In three days, we celebrate Canada Day, the 157^th anniversary of the establishment of the (then) Dominion of Canada. True north, strong and free.

We cherish our country and the bedrock values that anchor the foundation of the freedoms and the responsibilities that comprise our democratic life. Since nearly the mid-point of the last century, those values have welcomed to Canadian shores a global array of cultures and communities and, over time, nurtured the building of the country, through loyal if also difficult labours, for the wide benefit of everyone lucky enough to call Canada their home.

But of late, the Jewish community is justified in asking – as much with worry as with anger and even sorrow – is the foundation of our democratic life here still stable? Are the values that support our society less than bedrock? It is well documented since October 7, that Jews and Jewish community structures have been assaulted literally and figuratively. Neither public space nor place of worship has been spared the aggression and the threats of loud-mouthed, but face-masked bullies. Many core institutions and professions of our society – have been infiltrated by haters intent on falsifying and erasing Jewish history if not also erasing Jews. Do not the haters understand if they erase Jewish history, they also erase Christian and Western history?

Moreover, this is Canada.

Such anti-democratic behaviour violates all the norms of our society. Why do so many of our elected officials appear to be unresponsive to our cries and indifferent to the zealous, unpunished chipping away at our bedrock values? Do they not see the danger such unchecked behaviour portends for everyone in the future?

The Preamble of Ontario’s Human Rights Code contains the following:

“…Whereas it is public policy in Ontario to recognize the dignity and worth of every person and to provide for equal rights and opportunities without discrimination that is contrary to law, and having as its aim the creation of a climate of understanding and mutual respect for the dignity and worth of each person so that each person feels a part of the community and able to contribute fully to the development and well-being of the community and the Province;”.

It is unlikely, however, that most members of the Jewish community would agree that these words accurately describe Ontario society today. Thus, we plead with society’s leaders to hold the haters to account for their egregious behaviours. This is the essential, core way society protects the rule of law and the underpinning values.

Another way we protect Ontario/Canada is by protecting and enhancing Jewish community life. Of this there is no doubt. As we have written often in this space, the best way to do so is through the Jewish education of our children. We must raise them to know who they are and how and why to connect with and feel part of our history and our peoplehood.

GAJE’s lawsuit against the Province of Ontario rests on the belief that the discrimination in Ontario’s educational funding is no longer appropriate 157 years after the Confederation compromise that established the system of single denominational funding in Ontario. The courts should consider whether the needs and imperatives for single denominational educational funding at the time of Confederation still make sense today.

GAJE argues there are a number of reasons that they do not. One of the key reasons is that the Confederation compromise was abandoned by Quebec in 1997. It no longer applies in Quebec. Only Ontario hues to the system that was created in 1867.

Another reason is simply this: Ontario’s refusal to end publicly acknowledged religiously-based discrimination, actually diminishes Ontario. It thus also further loosens the values – already being scraped from the foundational bedrock by masked and other haters of Israel and of Jews – on which we had always assumed life in Ontario/Canada would stand and flourish.

Thus, our celebration of Canada Day this year will be hopeful, but wary. Alas.

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard earlier this week by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the court’s decision as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 28, 2024

Embedded into the infrastructure of Jewish values is the deep decency of acknowledging the good that others do for you. In Hebrew, this mentschlichkeit is known as hakarat hatov – literally, recognizing the goodness.

Few moments are as sweet as “thank you” conveyed from the heart. At the end of the school year such important expressions of gratitude usually flow over the rim of our happiness as we acknowledge the goodness that the schools have conferred upon our children. Teachers, school administrators, volunteers, community professionals and philanthropists are to be thanked individually and collectively for trying to enable our children to learn and to grow toward their respective potentials.

In truth, even as we congratulate and celebrate our children for reaching the next formal educational marker along the path of their lives, we ought also to thank them too for completing the ten-month grind of the school year. For many children, it is not easy. Nor for most, is it generally a great deal of fun.

But the months roll by and by the end of the school calendar, schools and parent associations hold their respective celebrations to publicly acknowledge that something remarkably good and important has been achieved by everyone at school for another year.

