U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman recently said that a rollout of the Trump administration’s peace plan for Israel is “not imminent.” “I would imagine that we will roll something out. I hesitate even to put a month on it because it has shifted as we continue to listen and talk to people,” Friedman told American Jewish Congress members in a telephone briefing.
In a letter to Stéphane Perrault, the chief electoral officer of Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) pointed out that the scheduled date of the upcoming federal election coincides with Shemini Atzeret, when many activities, including work and travel, are prohibited. CIJA stressed that it is not asking for the date of the election be changed, but “we request that your office give special consideration to this situation. Protecting Canadians’ effective right to vote is a core mandate of your office, and we want to ensure that Canadian Jews’ right to vote is included.”
Among the stars expected to attend the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival are Jewish actors Natalie Portman (The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Vox Lux), Timothée Chalamet (Beautiful Boy), Jesse Eisenberg (The Hummingbird Project) and Canadian Jewish director Jason Reitman (The Front Runner).
The Aug. 29 rally to oppose B’nai Brith’s “smear campaign” against the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) drew about 75 pro-Palestinian protesters and some 200 members of the Jewish community and other supporters of Israel. The rally was triggered when B’nai Brith alleged that the Palestinian Postal Service Workers’ Union (PPSWU), with which CUPW had entered into a joint project, had supported terrorism and “the elimination of Israel.”