"Why I eat bacon on Yom Kippur"

The role of community institutions

Rest assured, the title of this article is not true.

Like many of my fellow Hebrews and Shebrews, I don’t eat non-kosher meat. I fast on Yom Kippur.

But, I got your attention didn’t I?

This article is about that CJN magazine cover. You know the one.

It’s also my take on the responsibility of Jewish community institutions.

Summer

Let’s go back a few months.

This is not actually the first CJN magazine cover to get my attention. This one was:

Who can forget the beautiful, happy, dance-the-night-away summer of…

2024?!?

Eight months into the Gaza War, with 80,000 Israelis displaced from the North, over 100 hostages still held in Gaza, rockets being fired, Jews getting stabbed, and antisemitic violence and threats overtaking our serene Canadian community. Remember that summer? It wasn’t that long ago.

But if you look at this magazine cover, there’s really nothing to show any of that. If you look suuuuper closely, a-la-Where’s Waldo, you’ll find a peaceful dove-with-olive-branch flying, a small Magen David hanging in the Jammin Judaica tent, and exactly four people wearing yellow ribbons (I won’t spoil your fun in finding them).

Now, to be fair, this cover referred to a spread inside the magazine called “Summer of Schvitz” talking about Canadian Jewish music. So that’s the theme, and it matches the inside story and tone. And to a certain extent, I get it. It’s important that we don’t only focus on the conflict and the bad. It’s important to focus on the good and uplifting. It’s not always healthy to wallow.

But still. The cover doesn’t reflect the national mood. Especially when it comes to the mouthpiece of the Canadian Jewish community. An institution of our community, that many turn to for updates and to put their finger on the pulse of the community.

I used the word “community” several times there on purpose.

So that was the summer cover, and it was a bit tone-deaf IMO, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no room for the Fall 2024 cover to not address the issues facing our community, both in Israel and the Diaspora.

Right?

Fall 2024

Wrong.

Immediately, I was sent pictures of this cover, and was asked “What is going on at the CJN?”

Here is what immediately stood out:

• Rosh Hashana table with no Judaica whatsoever - no candles, kippas, etc.;

• Cell phones out;

• One cell phone (bottom right) with what appeared to pictures of an explosion on it on Instagram; and

• A sad-looking woman on the bottom left.

Of course, there’s also the focal point: a girl with bright purple hair, donning a keffiyeh and watermelon earrings. It was startling, among other things.

But let’s not judge a book by its cover. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

Two things in particular stood out:

Year in Pictures

The first was a photo-essay entitled “5784: The year in pictures.” 19 pictures showcased the Canadian Jewish year in review, including:

• One showing anti-Israel protestors at the Gardiner Expressway holding a sign that said “Honk your horns for Palestine”;

• One showing anti-Israel protestors outside the Israeli consulate in Toronto;

• One showing anti-Israel protestors wearing shirts saying “Jews say no to genocide”;

• One showing red paint, looking like blood, running down a window outside an Indigo store and pictures of Heather Reisman, the result of an anti-Israel protest;

• One showing anti-Israel “Jews saying no to genocide” lighting Hanukkah candles at a “Hannukah for Ceasefire” event;

• One showing anti-Israel protestors waving Palestinian flags;

• One showing a police officer giving anti-Israel protestors Tim Hortons coffee;

• One showing an anti-Israel “Jewish-Palestinian Resistance Seder” in Nathan Phillips Square;

• One showing the anti-Israel encampment at U of T; and

• One showing anti-Israel protestors marching in the Toronto Pride Parade.

  

That’s 10 out of 19 pictures showing anti-Israel protests.

To be fair, there is a picture of the rally in Mel Lastman Square on Oct 9, 2023, one of the Ottawa Rally in December, and a picture from the epic Walk for Israel in May, but really? THOSE are the pictures to show off what the year was like for Jews in 5784? Out of 19 pictures, one of them was a picture of police giving anti-Israel protestors coffee?

