It appears there’s more to the story about why Calgary’s mayor, Jyoti Gondek, abruptly cancelled her participation in the Jewish community’s 35th annual Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony on Dec. 7.
Organizers of the now-infamous ceremony at City Hall acknowledge they had actually wanted the event to be an even stronger show of support for Israel, and let city officials know this in meetings during the days leading up to Hanukkah. Here were some of the original requests: let guests and dignitaries hold up posters of the Israeli hostages now captives of Hamas. Play a video of a Hebrew prayer for the hostages, called “Acheinu”. Stage a pro-Israel demonstration outside the City Hall after the candles were lit. Bring Israeli flags into the building. The city turned these down.
Rabbi Menachem Matusof of Chabad of Alberta in Calgary said his committee reluctantly agreed to follow the restrictions, although he balked at the flag veto. The city also frowned on two slogans on the publicity posters: “Support for Israel” and “Israel Bonds raffle”. The rabbi promised them the evening would be a celebration of Hanukkah, and not a demonstration.
But the mayor cancelled anyway, claiming the organizers “repositioned” the traditional lighting ceremony “as an event to support Israel.” The move has been felt as a slap in the face to the Jewish community in Canada’s fourth-largest city, especially during this time of rampant antisemitism in Canada and the world.
On today’s The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner goes behind the scenes of Calgary’s chanukkiah debacle with event organizer Nelson Halpern; Rabbi Mark Glickman of Temple B’nai Tikvah and journalist Jen Gerson, who slammed the mayor for not doing her job.
What we talked about
- Watch the Calgary city council menorah-lighting ceremony, presented by Chabad of Alberta
- Why Calgary’s mayor pulled out of the official menorah ceremony, in The CJN
- Read Jen Gerson’s opinion piece on Mayor Gondek’s misstep in The Line
- Read about the anti-Israel protests in Calgary and why the police dropped hate-motivated charges against one of the leaders, in The CJN
Transcript
Jyoti Gondek: Unfortunately, one organizer put out a flyer and posted it on social media indicating that this would also be to support Israel. Unfortunately, after all of the meetings that I have had with community leaders where the agreement has been to keep the politics away from our city and to try to bring everyone together in an interfaith type of setting, I’m incredibly concerned that that type of language sends a message that this is an event supporting Israel.
Ellin Bessner: That’s the voice of Calgary’s mayor Jyoti Gondek, speaking a few days ago about why she felt she couldn’t attend the 35th annual Hanukkah menorah-lighting ceremony at her city hall last week, an event she’s been to before and participated in even last year.
Gondek explained that the organizers had, in her words, “repositioned the event to be a show of support for Israel”, while local Jewish leaders and the organizers called it a slap in the face with all the antisemitism facing the community since October 7th.
It turns out the mayor’s decision came only after a series of negotiations between the organizers and city hall in which the organizers had tried to make the event a strong show of support for Israel. Calgary Rabbi Menachem Matusof tells me his committee asked city staff if they would be allowed to play a video of a Hebrew prayer for the welfare of the Israeli captives. It’s called “Aheinu”.
But they were told no, because that doesn’t have anything to do with Hanukkah.
They were also told they couldn’t have posters of the hostages inside the building and no signs and definitely no to holding a pro-Israel demonstration outside City Hall, after the event. The rabbi says the city nearly vetoed allowing Israeli flags, too, until he threatened to cancel the whole thing. But he did promise the event would be a regular Hanukkah celebration and not a demonstration.
Then the mayor cancelled even though her name was already on the posters and it put Calgary on the same map as the city of Moncton, when lawmakers there cancelled Hanukkah, only briefly.
Jen Gerson: This did not strike me as anything that was inappropriately political. Now, if the poster had been changed to read, you know, “Flood the tunnels” or something, I think Jyoti Gondek would have had a point, but I didn’t read that as such and I don’t think most sensible, morally sane people would.”
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Wednesday, December the 13th, 2023. Welcome to the CJ N Daily, a podcast of the Canadian Jewish News sponsored by Metropia.
