The resolution was sponsored by the.United.Nations, backed by all the superpowers, including Russia. But the division of Palestine was rejected flatly by all the Arab states;
The Arabs were demanding the whole pie. In 1947 there was hardly any Arab leadership in Palestine, except for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, known for his amicable ties with Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. In defiance' of the UN resolution, the combined armies of Arab states invaded the new State of Israel, threatening total.annihilation, a kind of final solution. Israel won the war on the. battlefield to the surprise and admiration of the worid.
IriThe'Arab world the Jews were always persona npn-grata.
Jews in Palestine were murdered by the Arabs as long ago as 1929, 1930 and 1936. In 1947, before the establishment of the State of Israel, 40 Jewish workers at the Haifa refinery _ were hacked to death with axes. There were pogroms in Jaffa and Jerusalem, where hundreds of Jews were murdered in.cold ■': blood.
The British didn't do much to alleviate the problem. They did however,, confiscate arms ; from the Jewish defenders.
Arab misery, in Israel is rampant. Their suffer=^ ing is abysmal. The Arabs are trying to redraw the borders by murder and intimidation. • There Is no roorin for a Palestinian state inside- -
Israel. In fact, a Palestinian state already exists in Jordan.
Mr. Arafat smiles a lot, embraces with kisses, shakes hands and plays the statesman. He's elevated himself to the presidency of the Palestinian state. He even has a shadow cabinet and a terrorist army, but he doesn't have a state. His brethren in Syria and Libya hate him because they are talking a different language of destruction;
The Arab leadership is using the Palestinians as pawns only. With their immense wealth in oil, the Arab states are perpetuating the "Palestinian" misery. —
What Israel is willing to offer, the Arabs are refusing to accept; What the Arabsdemand; Israel will not deliver:?
The Palestinians are mistaken if they feel that they can bring Israel to its.knees. They are dead wrong. The train of events is moving fa.st. The Arab as in 1947, are losing an opportunity to achieve, autonomy, but-not a state. Frank A. Wilson National Vice-President B'naiBrith Canada Toronto
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Jozef Cardiiwl Glemp
JEWISH PROTESTS STRIDENT '
^ The Canadian Jewish community would engender far more respect and command more positive influence if it were to express its concerns in a more measured. les.s strident manner than has hitherto been the ca.se. All too often our pains, our wounds and our fears have given vent to shrill outbursts that Offend and at times antagonize the very people whose sympathy and understanding we need to cultivate.
The most recent example of this destructive display manifested itself in the wake of the Ausch-witz—convent-controversy as some Jewish
spokesmen inflamed the atmosphere with their tactless charges against Poland and the Catholic Church. As neither Poles nor the Catholic Church are responsible for the dishonest and contemptible remarks of Cardinal Glemp, it is both rude and unfair to demand that they condemn him. i
If, in addition to castigating Glemp and advocating the transfer of the convent, would it not have been more helpful had Jewish leaders informed the Jewish public that many Poles, including the Conference of Polish Bishops, were supportive of the transfer and : that most Poles and Catholics have been deeply embarrassed by the Polish Primate.
What: Jewish leaders should be addressing is the tenuous relationship with the Polish-Canadian community that has become aggravated by insensitive emotional outbursts by members of each community in reaction to the contribution of Rabbi Weiss. Glemp and Shamir.
Canadian Jewry has enough problern£ Mor^ bid dwelling on the dark side of Poland will solve none of them. The Poland for which Polish airmen helped win the Battle of Britain, and Polish infantry sacrificed themselves in capturing Monte Cassino, a Poland of honor and decency, is now taking shape. Let's extend it to our goodwill and best wishes. We shall all benefit!
Alexander Epstein Toronto ■.:
ISRAEL NEEDS JEWISH TOURISTS
It may be a tired subject, but I don't care, I"m furious.
I have just returned from my .sixth visit to Is-" rael, and I cannot believe the absence of North American Jewry there. It's worse every year, and this year I was the only English-speaking tourist in my fairly large hotel. ,
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I find it hard to believe that we are afraid of
the intifada. Anyone with education knows that the violence does not spill over the green line (with exceptions). Besides, soldiers are the first target.
I scrimp and save to go every year because I love it there; I'd live there if I could afford it. Other people have the. luxury of a lot of money and they never visit. Why? Does it mean so little to them? Israelis are somewhat demoralized, and Jewish tourism is a sign of solidarity. You can't give your children to the army, so do your bit. There is something for everyone there.
— 1 saw:-BritishJews„ErenchJews, tons ofSouth Americans (gentiles) and all kinds of Europeans; Even a huge church group from Kansas.
Don't wait for Bond Drives; or Jewish Appeal group?0r "associations/'Go on your own, rent, a car, and see a land as diverse as any on earth! Discover who we arc, because there are not a lot of us. ■
Daria Hurwitz ; '
Toronto • ' c