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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 5, 1989-Page 11
year in review
Churches condemned Israel
Ganactian goyernment^^^^^^ ties with PLO
Academy Award w inner Ben Kingsley starred thai Story. The film was shown on the HBO
ICont'di from page 10]
countant Richard Vineberg was acclaimed as treasurer and Shira Herzog Bessin of Toronto is the associate chairman of the nationarexecutive,
In March, it came as no surprise when External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, following consultation with the Cabinet, announced the government's policy shift to end restrictions on top level contacts with the PLO Jerusalem described the policy change as "counterproductive" to peace. The shift in policy came only two weeks after Prime Minister Brian Mulrdney stated Canada was not contemplating upgrading contact with the PLO. Oh Aug. 30, Canada voted in favor of a UN Seturity Council resolution condemning Israel for its deportation of five Palestinian activists. The resolutions was adopted by a vote of 14-0 with only the United States abstaining.
The Canadian Council of Churches submitted a brief to the department of external affairs al-.le"grrig human rights abuses in the territories. The brief submitted by the Toronto-based council. which is composed of both lay and clerical representatives of 16 churches in Canada, including Roman Catholic, all major Protestant denominations, and several Eastern Orthodox churches, urged Canada to speak out at the United Nations Humah Rights Commission against Israel's "massive" violations of international human fights agreements, which the group says have escalated since the Palestinian uprising.
In a statement presented by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in June; authored by Conference president Archbishop James Hayes, on_!lthe rijght£of.the people," Israel's
security forces were criticized for ''violently repressing the popular-movement which animates the intifada.'':Sjn[iultaneously, the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada issued a condemnation of "violations of human rights" in the Territories. ^
Canada joined the U.S., Australia, Britain and the Soviet Union in a joint statement expressing th^ir intent to aid each other in seeking out and prosecuting war criminals.
The agreement marks the first tirne since the Second World War that these nations came together to discuss a strategy dealing with war criminals. One-and-a-half years after charges were first laid, and after there were evidence- . gathering commissions in Israel and Hungary, the -war crimes case bf former restauranteur Imre Finta got underway in Toronto. Finta, 77, is the first person charged under Canada's revised Criminal Code legislation for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The; legislation was amended as a result of recommendations by . Justice Jules Deschenes, who headed an investigation into alleged warcriminaJs in Canada.The prosecution alleges that, as a wartime captairTin the Hungarian police, Finta was responsible for forcible confinement, kidnapping and manslaughter in connection witif 8,615 Jews who were loaded on board trains for deportation to death and labor camps. ^
Victoria tawyer Doug Christie, who represents Finta, and the Crown engaged in technical legal arguments over the validity of Canada's war
in Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesen-network in July. [RNS piibto]
crimes legislation. The Supreme Court justice reserved judgement until June 26, when he nil eel on the constitutionality of the law. Associate Chief Justice Frank Caljaghan rejected every legal argument presented by Christie and cleared thFway foTlfie tfiah The Finta trial was recessed for the summer. '
Federal Court Justice Frank Collier reserved judgement in May in the citizenship case of convicted Nazi collaborator Jacob Luitjens after hear-• irig conflicting jnterpretationS of the evidence from prosecuting and defence lawyers. Luitjens. 70, a retired botany professor, was convicted in absentia by a Dutch court in 1948 of collaborating with the Nazis duringthe Second World War and given a life sentence. He denies that he was asked by Canadian authorities whether he had a criminal record when he emigrated, from Paraguayan 1961, and said he did not recognize the handwriting on the bottom ofhis 1971 citizenship docunient,whieh-bears-his-signature.
In July, when First Choice-sponsored a gala preview of Murderers Among Us: the SimOn Wiesenthal Story," Wiesenthal publically refused to attend. In a letter read by Sol Littman, the Canadian representative of the Friends of the Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, the ^ Nazi hunter-expressed his anger at the Canadian govefriment's refusal to make more than a token, effort to bring Nazi war criminals to justice. He believes—that-the Canadian authorities have deliberately ignored the information he has been funnelling to them over the years. He scorned the findings of the Deschenes inquiry whicb folind only 20 prime cases in Canada, a figure Wiesenthal finds ridiculously low. And hecriticized the war crimes unit which has only brought two cases before the courts.
A report issued by B'nai Brith indicates that anti-Semitic incidents in Canada have risen signiflcantly in the last year. The most disquieting development is the emergence in Toronto and other metropolitan centres of neo-Nazi youth gangs who distribute leaflets prais-_ing racism. Many of these'-skinheads" wear T-shirts with racist symbols calling for a separation of races. The Ku Klux Klan has infiltrated Canada under a new guise—the racist' youth gang.
Doug Christie, who represented Jim Keegstra, the Eckville, Alta. school teacher who was con-yicreii of prtfttidiiri hatred against Jews through his classr(X)m, and Ernst Zundel, a convicted falsifier who published a pamphlet denying the . Holocaust, was retained as legal advisor by controversial Moncton schoolteacher Malcolm Ross. Ross has written several books and letters which question the Holocaust and claim there is an international Jewish conspiracy to undermine Chrisfianity.