Although Hanukkah 2023 is nearly over for this year, the fallout from the Calgary mayor’s very public spat with its Jewish community by boycotting the official candle lighting ceremony at City Hall won’t soon be forgotten. And while there were dozens of Calgary politicians at the event and even the deputy mayor spoke, the mayor’s actions are the latest flashpoint in the Alberta city where the conflict in the Middle East has been reverberating on the streets of Calgary since October 7th. In November, a local Muslim leader was charged for chanting From the River to the Sea at one of these large weekly anti-Israel rallies. But then the charges were abruptly dropped. Calgary’s Jewish community of about 9,500 people is growing but not as quickly as the Muslim population of nearly 95,000. That’s 10 to 1. So what really happened leading up to the mayor’s move? And what does it mean for relations with the city’s Jewish community? To find out, I’m joined by three Calgary observers. Nelson Halpern is a prominent accountant and Jewish leader who was the honoree at the event, and one of the organizers; Jen Gerson is a journalist. She co-founded the Line.ca newsletter and she brought her two children to the event, and Rabbi Mark Glickman is spiritual leader of the Reform Temple B’nai Tikvah in Calgary.
I’m going to start with Jen. You were at the Calgary City Hall for the annual menorah lighting. Was this the first time you ever attended this kind of thing?
Jen Gerson: It was absolutely the first time that I had attended a menorah lighting. I was just personally taken aback by the Calgary mayor’s decision to not only not attend, but also make such a big deal out of not attending. And I thought that in light of that, it was kind of important to show some support to my neighbors and just show up. I mean, I’m not Jewish myself but you know, I’m vaguely familiar with what it’s about, yes.
Ellin Bessner: So Jen, you wrote a scathing column in your newsletter on Substack and you even use the F-bomb to describe what she should be doing. You said “She has to just do her fucking job.” I don’t know if the CJN is even allowed to use that on the CJN!
Jen Gerson: I use the F bomb quite liberally. I get criticized quite a lot for that. So, I accept that criticism and I reject it. No, I mean, look, we have a basic set of unwritten rules in a pluralistic society and one is that major civic leaders show up to menorah lightings, they show up on Ramadan, they show up to Diwali, they show up to these things, even if they don’t necessarily agree with all the politics of the groups involved. But, you know, they show up because that’s what you do because when you do that as a representative of civic society and as a leader in that society, you’re showing that first and foremost, all these people are Canadian. We all are Calgarians and we’re all part of the same team. We’re all part of the same group. We can disagree with one another. But you know what, when it comes to your holidays, I’m going to honour and respect your holidays and you’re going to honor and respect my holidays. And this is kind of, I think, one of the unspoken rules of living in a highly multicultural, highly pluralistic society. And my concern is that when you break that down and you start saying, “Well, I’ll show up to this group but not this group.”, those unspoken rules are fundamentally brought under threat and it collapses the glue that holds our society together, the cohesion that holds our society together. To me, this wasn’t a hard, moral test to pass.
And the analogy I would say is that, let’s say, there was an Islamic terrorist attack in London and a Canadian mayor had responded to that by saying, “I’m going to not give a preordained speech at a mosque because I don’t want to be seen to be supporting Islamic terror.” I think we would condemn that person.
You know, I don’t require Jodi Gondek to necessarily agree with every single thing that Israel’s done, to show up to a menorah lighting ceremony that has been taking place in the atrium of City Hall for Calgary for more than 30 years.
Ellin Bessner: You asked her in your column, she is making it into a political event when it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Is that a bit naive? (And I’ll bring you two gentlemen in a minute) because everything now after October 7th is political.
Jen Gerson: I would argue that if she had a genuine pang of conscience and disagreed with this event, which, I want just to say as a non-Jew, for a Jewish community to put something like “Supporting Israel” on an otherwise totally benign poster doesn’t in my mind change the meaning, narrative or intent of a menorah lighting ceremony. Especially considering what’s happened since October 7th. I didn’t find that personally, or offside, I didn’t read that event as some kind of pro-war rally.