(There’s also the use of the label pro-Palestinian for many of these protests instead of anti-Israel, which has always bugged me, but I digress. I wrote about it here.)

Chomsky

The second thing that stood out to me was the column called “Culture Klatsch,” which recommends several books, including, The Myth of American Idealism by Noam Chomsky. The renowned anti-Zionist Chomsky, who has called Israel a colonialist state, who has said that he regrets the 1947 UN partition vote on Palestine (giving the Jews a state and effectively creating an Arab and Jewish State, which the Arabs refused to establish as long as there was a Jewish state next door), who has called the “apartheid” label against Israel “a gift to Israel” because the situation in Israel is apparently far worse than actual apartheid in South Africa was, who has called Gaza a concentration camp, and who has warned of “Judeo-Nazi” tendencies by Israelis. That is the author whose book is being recommended in the Canadian Jewish News.

Now, to be fair, I haven’t mentioned the interesting and really well-written article by Rabbi Avi Finegold about Judaism and Zionism, or the comic about the artist who used to work in the IDF who was banned from the Vancouver Comic-Con for being a Zionist. But they don’t outweigh the issues I find with the rest of this magazine edition.

Podcast

Why? Because on a podcast episode from October 6, 2024, the magazine’s editor-in-chief Hamutal Dotan, along with Rabbi Avi Finegold and writer Phoebe Maltz Bovy, discussed the controversial cover. In my opinion, they made the situation worse, doubling down on the decision to represent an anti-Israel Jew at the Rosh Hashana table.

In their conversation, they described the cover as “depicting reality,” with a Jewish family, with different points of view, dealing with what is happening in the world. They talk about the cover as a piece of artwork, that is open to different perspectives, and everyone will look at it and see something different. Fine.

Finegold says that, “[The woman in the keffiyeh] is happy. She is not sitting there, pontificating and spouting “You guys are all evil.” It’s like, “This is family and I belong here.” And that leads us to the first thing that I really want to get into when thinking about this cover…there were many, many people that were saying , “Thank you for showing us; I never really felt represented by The CJN.”

Why does the CJN feel like they need to represent everyone, including the anti-Israel mob who clearly stands against so much of what our community believes in? I am not entirely sure to be honest.

The participants of the podcast conversation gushed over the comments they received allegedly praising the cover. They however quickly panned any of the comments they received from people disappointed or upset with the cover image chosen. This is part of the reason I opted to dive into the debate on this platform. It was frankly a little disappointing that they didn’t invite one of those people onto the podcast, who expressed disapproval about the cover, to share their perspective.

There’s also this exchange during the podcast:

Phoebe: Avi, I want to ask you to ask about the religious angle, because some of the pushback that I have seen has been like, “There’s somebody in a keffiyeh, where’s the shtreimel? Where is the visual of observant Judaism?” 

Avi: Clearly there is at least somebody with a shtreimel at that table and they got up once the phones came out because they didn’t want to be at the Rosh Hashanah table with phones out, but they were still at the table beforehand. That is my interpretation and I’m going to stick with it. 

That being said, I think it’s probably true that the majority of people who are 100 percent holiday-observant and Sabbath-observant might not have somebody who is wearing a keffiyeh at the table. 

This image, to me, is more representative of what Canadian Jewry does look like. People that have the traditions, people that have the apples and the honey and the pomegranates and the wine and the round challahs, and then when discussions start happening at the table, phones will come out. That’s the line I always tell Americans about what Canadian Jewry is like: the synagogue they drive to on Shabbat better be Orthodox. 

I can tell you, I was pretty offended by this remark about the streimels (as someone who most definitely does not wear one). Perhaps it was made tongue-in-cheek, but why mock observant Jews for sticking to tradition? I am not 100% holiday observant, but I won’t sit at a Rosh Hashana table with someone wearing a keffiyeh. What’s the point? If they are showing up to a table like that, with a keffiyeh, today, in October 2024, then they are doing so to make a scene, to prove a point, to shove it in our Jewish and Zionist faces.

