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Since 1930 the only weekly publication serving Jewry of the Pacific Northwest
An Independent Newspaper
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief SAMUEL KAPLAN
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News DesK ETHAN MINOVITZ
Editanals naa^w^awr
ThursdayrOctober 31,1991
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Dershawitz's Canadian connection
While Alan Dershowitz roams the world in dissecting the attitudes which Jews have displayed in the past towa:rds their detractors, he alights on Canada on two occasions in his much publicized new book Chutzpah (Little Brown).
The views he offers on both Canadian episodes are both revealing and iristrucAive^
Dershowitz, a firm believer in the American constitutional guarantees of free speech, suggests in his book that the Holocaust Survivors who were instrumental in bringing Ernst Ziindel to trial in Toronto in 1985 erred because they provided Zun-del the opportunity to spread his calumnies far and wide. They presented him with an unprecedented publicity opportunity.
Canadian Jews are, of course, familiar with this argument and in fact Canadian Jewish Congress feared this outcome in its original opposition to the trial. The CJC came intp the case reluctantly only after the Ontario Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Dershowitz, however, appears to be unaware of polls taken by B'nai B'rith and other organizations in Cariada^fter the trial. The polls showed that by and large Canadians had not been taken in by Zundel's lies.
The second Canadian item in Dershowitz's book is the well deserved accolades he showers on McGill University professor Irwin Cotler. Dershowitz describes the partnership both have formed in Hghting
for human rights for Jews and other shackled by totalitarian powers.
What is shocking in the Dershowitz volume, however, is the revelation that when he and Cotler petitioned Israeli authorities for assistance in helping to secure the liberty of Anatoly Sharansky, they were turned down flatly by their interlocutors in Israel. The reason? Israel originally considered Sharansky only a dissident and not a prisoner of Zion and therefore not eligible for Israeli help — which was intended for those Soviet Jews who wanted to come on aliyah.
Their attitudes, of course, changed later on and Sharansky was eventually warmly welcomed in Israel even by the official whom Dershowitz and Cotler had been unable to convince.
Canadian Jewry's role in fighting Holocaust revisionism and on behalf of Soviet Jewry is recorded in Alan Dershowitz's new book. While his views on the Zundel affair fail to refract and understand the reality of Canada's criminal code, his information about the role he and Cotler played in securing the release of Natan Sharansky, is both instructive and disquieting.
But instructive and disquieting are significant facets of a good book, so it is appropriate that Jewish Book Month (Nov. 2 to Dec. 2) is upon us, during Which this important new book by a high profile Jewish activist is scheduled for review in these pages.
SKINHEADS HEAR CHRISTIE
From Page 1
Soviet aliyah, arid "obscure" th& intifada.
Christie praised the Canadian League of Rights as one of the few groups defending "human liberty." The CLR's deputy national director is Vancouver resident Phillip Butler — son of A LR national director Eric Butler, who attended the Melbourne meeting.
(In his 1946 book The InterhationaiJew, Eric Butler asserted that "Hitler's policy was a Jewish policy [and] helped further the declared aim of International Jewry.*' K.D. Gott, in his 1965 study Voices of Hate, described Butler's tome as "the vilest anti-Semitic book ever issued in Australia \\. .from coyer to cover, undiluted venonn.")
According to Jones, Christie told radio listeners in Adelaide, South Australia two
weeks ago that the figure of six million Jewish Holocaust dead was an unproveri propaganda myth concocted to satisfy a political agenda, rather than reflect historical events.
And during a League meeting in Canberra, Australia's capital, Christie alleged that an "international Zionist conspiracy" is trying to impose "a reign of terror" against "anyone who denies the Holocaust in Australia."
Jones said Christie claimed "the majority of historians" were proved wrong on the Holocaust by his client Zundel, whose first conviction was reversed on a technicality.
"Christie told [Adelaide radio host Phillip Satchell] that gas chambers could not have been present at Aucsh-witz," Jones told TTk' Bulletin.
Je>yish groups accused the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of "even if uninten-
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tionally" promoting racist propaganda by failing to identify Christie as the defender of several hatemongers.
Jones said one national radio show. The World Tb^av', introduced him without reference to his sponsor, the Australian League of Rights. He has written to the program's executive producer, noting that "Doug Christie has defended a number of prominent Canadian racists.*' .