But secondly, I think that if Jyoti Gondek had genuine kind of pang of conscience, there were ways that she could have gone about withdrawing from this event without making it about her and without making it a political firestorm: she could have called in sick. She could have claimed a family emergency. She could have called the community and had a conversation about what was going on. And instead the way she chose to go about this was to issue a very public press release, to put it on Twitter, to put a Tweet out, criticizing the poster. She went on multiple media outlets. She did a scrum. She went on the CBC this morning, doubling down on this. She chose to centre this decision and make her decision and the virtue that she wanted to display in this decision, a very public political event. That was a choice. She did not have to do that.
There were ways she could have withdrawn from that event in ways that would have been discreet and diplomatic and not made it into a national firestorm. She made some choices here.
And I think it’s naive to presume that she was innocent of that choice.
Ellin Bessner: Do you think that it’s because of demographics?
Jen Gerson: I think that there’s a combination of political factors. I think that demographics absolutely play into this. I think also ideology plays into this. We know that there is a subsection of progressives right now who are arguing that what Israel is doing, it constitutes genocide and therefore any association with Israel whatsoever is therefore sort of tacitly supporting genocide. I don’t personally ascribe to that view and I think that that is an extreme view.
But I also think that, Jyoti is known for being a progressive mayor and I think she’s known for being a fairly leftist mayor. So I don’t think it’s naive to imagine that she’d find some of those arguments convincing.
Ellin: Ok. I’m going to bring in Rabbi Glickman and, and Nelson Halpern. Either of you can start if you want to pick up on anything that Jen has already mentioned.
Mark Glickman: Well, I appreciate everything that Jen said and overwhelmingly, I agree with her. I guess the only thing I’ll add is that we need to understand that this is a very fraught time.
This is a very difficult time. And the mayor is in a very difficult position here. I, too wish she would have handled it differently. I certainly can understand how when relatively recently before this event, the Israel piece came on the poster that made it much more difficult for her. And I come to this, too, having worked with Mayor Gondek. She has done really important work in calling together differing groups in our community trying to foster some constructive dialogue. So I appreciate that, and I find her decision, in the way she handled it, unfortunate as well, but it is a very difficult time and we all need to try to come into this with as much sensitivity to all these views as possible, even though as a Jew, of course, I
wish that the world in general would stand by Israel in these very difficult times, just as I wish it would stand with the Palestinian people.
Ellin Bessner: Hey, but you wrote her a letter. So maybe you want to tell us why you were moved to write her a letter?
Mark Glickman: I said I was troubled because I saw that in her statement, she not only got out of the participating in the event, but she also used that statement to be critical of Israel. So, in the name of being neutral, she actually became a partisan player in this controversy and that makes it harder to work with her as a credible broker of peace during these difficult times.
Ellin Bessner: So Nelson, you and your wife were honorees and you lit one of the candles. The first one. What do you know about how it all kind of worked behind the scenes between when the poster came out and when the wording was decided?
Nelson Halpern: Yes. I think that the mayor is totally disingenuous about all this. I think that this is all smoke and mirrors, that she knew exactly what she was doing. And this is all political from her side. The menorah lighting has been going on for 35 years. It has always been supportive of Israel. Jewish Federation has always spoken and presented at the event. I only became part of it a week ago and this year we decided, even before I was offered to be an honoree at the event,
I discussed with Rabbi Matusof about bringing Federation in and having a more robust event to show solidarity for the State of Israel because it was the two-month anniversary of October the seventh.
And Rabbi Matusof agreed and Federation agreed that that would be a very good thing and to, you know, bring one or two more speakers on to talk about the issues with Israel and that was it. So it was an extra statement brought maybe on the poster to advertise or promote that activity. But beyond that, it’s not a rally, it’s just talking about solidarity for Israel. And of course, of course, it’s going to be pro-Israel, right?
Mark Glickman: We’re Jewish people, we stand with Israel and in Judaism, we don’t make distinctions between the political and the religious. We need to engage in the real issues of the world. And so for anybody to expect that we would separate what’s going on in Israel from this important religious event, is unrealistic.
Jen Gerson: How would you respond then to people who are going to attack or condemn the Jewish Diaspora for what’s happening in Israel.
Nelson Halpern: If you’re feeling to make that distinction, I would say they’re antiemetic.
Jen Gerson: So that does not mean any criticism of Israel is antisemetic? I think this is a problem.
