Today, the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research is holding its 24th Anniversary Gala. Keynoting the event is Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, recently elected to serve as one of the vice presidents for September’s 67th General Assembly, only the third Israeli diplomat ever bestowed such an honor. Renowned British journalist Melanie Phillips, author of The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power, will deliver a Special Address.
At the Gala, Baruch Cohen, CIJR’s Research Chairman, will be presented with the Institute’s highest honor, the Lion of Judah Award.
FOR BARUCH COHEN, TZADDIK
AND MAESTRO DI COLORO CHI SANNO
Frederick Krantz
Baruch Cohen is a remarkable person, an indefatigable fighter for Israel and the Jewish people, a remarkable intellectual and poet, and a good, indeed, the best, friend. Baruch, who will turn 93 in October, is not only the resourceful Research Chairman of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, but also its resident tzaddik, our living Jewish conscience and moral compass. A Romanian Holocaust survivor, who almost single-handedly brought the long-neglected Romanian Holocaust to the attention of the public and the major Holocaust research centers and museums, his motto, drawn from his beloved Romanian poet Paul Celan, whom he knew in post-War Bucharest, is that “No one witnesses for the witness”, that only direct experience can give authentic expression to Holocaust reflection. And he has indeed been an able and eloquent Witness, working for many decades as an effective and respected docent with the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Center, where he specializes in working with young people and students.
Baruch and his beloved Sonia have lived a long, often difficult, and remarkably loving life together, which took them from Bucharest under first the fascists and Germans and then the Communists, and then to Israel, and finally, for family reasons, to Montreal. They lost their wonderful daughter Monica/Malca, to whom Baruch dedicates everything he writes, at a tragic early age, but somehow continued living, aided by their fine son-in-law and community leader Lawrence Bergman, and their two grandsons Stuart and Mark. Now they also have three beautiful great-grandchildren. Beyond this, all those Baruch teaches at the MHMC, and in CIJR’s student programs, are also in a sense not only his students, but his children, a fact reflected in CIJR’s proud naming of the Baruch and Sonia Cohen Student Israel Internships program after them.
This year, as CIJR celebrates its twenty-fourth anniversary, we are doubly proud to present our annual Lion of Judah Award to Baruch Cohen who, to paraphrase Dante, is both our teacher, and our leader, il maestro di coloro chi sanno, “the master of those who know.”
IN FRIENDSHIP: A PERSONAL TRIBUTE
TO FREDERICK KRANTZ AND BARUCH COHEN
Dr. Catherine Chatterley
CIJR supporters know the devoted director of the Institute but they may not know what a powerful educator and influence Frederick Krantz is as well.
I first met Fred in 1995 when I arrived at Concordia University, from Winnipeg, to begin my Masters degree in history. He was teaching a European historiography seminar with a 15 lb. syllabus! Truly, it is the largest and most substantial syllabus I have ever been given by a professor (I still have it and just passed it on to a very keen student several years ago who wanted a summer reading list).
This course was the best class I had in the program and at the end of the year I asked if Professor Krantz would supervise my thesis. He agreed, handed me a book and told me to go read it; supposedly I had much in common with the author. That text was George Steiner: A Reader and it was determinative. I was struggling with the difficult question of how to transmit the horrors of the Holocaust in mundane human language, something Steiner thought a great deal about and struggled with himself.
Fred’s perceptive choice put me on the future course of my life in many ways. I wrote my M.A. thesis on George Steiner’s approach to the Shoah and my Ph.D. dissertation on the relationship between Steiner’s oeuvre and his neglected writings on Antisemitism and the Holocaust (published last year by Syracuse University Press).
I can honestly say that I would never have attended The University of Chicago were it not for Fred’s encouragement to apply to the finest American graduate schools and his assurance that they often provided funding for the outrageous (by Canadian standards) tuition fees. Fred is an incredibly talented editor and it was during the period of my Masters degree that I truly feel that I learned how to write and edit my own work at a high standard. The investment of time he made working with me on the thesis made all the difference.
