Canadian Jewish Congress Era Over: Meet 'The Centre For Israel and Jewish Affairs'
Congress Era Over as CIJA Reboot Starts
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21927&It...
"Canadian Jewish Congress will not be the name of Canada's new, consolidated advocacy organization. The Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), the former umbrella organization that controlled Congress and a number of other advocacy agencies, has chosen a new name. It's goodbye CIJA and hello...CIJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
Earlier this month, a self-appointed CIJA nominating committee - led by CIJA chair Steven Cummings and founding member Larry Tannenbaum - established its new board of directors.
The inaugural board members are: Steven Cummings, immediate past Chair; David Koschitzky, chair designate: Stanley Plotnick, a founding member of CIJA, Toronto businessman Morris Perlis; Montreal lawyer Eric Maldoff; Jewish Federations of North America vice-chair Marilyn Bluner: Austin Beutel, chair of Astral Media's corporate governance committee; Liberal candidate for Dartmouth- Coal Harbour, Mike Savage; former Conservative MP Stockwell Day; Father Raymond de Souza of Kingston; Ottawa lawyer Tom d'Aquino;
Jonathan Freedman, of Ottawa; Staci Silverman, co-leader of Edmonton Hillel; Nancy Rosenfeld, former CJC board member; Judy Krener, former Congress board member; Moshe Ronen, former CJC board chair; David Engels, a former chair of United Jewish Appeal (CUJA) Federation of Greater Toronto; Toronto lawyer Ed Morgan: Marky Chernin, president of Temple Sons of Israel in Sydney, NS: Winnipeg lawyer David Kroft: Calgary businesswoman Carol Ryder; and Saskatchewan's Lorne Nystrom, a former NDP MP.
There are still two board posts vacant, one in Toronto and another in Vancouver, that will be filled 'imminently', according to a CIJA spokesperson.."
Is there any substantive difference?
That's a rather foolish moniker (shartal AT rogers DOT com avoids the web-bots, for instance) as anyone can e mail you on your remarks. If you can't change your moniker and you wish to post here on babble for a while, I would suggest setting up another account and abandoning the older one.
National Post: ‘Bad blood’ as change comes to Jewish advocacy groups
After nearly two years of controversy and debate, Canada’s newest Jewish advocacy group quietly launched earlier this summer, essentially marking the end of the 92-year-old Canadian Jewish Congress and creating “a lot of bad blood” in the Jewish community.
The new Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs was expected to issue a news release Tuesday, introducing itself to Canadians as a “one-stop shop” for Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy in Canada. But just as the centre celebrates the consolidation of the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee, the Quebec-Israel Committee and the University Outreach Committee into one umbrella organization, it also confronts its first public relations challenge.
“My sense is that there’s a lot of bad blood on this among the community,” said Andrew Cohen, a Carleton University journalism professor whose great-uncle, Lyon, founded the congress in 1919. “Usually when an organization is launched, it’s done to trumpets and fanfare, not quietly under the cover of darkness.”
The real import of this development is the strategic move to blur the distinction between Israel and Jews - to present support for Israel as an integral part of the conception of Jewishness that they are trying to sell.
This has an important effect of tending to marginalize Jewish voices that are critical of Israel. The "Jewish=pro-Israel" meme is also the flip side of the coin that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
I think it would be more accurate to say that it is part of an attempt to criminalize Jewish, and other, voices critical of Israel. The Harper militarist regime has demonstrated this approach on more than one ocassion and, undoubtedly, coordinate their actions with the Israeli regime and its unquestioning supporters here in Canada.
Stockwell Day? Lorne Nystrom? Looks like they truly have all their bases covered...
And Nystrom is now co-chair of the Mulcair For Leader campaign.
The new name suggests a disturbing emphasis...it pretty much openly states that this organization is placing "support for Israel"(I.E., unquestioning defense of anything Bibi and Co. inflict on Palestinians in the name of "security") before anything else that pertains to Jewish people in Canada at all.
It looks like it's about trying to force the Jewish community in Canada in line behind an "Israel is never wrong/Israel is more important than ANYTHING else/anyone who questions Zionism or even expresses public criticism of Israeli security policy is a traitor if Jewish and an antisemite if not" agenda.
The article seems to indicate, though, that this change may be coming back to bite its originators on the tuckus.
Here's one of CIJA's current projects:
http://rabble.ca/comment/1329707
And Nystrom is now co-chair of the Mulcair For Leader campaign.
Makes sense, I suppose. Sometimes, pro-apartheid NDPers tend to stick together.
Hi genstrike - question for you, if you know the answer or want to answer. Which of the candidates for NDP leadership are anti-apartheid?
Hi genstrike - question for you, if you know the answer or want to answer. Which of the candidates for NDP leadership are anti-apartheid?
To be honest, I haven't been following closely. Because I'm not a member of the NDP, there's little point in me intently follow a leadership election I can't vote in. Plus, I've had higher priority things to worry about, such as IAW and union stuff which has been keeping me crazy busy (ask a certain mutual comrade about it sometime...).
If you're looking for an NDPer to come out vocally against apartheid, you're going to be looking for a while. All of the NDP leadership candidates, with the exception of Mulcair, seem to be fairly close to the official mushy NDP two-state position. No one from the NDP is going to dare utter the phrase "Israeli apartheid" publicly anytime soon, much less support the BDS campaign.
So, it's really hard to say, and I haven't been following closely enough to have any particular insights.
I believe CJPME gave Niki Ashton the highest grade in their analysis of the leadership race though. I think she's hands down the best of the bunch, both on this issue and in general.
Thanks! And carry on with your activism. It does all of us good.