The Mayoralty Race…….. and The Rebbe

Why can’t women refer to their male friends as boyfriends in the same way we call our female friends girlfriends?  Well, I can – and despite the goofy looks or chuckles that come my way when I talk about my “boyfriends” and our 7:00 a.m. breakfasts at United every Saturday, I shall continue on about the fun we have.

This morning the conversation was about Chow and Ford and the Mayoralty race.

 “Chow is going to win because Ford and John Tory will knock each other out” was the consensus.  “How can we stop that?”

“Someone has to tell Ford to back out or Chow will be the next Mayor”.  Right.  That sounds like a realistic option.

Funny, I had heard the same words earlier in the week during lunch at the Albany Club.  I had asked why those with power and influence weren’t shaking up John Tory’s campaign strategy.

“If you are so anxious to elect him, do something” I had said.  “Look at what happened to Hudak”.  Silence.

Anyhow, when I left United at 8:00 a.m., the guys were still embroiled in their comments about political strategies that included asking why only 52% of the people voted in the provincial election and why were the pollsters so wrong.

“No one expected Wynne to win a majority”.  Well, she did. And now live with it.

I have been the volunteer librarian Saturday mornings at Temple Sinai for more than 4 years.  Membership includes 3500 families, a great religious and recreational agenda for young people and an exciting line-up of programs for Seniors (ha, ha, guess who that is). We have been members for over 40 years.  Kids, grandkids and anyone else in our world share in our activities at Shul.

Our Rabbi is Michael Dolgin.  For the past twenty years, much of Temple Sinai’s growth and success has been as a result of his leadership. He is brilliant, sensitive to the needs of all of his congregants, a community leader, easy to talk to and…… A LEFT-WING PINKO.

He insists that I am a RIGHT-WING FANATIC CLOSE TO THE LUNATIC FRINGE.

Electric vibes fly around the library every Saturday morning as we spar and jibe about politics on all levels until the Rebbe, as I call him behind his back, has to move on to his requisite Rabbinic duties in the Sanctuary.  For those of you who don’t know, Rebbe is a generic name for orthodox Rabbis, specifically the Lubavitchers.  Temple Sinai is a Reform synagogue.

You can imagine our intense debates (he is more discreet in his comments than I am) about the upcoming Mayoralty race, the recent provincial election, the events in Israel (are they tough enough or are they too tough), Barack Obama, and …the never-ending issue of anti-semitism here and around the world.

The only thing we do agree on, sort of, is the courage of the Harper government in standing up for the Jewish community here in Canada and in Israel.

Palestine House in Mississauga had a recent demonstration against Israel and in support of Hamas’ dismissal of the kidnapping and murder of three Israel teenagers.  A lone man carrying an Israeli flag was punched in the face and knocked down – the police on stand-by did nothing.  That is the reality we all live with. 

A recent article in the Globe and Mail evoked the following letter to the editor from Rabbi Dolgin.  Read it, and if you are ever tempted to buy this newspaper or anything advertised in it, think again.  I guess the Globe is a Toronto Star wannabee.

From: Rabbi Michael Dolgin
Sent: July-04-14 12:25 PM
To: ‘[email protected]
Subject: letter about patrick martin’s piece today

 

“If Patrick Martin’s article of Friday, July 4 is responsible, then so is the statement “Patrick Martin and the Globe and Mail are guilty of anti-Israel incitement.”  His article’s portrayal of the Israeli Government and Hamas in a similar moral light is inaccurate and inappropriate.  This cherry-picking of facts around recent murders of young men, all of which are evil and worthy of condemnation, ignores the larger essential context.  The Israeli government is part of a strong democracy characterized by rule of law and struggling to deal with the ideas and strong feelings of widely varied sectors of a multicultural polity.  Hamas is a terrorist organization that sees incitement as part of its core mandate and rejects human rights and the rule of law, not to mention Jewish rights to self determination.  While no one side is completely responsible for the current painful situation in the region, moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel and imagining a cycle of violence in which all are equal participants makes the writer as guilty of incitement as the parties he portrays.”

Great letter Rabbi.  Now let’s see if the Globe has the guts to print it.

Now back to the Mayoralty race.  CUPW, whom Chow has publicly supported, is front and centre in the Canadian anti-Israeli “Israel Apartheid” organization and the infamous anti-Israeli BDS.  In fact, CUPW passed a resolution that, ”the union will work with Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizations to develop a campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state”.

CUPW also called for the Palestinian people’s “right to return to their homes pre 1967”.  That would virtually erase the Jewish state.

In January 2009, Sid Ryan, Ontario CUPE president, expressed strong support for a proposal to ban Israeli academics from teaching at Ontario Universities. Ryan stated that “we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general.”[23][24] Ryan later made a remark comparing an Israeli bombing that caused damage to the Islamic University of Gaza to Nazi book burning practices,[25] a remark for which he subsequently issued an apology.[26] He calls Israel an ever-expanding apartheid-type regime.[27]

Even Buzz Hargrove, former CUPW president wrote in his biography that “some union leaders have taken the Israel file too far”.

Chow has publicly lectured Mayor Ford to face up to the truth and take responsibility for his actions.  She should practice what she preaches.

It is time for Chow to take responsibility and publicly denounce Sid Ryan of CUPE, CUPW, the BDS, and the Queers against Israel or whatever they are against.  And as well, the rantings of her other supporters –  Rebick, Caplan, Lewis, Klein, Salutin who might think they are being “good” Jews but many of us wonder why they are speaking/writing out against their own.  Perhaps they think that rolling over is the way to avoid an eventual train ride for themselves.  Not likely…as History has proven too often.

We already know about John Tory and Rob Ford’s non-wavering support of the Jewish community.

So how can we get a definitive statement from ALL the other municipal candidates as to where they stand on these issues?   Mmm, maybe this time CIJA will actually step up and ask on our behalf.

But what about Chow?

Can anyone reading this blog just ask her?