Lenore and Fred are famous for their Fine Arts Trips to New York and I can personally attest to the fact that touring the Cloisters, Frick, MOMA, the Met, and others, with Fred Krantz is an unforgettable experience. The breadth and depth of his learning—spanning antiquity through the Middle Ages, modernity to the present, with a particular focus on intellectual history in all of its facets—is really quite rare and so that much more impressive. Fred’s love of things Italian is always in evidence on these tours and in his emails that sometimes begin with Cara Caterina.
As I began to get to know Fred I learned about CIJR, which he started in his basement after the First Intifada, and the uneven press coverage of the Israeli position. I then met Baruch Cohen, who I also knew through the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum, and was amazed at this lovely man’s demeanor, given his experiences in the world, and his singular devotion to his family and to Israel (both the people and their homeland).
These two friends, Fred and Baruch, have supported one another in their work for Israel and the Jewish people in the most selfless ways. Both full-time volunteers who have dedicated themselves to mentoring countless students on their way through university—the accomplishments are untold but deeply meaningful to those of us lucky enough to have received these blessings.
And their spouses, Lenore and Sonia, are a testament to the indispensible value of true and meaningful partnership in one’s life and work. These two couples are role models for all of us, just as CIJR was a template when I established the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (CISA) in Winnipeg last year. I hope CISA will be able to accomplish as much as CIJR has in its 24 years.
Thank you Fred and Baruch for all that you have done and continue to do. You can take sincere pride in your accomplishments and know that your generosity and devotion have produced students and scholars who will advance your work and purpose into the future.
You have my love and thanks. Yasher koach!
(Catherine Chatterley, Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Manitoba,
is Founding Director of the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism.)
The following is excerpted from Amb. Ron Prosor’s November 29, 2011 address
to the UN General Assembly on “The Question of Palestine.”
A great Jewish sage once wrote, “The truth can hurt like a thorn, at first; but in the end it blossoms like a rose.…” His insight could really benefit many in this hall.
It takes a well of truth to water the seeds of peace. Yet, we continue to witness a drought of candor in this body’s discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. On this historic day, real facts in the General Assembly remain few and far between.…
Let me take a moment to remind this Assembly about what actually occurred on this day 64 years ago—and in the days that followed. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition then British-Mandate Palestine into two states: one Jewish, one Arab. Two states for two peoples.
The Jewish population accepted that plan and declared a new state in its ancient homeland. It reflected the Zionist conviction that it was both necessary and possible to live in peace with our neighbors in the land of our forefathers. The Arab inhabitants rejected the plan and launched a war of annihilation against the new Jewish state, joined by the armies of five Arab members of the United Nations.…
As a result of the war, there were Arabs who became refugees. A similar number of Jews, who lived in Arab countries, were forced to flee their homes as well. They, too, became refugees. The difference between these two distinct populations was—and still is—that Israel absorbed the refugees into our society. Our neighbors did not. Refugee camps in Israel gave birth to thriving towns and cities. Refugee camps in Arab Countries gave birth to more Palestinian refugees. We unlocked our new immigrants’ vast potential. The Arab World knowingly and intentionally kept their Palestinian populations in the second class status of permanent refugees.…
The basic question underlying our conflict for 64 years has not changed. That question is: has the Arab World—and particularly the Palestinians—internalized that Israel is here to stay and will remain the Nation-state of the Jewish People? It is still unclear whether they are inspired by the promise of building a new state, or the goal of destroying an existing one.
Two months ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stood at the podium in this very hall and tried to erase the unbroken and unbreakable connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. He said the following: “I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him).”
