Canadian Jewish community leaders say they’re “shocked” after revelations last week that the United Church of Canada gave $900 to a fringe anti-Zionist Jewish group that has repeatedly called for boycotts of Israel.
Rev. Bruce Gregersen
According to the church, the money was used to help finance a March 2008 conference in Toronto by the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadian, which led to the founding of the group Independent Jewish Voices.
The revelations come on the heels a recently concluded national United Church convention that considered and defeated controversial resolutions calling for a boycott of Israel.
In a letter to The CJN last week, the church, Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, admitted it could have been more careful in doling out the money.
The grant was intended “to support the participation of people engaged in dialogue between Jewish, Muslim,and Palestinian networks around options for peace in the Middle East. This is consistent with our longstanding tradition of support for interfaith initiatives for justice and peace,” United Church spokesperson, Rev. Bruce Gregersen, told The CJN in a written statement last week.
“We recognize there are extreme positions on all sides of this issue and acknowledge that greater scrutiny may have been necessary in this case. We are examining our approval mechanisms to ensure that all grants are consistent with our values and goals,” the statement added.
The church’s donation helped defray 10 per cent of the event’s costs, including travel expenses for three speakers, but should not be considered seed money for the new alternative Jewish group, a United Church official told the National Post last week.
Diana Ralph, a founder of the IJV, disputed that figure, saying the grant covered only seven per cent of the cost of the conference.
Benjamin Shinewald, Congress’ national executive director and general counsel, said “this is an extraordinary and shocking revelation.
“That [IJV] couldn’t raise $900 from the national Jewish community of Canada and had to go outside the community to do so… That speaks to just how marginal an organization this is.”
Shinewald added that as of last week, the church and Congress had not yet “dialogued” about this latest issue.
“Even though our relations with the church are not as good as we’d like them to be… we did not expect that they would be funding the creation of an organization whose objective is to drive a wedge into the Jewish community and to attack the dearest values of the community,” he said.
But implying that the grant to IJV was non-political is “preposterous,” Shinewald said. “They were funding a group that wants to radically affect a change in Canadian politics. You cannot say that providing money to fly in speakers to a political conference, where a rump Jewish organization is created… that you are not engaging in politics. That’s nonsensical.”
The CJC and the church battled recently over resolutions calling for a boycott of Israel that were put forward at the church’s recent triennial conference, held this past summer in Kelowna, B.C.
The measures were defeated at the national level, but the United Church “encouraged” individual members and congregations to “study ways to end the occupation of the disputed Palestinian territories.”
IJV members were present at the Kelowna conference and had an information booth in a “well-placed” location, said Congress CEO Bernie Farber.
At the time, Farber assumed group members had come on their own to counter Congress’ presence. He said he now questions that conclusion and wonders if the group was invited and what its actual status was at the conference, in light of the recent news about the grant.
“Was the IJV just a front for anti-Israel sentiment in the United Church of Canada, or were they just one of many observers there,” Shinewald asked rhetorically. “It’s not clear to us right now, because the United Church is a founding partner of the IJV.”
Though the church attempted to distance itself from its relationship with the IJV, Shinewald wondered if it truly understood who it was dealing with when it gave the money to the group.
Beyond criticizing Israel and advocating boycotts of the country, Ralph’s public expressions about the Jewish state and “the Israel lobbies” have bordered on full-fledged conspiracy theory.
Speaking in June to a gathering at an undisclosed church in Ottawa – available in a post on YouTube last week – she told an audience that Canadians are now seeing the “Likudization of Canada.”
In the video, Ralph voiced her beliefs that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped the United States shape its strategy against the “war on terror” before 9/11 – a concept she claims Netanyahu invented in 1979. She also rails against how Israel lobbyists now wage their own war on terror “against Muslims” and how they have encouraged the United States to attack Iraq and are now doing the same on Iran.
“Israel has always served as a strategic asset to various imperial powers, most recently the United States,” she said.
Reached by e-mail, Ralph refused to divulge how many members belong to the IJV. When asked what association the group has with the United Church, Ralph wrote “none.” When asked if it was invited to the church’s conference this past summer, she wrote “no.”
She also questioned the purpose of The CJN’s inquiries, asking: “Why this non-story about a small donation over a year ago is being sensationalized at this time. Is it intended to divert attention from the Goldstone Report condemning Israeli (and Palestinian) war crimes?”
In the YouTube video, Ralph called pro-Israel advocates and agencies in Canada and the United States “an unholy alliance between the world’s military and corporate powers, right-wing Christian-Zionists – including [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper – and pro-Israel Jewish organizations working under the control of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy. These are the masters of war.”
Farber said Congress plans to send a letter to the national leadership of the church immediately after the High Holidays. It will express “in the strongest possible terms” a request for a meeting to discuss the church’s association with the IJV.
With files from JTA