After October 7, the combined efforts of the Jewish educational system and its students are more than the completion of an arduous, annual teaching/learning cycle. Indeed, they are a steel-hard, uncompromising response to the aggression against Jewish communities around the world. Families and the Jewish schools their children attend, affirm with the clear-eyed resolve of the ancient Hebrew prophets, the inviolability of our promise to our forebears and to God that we will live Jewish lives.

In helping us fulfill that promise, we rely heavily upon our teachers. We return to a statement by the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to explain why that is so. It is a quotation we have cited before in our weekly update.

“For Jews, education is not just what we know. It’s who we are. No people ever cared for education more. Our ancestors were the first to make education a religious command, and the first to create a compulsory universal system of schooling – eighteen centuries before Britain… the Egyptians built pyramids, the Greeks built temples, and the Romans built amphitheaters, Jews built schools. They knew that to defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education. So, Jews became the people whose heroes were teachers, whose citadels were schools, and whose passion was study and the life of the mind.”

Rabbi Sacks understood that we will defend the increasingly brazen attempts by haters of Israel and haters of Jews to erase our history, our people and our civilization, through Jewish education. Thus, especially at the end of this school year, to the educators and their students, to the professional and lay community leaders and to the educational philanthropists who are strengthening the Jewish school system, GAJE says: Thank you. Congratulations. Well done. Please continue from strength to strength.

•••

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard earlier this week by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

GAJE will publish the results of the appeal as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 21, 2024

The appeal by the Government of Ontario of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s refusal last summer to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding, was heard earlier this week by a panel of three judges. The court reserved its decision.

Of course, this is frustrating for GAJE, as it is for all Ontarians interested in achieving a just policy of educational funding in this province. And so we wait, trusting in the wisdom of the court.

It does however, warrant repeating: if the judges find in the province’s favor, GAJE will appeal. If the judges dismiss the province’s appeal, the case moves forward, finally, to the beginning.

The court will deliberate upon the merits of GAJE’s claim that the Adler case of 1996 ought to be re-assessed today. GAJE alleges that in light of changing circumstances since then, and of changes in the application of the law since then, the decision in the Adler case is no longer appropriate in 2024.

GAJE states that in the year 2024, it should be unacceptable in Ontario that only Catholic education is fully funded by the government to the exclusion of all other religious groups. Such discrimination should not form part of the educational infrastructure of Ontario society.

It should also be remembered that the Ontario Federation of Independent Schools has been granted permission to intervene in the case when it actually begins.

GAJE will publish the results of the appeal as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 14, 2024

Next week on Tuesday, June 11, the Divisional Court will hear the appeal by the Government of Ontario from the decision last August of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou refusing to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has been argued and considered on its merits. If Ontario’s appeal fails, GAJE’s application proceeds, finally, to a hearing. If Ontario’s appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

In the year 2024, it should be unacceptable in Ontario that only Catholic education is fully funded by the government to the exclusion of all other religious groups. How can Ontario still believe that such discrimination is appropriate in modern, civil society? Of course, it is not.

It should be noted that the appeal will be heard on the eve of the festival of Shavuot. It was on the first Shavuot ever, of course, that the imperative to teach our children, to be learners lifelong, was enshrined as a theological obligation for the Jewish people. We understood from the very beginning of our existence as a distinct group, that the forward passing of knowledge, traditions and values is the deeply engrained mechanism that ensures generational permanence.

That is why, irrespective of century or community, the education of our children was the first and highest priority for community elders. Teaching has been always sanctified and teachers have been always revered for the continuation of all that is precious in our civilization. It is through Jewish education that we imbue our children with the intellectual, emotional and theological foundation to help them understand and then grasp the life-affirming message and mission of our faith to join in the holy task of improving an increasingly needy world.

Shavuot brings to mind and to heart the irreplaceability of Jewish education in raising “Jewish” children. That the legal proceeding provides a springboard of sorts to the start of Shavuot this year is a poignant symbolic and emotional launch to GAJE’s effort to have the courts declare that Ontario’s minority communities must be treated fairly and justly in relation to the education of our children too.