Nelson Halpern: Anti-Israel is antisemitic.
Jen Gerson: If you’re saying that I can’t criticize some of the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu without being anti-Semitic?
Nelson Halpern: Israelis criticize, right? Of course, and we in Canada criticize Netanyahu, but we don’t have a right to, we don’t vote in Israel.
Ellin Bessner: I want to bring it back to what the mayor said. though. Let’s talk about we’ve been watching, what’s been going on in Calgary. There’s weekly marches by both sides. I want you to talk to me about what is it like to be living through this on October 7th and being Jewish in Calgary at the moment for you guys.
Mark Glickman: Remember Calgary, as is the case with many communities, we have a very large Muslim community here. Every Sunday, there are rallies down downtown, all kinds of ugly slogans being bandied about. As a modern progressive Jew who is a passionate Zionist and lover of Israel, I don’t understand why people can’t take up some sort of a slogan that says something like “pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, anti-Hamas”. And the mayor could have done that.
And showed some important leadership in this case and she didn’t. And that’s one of my disappointments about what happened. She could have stood with Israel without being against the Palestinians.
Ellin Bessner: What I want to know is, are you feeling intimidated as a member of the Jewish community? Either of you? Because of all the things and now?
Nelson Halpern: I feel very much intimidated because there’s a heavy police presence and without the police presence, I think it would be different. The police presence makes me feel safer. I have family in Montreal and my grandkids go to Jewish school there and my daughter-in-law is scared to send her kids to Jewish school because there’s shootings in the Jewish schools, outside and it’s different. People taking their mezuzahs off their doorposts because they’re scared, they’re intimidated.
Ellin Bessner: You’re talking about Calgary where they’re taking them off? I want to know about Calgary, please.
Nelson Halpern: Yeah, we’re not there yet. But this rise of antisemitism and the problem is leadership in all places is not speaking out against antisemitism. So when my mayor and my city will not stand up and speak out against antisemitism, that concerns me.
Ellin Bessner: I guess I should mention, our listeners already know this, but the province of Alberta, not only recently just upped its funding for security for the Jewish community, but also adopted the mandatory Holocaust education a couple of weeks back, earlier this fall. So obviously the province, the state, even [Premier] Danielle Smith said this week that she thinks what the mayor did was wrong. But what about you Rabbi Glickman? How are you feeling?
How are your congregation members feeling?
Mark Glickman: We in Calgary have been traumatized. I do know people who are taking down their mezuzahs. It is a time of great fear. There’s a growing number of antisemitic incidents, thankfully, nothing violent that I’ve heard about yet, but certainly very scary incidents. I have reached out to the Muslim community trying to find somebody who’s willing to say something like, ‘We’re going to disagree about what’s going on in Gaza, but we are opposed to antisemitism and Islamophobia and we don’t want that conflict to spill out into the streets here.” I have been frustrated in that I’ve been having trouble finding Muslim partners in that.
Although there are some who are starting to step forward and that’s encouraging.
Ellin Bessner: So it’s not the first time that her tweets or whatever have kind of raised eyebrows in the Jewish community. Not about this, but there is a history with her. Is there not? Can you maybe give us a little bit of the background?
Mark Glickman: You know, look, she’s been called all kinds of horrible things. Antisemitic. You know, my fellow panelists here were saying that this seemed like it was something she did very intentionally. I don’t think she is antisemitic. I think those criticisms are unfair. I do think that she handled this clumsily. I wish it had been otherwise. And I hope that there will be opportunities to mend the relationship between her and the Jewish community in the future.
Ellin Bessner: But what happens next? Are you kind of breaking off relations now with her?
Mark Glickman: I have made a pointed decision not to break off relations and I might catch some flak for that because of the firestorm that this has set off. But she has done, as I said, important work in bringing groups together that is so important in our community. I have pledged to continue that work. And my hope is that in time there will be healing.
Nelson Halpern: I don’t know that there is any shuttle diplomacy to be had right now. I think it’s going to be a slow and long-term process of healing from this very painful moment. I think that she’s got to do a lot of work to redeem herself to prove that. The numbers are there. We’re 8,000 Jews and the Muslims are 100,000 people. So she’s got to prove that we’re worth something to her because right now she’s sort of throwing us out with the bathwater.
