Last month, Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), published an article on these pages ("Canada can still redeem itself," Jan. 26) in which he appealed to the Canadian government to move forward in prosecuting six alleged Nazis living in Canada. He accused Canada of having exercised "wilful blindness" in dealing with such cases, and went on to describe how the CJC will be focusing much of its energy on other non-Jewish Canadian communities that have been victims of genocide (Rwanda and Darfur).

That sounds nice. But as a Canadian Jew whose interests Mr. Farber purports to represent, I would urge the CJC to go back to basics, and invest the organization's time and the community's money in issues that are far more critical to the majority of Canadian Jews.

Jewish parents continue to struggle to pay for parochial education, soaring synagogue membership fees, camp fees and fear a rising tide of intermarriage and assimilation. With respect to Israel, a number of Israeli hostages are still being held by Hezbollah and Hamas, in Lebanon and Gaza respectively. Ron Arad is still believed to be held by Iran, and missiles are raining down on Sderot and other communities in southern Israel on a regular basis. Iran continues to step up its rhetoric about annihilating the Jewish state.

Mr. Farber suggests that "clearly the Nazi enablers of yesterday are the role models for the genocidaires of the 21st century." Yet strangely, there is no mention made of the single greatest contemporary spiritual heir to the Nazi spirit -- the global jihad against Israel and the Jewish people by radical Islamists. Why isn't the CJC trying to educate the public about the existential threats facing the Jewish people, lobbying on behalf of the kidnapped soldiers and publicly making the case that these, too, are not "Jewish" issues per se, but also matters of justice and security for the world at large?

Instead, a cursory glance of the CJC website reveals a public relations agenda of dubious or even nonexistent significance to the average Canadian Jew. There are a number of press releases and commentaries on Darfur (which, last time I checked, was Jew-free), a little bit about Jewish art looted by the Nazis and very solemn commentaries noting which local dignitaries attended recent Holocaust memorial ceremonies.

There is also a lot of repetitive bleating about the evils of "hate speech." It seems that if one really wants to get noticed by the organized, "democratically elected" representatives of Canadian Jewry, one needs only to yell " kike" in a crowded room somewhere in Canada.

It is therefore not surprising that the CJC has been a scandalously silent voice as Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine struggle to tell the truth about militant Islam and battle the thought-crime investigations being administered by Canadian human rights mandarins.

Levant, whose Alberta synagogue was firebombed (read: actual hate crime) will likely continue to remain friendless among the machers of the CJC, which has taken the position that censorious human rights legislation is a useful tool for fighting anti-Semitism, a problem that was relegated to marginal kooks (such as David Ahenakew) a generation ago.

It is all well and good to urge justice for war criminals, and to invest in educating people about the Holocaust. But Canadian Jews might prefer if an outfit calling itself the "Canadian Jewish Congress" actually dealt with issues that currently affect us. Perhaps what's called for is a more democratic approach to picking the voices that purport to speak for Jews.

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