In the post-October 7 world, raising Jews is how to fight back against the malevolent and/or mindless people who shout and otherwise demonstrate their hatred of Jews and of the only Jewish state on earth.

The malevolent direct the clever, unceasing, demonization of Jews and of Israel by the deliberate, well-funded, well-organized inversion of lies as truth.

The mindless, however, are victims of their own ignorance.

And so, as a final note to this update, readers should know it was written on the 80^th anniversary of D Day. Three generations have been born since that enormous day in 1944 when courage joined with resolve on the coast of Normandy, when so very many soldiers died in the awful chaos of steel, bullets, fire and rage on the bloodied beaches. That day was the first in the 11-month march that led ultimately to the end of Nazi rule of terror and tyranny.

How horribly sad and how bitterly ironic that the mindless demonstrators today who froth at and vilify Jews and the State of Israel espouse the very same cause and champion the very same sorts of racist, truly genocidalist individuals and governments, that the Allied world 80 and more years ago, fought so desperately to vanquish.

GAJE will publish the results of the appeal hearing as soon as it is known to us.

•••

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding in Ontario, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Chag Shavuot Samayach.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

June 7, 2024

The shooting at Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School last weekend in Toronto was of a piece with the intimidation, and bullying that has been directed for the last seven months at the Jewish community by haters of Jews and haters of Israel, not only in Ontario but throughout the country and in the capitals of the West. Thugs become bolder and their brutish ways, more cruel when authorities express outrage but fail to act outraged. Indeed, mere days after the Toronto shooting, gunfire struck a Jewish school in Montreal – once again.

JEFA (Jewish Educators and Family Association of Canada) pointed to this phenomenon of failed enforcement of rules and of decency in a missive the organization sent to members this week. Under a caption that noted Jewish day schools are Canada’s top target of domestic terrorism, JEFA declared that lofty ideas are no longer adequate to vanquish antisemitism and to protect civil society. “From this moment forward,” JEFA stated, “it’s vital that our elected officials be judged only by their actions.”

JEFA reported that a motion had been tabled this week at the TDSB to try to keep politics out of the classroom. One of the examples, JEFA noted, of egregious political behaviour in a classroom involved a teacher at Earl Grey Public School who daily disrespects Canada’s national anthem, has worn a keffiyeh in school since October 7, used an Al Jazeera video to explain the founding of Israel as the ‘nakba’ and displayed posters calling for ‘Ceasefire Now’ with a QR code tied to a fund for Palestinians.

The motion had asked TDSB staff to bring forward recommendations that would steer education in the classroom back to education and away from politics and propaganda and, dare we say, away from opinions that lead to hatred. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, the motion was rejected.

How are we to understand this utter failure on the part of the leaders of our educational system in the TDSB? Do they not see their responsibilities in terms of protecting our society, in terms of helping instill and nurture in our children the need to hold high the cherished values of mutual respect, tolerance, and the sanctity of truth?

At a community rally at the premises of Bais Chaya Mushka two days after the violence directed at the school, Ontario’s Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, urged all of Ontario, not just Jews to stand up against incidents of antisemitism to become a force against hatred.

“We are here with a message, asking Canadians to stand up shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish community in defence of democracy, civility, human rights and the rule of law,” Lecce said.

As we have written on previous occasions about Minister Lecce, he gets it. He understands that violence aimed at Jews soon transmogrifies into violence against others as well. Attempts to harm Jews is a cover for attempts to harm the rule of law that protects everyone.

 “We stand together, we stand strong, because there is no bullet that can shatter our resolve as a country to stand up against this pernicious hate, Minister Lecce added. “Our work will not end until every child in our province is able to go to school, and play in our streets without the fear of being attacked simply for being a Jew. The Canada we know and we love is a nation of people who come together for every faith and heritage.”

We are grateful to the Minister. That he publicly, vociferously calls out the craven warriors of the night who mask themselves under the shelter of darkness, then aim their weapons or throw their torches at schools, is worthy of praise. Stephen Lecce understands what is at stake for our society when the private hatred of Jews finds its public expression in acts of thuggery, intimidation, perversion of truth, and violence.