Ellin Bessner: OK. Jen, I want to ask you one last question. Going forward. Now, it was so embarrassing. This is like Moncton menorah, world attention on Calgary. How do you see what happens now? Is this bad for Calgary, bad for Alberta? What does this do?
Jen Gerson: I think it’s terribly embarrassing for Calgary. And like I said, this was just regardless of whether or not we agree with her decision to abstain herself. This was very poorly handled politically and it reflects very poorly on Calgary. And I think also, you know, we can sit here and debate the nuances of the language on the poster. Me, a person coming from outside this community. I looked at that poster. I did not read into that poster in its tone or its advertising, any kind of offensive or pro-war sentiment there. I read it as a very relatively benign menorah lighting ceremony and I took it as read. So I think that her interpretation of the poster was either disingenuous or it was unhinged. Take your pick.
Ellin Bessner: So you weren’t afraid to bring your two children who are elementary school Children to this event, right?
Jen Gerson: Yeah. To this apparent terrible event with children’s choirs advertised, and children’s programming, arts and crafts. This did not strike me as anything that was inappropriately political. Now, if the poster had been changed to read, you know, “flood the tunnels” or something, I think Jyoti Gondek would have had a point but I didn’t read that as such and I don’t think most sensible, morally sane people would.
Mark Glickman: I also want to add, I mean, you know, you’re citing all of these, specific episodes and those are all certainly valid items for discussion. Big picture though, Calgary is a very good place for a Jew to live. There’s a thriving Jewish community here.
We overwhelmingly have good relations with our neighbors. We are very much part of the picture in terms of the leadership of this community. Calgary is a great place for a Jew to live and I think we need to keep that in perspective.
Ellin Bessner: OK. Is there anything that I didn’t ask that you want our listeners to understand about this story?
Nelson Halpern: Well, I think it was a very, very successful program, you know, it was sort of like in two parts. The first part was like a traditional menorah lighting ceremony with the choirs and the singing and the band playing and everybody clapping and it was very heartfelt and very good. And then the kids left and did their arts and crafts and it was very Haymishe show.
It was very nice. And then the speeches started and then it was very “Stand with Israel” and very passionate and t was just very, very heartening and it was very good. And then an Alderman spoke and very strong about why we should support Israel. And so it was good.
It was very successful. And then I watched the news later at night. I t was all about why the mayor didn’t want to support. So, it’s like the media does one thing and we do our own thing.
And so you know, it leaves me sort of with a bad taste in my mouth. That sort of the media was bought off.
Ellin Bessner: So I wouldn’t say they were bought off. But I think it’s newsworthiness because of what the mayor says. When she says it, it becomes newsworthy. She spiced it up and made it even more important. Like the Moncton menorah, two people would have showed up, but because Moncton canceled it, briefly, hundreds of people came. Do you know what I mean?
that’s kind of how it works. I don’t want to blame the media on this. She did this.
Nelson Halpern: That’s right. So I, we had a great program and I feel good about it and everybody that was there feels good about it and that’s what’s important. And I’m going to keep going to the rallies every Sunday and I’m going to go to the car rally on Sunday and, we’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. So that’s what’s important.
Mark Glickman: And the only thing I would add is that just, you know, however troubling this moment is in our community, and partly because it’s so troubling, my message to the community is that we really need to double down on our efforts to reach out as good neighbors to non-Jews and to re-establish or establish our friendships and to move forward to hopefully build a better community for us all.
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this episode of The CJN Daily, sponsored by Metropia. Integrity community quality and customer care.
We’re also watching the fallout from Tuesday’s United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York where Canada voted for an immediate humanitarian cease fire and an immediate release of the hostages.
But the resolution doesn’t condemn Hamas for the October 7th terrorist attack and it doesn’t actually mention Hamas at all or hold it accountable.
Canadian Jewish leaders and even some members of the Liberals own caucus, including Anthony House father and Marco Mendicino slammed Canada’s “yes” vote because last time Canada abstained from a similar vote. If you want write to us about this.
We’re [email protected] Thanks for listening to the CJ N Daily.
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Credits
The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.
