Thursday, January 8th, 7:30-10:30 PM at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, 3476 Oak St. Vancouver
Tel: 604.257.5140 Fax: 604.257.5110
Email: iheiber@jewishvancouver.com
Visit our website at www.jewishvancouver.com
Tel: 604.257.5140 Fax: 604.257.5110
Email: iheiber@jewishvancouver.com
Visit our website at www.jewishvancouver.com
5 comments:
Sorry about the late notice. I'll be there rather than at VPL for the evening.
Well, I linked to this get-together, knowing my contribution to turnout is symbolic --
But it gave me a chance to vent on my own opinions about Israel -- and if it results in one or two more folks showing up, so much the better.
I got to the rally on time and on budget, and it was terrific. Some of the people inside the over-1,000 people (I estimate) capacity couldn't join us indoors. But of the 1,000 inside, what a great feeling to be among such people. I love it. I love being among happy and decent people, those who love their children, who work to make things good for themselves and their communities, who are ... well, it shows that I'm not the kind of people they are: I don't know how to identify them properly. They are good. And I am blessed to be able to be with them, outside the group or no. No, not outside because I'm not Jewish, I mean outside because I am not an insider by nature. These are people I love, and if I weren't so like the enemy we face, I would be like those I love so much.
But here I am, and I am dead tired. I'm not dead, though, which is very likely what one would say of the people in the car crash I witnessed with the journalist I was with on the way home. One must work regardless, and now my sleep is off-kilter. It'll be tomorrow till I get a bit of time to write this rally up as well as I can.
I was there too. It was a wonderful event. The Member of Parliament spoke really well about the Government of Canada's support for Israel. He said that there is no moral equivalence between the two sides of this conflict, and Canada will not pretend that a compromise between the two sides is the way to go. That was gold.
But I didn't notice a single news camera covering the event. I can only assume there were some journalists in the crowd, but I would have thought this was at least as newsworthy as the pro-Hamas rally last weekend.
And the haters were out in full force outside. They put themselves directly in front of the doors, perhaps to intimidate people wanting to enter? It didn't work. I stood tall. As did the other people there who support love and goodness, and who oppose terrorism.
One of the most despicable things I saw was a protester in front of the synagogue with a sign that read: Warsaw 1946, Gaza 2009.
Who ever made that sign obviously has no clue. However, several of the people who attend that synagogue are actual SURVIVORS of Warsaw. They know first hand what a war-crime looks like, and to have a bunch of loudmouth wannabe hippies waving such signs in their faces is despicable. It is an act of extremely low moral fiber, and really shows the protesters are the uninformed haters that they are.
This is a great blog that I have read on and off for some time. I'm glad some of you were able to come out.
An interesting article worth a read: Vancouver Gaza protest a new kind of "vicious": http://www.straight.com/article-178365/vancouver-gaza-protest-new-kind-%3F%3Fvicious%3F%3F-israel-advocate
Witness, Thanks for the kind words, the report and the link. I'm afraid to say I think Adam Carroll is on to something. We too have noticed a new degree of viciousness out there.
The demographics of Canada are changing and I imagine that virulent anti-Israelism (and its counterparts) is what is being preached to young people in the mosques in Vancouver. Yesterday in the Globe and Mail, Irshad Manji had a piece in which she said the Imam at her mom's mosque in Richmond preaches that she (Irshad) is more evil than bin Laden. What is insisted on is Muslim unity and unquestioning loyalty to the cause of the Umma. This means demonization of Israel, Jews, America, and anything too pro-Western and pro-modernity. Sooner or later, a responsible government in Canada will have to face this radicalization in our cities much more directly than at present. Or we will have to prepare for a world and country without responsible government, a world ruled by hate mongers.
The Georgia Straight article you link links to another Straight article on the Vancouver pro-Hamas demos which concludes: "At the end of the demonstration, when the crowd dissipated into the sleet, Husain found Shaban and said: “You should have mentioned jihad. It’s the only way.”
There is a great limit to what the Islamic imagination today can imagine. This has to change, one way or the harder way.
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