It is because of our gratitude to Minister Lecce for the clarity of his insight that we remind him of the words he spoke in the Ontario Legislature in the immediate aftermath of October 7. “We have to speak with moral decency, with moral courage. We will not be bystanders. We will use our power for good. We must be on guard for all manners of hate and fight hate and haters….For the sake of freedom, human rights and democracy, I ask us all: Do we possess the moral courage to do what is right even if it is not easy? Do we possess the moral courage to stand up to evil?… We are standing for fundamental Canadian values that transcend partisan politics. We must pick the right side of human history.”

At this troubled and troubling moment in Canadian history, Jews will stand against the bigots and the bullies, in the way we have done so throughout our history – by “raising” Jews, by educating our children to know the splendour and the deep goodness of our heritage and of our way of life. That is how we will “fight back” against those who regret our very existence as Jews and as supporters of the only Jewish state on earth.

We ask Minister Lecce to find the courage of which he spoke so eloquently and so forcefully in October. For the sake of protecting the values we cherish in Ontario society, we ask him to end the unfairness in educational funding in Ontario.          

•••

Ontario’s appeal of Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou’s decision refusing to throw out GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding even before a court has had the chance to consider its merits will be heard on June 11. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds, finally, to a hearing. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 31, 2024

(This update is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Barry Cutler. By his knowledge, experience, skill and deep goodness of character, he ministered to the many, various needs of all humanity. In doing so, he also ministered to the singular need of God Above to know that His creations are respected and cared for Dr. Cutler passed away this week on the 13^th day of Iyar. His memory will always be for blessing.)

Last week in this space, GAJE noted that according to a new Jewish Federations of North America survey of Jewish Americans and the general public, “the events [of October 7] have…fueled an explosion in Jewish belonging and communal participation that is nothing short of historic. Jews are feeling more invested in their identity and community and looking for ways to connect.”

This week, we note observations by Dr. Steven Windmueller that relate directly to the findings of that survey. Entitled, In the Wake of October 7: Reflections on the American Jewish Community, Windmueller’s article focuses on the impact of October 7 upon the Jewish community of the United States in very general, broad categories. His observations are applicable to our situation in Canada. The article was published by the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs on May 20.

Windmueller is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Studies at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles and currently a Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

The author suggests we are now in a “new moment in time for Jews of this [USA] country.” He writes that “since early October 2023, this community has moved through a series of distinctive emotional and political experiences, with each phase being challenging.” He identifies those four stages as: Trauma and Shock; Mobilization and Unity; Questions and Challenges; and Uncertainty and Concern. Of course, he defines each stage and demarcates it according to the chronology of events that have unfolded since October 7.

A longstanding observer of American Jewish life, Windmueller is quite forthright without being alarmist. He does not offer details regarding the nature of the community that is currently reshaping. He cannot yet do so because the situation is fluid. Events at home and abroad are still unfolding. Windmueller offers certainty of the direction but not of the ultimate destination.

“How we see ourselves as part of America, as well as how we understand our connections with Israel and the global Jewish community, are being refashioned. We are now redefining our identities as we revisit our political standing, communal priorities, and cultural moorings. We are encountering a totally different moment in our Jewish consciousness. Physically and emotionally, we find ourselves in an uncomfortable and uncertain place as we awaken to the full impact of this tsunami of hate and political disruption that is transforming the Jewish people.”

The eye-opening piece of new information that GAJE noted last week, however, is that to some extent at least, the transformation is leading many of our co-religionists in our respective communities to become “more invested in their identity and community and looking for ways to connect.” If this response to “the new moment in time for Jews of the community” is correct – and we have no reason to suggest it is not – then our lay and professional leaders of Jewish education, must soon fire up the engines of Jewish education.

