I personally haven't received his open collared family portrait and frankly, privacy issues aside, I don't want one. The card and all it implies, however, got me thinking about what I believe is an unctuous political strategy and what it says about politics and the Jewish community.
Under Mr. Harper, there has been a policy of unconditional support for Israel and by extension the Jewish community here in Canada. When war broke out in Lebanon, Mr. Harper rushed to "our" defence to the exclusion of Arab Canadians. I suppose I should have been yelling "Right on Steve," but I wasn't.
As a Moroccan Jew (most of us in North America are descendants of Eastern Europe), I have always seen more of what we have in common with Arab Canadians than what drives us apart. We are Semites from the same cradle. Sons and daughters, if Isaac and Ishmael. My family shares food, song and culture with the Muslim Arab world.
Granted only twenty percent of the Muslim world is Arab, but they are our cousins. And, as an Israeli community activist in Tel-Aviv told me, during the filming of my five-part documentary series for VisionTV last year, My Israel: "We - as Mizrachi, or Jews from Arab lands - have more in common with the Palestinians than the Europeans who have the power in this country. They - the Arabs - are our future."
The issues of Israel and the ways in which we may choose to support it are complex. What I find so offensive about politicians taking sides with or against me as a Canadian Jew is the notion that the solutions lie in picking sides. Instead of peace, Israel and its neighbors are encouraged to fight to the death while our politicians join the schoolyard mob, egging one side or the other on to total victory, and its corollary - total defeat.
Within Israel itself, the discussions about the way forward are nuanced and complex. Dissension about the path forward is the norm. Here in Canada, the Canadian Jewish rhetoric is often narrow and boils down to Israel right or wrong. I have heard many of my co-religionists justify the death of innocent Palestinian bystanders as an unfortunate by-product of a just cause. "What do you expect?" they say. "The terrorists hide among them."
Here is where I must speak up, only for myself. I believe that we have lost our way when we can look at the bodies of dead children and feel so little.
I believe, as a religious Jew, that my religion is about ethics and values and that we have an obligation to study, struggle with and act on those structural and behavioural guidelines. What use is a Jewish State if we jettison those values in the pursuit of political goals?
The Torah commands us to "Love the Stranger." Our New Year compels us to make amends and ask those we hurt for forgiveness without equivocation or regard for the quality of their response. We can only be responsible for how we act.
Perhaps we have replaced our Judaism with a crude and simplistic version of Zionism.
Either way, when I see politicians pandering, I am reminded that there is always impermanence to such support and therefore see such public platitudes as politically opportunistic.
Our history as diasporic Jews means that our time in "host" countries has always been measurable. Just sixty years ago there were quotas on how many Jews could be admitted to professional Faculties at some of our leading universities. In Toronto, signs declaring "No Dogs or Jews Allowed" could be seen in Christie Pitts and at Kew Beach. At Victoria Beach near Winnipeg, Jews were prohibited from buying land or even swimming in the lake. Most disgracefully, European Jews were turned away as the Second World War began.
Many died in the Concentration Camps scattered throughout Eastern Europe and Germany because this country and others turned their backs.
Over the years, Jews here and in America fought for their rights and the rights of others who yearned for social justice. For now, we have won many of those battles for respect.
Our Diaspora sits well in the pocket of this great country that has given us so much of late. But if this is a "rental," and it seems it is always a possibility, then let's fight for everyone's peace and security so that if the day comes when darker forces set their sites on us again, we will know that we never gave up the struggle — and not just on behalf of ourselves but for others.
The problems that we face don't call for political cheerleading. Our challenges require visionaries and peacemaking. Happy New Year!
Ralph Benmergui is a broadcaster and producer.
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