"To leave such a fringe, extreme racist, far right group, [which has] been associated with neo-Nazi organizations, unidentified, may attach credibility when there . should be none," argued Dr. Colin Rubenstein, chairman of Australia/Israel Publications.
Christie isn't a human rights lawyer," added Arieh Doobov, president of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, biit "is well-k^own for his defence on a number of occasions of racists and Holocaust-deniers.'' The Executive Council of Australian Jewry charged .that the program served "to promote the League of Rights and broaden the reach of racists in this country."
TJie Jewish groups pointed out that the latest report of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission has identified the ALR as "the most infliien-tiaLand effective, as well as the best organized and most substantially financed, racist organization in Australia." In her 1987 book Chosen: the Jews in A ustralia. H ilary Rubejptein dubbed it "the most dangerous anti-Semitic right-wing organization operating in Australia since the Second World War."
In Canberra, Christie addressed about 30 mainly middle-aged League suppor-
ters, mostly with Central European accents. "There is a move afoot. .. to haVea ban placed on anyone who denies the Holocaust," he said.
"If that happens, it will result in similar trials in Australia. You will elevate beyond the realm of controversy, beyond the realm of discussion, historical matters which ought to be debiltable and open to discussion."
He blamed an "international Zionist conspiracy" — which he alternatively referred -to as "the international coincidences" — for being "the common denominator that permeates all these cases.
"It is an expansion of this reign of terror that ultimately no one will be able to raise a subject antithetical to Zionist interests and remain employed or free in the society in which we claim democracy exists."
Christie was challenged by an interviewer on the radio show Australia Tonight for claiming trials for mass murder are unfair when that was no "crime" until "after the war at Nuremburg."
He told listeners he didn't know who had paid his airfare to Australia — only that "it was paid for by somebody through a travel agent." He said the ALR had lent him "organizational assistance," -and that he was unfazed about associating with "Holocaust revisionists," as even "George Bush is called an anti-Semite."
Christie's trip Down Under didn't help his party in this month's B.C. election. He and his four fellow WCC candidates polled a grand total of 591 votes.
In his chosen riding of Saa-nich South, Christie amassed 191 votes, or 0.8 percent of the total, finishing dead last in a field of four.
1H6 WORID
HUMANtiARlAKi
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'Dynamic past year for Survivor-Families
JWB Stan
The past year has been "dynamic" for the Western Association of Holocaust Survivor-Families and Friends, newly re-elected president Renia Perel told the organization's annual general meeting this month.
Speaking at the Jewish Community Centre, the acclaimed president said the association's membership has jumped from 30 to 240 since the group was formed in November 1988.
"The support for what we stand for and what we are doing has been overwhelming," she said, citing large turnouts at events sponsored by the association.
In addition, the group was represented v at the annual meeting of the International Association for the Survivors of Torture, a brunch honoring House Speaker John Fraser, a lecture series at UBC on Jewish-Christian relations and at a meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver's Council of Presidents.
During the meeting. Dr. Helen Karsai was re-elected vice-president and exhibit chairman, Pat Dolan was named recording secretary and Katie Freilich treasurer. Named as new directors were Dr. Rene Goldman, Batia Karton and Anney Keil. Frances Belzberg and Michel M ielnicki will stay on as directors for another term.
In her speech Perel called for immediate organization and publication of oral histories of the Holocaust "before it is too late."
"My generation is well aware of the historical value of these eyewitness accounts, but it is for those who .will come after iis that we plan to leave this legacy," said the oral history project's new chairman.
The project seeks to publish recollections of Holocaust Survivors as a book, and requires time, and money, Perel said. "From the very beginning, we must think like historians."
Preparations and interviews over the last two years have been done by volunteers, she said. Though the estimated cost of transcription is $4,000, she stated that many grants are available.
In an exhibit committee report by Karsai, it was noted
that an exhibition entitled "Anne Frank in the World," initially planned for Vancouver in the fall of 1992, has been postponed by the association by one or two years. The delay .was attributed to financial difficulties of some participating groups.
Shirley Cohn, one of the association's original supportive members, was the meeting's guest speaker. She presented a slide show entitled "Searching for Roots — A Visit to Hungary," covering a recent trip to the town where , AGM — Page 8
AMONG ATTENDEES at annual meeting of Western Association of Holocaust Survivor-Families and Friends were Reva Hollander, director Anney Keil, president Renia Perel and guest speaker Shirley Cohn.