Dr. Windmueller’s article is available at:

In the Wake of October 7: Reflections on the American Jewish Community

                                                                            •••

June 11, 2024 has been set for Ontario’s appeal of the 46-page decision by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou denying the province’s request to dismiss GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has actually been argued in court. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds to a hearing on its merits. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 24, 2024

The fallout from October 7 has been shocking and unsettling.

Here and on streets across North America, the removal of the inhibitions that formerly prevented the haters of Israel and of Jews from publicly celebrating their hatred has been swift. To varying degrees, we have all been unnerved by the behaviours we have seen and the calumnies we have heard aimed at Israel as well as at Jews. And again, to varying degrees, individually and collectively. we have experienced a sense of vulnerability and surreal “distancing” from the general community which has always been home and shelter.

However, instead of retreating from demonstrably outward connections to Jewish life, as some might believe to be an understandable consequence of the feelings of vulnerability, a study has been published that shows the opposite response unfolding among Jews.

According to a new Jewish Federations of North America survey of Jewish Americans and the general public, “the events [of October 7] have…fueled an explosion in Jewish belonging and communal participation that is nothing short of historic. Jews are feeling more invested in their identity and community and looking for ways to connect.”

Funded by and developed in partnership with The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, the study shows how North American Jews of all ages are responding to the thuggish manifestations of anti-Semitism by actually reinvigorating or seeking for the first time, connectivity with Jewish community.

A brief summary of the study’s findings has been co-authored by Mimi Kravetz, Sarah Eisenman, David Manchester in an article entitled: ‘The Surge,’ ‘The Core’ and more: What you need to know about the explosion of interest in Jewish life, published this week on the eJewishPhilanthropy website.

We briefly reproduce three key findings from the summary article:

• Of the 83% of Jews who were “only somewhat,” “not very” or “not at all engaged” prior to Oct. 7, a whopping 40% are now showing up in larger numbers in Jewish life.

• 39% of Jewish parents indicated they may re-evaluate or reconsider educational or summer programs for their children [i.e., seeking more Jewish community and a respite from the anti-Israel rhetoric]; and 38% of parents with kids in a secular private school are considering making the move to Jewish day schools.  

• 43% percent of Jews expressed interest in increasing their engagement with Jewish life, and 23% have already taken the first step by attending a class, joining a Shabbat service or participating in an advocacy effort.

A pilot light of Jewish belonging glows at the very centre of a Jew’s existence. In some individuals, the light rages. In others, it is barely an ember. But the results of this study indicate that there is a deeper stirring from within the Jewish soul than had been previously thought by outside observers and even some community planning experts. October 7 has sparked that stirring and kindled the pilot light.

In other words, however grotesquely absurd, morally inverted, and simply unfair the accusations are against Israel and Jews, we refuse to allow the accusers to define who we are or how we will “fight back”. We refuse to view ourselves as victims. We refuse to surrender our unique and pointedly Jewish abilities we have to steer our own destinies.

The implications for Jewish communal life, at least in the short to medium term, are profound. The mainstay organizations of Jewish life must reach out, extend and embrace the increasing number of Jewish “seekers” who might be knocking at their doors for the first time.

The eJP article is avialble at:

‘The Surge,’ ‘The Core’ and more: What you need to know about the explosion of interest in Jewish life

                                                                            •••

June 11, 2024 has been set for Ontario’s appeal of the 46-page decision by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou denying the province’s request to dismiss GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has actually been argued in court. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds to a hearing on its merits. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 17, 2024

These are momentous times.

The next few days are momentous days.

Yom Hazikaron falls on Sunday night and Yom Ha’atzma’ut, the very next evening. Less than a week ago, we commemorated Yom Hashoah V’hagvurah. Together, these three dates of remembrance, commemoration and celebration signify the turning of Jewish history from shadowed darkness to new dawn. In the history of nations, there has been no such turning. Ever.

We know beyond a doubt that Hamas, their supporters, funders, collaborators and agents around the world are intent on erasing the Jewish state from existence and, we must add, as well as Jews wherever we live. Indeed, they make no effort to hide their intention. We also know, because the Islamist supremacists and radicals have told whoever is paying attention, that they regard Israel as the first target, the vanguard of the unbelieving West, of democracy and freedom. 

