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POLL QUESTION
A recent
controversy in Montreal about a Jewish cabdriver,
who has been fined $1400 for displaying religious articles such as a mezuzah and
photos of his Rabbi and family, as well as a Canadian flag and other items, led
to the printing of the following cartoon in a local Montreal newspaper, La Metropole.
The cartoon
shows a Hasidic Jew calling to passengers from his cab, labeled Taxi de David,
“Come in! May Yaveh be with you ...” The headline of the cartoon reads, “A taxi
transformed into a ... synagogue?” The sign on top of the cab says, “not
expensive not expensive.”
Do you think the
La Metropole cartoon is antisemitic?
Should John Tory
enter the race for Mayor of Toronto?
Yes: 72%
No: 27%
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Donor’s Corner:
SPOTLIGHT ON
Sam Mizrahi
Sam Mizrahi,
President of Mizrahi Design Build, has been actively involved with Friends of
Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) for the past two years,
having served as Vice-Chair of the 2010 Spirit of Hope campaign as well as on a
variety of other FSWC committees.
He joined the
organization not only to lend his support to FSWC’s efforts to challenge
antisemitism and injustice in the world, but because he believes “it’s a
phenomenal institution that provides a voice for the words we all want to say
but so few of us do.”
Sam, who is also
an active supporter of the UJA, is encouraged by the speed with which FSWC
responds to issues in the news every day, and inspired by the passion the team
brings to the job.
“I
would like our organization to continue to grow and become a louder voice to
challenge all the hate, defamation, prejudice and ignorance we see in the world
around us,” he explains. “It’s something that really resonates in my heart.”
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News Features
of the Week
“Netanyahu, the anti Obama”
By George F.
Will in the Washington
Post
“Sacrilege at Ground Zero”
By Charles
Krauthammer in the Washington Post
FASTFORWARD
Have your Say!
Do you have any
questions or comments
about FSWC
activities, decisions or positions on issues? Please let us know.
Take the
opportunity to ask Avi Benlolo, President and CEO of FSWC, about where he stands
on the issues that matter to you, and how he plans to handle the matters most
important to the Jewish community.
FOLLOW US ON:
Media Contact
Stacey Starkman,
Communications Coordinator
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies
416-864-9735 x 32
mailto:sstarkman@fswc.ca
FSWC IS SUPPORTED BY
CONCERNED CANADIANS. PLEASE CALL 16-864-9735
TO HELP MAKE THE WORLD A
BETTER PLACE OR VISIT US AT
WWW.FSWC.CA
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Friends of Simon
Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC) launches new Church campaign
As supporters of
FSWC are no doubt aware, the newest war against
Israel is being fought, not with guns and bombs, but with a sophisticated smear
campaign intent on demonizing Israel as an apartheid regime. This
de-legitimization drive is apparent in events such as the university-based
Israel Apartheid Week, or the ambitious worldwide Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions crusade.
Sadly, no group
has been more enthusiastic in their adoption of these anti-Israeli measures than
the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC). This organization has not only
adopted the Palestinian view that sanctions terror attacks and denounces Israel
for all problems in the Middle East, but, more recently, has begun challenging
the Jewish people’s historic ties to the land of Israel. The WCC website
speaks of Israeli ‘occupation’ and ‘war crimes’ with no condemnation of
Palestinian terrorism at all. The ultimate goal is to paint Israel
as a rogue, illegitimate state.
This is a
critical battlefront. Anti-Israel activists continue to portray Israel
as a brutal aggressor, leading to a worldwide resurgence in antisemitism. It is
time to put an end to the blatant lies and renewed hatred that is spreading
across the globe. FSWC in Canada, together with the offices of the
Simon
Wiesenthal Center around the world, is committed to taking action to fight the spread of this vicious
antisemitic, anti-Israel poison.
To this end we
have embarked on a long-term campaign focusing on outreach to Christian
communities, diplomacy and the media. We cannot, however, accomplish this
challenging task alone. We need your help.
In the coming
weeks you will receive a letter from us with a petition to the General Secretary
of the WCC enclosed, advising the organization to immediately stop its biased
and dangerous propaganda campaign against Israel. We urge you to sign this petition.
We also hope you
will consider financially supporting the FSWC Interfaith Relations campaign.
Together we can make a positive difference.
For further
information on this campaign contact
Richelle Morgan.
ÉRIC PINEAULT- TAKE NOTE! PRIDE AND PREJUDICE DO NOT MIX
In light of your
decision to allow the racist organization Queers against Israeli Apartheid to
march in the Celebration de la fierte Montreal, I urge you to take careful note of what happened at Toronto’s
Pride Week this year. Once considered the City of
Toronto’s premiere street festival and celebration of gay rights, Pride Toronto now finds it can no
longer sustain itself as a viable organization.
