Over the past five years, Calgarian Ryan Bellerose has become one of Western Canada’s leading pro-Israel advocates, even though he’s not Jewish.
The Métis man co-founded the group Calgary United with Israel, speaks frequently in the community, has a Facebook following of 1,700 and has been featured on such pro-Israel news websites as The Times of Israel and Elder of Ziyon.
Now Bellerose has taken on a second mission in the Jewish community: he’s B’nai Brith Canada’s new advocacy co-ordinator for Western Canada.
“B’nai Brith has kind of died out in Western Canada,” Bellerose said. “My job is to try to help rebuild the brand and form new lodges in this region through community involvement. For example, we recently held a food drive for members of the northern Alberta reserves who were burned out of their homes by the forest fires. And we are trying to plan events that might attract different people who may not be on our radar.”
Some might consider the outspoken Bellerose to be an unlikely defender of the Jewish state, but for the member of northern Alberta’s Métis community, it makes perfect sense.
Bellerose, 40, first became aware of the Israeli-Palestinian issue while doing research in university into broken native treaty agreements.
“It became clear to me that the Jewish People are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, and the Arabs are the colonizers,” he said. “A cursory reading informed me that the Arab colonizers were much worse than the Europeans who colonized America. The Arabs killed or subsumed everyone they conquered.
”I was the first person to argue, on behalf of Israel, that the Jews, as the indigenous people of the land, have certain rights that supersede those of other people in the area.”
His outspokenness has sometimes been controversial. In March 2015, Hillel Montreal cancelled a talk by him at Concordia University. Bellerose said at the time he thought the event was scrapped because some mainstream Israel advocacy groups and “progressive Zionist” students don’t like his “in your face” approach to defending Israel.
Bellerose says that one of his inspirations is UCLA professor Philippe Assouline who has a PhD in neuroscience.
“Philippe is very cutting edge in pro-Israel advocacy,” Bellerose said. “Philippe teaches that you have to appeal to the emotions in addition to providing facts.”
Bellerose’s engagement with the Jewish community started five years ago when a Jewish journalist – familiar with his writings online – contacted him for an interview and subsequently asked him if he’d be interested in starting an Israel support group in Calgary. The organization – which has since opened branches in Toronto and Montreal – currently has more than 1,000 members, he said.
“It was Calgary United with Israel that exposed University of Lethbridge Professor Anthony Hall. His website was disseminating anti-Semitism. We alerted the police, who are investigating,” Bellerose said. “And when [far-left Israeli peace activist] Miko Peled came to Calgary [in 2013], we put out a brochure refuting his talking points.”
Up until about a year ago, Bellerose was working for Telus as a telecommunications analyst. The company downsized and sent his job offshore, he said. A friend alerted him to the B’nai Brith opening.
“I had always thought that B’nai Brith was just a fundraising organization,” he said. “When I looked into it, I found that B’nai Brith also does front-line advocacy fighting racism and bigotry, as well as anti-Semitism. That’s also what I do. So I sent in my resume.”
Bellerose will be visiting Jewish communities throughout Western Canada for B’nai Brith over the next few months. He is also continuing his own pro-Israel outreach.
“I find that younger people are more open to the concepts I am talking about,” he said. “And I am beginning to get a positive response from other native peoples. But we have a lot of work to do. A lot of people have been buying into the Arab narrative for 40 years. Someone was needed to step up and say that the Arab narrative is false.”