The Jewish State of Israel has shown, however, that it will not be erased. Nor will Jews recoil from being who we are and we have always been. Three thousand years ago, the psalmist proclaimed the permanency of Jewish wilfulness: “We shall not die, but live!” In this, the writer was resolutely echoing God’s injunction to the Jewish people some five hundred years earlier to “choose life.”

And so, we shall. And so, we will. Always. We have not yet – nor ever will – lost our hope.

We shall educate and raise our children to know their history, their faith, their traditions, their folkways, their mission…themselves. That is how we choose life.  We choose Jewish life. No one in an encampment on any campus anywhere in the world, shouting his or her bilious, vile contempt for Jews and the Jewish state will ever divert us from this divine imperative.

On Sunday night we dwell in reflection and solemnity.

On Monday night we celebrate and recite Shehechiyanu.

The following editorial appeared in The Canadian Jewish News some 30 years ago. It attempts to convey a sense of the turning of Jewish history.

•••

A story is told about a Jew from Canada who visited Jerusalem on Yom Hazikaron, the day set aside by the Knesset as a remembrance to Israel’s fallen soldiers. He went to Har Herzl to take part in the remembrance ceremonies.

As often happens in the hills of Jerusalem in early May, even before noon, the sky was a very deep blue, the kind of blue that falls closer to violet than to green, the kind of blue that must have been the color t’chelet mentioned in the Bible. A mild breeze blew from the valley to the west. cool against the sun, carrying whispers through the branches of the pine trees. And the quality of the light was dazzling, allowing the eye to see the smallest detail on the furthermost horizon.

There were many people on the mountain that clear spring morning, almost all of them hovering for a time near a grave, leaving behind a stone or a flower, a marker both of permanent love and permanent loss. After the official remembrance ceremony, the Canadian happened to notice an old man crying inconsolably at one particular grave site. As he moved closer and could hear the old man’s sobbing, he understood the grave to be that of the old man’s son. Others, undoubtedly members of the family, tried to comfort the old man and remove him from his place near the grave, and abate his anguish and grief. But the old man refused to be comforted, and refused to be moved. Instead, he stretched his arms across the grave, occasionally tracing with his boney fingers the name etched permanently into the stone casement, quietly sobbing.

The Canadian sat nearby, terribly shaken by the old man’s loss and overcome by the man’s sorrow. He watched as mourning matched memory and grief poured forth endlessly from the parent like the relentless rays of the sun high above in the deep blue sky.

The next day, which actually began that night, the Canadian went out into boulevards and avenues of Jerusalem to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut with the rest of Israel. The streets were alive with festival and song. The small park near his hotel was filled with picnics and parties.

By a coincidence of light and timing, his eye caught sight of a group across the way singing, laughing and dancing. As he approached them, hoping to join the circle, he noticed that in its very middle was the same old man whose heart he had seen broken the day before. He was swaying and twirling. waving his arms and singing with energy and enthusiasm.

Unable to contain his curiosity, he went over to the old man and asked him politely, in the manner of most Canadians: “Only yesterday, I saw you lie down at your son’s grave, calling to heaven, your tears watering the earth. How can you dance and celebrate this way today?

The old man seemed pleased with the question. “How can I not celebrate this way? My son fought and died so that I – and everyone you see here – would be able to sing and dance this day.”

The Canadian understood and was immediately welcomed to join in the dancing circle, which he did.

•••

June 11, 2024 has been set for Ontario’s appeal of the 46-page decision by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou denying the province’s request to dismiss GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has actually been argued in court. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds to a hearing on its merits. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai. A meaningful, contemplative Yom Zicaron. And a Yom Atzma’ut samayach.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 10, 2024

Dr. Dan Diker is the president of the JCPA (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) and an expert in hybrid warfare and in combating anti-semitism. He wrote an op-ed this week entitled Hamas’ Education of the Ivy League that appeared in Israel Hayom. It should be required reading for anyone trying to understand, let alone make nominal sense, of the seemingly sudden outcropping on college campuses throughout North America, of brazen hatred towards the only State of the Jews and towards Jews too.