Days after the
June event, Pride declared it had lost more than $250,000 in sponsorships and
grants and had to lay off six employees. Several weeks prior, Pride
Executive Director Tracey Sandilands confessed at a press conference that the
inclusion of Queers against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) was causing an “operational
crisis”; that staff morale was at an all time low and that the loss of financial
support was detrimental. To save itself, Pride disallowed the phrase, ‘Israeli
Apartheid’ in the 2010 parade.
CLICK HERE to
read the full letter by Avi Benlolo to the President of Pride Montreal
FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER DENOUNCES ANTISEMITIC VANDALISM AND VOWS JUSTICE
In response to
FSWC enquiries about the recent wave of antisemitic vandalism in France, including attacks on kosher stores, Jewish schools, synagogues and graves, as well as
the desecration
of a memorial to Jews deported by the Nazis, the French Embassy in Ottawa released a statement by
Brice Hortefeux, French Minister of the Interior. The statement reads as
follows:
"It is with deep sadness and anger that I learned the desecration of the Jewish
memorial in the city of Marmande by antisemitic graffiti. The authors of this graffiti have attacked the memory of the
deportees. They have attacked the Jewish community. They have also attacked France
as their disgraceful acts constitute an insult to civilization and an affront to
the values of the Republic.
While expressing my solidarity to the associations for
the deportees, veterans and their families, I wish to condemn such abhorrent
acts. In addition to this moral condemnation, I will be seeking criminal
sanctions as quickly as possible. As a result, I have asked that everything is
done to identify the perpetrators and that they are brought to justice.
As a minister responsible for religion, I am more
determined than ever to fight against all forms of racism and extremism."
In addition to the vandalized memorial to Jews in Marmande, in recent weeks
antisemitic slogans and swastikas were found on the walls of a synagogue in
central France, gravestones have been overturned in a Jewish cemetery near
Strasbourg, and the Union of Jewish Students in France called the most recent
attack on kosher stores in Paris a “new demonstration of antisemitic hatred.”
Approximately 490,000 Jews lived in France
as of 2008.
FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTER SLAMS BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI PRODUCTS AS A “CRIME OF RACIAL
PROVOCATION AND DISCRIMINATION”
August 10, 2010 - The
Simon Wiesenthal Center lauded French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux for calling boycotts against Israeli products in France
“ a crime”. The top French official‘s statement came in response to a SWC
report, "Boycott Agitation against Kosher Products in Supermarkets and other
Commercial Outlets across France, January 2009 - July 2010" (in
cooperation with the French Bureau for Vigilance against Antisemitism).
In a letter to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Interior Minister Hortefeux wrote,
"You have called my attention to the value of punishing the agitation of the
Group "Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions" (BDS) in view of the acts of its members
in certain foodstores ... Just as you, I consider the campaign led by this group
and their statements made on such occasions calling for a boycott of Israeli
products as, arguably, constituting a crime of racial provocation and
discrimination...."
CLICK HERE to read the full
press release
DEATH
CAMP
FIRE DESTROYS 10,000 PAIRS OF SHOES
In March 2010
FSWC led our first Mission to Poland. One of the most powerful moments of that trip was
captured by FSWC President and CEO Avi Benlolo, who,
reflecting upon
his experiences, wrote:
“Perhaps it is the shoe exhibit that fills me with the greatest sadness.
Thousands upon thousands of shoes. In the midst of all the well worn browns,
grays and blacks a red high heeled woman's shoe stands out. It demands
attention: "Look at me. I was here. I was alive once and like you, I lived,
loved and laughed.”
The opportunity
to experience that moment of connection at the Majdanek concentration camp near
Lublin, Poland was forever destroyed when a fire ravaged the display of shoes belonging to Jewish
prisoners earlier this week.
Although
authorities do not yet know the cause of the blaze, the initial investigation
indicates an electrical short.
NO EXCUSE FOR MONTREAL NEWSPAPER TO DEFEND STEREOTYPES IN JEWISH CARTOON
Letter to the Montreal Gazette by Avi Benlolo, President and CEO, FSWC (August 10, 2010)
La Metropole is
behind the times. Racially motivated cartoons are considered by most people who
live in cosmopolitan cities like Montreal to be insensitive and counter inclusive. They appease only racists and bigots as
they are divisive in their reinforcement of ancient stereotypes which have lead
to countless acts of violence and murder throughout human history.