And I disagree that this scene, depicted on the cover, totally lacking in Judaica, having someone who hates Israel sitting at the table, is “more representative of what Canadian Jewry does look like.” I just don’t believe that.

And if this is what Canadian Jewry looks like - which I actually don’t think it is - why does it need to be shown in this format? Platformed in this way? And why give the platform to someone wearing a keffiyeh rather than someone wearing a kippa at the very least?

Finally, however, there is this commentary, which I think is where I think the podcast conversation went awry:

Avi: The negative reactions to the cover were basically saying, “I wish this wasn’t in the community. These people are such a tiny minority. Take this woman out of the picture and everything’s fine.” And the people that are thanking The CJN for this cover are basically saying not the opposite—which is, “I want you to represent a table filled with people with keffiyehs celebrating Rosh Hashanah”—but just, “I’m glad that I am included in this picture, because that’s all that I’m asking for.” 

And that’s really telling, because I think that that was the main gist of the rest of the magazine, was to say, there are many Jews that are Zionist, there are many Jews that are not, and this is what we want to represent. And here are articles, and here are thoughts, and here are ideas that are related to that and their reflections on the past year. Is that fair?

No, honestly, I don’t think this is fair. Why do we need to represent people, whether they are Jews or otherwise, who are fundamentally against the existence of our Jewish State? What makes any honest observer of events in the Diaspora over the last year think that a table of people wearing keffiyehs are celebrating Jewish traditions in good faith, when all they’ve done so far is appropriate the Pesach seder and other traditions for their own political means? Why do we need to understand their perspective if they won't consider ours? It’s time to be intellectually honest about what we see happening in our community.

Role of community institutions

Some people will read this and think I’m being unfair to the CJN. Some will think I’m being just as glib as they were in their podcast episode. Some may think I’m trying to compete with the CJN, and trying to be holier than thou. Let me assure you, that I am not, but everyone is entitled to their opinions. I want the CJN, like all our community institutions, to thrive.

What I am however trying to do is appeal to - maybe even beg - community institutions, to figure out where your red lines are when it comes to representation within the Jewish community. Tell us what you stand for, what you believe in, what you will not allow, and then we will decide if you are the institution for us. If you deserve our support, our money, and our voices.

This is where the title of this article comes from.

If I were to write an article about why I, as a tradition, eat bacon on Yom Kippur (breaking two cardinal rules of Judaism), should that be put on the cover of a community magazine? Because there is one person in the community who does it, and this belief therefore requires representation? Even if I’ve figured out a really good rationale in my own mind about why I should do this one thing once a year? Does this minority view really require this type of platforming? Especially knowing how counter-cultural it is? Knowing how upset it will obviously make people?

This is my issue with the CJN cover. The keffiyeh and watermelon represent an anti-Israel ideology. Period. The symbol of the keffiyeh today, in Canada, means that the person wearing it does not believe that Israel has a right to exist. That Israel does not have a right to defend itself. That Israel had it coming on 10/7. That Israel should not have “started” the Gaza War in response to the killings, rape, and barbarism of Palestinian terrorists on that day. That the vast majority of Jews are not horrified when innocent people die, and that we (Israel) don't try to minimize civilian casualties and injuries. That arms embargoes against Israel are correct. That calling for a ceasefire that does not see the hostages released, is OK. That diplomatic isolation of Israel is fine. That it is morally fine to hold Israel to different standards than every other country on earth. That Israel should be treated as a rogue, pariah state.

THAT is what the keffiyeh stands for today. Yes, I’m sure there are some people who wear the keffiyeh who don’t condone rape and murder, but I’m talking about what the symbol of the keffiyeh has come to represent.