Except, after reading the Diker essay, one learns that there has been nothing sudden at all about the jarring malevolence of the campus-centred hate. Rather, it has been in the making for quite some time. October 7 was merely the tripwire. But as Diker points out, the seeds of the demonstrations were sown decades ago in the poisoned intellectual fields of the advocacy instruction that was peddled then as teaching in the halls of esteemed academia.

Diker writes that the campaign of the vilification of Israel, calling insistently for its erasure, is more than 50 years old. He traces its malign history in the United States.

He refuses to refer to the demonstrations and the demonstrators as “pro-Palestine”. That is a misnomer. They are pro-Hamas. Indeed, the rallying cry “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free”, derives from Hamas’ 1988 charter. To the charter’s author(s) and to their followers, it is an unambiguous call to take up arms and destroy Israel. The catchy, rhyming, call for the wholesale elimination of an entire country and for the slaughter of its people are robustly chanted by demonstrators on the streets and campuses as if they were cheering on their team to victory against an arch rival’s team. It does not bother their consciences. Moreover, most of the demonstrators do not know that the English translation of the last word “free” is an expedient, not accurate, translation of the original. The original word in the charter announces that Palestine will be Arab. (i.e., without room for any Jews, nor likely Christians, Baha’i and Kurds.)  

Diker notes that the demonstrators make no mention of Palestinian statehood. They do not urge the creation of two states for two peoples. Nor do they demand a return to the peace process. Rather, they have simply and entirely adopted the Hamas – (read: radically Islamic) – program for the Middle East. The real meaning of that program is captured in Hamas’ concise, heartfelt messages of purpose and inspiration, now adopted as unifying songbook entries among the campus “social justice activists”. “Israel is a settler colonial occupying state”, “Gas the Jews”, “Rape is resistance”, “Burn down Tel Aviv”, and “Death to Zionism”.

“October 7,” Diker writes, “provides the context and the evidence for the convergence of this discourse of Israel’s destruction together with the eradication of Israelis and Jews wherever they live.”

It is undoubtedly true that many, perhaps most, of the campus protesters are sincerely trying to improve the world as they see it. But the organizers, planners, trainers and funders of the protests know well the true purpose of their exertions. They exploit the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. They have conscripted them to their own evil ends – the genocide of the people of Israel and the politicide of the State of Israel.  

Alas, to the extent that the some of the campus conscriptees are Jewish – our children and grandchildren – they are, in the main, living reminders of the inadequacy of their Jewish education. A meaningful education might have helped them better understand “who and why they are” and might have protected them from being exploited by enemies intent on “wiping Israel off the map.”

But rather than point a finger back, we must extend a hand forward. Despair has never been the Jewish response to horrible events. On the eve of Yom Hashoah V’hagvurah it is important that we drive this message ever deeper into our hearts. It is the appropriate occasion for steeling our resolve against the murderous call, once again, to “Gas the Jews”.

For the sake of safeguarding our children and grandchildren and for the sake too of honouring our ancestors, we must never despair. And let us recall the first stanza of the Partisans’ Song, the anthem of resolve, strength and courage, which some of our ancestors may have sung. For they are the very words we too must sing today. The generations of Jews after 1948 no longer hides in the forests in order to fight. We no longer hide. We are here.

“Never say this is the final road for you,
Though darkened skies may even hide the days of blue.
As the hour that we longed for is so near,
Our march shouts out the message – We are here!  (Our translation from Yiddish to English)

•••

Dr. Diker’s op-ed can be found at:

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/hamas-education-of-the-ivy-league

Diker’s essay confirms the brilliance of the seminal work by Paul Berman, The Flight of the Intellectuals (Melville House Publishing, 2010) in which Berman essentially predicted the moral inversion through which we must now find our way and which we must – and will – set aright.

•••

June 11, 2024 has been set for Ontario’s appeal of the 46-page decision by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou denying the province’s request to dismiss GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has actually been argued in court. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds to a hearing on its merits. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

May 3, 2024

In the update last week, we pointed to the soundness of professional and moral judgment by Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce, in directing the Peel District School Board to reverse its decision to mark “Nakba Day of Remembrance” day in the classroom as a calendar holiday.

