I read the article “Montreal Jews fear ‘gang atmosphere’ amid rise in
anti-Semitic incidents” in the May 5 edition of Ha’aretz and couldn’t
even recognize my own city (The Ha’aretz article is referred to in
“Anti-Semitic crime stats refuted by Jewish leaders,” CJN, May 13). The
portrait that was painted of a community under siege is simply not an
accurate reflection of how Jewish Montreal looks or feels.
Montreal, a fascinating, diverse and bilingual city, is a wonderful
place in which to be Jewish. Both English and French communities
recognize us as an important part of the rich fabric of our city and
value the vibrancy we lend to the cultural blend. Our community recently
held an Israel Day rally in the heart of downtown that attracted 13,000
participants. Later this month, thousands of people will join in our
March to Jerusalem, our largest our community walkathon. Israeli
musicians will perform at this summer’s Montreal International Jazz
Festival. The city’s Festival Sefarad is Canada’s largest celebration of
Sephardi culture. Montreal has the highest percentage of children
attending Jewish day schools of any city in North America. We are not
afraid to express our pride in being Jewish in very public ways, and we
confidently send our children to Jewish institutions every day.
Is there anti-Semitism in Montreal? Unhappily, yes. Are anti-Semitic
acts occasionally perpetrated? Unfortunately, yes. We must understand –
though not accept, of course – that in any major urban centre there will
be exceptions to the rule of civility, respect and tolerance. However,
the statistics quoted in the Ha’aretz article are self-reported and
anecdotal. Moreover, they don’t distinguish between hate crimes and less
extraordinary criminal activity, and are, therefore, of dubious
accuracy.
Federation CJA is at the forefront of the fight against anti-Semitism.
We engage in large-scale and widespread advocacy efforts to call
attention to it and counteract it, in all its manifestations. Mindful of
the international context, we understand the need to maintain
vigilance. Several years ago, we created a department of community
security, whose services we provide to the entire community. Many
institutions have benefited from the federal Security Infrastructure
pilot program, which enables us to provide better protection and to
enhance our sense of well-being.
Andrés Spokoiny
Executive Director, Federation CJA
Montreal

 The scope of Al Jazeera Canada’s international news coverage redresses
the mainstream media’s relative neglect of events in the Muslim world
(“Al Jazeera launches English-language service,” May 13). However, some
of the human interest programs that Al Jazeera has broadcast are
troubling. One program was devoted to Palestinian accusations of Israeli
land theft; another examined the attitudes of Israeli Druze to
conscription. Both programs lacked objective historical contexts and
opposing viewpoints. Their common anti-Zionist message was loud and
clear.
Al Jazeera seems to take its CRTC license as permission to engage in
insidious and hateful propaganda. The CRTC should not hesitate to revoke
this network’s licence should its early days prove indicative of what
is to come.
Howard Damie
Montreal

For the me problem with the New Israel Fund (NIF) is crystallized in the
sentence about the views of Rabbi Eva Goldfinger of the Oraynu
Congregation for Humanistic Judaism: “She says she supports about 80 per
cent of its views, disagreeing mostly with its granting funds to what
she called violent Palestinian groups” (“Criticism key to democracy, New
Israel Fund president says,” May 13).
That “20 per cent” is what I’d call the deal-breaker. What’s the point
of supporting an organization that expends 80 per cent of its efforts
pushing for a vibrant, fair-minded democracy, if the other 20 per cent
of the time it does its utmost to undermine that democracy by funding
Israel’s enemies?
In that sense, the percentages are largely irrelevant. After all,
Hezbollah is involved in a number of socially valuable activities, too –
building hospitals and schools and the like. In that sense, we might
think of it as “the New Lebanon Fund.” But that neither changes nor
mitigates the fact that it intends to annihilate Israel – an agenda that
has the full backing of the “violent Palestinian groups” that,
foolishly and suicidally, the NIF supports.
Mindy G. Alter
Toronto

When I read the May 6 column “The sliding scale of religious observance”
by Rabbi Matthew Kaufman, something inside me just wanted to yell out,
“Why is he speaking such eloquent rhetoric about secularism versus
religion, when what we really need to hear from him and other rabbis is a
message about the faith of Abraham and our need to be obedient to the
God of Israel?
Why was there not a huge outcry when my beloved Jewish YWHA of my youth
decided to stay open on Shabbat. I called, e-mailed and wrote, but
nothing mattered. I refused to renew my membership after telling them
that they didn’t realize the spiritual consequences of their decision.
It reminds me of Moishe the Beadle in Elie Wiesel’s Night, who cried
out, warning people to leave Sighet, but no one believed him. It may
seem like a little thing to open the Y on Shabbat, but it represents a
much bigger thing – our people don’t care anymore about Shabbat and
Torah.
What Rabbi Kaufman could have spoken about in Behar-Bechukotai concerned
the warnings to Israel about what would happen to us if we disobeyed
the Torah. Why don’t we hear these things from the bimah? Are our rabbis
afraid that they will lose popularity?
If we look at the history of our people, over and over again, whenever
we began to turn to other gods, to forget the Creator and His mitzvot,
He allowed the enemy to overtake us so that we would have to run back to
Him crying for help. When are we as a people going to turn back to God,
to turn away from secularism  – the denial of God – and religion (man’s
way of looking good to others using God as pretense of their holiness)
so that our Messiah can finally come and bring in tikkun olam? When will
our spiritual leaders cry this message out in their synagogues instead
of giving our people politically correct feel-good messages so that they
will donate more money?
Israel is standing at the brink of war, anti-Semitism is rearing its
ugly head again all over the world, and our spiritual leaders, the
shepherds of Israel, are afraid to speak the truth. May the God of
Israel have mercy upon us.
Peggy Pardo
Montreal