NDP leader Lewis criticized for saying Jews ‘failed to do our part’ to stop Gaza war
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/ndp-leader-lewis-criticized-for-saying-jews-failed-to-do-our-part-to-stop-gaza-war/
NDP leader Lewis criticized for saying Jews ‘failed to do our part’ to stop Gaza war
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/ndp-leader-lewis-criticized-for-saying-jews-failed-to-do-our-part-to-stop-gaza-war/
7 Comments
Considering the Canadian government’s financial complicity and willful blindness regarding this genocide, I think most Canadians could probably reflect on it and conclude that they could have done more. I don’t know why Lewis, as a member of the Jewish-Canadian community, couldn’t draw the same conclusion but specific to his own experience and people.
Edit: My understanding is that a meaningful part of Yom Kippur is the concept of atonement or repentance. That’s really important context for his tweet. I’m not Jewish, but I do relate to being at odds with my parts of my community because I’ve wanted to maintain a more explicitly political or traditional interpretation of my religious holidays.
Lewis’s full statement, since the article didn’t bother to include it:
“Tonight Yom Kippur begins, the most sombre moment of the Jewish calendar. It’s a time of atonement – a time to grieve those who have been lost, a time to acknowledge and take responsibility for harms we have caused, individually and collectively. For Jewish people, the personal has always been political and the political always personal. This year I’m reflecting on the fact that we failed to do our part to stop an ongoing genocide committed in our name. There are many other fronts where I have to do the work of repair. But nothing on this scale.”
Yeah. And the worst Germans in 1950 were the ones saying they “failed to do their part to stop the Holocaust”./s
If an American said “we failed to do our part to stop Trump from regaining the Presidency”, I’d agree with them. I don’t think that Lewis is intimating here that Jews, in general, need to be held to account for the crimes of Israel.
> Jewish Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and Ben Carr are pushing back, saying it’s wrong to hold Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
I really cannot comprehend how someone like Anthony Housefather can be so rabidly against criticism of Israel because he thinks it leads to anti-Semitism, but then at the same time say that Jews writ large shouldn’t be held accountable for the crimes of Israel.
Like we’ve been spending years saying “Israel doesn’t represent all Jews so we should be allowed to criticize their horrible actions” and dudes like Housefather say it’s antisemitism to not support the one Jewish state. If it’s *also the case* that he doesn’t think all Jews should be blamed for the actions of Israel, then is his position that he supports Israel because he just really hates Palestinians? If it’s not the usual towed line of Israel being representative of Judaism then what’s the basis for his support of what they’re doing?
I think what Lewis is trying to say is that regardless of whether or not one is a Zionist that Israel saying “we have the right to do all of this because our religion tells us we have a right to this land” means that Israel is painting a target on every Jewish person and saying, “all this violence and bloodshed is being done on this person’s behalf”. Housefather et al have contributed to the silencing of the mere mention that Israel could be making life more dangerous for Jewish people around the world through these implications, and now he wants to silence the only Jewish federal party leader in Canada for saying it. It’s just completely fucking bonkers.
Saddling Jews with the burden of a tragedy happening across the world they have to atone for is incredibly tone-deaf and yet.
People do not absorb the collective guilt for actions carried out by a foreign government.
This is embarrassing to read and surely uncomfortable to Jewish people who are still digesting the Belleville synagogue shooting.
There’s a place to call out Canada’s relationship with Israel, but this isn’t it.
Lewis needs to do better.
Edit: Lovely, the “Jews need to atone for this” crowd is out in full force.
My first thought upon reading the headline was “he’s a Jew, so I guess he can say that.” Then the bit about how the GoC considers Jews blaming themselves for Israel’s actions is an aspect of antisemitism, made me realise that is the flip side of saying that criticising Israel isn’t antisemitism. So, while I can get where Lewis is coming from, that was a mistake.
Hey, Avi! You may not have noticed, but Netanyahu doesn’t give a thought to what those of us in the diaspora think or say. He’s been warned for years and years, long before 10/7, that he’s alienating us, but if we’re not potential Likud/coalition voters, he doesn’t care. Heck, he drove Israel to what some considered the brink of civil war back in early/mid 2023, and it took a literal general strike to get him to back down in the slightest. Canadian jews have exactly zero influence on Israeli policy.