This was not an oversight. It was not a slip of the tongue. It was yet another deliberate attempt to deny and erase more than 3,000 years of Jewish history.… The resolution that gives the 29th of November significance—General Assembly resolution 181—speaks of the creation of a “Jewish State” no less than 25 times. We still do not hear Palestinian leaders utter the term.…
Palestinian leaders call for an independent Palestinian state, but insist that the Palestinian people return to the Jewish state. This is a proposition that no one who believes in the right of Israel to exist could ever accept. The idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians is a non-starter. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren’t hearing it. At this very moment, the gap between their perception and reality remains the major obstacle to peace.
Let me repeat that: the so-called right of return is and will remain the major obstacle to peace. It is not settlements. It is not the laundry list of baseless accusations launched against Israel in today’s resolutions. I’ll repeat it again: the so-called right of return is the major obstacle to peace.…
Yet, all of those who were so vocal today in telling Israel what is has to do for peace mumbled, stuttered and conveniently lost their voices when it came to telling the Palestinians that the so-called right of return is a non-starter. For decades, this body has rubberstamped nearly every Palestinian whim, no matter how counter-factual or counter-productive.… The lip service of this body has only done a disservice for peace.
True friends of the Palestinians have a responsibility to tell them the truth. They will stop promoting the distorted version of history that characterizes this day, and start delivering the real lessons of history that the Palestinian leadership now refuses to heed. These lessons are clear: bilateral negotiations are the only route to two states for two peoples, living side-by-side in peace and security; negotiations that resolve the outstanding concerns of both sides.…
Time and again, we have extended our hand in peace to the Palestinians. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stood in this very hall and declared his commitment to the cause of Palestinian self-determination—and his vision for establishing a Palestinian state, alongside the Jewish State of Israel. Yet, today we wait for the Palestinians to give up the false idol of unilateralism—and get back to the real hard work of direct negotiations. And, as they continue to run away from the negotiating table, the Palestinian leadership continues to move closer into their embrace of Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel.…
In this hall, I hear no solidarity with the one million Israeli men, women and children who live under the constant rain rockets, mortars and missiles from the [Hamas-ruled] Gaza Strip. I hear no solidarity with the 16-year old boy who was killed last April when a Hamas anti-Tank Missile struck his school bus. Or the thousands of other Israeli civilians who have been killed and injured. I hear no solidarity with the Israeli children who learn the alphabet at the same time that they learn the names Kassam, Grad, and Katyusha—the rockets that keep them out of school for weeks at a time.…
I also heard no discussion today about the incitement that continues to fill the West Bank, where the next generation of Palestinian children is being taught that suicide bombers are heroes, that Jews have no connection to the Holy Land, and that they must seek to annihilate the State of Israel. From cradles to kindergarten classrooms; from the grounds of summer camps to the stands of football stadiums; from the names of public squares to the public pronouncements of Palestinian leaders, these messages are everywhere.…
Sustainable peace must take root in homes, schools, and media that teach tolerance and understanding so that it can grow in hearts and minds. It must come from a Palestinian leadership willing to tell its people about the difficult compromises that they will have to make for statehood. It will come through the hard work of state-building, not the old habit of state-bashing.
Today none of these truths have been spoken. Today I hear no solidarity with the principles of peace. I know that the truth can be a burden. I know that old habits die-hard. I know that the convenience of the moment sometimes weighs heavy on the interests of the future. Yet, only the truth will set us free.
After years of darkness, I call on this Assembly to bring new light to this debate. I call on each and every delegate in this hall to embrace pragmatic solutions, not automatic resolutions; to speak with candor, and not slander; to grapple for a new vision, and not old divisions. I call on this Assembly to finally glean truth from this historic day, nourishing the seeds of peace in our region that can blossom into a brighter future.
The following is excerpted from Melanie Phillips’ June 10, 2012
Daily Mail column, titled, “Auschwitz And A Muddled Own Goal.”
Some years ago, on a fact-finding trip to Munich, I visited the nearby site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. It was an unsettling and disturbing experience, beyond being brought up against the horrors that had taken place there. For I found myself surrounded by coach parties of Japanese and other tourists eagerly photographing the camp sights—and even posing for snaps in front of the exhibits.