So why on earth are we inviting someone who believes in that to sit at our communal, candleless Rosh Hashana table? When at synagogue we turn to pray towards Zion - Jerusalem - our ancestral homeland. When at the end of the Yom Kippur service 10 days later we shout “Next Year in Jerusalem” after blowing the shofar. When we build sukkot a few days after that, in our backyards and on our balconies, to symbolize the temporary dwellings we lived in, in the desert, ON OUR WAY TO **let me just check my notes here** THE LAND OF ISRAEL. Someone should explain that slowly to the keffiyeh-clad activists at Columbia camping out in their Liberation Sukkah.

I mean give me an effing break

The keffiyeh clad, whether they are Jewish or not, do not believe what we believe. They do not believe that Israel has a right to exist. They do not believe that Israel should have been established. They do not mind the calls of Jews to go back to Poland. They are probably the ones shouting it themselves. “Jews against genocide”, whose pictures grace the inside of the CJN magazine, do not know the truth, or willfully distort it. They are ignorant and all too keen to turn against our community, their own people (if they are in fact Jewish in the first place - see JVP or IJV). They do not understand that when the Palestinians put down their weapons, there will be peace, but when the Israelis put down their weapons, there will be no more Israel. This is exactly what happened on 10/7.

So why should they be privileged to sit at our tables? To grace the covers of our community magazines? Why? “Look Bubbie, my picture lighting Resistance Hannukah candles against Jewish genocide is now in the CJN!”

It has been one year since 10/7. Lines have been drawn everywhere. We know where people stand. Many - too many - stand against Israel, including in our own community. But the vast majority of Jews still stand with Israel, no matter what. And why shouldn’t they? Israel is a critical component of Judaism, and of Jewish belief. It is a part of our history, heritage, and our community. There ought to be no space in our community for anti-Zionist Jews. They may just as well turn their backs on Judaism entirely.

Just because there are a few misguided Jews in our community who hate Israel, does not mean they deserve to be acknowledged on our magazine covers. Just like there may be a few people who eat bacon on Yom Kippur, it does not make it right. And even if it does not fit neatly into the right-or-wrong category, it does not need to be acknowledged, or praised, or even put into the same sentence as the God-fearing-streimel-wearing-chasids in our community who do not deserve to be mocked for abiding by the rules of halacha by our community newspaper either.

My dad has reminded me that the Baal Shem Tov would maybe not have written off these Jews as quickly as I have. In the spirit of chassidut, the BST would have said to admonish them, sure, but remember that they are Jewish, they have a divine spark within. We should continue to engage with them, and indeed invite them to our tables, if there is a chance that by sitting around our table, they will come back around to our views. That maybe they could come back to the tribe with some love and apple crumble. Colour me skeptical, but I would be remiss if I didn’t share this point of view too.

Now however is the time for our institutions to draw red lines. Judaism is a remarkable religion, that is accepting and welcoming, and there is room for many under our broad tent. But we practice a form of either exclusive-inclusivity or inclusive-exclusivity (I haven’t decided yet how to describe it). There are lines that cannot be crossed, and there are people in our community who need to be told:

I love you sweetheart, but I think you’re completely wrong about calling the Israeli Prime Minister a Nazi. Educate yourself.

I love you darling, but how dare you assert that we are perpetrating a genocide. You are wrong.

You’re the best, but put down the Chomsky and pick up this Matti Friedman/Yossi Klein Halevi/Daniel Gordis book instead.

You mean the world to me honey, but I think you need to understand that this war is a bit more black-and-white than you think it is. We are fighting a civilizational war of good versus evil, and we are on the side of good.

If we fail to draw red lines, if we fail to stand up for our history and beliefs, and if we continue to allow our core beliefs to be eroded all for some need for social acceptance and not wanting to offend others, then we are in trouble.

We can, and must, do better. We as a community are getting auspiciously close to dangerous waters, from which there is no turning back.

Disagree with the above? Let me know why in the comments. Healthy discourse = healthy community. adam@catchnews.ca