We thank our members, friends, and growing international readership for making possible this ongoing information service, inaugurated in October 2000.

Message from CIJR Director Professor Frederick Krantz

Dear Readers:

It is with great pleasure, and pride that I note the 500th consecutive number of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research’s “Isranet Briefings” series. This careful daily selection--from a vast array of international materials pouring into our office--of outstanding op-eds and articles (many by our own Research Fellows), translated materials from Arabic, key political and diplomatic documents, and other important or illustrative materials, has earned a world-wide audience, numbering today in the tens of thousands. Our small research center has been both delighted by the response, and hard put to handle the service’s rapid growth and increasing volume of recipient correspondence and submission materials.

The Briefings have chronicled the unfolding of Arafat’s post-Camp David/Taba terror war against Israel, the response of the now-defunct Sharon-led national unity government, the impact on Israel and the Middle East of September 11, 2001, the rising tide of world antisemitism, the implications of the impending American-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the impending campaign against Iraq. We hope we have chosen our materials well, and that we have played a role in contributing to cogent analysis and intelligent understanding of the ongoing issues and crises affecting Israel, the Jewish people, and the world.

Maintaining the Briefings has stretched our already-taut budget. CIJR is an independent non-profit research center, and must raise its own funds. Any financial help you can give us would be deeply appreciated, as would any suggestions about how we can better serve you and the public through the Briefings, our ISRAFAX print journal, our web-site-accessible DataBank, and in any other relevant way.

Allow me, finally, to thank the many people who daily send us materials they think worthy of distribution, and to recognize the indispensable key work in choosing, editing, and forwarding the Briefings of CIJR’s talented Assistant Director, Karen Lazar, our Research Chairman and resident tsaddik, Baruch Cohen, and our very able in-house editor, Dr. Joyce Rappaport.

I look forward to our 1,000th Briefing and, more importantly, to a real and enduring peace in Israel and for the Jewish people.