I thought about this queasy-making ‘Holocaust tourism’ when I read about last week’s visit to Auschwitz by seven members of the England football squad, ahead of their first match in the Euro 2012 football championships being held jointly in Poland and Ukraine.
Of course, the fact that Poland was the epicenter of the industrialized Nazi killing machine, and had virtually its entire population of three million Polish Jews exterminated—not to mention the bestial part played by the Ukrainians in the Nazi genocide—is impossible to forget.
Many visit the Auschwitz extermination camp, where some 1.5 million Jews and others were murdered, as an educational experience to learn about the unimaginable events of the Holocaust. Indeed, the England squad’s trip was organized by the Football Association jointly with the Holocaust Educational Trust.… But the FA’s motives appeared rather less elevated when it allowed a number of journalists to accompany the players in order to pool reports of their reactions. Instantly, the trip turned from a private pilgrimage into a PR stunt intended to cleanse the besmirched reputation of English football.…
When the Dutch, German and Italian teams similarly piled into the Auschwitz trip, it seemed to be turning into a competition to show who was most caring and empathetic. This is not to belittle the undoubted revulsion of the players, who reacted as any decent person would when confronted with the evidence of such unique evil.… Nevertheless, it is distasteful to turn Auschwitz of all places into this kind of media circus.
What makes it even worse is that this trip, with its symbolic message that never again will Europeans descend to such barbaric racism, occurred in the same week that black players in the Holland squad were being subjected to monkey chants during a training session in Krakow, while the black Czech defender, Theodor Gebre Selassie, was abused during his side’s opening game with Russia in Wroclaw.
In eastern Europe today, such racism is a fact of life. Anti-Jewish chanting is not uncommon at matches in Poland. Neo-Nazi salutes and stylized swastikas are used by Polish and Ukrainian gangs. Supporters of the Polish team Hutnik Warszawa have placed stickers in public places showing fans dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits holding the club flag and standing around a tree with an image of a black man hanging on it. Ukraine…is even more thuggish. A BBC1 Panorama programme recently showed Ukrainian supporters in Kharkiv beating up Asian fans and giving Nazi salutes.…
Such continuing racism at the geographical heart of the Holocaust, I’m afraid, also exposes the fact that, for all the exhibitions and memorials Europe has erected to the memory of the Nazis’ victims, it has still not properly come to terms with what took place. Poland, indeed, has rewritten history by casting itself as a principal victim of the Nazis along with the Jews, and denies any complicity in their extermination. Yet, although it is a fact that Poland was invaded by the Nazis, who imprisoned and killed many of its citizens, other Poles savagely assisted in atrocities against the Jews—and continued massacring them even after the end of the war.
More broadly, I would argue that Holocaust education has signally failed to prevent widespread antisemitism in Europe—not least because of several countries’ continuing state of denial about their past complicity in such crimes. Anti-Jewish hatred is now running at epidemic levels in Hungary. There are repeated violent attacks on Jews in France and Sweden. Conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the media or U.S. presidents are now commonplace in British public life. And everywhere Israel is irrationally blamed for abuses of which it is itself the victim not the perpetrator, in a horrible echo of the deranged prejudice against the Jews that led to Auschwitz.
Part of the reason is that the Holocaust has been effectively sentimentalized. Stripped of the essential context of European antisemitism and the unique nature of that hatred, it becomes little more than a parade of unbelievably shocking atrocities.
Football, of course, mirrors society—and it currently releases from its followers a host of unlovely prejudices against blacks, Jews and gays, not just in Poland and Ukraine but throughout Europe.… To draw Auschwitz into this public relations free-for-all was misguided—another own goal for the so-called ‘beautiful game’.
