Remembering a scholar
What a lovely and well deserved tribute to Adam Fuerstenberg by Bill Gladstone (“Ryerson professor loved literacy, Yiddish and family”).
It should be emphasized that Adam also loved community. He was a valued colleague in his community work. His love and appreciation of Jewish culture was not merely to preserve a precious past but to translate it into material for an evolving and vibrant future. He will be greatly missed.
Jay Y. Brodbar
Toronto
Terrorism is never justified
A very well written letter by Kathy Schneider regarding Jewish terror in your Jan. 21 edition caught my eye, regarding the unrelenting attacks Israelis have been facing during the last three to four months.
It was fine until the third paragraph, where she starts off by saying, “However I can understand the sheer frustration and sense of helplessness…”
Please stop right there! Those words lead to a very slippery slope! Those are exactly the words Palestinians, western diplomats, political pundits and others use when describing Palestinian terror attacks on innocent Israelis, in defence of their not having a Palestinian state, the lack of a peace process, or Jews visiting the Temple Mount etc.
It is the same words that terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and others use in their jihads to describe how western culture interferes with their barbaric way of life, and so, out of frustration, they kill countless innocent men, women and children, like the six innocent Quebecers killed earlier this month in Burkina Faso, who were helping people there improve their lives.
There is no justification – ever – for taking an innocent life, be it Jewish, Muslim, or anyone else. That is not the Jewish way. It is not the solution, as Schneider says, and rightly so. If only our leaders had some answers.
Isidore Baum
Laval, Quebec
Missing a chief rabbi
Let’s not be naive. All rabbis – sorry, all people – need to dabble in politics, not just a chief rabbi (“Canada has no chief rabbi, thank God”).
To get to the issue the article avoids, the position of chief rabbi (de facto) unites the Israeli community, while a population without a chief rabbi, perhaps one that seems to choose pluralism as a higher value, does not have a central figure to unite around. In my opinion, the Jewish people of Canada and the United States suffer because there is no central rabbinate to unite them.
Joshua Grady-Share
Posted to The CJN’s Facebook page
Trudeau is no Bill Clinton
It is jarring to see Justin Trudeau mentioned in the same breath as two of America’s most gifted and accomplished politicians, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Bill Clinton (“Trudeau should learn from Clinton, Moynihan and Cotler”).
Regardless of whether one agreed with their views or was accepting of the private shenanigans of Clinton, it is widely accepted that both of those gentlemen were consummate practitioners of the art of Realpolitik in the field of international diplomacy.
The Canadian electorate – having fallen for the cleverly marketed Trudeau glamour factor and having ignored the facts of his abysmal lack of the personal qualities, skills and experience required in the leader of any nation – can now look forward to four years of continual bumbling by Trudeau on the international stage.
David Green
Thornhill, Ont.