I am alarmed by Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman’s call to stop Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour from speaking in his community. I am a rabbi. I have been involved with Jewish communal life and with Israel for fifty years. At this moment I am writing from Israel, where I lived for four years. I arrived here this morning to participate in a Jewish project of solidarity next week with Palestinians in the West Bank who struggle daily for their very existence.
Mayor Bowman has been lied to and manipulated. B'nai Brith Canada and the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg have not been honest with the people of Winnipeg.
Linda Sarsour is not an antisemite. She has a warm, strong positive relationship with many Jewish people and with Jewish organizations. She was the keynote speaker at the 2017 national members meeting of the Jewish Voice for Peace, which has over 200,000 Jewish members and supporters in the U.S. I serve on its rabbinic council with over 60 other rabbis. Linda Sarsour is a vital and courageous ally in our work for freedom, equality and justice.
The controversy in Winnipeg is a political fight that has nothing whatsoever to do with real antisemitism. It has been manufactured by organizations whose intention is to deflect and distract from what Israel has done to Palestinians for more than 70 years. It is to silence those -- like Independent Jewish Voices Canada and many others -- who work for justice, equality and freedom for everyone living in Israel and Palestine. Accusations of antisemitism are a "weapon of mass distraction", a favourite tactic of the organizations provoking this conflict in Winnipeg. Historian and son of Holocaust survivors Dr. Norman Finkelstein said it well when he wrote that their aim is, "not to fight [real] antisemitism but to exploit the historical suffering of Jews in order to immunize Israel from criticism."
B'nai Brith made five specific claims. Every one of them is untrue. Quoting directly from B’nai Brith’s own material:
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