FOR ISRAEL’S MISSION TO UN, BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE
Daniel Nisman
Jerusalem Post, June 11, 2012
‘Oom Shmoom.” Ask any Israeli politician, university lecturer or taxi driver their opinion of the United Nations, and odds are that’s the response you’ll get. The pejorative term is Hebrew slang for “United Nothing,” and has come to epitomize the Israeli mentality toward the UN ever since it was coined by David Ben-Gurion 60 years ago.
For a select group of Israeli diplomats, however, the UN is…the front line in the fight for their nation’s legitimacy.… They are the men and women of Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, tasked with waging some of Israel’s toughest diplomatic battles. Utilizing a potent mix of expertise, experience and classic Israeli “chutzpah,” they often emerge victorious—even against overwhelming odds.
Members of Israel’s modest-sized mission (under 20 diplomats and advisers) can be found in nearly every UN committee, sponsoring resolutions, vying for top positions and promoting Israel’s interests on topics that range far beyond the Arab- Israeli conflict.
In 2007, the mission sponsored a resolution on agricultural technology which was eventually co-sponsored by more than 100 countries, an astounding feat for Israel. That resolution has since been reaffirmed three times. Other members can be heard sharing Israeli expertise in committees dealing with international law, counter-terrorism, sustainable development and even the UN’s budgetary issues.
Recently, Israel was elected to the executive board of the UN Development Program, an influential agency which operates in more than 170 nations with a budget of over $1 billion. The mission’s human rights expert was elected for a chairing position within the Commission on the Status of Women’s communications working group. Other mission members currently hold leadership positions within the Economic and Social Council’s subcommittees on forests and activities of non-governmental organizations. In 2013, Israel will to ascend to the executive board of UNICEF, the UN children’s fund. In the UN lobby, Israeli-sponsored exhibits and seminars are a common sight. On the 50th anniversary of the Adolf Eichmann trial, Minister Yossi Peled and Elie Wiesel spoke to the UN on the lessons of the Holocaust.…
Whether above the UN’s radar screen or below, the Israeli mission employs a strategy that may as well have been plucked from playbooks of Israel’s old-school military generals: aggressively promote Israeli interests and values, while taking the offensive whenever the foes of the Jewish state cross the line.
The rants, tirades and outbursts against Israel can be heard from across the East River. The famed “automatic majority” formed by Arab and Islamic states remains firmly in place, never failing to cynically politicize Israeli involvement in every UN venue. Two weeks ago, Arab nations took a break from their boycott of the Assad regime to rally behind a Syrian bid to block Israeli NGOs from contributing to the UN’s upcoming conference on sustainable development to be held in Rio de Janeiro.
Moments before the vote, Israeli diplomats could be seen scrambling throughout the General Assembly, lobbying member states against catering to the political ploy. The drama culminated with a fiery speech by Deputy Ambassador Haim Waxman, drawing shouts and fist-banging from the Syrian delegation. The vote failed and the mission emerged victorious. Yet, it was just another day for Israel at the UN.
Whenever the Arab-Israeli conflict does take center stage (and it often does), Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor takes the UN to task. One of Israel’s most distinguished diplomats, Prosor never hesitates to use humor and cutting cynicism to name and shame Israel’s opponents. In the General Assembly, he branded Bashar Assad the “world’s most dangerous ophthalmologist” (for blinding his people’s vision of freedom). In the Security Council, he pointed out that “you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand that when rockets fall on your head, your government has a right to defend itself.”
During the Security Council’s most recent debate on the Middle East, Prosor unabashedly exposed the five great myths about the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the rarely discussed plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Indeed, he is consistently able to keep all 15 Security Council members on the edge of their seats during every speech using a combination of telling facts, stirring anecdotes and revealing humor.
Despite the mission’s growing list of achievements, Israel still faces a daunting uphill battle. The Palestinians remain intent on pursuing their unilateral statehood bid to circumvent the peace process. Other nations seem determined to refocus attention from the Arab Spring toward isolating and de-legitimizing Israel. Driven by the spirit of Zionism and the principles of tikkun olam, the diplomats of Israel’s Permanent Mission to the UN are up to the task.
