TORONTO — B’nai Brith Canada (BBC) is calling for civilized political discourse in the aftermath of an incident in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper was compared to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler during a demonstration by Quebec artists angered by government cuts to arts funding. “The comparison of Canada’s Prime Minister to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler is obscene and offensive,” said Frank Dimant, BBC’s executive vice-president. “Such statements trivialize the Holocaust and inject ugly rhetoric in what ought to be reasoned debate on real and pressing political issues.”

WINNIPEG — A dozen Israeli water experts met with an equal number of counterparts from Manitoba recently in the first-ever Manitoba-Israel Water Experts Symposium. The meeting was initiated by Manitoba’s Minister of Water Stewardship, Christine Melnick, and Jewish National Fund world chair Eli Stenzler. A followup conference in Israel is planned for next year.