Week of Aug. 6, 2015

Lessons of the Holocaust 

At Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, we teach students in our Holocaust workshops that the lessons of the Holocaust are varied and diverse, but that, ultimately, humanity is the key to ensuring that hate and intolerance are never again permitted to go unchecked. 

The Holocaust links to a number of current issues: rampant anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, voices questioning Israel’s right to exist, countries threatening to wipe the Jewish state off the map. The Holocaust is the warning of what has happened and what could happen again to Jews as a people – lest we forget. So we must continue to educate. We must continue to remember.  

What do we mean when we say “never again?” We mean the obligation to educate, both ourselves and those outside of the Jewish community alike. We mean the duty to remember, both those who perished at the hands of the Nazis and those who lived to tell their stories. We mean the responsibility to understand the very real ties between current forms of anti-Semitism and the horrific acts committed against the Jewish people in the recent past.

What are we learning from Holocaust education 70 years after the liberation of the camps? We are learning the lesson of humanity. Learning this lesson over and over again does not invalidate the message – it strengthens it. 

Learning is action. Remembering is action. Applying the lessons of the Holocaust and practising tolerance is action. 

Sarah Greenfield, Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies
Toronto 

The real shandeh

According to Bernie Farber (The CJN, July 23), it is a shandeh that Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not send greetings to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne when she was honoured recently by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

While it does seem petty that the prime minister did not add his name to the chorus of those paying tribute to Wynne, perhaps the real shandeh is that CIJA chose her for the honour in the first place, considering her role in ensuring that Jewish education in Ontario remains as inaccessible as possible.

The province of Ontario is unique in Canada in that it covers 100 per cent of the cost of day school education for one religion (Roman Catholicism) and none for all others. Twice the United Nations Human Rights Committee has ruled this to be a violation of essential human rights.

As the education minister, Wynne led the fight against equitable funding. Now, as premier, she refuses to budge from that position. 

Yes, it’s nice that Ontario will open a trade office in Israel. But in the area that really matters to the daily lives of Ontario Jews, she has been anything but a friend  to the Jewish community.

Helen Shapiro
Toronto

An embassy in Iran 

A letter published in The CJN (“Trudeau is wrong on Iran,” July 23) shows a misunderstanding of the role of embassies around the world.

An embassy is a listening post for a government, and it is not only in friendly countries that we have embassies, but also in those where we do not necessarily agree with their policies and practices.

A country’s ambassadors, therefore, gather information in the country to which they are posted, which they relay to their government. Conversely, they receive direction from their government on positions that a government wishes to relay to the foreign country where they are posted.

Canada has had diplomatic relations with numerous countries where we do not agree with their policies and practices, but nonetheless we are there. Therefore, to eventually re-establish our embassy in Iran should not be out of the question. 

Sidney Margles
Montreal

Brave writing about tragedy

Thanks to Jennifer MacLeod for having the courage to share her family’s story of the challenges of living with mental illness (“Dear HaShem: take care of my brother,” July 23). She writes with such authenticity and humour in the face of such tragic circumstances. Kudos to The CJN for publishing this excerpt. 

Susan Silverman
Toronto