MONTREAL — After one of its jurors resigned in protest last year, a long-established Quebec film festival dropped a prize created and sponsored by the Jewish community intended to promote tolerance because festival organizers feel it’s inappropriate to be associated with any “political pressure” group.

Les Rendez-vous du Cinéma Québécois, whose 27th edition opens Feb. 18, will not be presenting the $5,000 Alex and Ruth Dworkin Prize, which since 2006 had been awarded to a film that contributes to understanding among different people.

The prize became a source of controversy last year when one of the festival’s three jurors, Malcolm Guy, resigned because of the purported rigidly pro-Israel stance of Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), which helped conceive the award, and the Dworkins’ support of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

The Dworkin Foundation is administered by the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal (JCF), and the prize was launched by Rendez-vous in collaboration with CJC.

Rendez-vous executive director Ségolène Roederer said in an interview with The CJN that the festival’s board decided to eliminate the prize because  the festival “couldn’t prove that the foundation was not really involved with CJC.”

The festival was never able to get a satisfactory answer as to what the link between the foundation and CJC was, so the prize was eliminated, she said.

The decision was made well before the launch of Israel’s operation in Gaza, she added.

“The Rendez-vous cannot have relations with any lobby or pressure group, or any political or religious organization of any kind. It is not appropriate,” Roederer said.

The festival’s board regards CJC as such a lobby group, she said, adding that whether it is pro-Israel or not isn’t the issue.

“We really gave this a lot of thought. It was a process,” she continued.

The link between the prize and CJC, however, has always been clear. The establishment of the prize was announced at a press conference launching the 2006 Rendez-vous festival.

CJC issued a press release stating that the annual prize had been conceived by CJC in co-operation with Rendez-vous, a showcase of new, locally made films.

At the time, CJC said it hoped that the collaboration would foster a positive partnership between the Jewish and francophone communities in Quebec.

Roederer acknowledged that CJC’s involvement from the outset was known, and regrets that the festival did not look more deeply into what it was getting into.

“We did not do our job fully… I think we were a little too quick [to get involved],” she said.

Guy’s resignation, however, brought the issue to the fore, she said. “He made some accusations that we were never able to find out if they were true or not.” However, sufficient doubt was raised to end the relationship.

Guy, a Montreal film director and producer, wrote in a widely circulated open letter that, after looking more closely into the background of the prize’s sponsors, he did not want his name associated with it. He said the money was “tainted” and urged Rendez-vous not to accept it.

He called CJC “a vehicle for the Israeli propaganda machine,” denounced JNF, which the Dworkins supported, for “the massive displacement of the Palestinian people and the occupation of their land” and protested the Israeli “siege” of Gaza.

Guy is not associated with this year’s festival.

The whole affair has left JCF executive director Robert Kleinman deeply disillusioned, given that the prize was created in good faith to foster dialogue and that its demise was provoked by what he sees as a misrepresentation of the facts. “I can’t say Guy lied, but he put together facts in order to make us believe in a lie.”

Kleinman also has a different version of events.

He said he asked for a meeting with the board to deal with Guy’s charges, but was not granted one, yet he was assured by the president that the prize was secure.

Several months ago, the festival’s directors informed Kleinman that the prize was being abolished. He again requested a meeting with the board to discuss the matter in full and to plead for the retention of the prize. But that was never granted, either, he said.

“I personally feel a great sense of disappointment and injustice,” Kleinman said. Guy’s letter was, Kleinman wrote at the time, “totally gratuitous and unfounded.”

For one thing, CJC does not speak on issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.

The Dworkin film prize was created in the aftermath of the violent protest against the appearance of former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University in 2002. The Dworkin family wanted to contribute in some way to restoring a better climate in the city.