MONTREAL — Moshe Arens, Israel’s defence and foreign affairs minister in the 1980s and ’90s, will make a rare public appearance in North America to speak in Montreal.
Moshe Arens
Now 85, Arens will be the keynote speaker at a dinner benefiting the Canadian Instititute for Jewish Research (CIJR) June 15 at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.
The independent Israel advocacy organization was thrilled when Arens accepted its invitation.
“I think it’s a clear endorsement of the efforts of CIJR,” said acting director David Pariser.
Arens, who unsuccessfully challenged Benjamin Netanyahu for the Likud party leadership in 1999, today writes a column for Ha’aretz.
He hasn’t said what he’ll speak about, but in 1994, he wrote the book Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis Between the U.S. and Israel.
First elected to the Knesset in 1974, Arens chaired its committee on foreign affairs and security from 1977 to 1982. He was then ambassador to Washington for a year before entering the cabinet.
Born in Lithuania, he spent his youth in the United States before making aliyah in 1948. He lost his Knesset seat in 2003.
The basic ticket price for the CIJR fundraiser is $360. Donors of at least $1,000 will be invited to an “insider reception” June 14 at a private home, where they can meet Arens, as well as the event’s other guest speaker, Mideast analyst Barry Rubin.
The CIJR, founded 23 years ago by Concordia University professor Frederick Krantz, runs activities aimed at defending Israel and the Jewish People against delegitimization and keeping the Zionist spirit alive.
Rubin, director of Israel’s Gloria Center, edits Middle East Review of International Affairs and has written a number of books, including his most recent, Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis. He’s a frequent commentator in newspapers and on U.S. and British TV.
The evening will introduce CIJR’s new national chair, Joseph Shier of Toronto, who succeeds Irwin Beutel. With its first-ever non-Montreal lay leader, the CIJR hopes to increase its presence in Toronto and across Canada.
The gala is usually held in August, but the CIJR decided June might be better because fewer people are away. The daytime conference that usually precedes it will be held separately this year, in November, on combating the delegitimization of Israel.
Charles Bybelezer, who joined the CIJR last year, is responsible for its publishing activities: the e-mailed Daily Briefing, a digest of articles related to Israel or the Middle East, as well as Israfax and Israzine, and the student periodical Dateline.
He and volunteer Baruch Cohen comb through 75 to 100 articles a day for the briefing and for a databank. Now available online, the databank contains thousands of articles on the Mideast and Jewish issues.
Among the CIJR’s new projects is retooling its website to include a weekly interactive blog and live streaming of regular roundtable discussions. Another is training students to counter anti-Israel activity on campus. Its Student Israel Advocacy Seminar, a training series given by volunteer professors from Montreal universities, will be revamped and hopefully become a credit course through Concordia.
The CIJR also hopes to raise funds to appoint a resident Israel studies professor, a paid position that would oversee its academic program.