In November, the New Bruhsvvick Human Rights Commission put a hold on the Ross inquiry, pending a court determination on the jurisdiction of the investigating board. Justice Richard Miller of Court of Qiieen's Bench issued an indefinite stay on proceedings following requests from District 15 School Board, which employs Ross, and the New Brunswick Teachers Federation, of which Ross is a member. At the heart of the dispute was a contention that; the Human Rights AcLmakes no.provision for an inquiry into such a case and that an investigation would violate the rights and confidentiality of students and teachers at the school.
After the New Brunswick court quashed the inquiry into the school board, the provincial government appealed the court decision. The Canadian Jewish Congress was granted permission to challenge the lower court ruling and in May, the NewBruhswick Court of Appeal reversed the decision clearing the way for a human rights inquiry ihtb the Malcolm Ross ■■'case. :. ■- ■,.,::,,--■..■:; ■ . ■
In his battle to combat racism and anti-Semitism in New Brunswick, Jim Leland; a Florenceville United Church minister, wrote to the. Roman Catholic Bishop of Fredericton and. to the city's Anglican diOcese asking them to join -\ with the Unital Church in examining the problem of prejudice and devising an ecumenical statement _ and course of action agiainst it-After almost, a'year of legal maneuvering to remain in Canada, 47-year-old Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad was given a reprieveja . December. Mohammad was a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He. was convicted by a Greek court in 1970 and sentenced to 17 years in a Greek jail for his part in an attack on an El Al airliner in Albpns jn .which an Israeli was killed. He was later released in'a hostage swap.
An immigration department adjudicator ruled that Mohammad had lied on his application form to immigrate to Canada but said he could not be deported for doing so because he had already ap^ plied for refugee status. In August, his case was adjourned'after the Toronto Star and the Hamil-loniSpectator said they would-appeaharnling by an Immigration Department official barring the press and the public. Mohammad's lawyer said ; evidence she would present at the Hamilton, Ont.
hearing could endanger both him and his family. The Federal Court of Appeal will announce the date of the appeal in September.
Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith expressed shock at a front-page artkle in Montreal's La Presse headlined: "Outremont uncovers a Jewish problem: The number of chassidic Jews has doubled in 20 years," which referred to the tensions that have been building-over the past few years between chassidic and the mainly francophone residents of Out-remont. La Presse apologized for using the term "Jewish problem" adding that the Jewish community should not "shoot the messenger" for describing-the inter-community tensions in Outremont.
Malcolm Ross
The Rabbinical Council of Canada, Quebec Region, established a commission and'Beth'Din' which-wiH~oveTsee and certify all conversions carried out by member Orthodox rabbis in Montreal. The Beth Din was established at the request of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel so that it can have proof a convert immigrating to Israel becariie a Jew by a recognized Orthodox procedure. The state does, not require Orthodox conversion tor granting citizenship, LhuLthfcrjkbi.nate does, for purposes of marriages and other lifcKrycle'events. Similar commissions have been established in other North American communities.
In a break with tradition, about 75 women and girls conducted their own service using the Torah at the Orthodox Spahish and Portuguese Synagogue in Montreal in April. Norma Joseph led the service which was held in solidarity with women-inHkrael who are seeking the right to worship together freely, includ-ihg'using the Torah at the Western Wall.
In Toronto, 70 women held a religious; service in the chapel at the downtown branch of the Jewish Community Centre and they marched to the Israeli consulate to demonstrate solidarity with women at the Kotel. Rabbi Deborah Brin of Congregation Darchei Noam said it was the first time that an all-women's service had been held in Toronto. The main purpose, she said, was to protest the violence against w>omen praying at the ■Western'Wall., ■■■;■;■■;;■
■Mandatory school prayers were struck down in Ontario last September. The decision by the Ontario Court of Appeal which ruled in theZyl-berberg case jhatlhe. compulsory reading of school prayers was unconstitutional was bailed by major Jewish organizations.
An Orthcidox Jew from north Toronto, 34-year-old businessman Stephen Mernick. was thrust into the international public eye last fall with his $115 million (U.S.) purchase of the scandal—
The dbore of Toronto's ShaareiShoihayim Synagogue show evidence of an anti-Semitic attack. A neighboring Jewish elementary school was also vandalized in the June incident. [Jeff Rosen photo]
ridden PTL (Praise the Lord) Christian TV ministry and Heritage USA theme park"which includes a television studio, hotel, shopping centre, amusement park and private housing, made famous by the televisi6n evangelisrh of Jim and; Tammy ■Bakker. "■■:■ .^':V
Swastikas and other anti-Semitic markings were sprayed on Toronto's Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue. A neighboring Jewish elementary school, Yeshiva Yesodei Hatorah, was also defaced by Nazi markings. A 21-year-old "skinhead"j Australian-bom Zvonimu-.Lelas, was arrested in connection-with the attack on the synagogue and the school.
And_in August, vandals covered the walls, win-_ dows and the dedication plaque at the Beth Tik-vah Corigregation in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, with red-pointed slogans lading: "Dirty Kikes," "KilfJewsr* Zoinist (sic) scum," and "Six Million weren't enough." The desecration of the synagogue elicited a "very stir; ring" reaction from the comhiunity. . '
Continues he;xt week