Human beings can
rise above this primal need to hate and vilify by promoting tolerance, justice
and human rights. Xenophobic caricatures have no place in a post-Holocaust
world.
See Poll question,
FastForward top left, for further
details on this story.
WIESENTHAL CENTER EXPERT CONTRIBUTES CHAPTER IN NEW NATO BOOK ON INTERNET
THREATS
August 12, 2010
- Mark Weitzman, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Government Affairs Director has authored a key chapter in a new book published by
NATO. The new work, "Terrorism and the Internet: Threats, Target Groups,
Deradicalisation Strategies" is newly-released by the
NATO Science for Peace and Security
series published by IOS Press.
CLICK HERE to read the full press release
ATTENTION: RABID READERS!
FSWC is starting
a Book Club and is looking for readers interested in joining our inaugural
“Wiesenthal Book of the Month Club”. We plan to meet once a month at the FSWC
office at 5075 Yonge Street
in Toronto. Our first title for discussion will be the powerful memoir and best seller “Nomad” by Aayan
Hirsi Ali, whose journey away from her Islamic roots was first documented in the
book “Infidel.” Group members will be encouraged to submit their reflections and
reviews for publication in our weekly FastForward
newsletter, as well as to select publishing houses. Please note the Wiesenthal
Book of the Month Club is open to donors only.
For more
information please contact Melissa Mikel
UPCOMING FSWC EVENTS
FSWC PRESENTS REZA KHALILI, FORMER UNDERCOVER CIA AGENT IN IRAN
Reza Kahlili
is the author of “A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Life of a CIA Agent inside
the Revolutionary Guards of Iran. Mr. Khalili will speak about his experiences
on Tuesday, September 7 at 7:00
p.m. at the City Playhouse at 1000
New Westminster Drive in
Vaughan. Recommended cover at this presentation is $5.00.
Please contact
Elaine Martyn,
Program Developer, to reserve your seat as soon as possible.
Ben Mulroney to host Freedom Day to honour Simon Wiesenthal
In tribute to
Simon Wiesenthal’s legacy of tolerance, justice and human rights, Ben Mulroney
will Host Freedom Day in Toronto on the afternoon of September 20, 2010.
The event will feature speakers including Iranian author Marina Nemat, former
prisoner of the infamous Evin prison in Iran, Holocaust survivor Max Eisen,
dancers from So You Think You Can Dance Canada, and more than 1,000 students and
educators from across the Greater Toronto Area. Save the date and plan to
celebrate with us! Details on location, timing and additional guests will be
added soon. Please contact
Melissa
Mikel for further
information.
Book Launch: “After Tehran” by Marina Nemat
Join FSWC for an
evening with Marina Nemat, author of “Prisoner of Tehran” which documented Ms.
Nemat’s unlawful incarceration in Iran’s infamous Evin prison. In her new book the author recounts her escape from Iran and journey to Canada, as well as her efforts to confront the past and
share her experiences.
Ms. Nemat will speak in Toronto on Tuesday,
September 21,
2010 at the FSWC
office at 5075 Yonge Street, Suite
902 in Toronto at 7:00 p.m. Recommend cover
at the Book
Launch is $5.00. Please contact
Elaine
Martyn, Program
Developer, to reserve your seat as soon as possible.
Spirit of Hope 2010 video screening
Spirit of Hope
2010 was the most successful benefit in FSWC history. More than 2600 people had
the opportunity to hear Nobel prize winning author Elie Wiesel and Sir Salman
Rushdie talk about issues such as freedom, tolerance and the victory of good
over evil in a fascinating discussion moderated by Brian Mulroney. This
wonderful event was captured on video and will premiere on Monday,
September 27, 2010 at the FSWC office
at 5075 Yonge, Suite 902 Street
in Toronto at 7:00 p.m. Recommend cover
at the Spirit of
Hope screening is $5.00. Please contact
Elaine
Martyn, Program
Developer, to reserve your seat as soon as possible.
Defiance: Film
Screening
Join FSWC as we
screen the movie “Defiance.” Starring Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, Defiance documents the heroic efforts of the Bielski brothers, who fled into the Belarussian
forests and built a hidden village in an effort to protect themselves and about
1,000 Polish Jews from the Nazis. Defiance will be screened on Monday, October 4, 2010 at the FSWC
office at 5075 Yonge, Suite 902
Street in Toronto at 7:00 p.m. Recommend cover
at the Defiance screening is $5.00. Please contact
Elaine
Martyn, Program
Developer, to reserve your seat as soon as possible.
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