In an update six months earlier, in the immediate aftermath of October 7, we also pointed to and praised Minister Lecce for the soundness and courage of his moral judgment in speaking to Motion No. 38 Defence of Israel in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

In particular, we focused on three aspects of Minister Lecce’s speech. He described Hamas with precise factual clarity; criticized Hamas’ supporters here in Ontario for their embrace of terrorists and terrorism; and he called upon all Ontarians who care for democracy to act without ambiguity to protect it in the face of Hamas’ apologists and supporters’ anti-democratic inclinations and methods.

“We have to speak with moral decency, with moral courage,” Minister Lecce said. “We will not be bystanders. We will use our power for good. We must be on guard for all manners of hate and fight hate and haters….For the sake of freedom, human rights and democracy, I ask us all: Do we possess the moral courage to do what is right even if it is not easy? Do we possess the moral courage to stand up to evil? …We are standing for fundamental Canadian values that transcend partisan politics. We must pick the right side of human history. “

It is against the backdrop of Minister Lecce’s proven courage to say and do what morality, justice and decency require, that GAJE calls the minister’s attention to a report released this week by Cardus, the independent think tank. Called, Exploring Alberta’s Independent School Landscape: Diversity, Growth, Trends, the report provides a panoramic view of Alberta’s 180 independent schools, serving more than 40,000 students.

The authors of the report, David Hunt and Joanna Dejong, provide an in-depth view of the state of the independent school sector in Alberta from a lens that opens onto the province’s educational outcomes and pluralistic nature of the overall educational system. Among their conclusions the authors strongly recommend that “the Alberta government should continue to encourage the presence of meaningful pluralism by supporting new and existing independent schools that meet requirements, so that families have access to options that best fit their education needs.”

Along with the entire independent school sector across the country, enrollment in Alberta’s independent schools continues to increase.

Accredited independent schools in Alberta receive 70 per cent of the equivalent operating cost per pupil for public schools for operating costs only. This does not include any allocation for the capital costs of independent schools. Thus, in effect the overall contribution to independent schools is actually less 70 per cent of the cost of maintaining such schools.

A report written in 2019 by Mark Milke and Paige T. MacPherson of Parents for Choice in Education and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, concluded that “Education choice in Alberta saves taxpayers money. Over the eight years analyzed in this report, the existence of education options outside of government schools in Alberta saved taxpayers over $1.9 billion over a period of 8 years.

Enrollment in Ontario’s independent schools has also grown. In 2019-20 StatCan data showed that more than 153,291 students were enrolled in the sector.

If funding for educational diversity is successful in Alberta – educationally and financially – it stands to reason that it would be successful in Ontario as well.

We therefore beseech the Government of Ontario to end its unfair educational funding policies. The minister clearly understands that the best way the Jewish community can stand against the ongoing effusions of hatred and intimidation toward it, is by maintaining and strengthening its inner communal structures. He also knows the most effective and important means for our community to do so, is through a perpetually secure educational system.

In the current worrisome and fear-creating social climate – even here in Ontario – it is patently unfair that only one religion should receive public funds for the education of its children. This is especially the case and made more urgently so, when one of the minority religious groups is being targeted and vilified with daily increasing vigour and malevolence.

And so, we ask the minister to “possess the moral courage to do what is right even if it is not easy.” Please make educational funding fair for all communities. This uneasy hour in our history should call upon your conscience to do so.

The Cardus report can be found at:

Exploring Alberta’s Independent School Landscape

•••

June 11, 2024 has been set for Ontario’s appeal of the 46-page decision by Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou denying the province’s request to dismiss GAJE’s application for fairness in educational funding before it has actually been argued in court. If the appeal fails, the application proceeds to a hearing on its merits. If the appeal succeeds, GAJE will appeal.

If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom. Chag Pesach Samayach. Am Yisrael Chai.

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

April 26, 2024