Monday, May 04, 2009

Your Daily Nazi: Ezra And The Nazis, Redux

A real historian (Ellen Scheinberg, director of the Ontario Jewish Archives) examines the interactions between the CJC and the Canadian Nazi Party during the mid-60s. Ezra Levant's version comes off looking distinctly 2nd best. A few highlights:

Ezra Levant's recent op-ed in the Citizen ("Neo-Nazis are best simply ignored," April 27) did little to explain the incidents surrounding Garrity's hiring, and provides even less perspective regarding the state of the Jewish community in Toronto during that time.

Indeed, facts appear to be secondary to Mr. Levant as he hunts and pecks his way through the historical record, extracting only those quotations which support his theories.

[...]

As an historian, I recognize that facts can sometimes support more than one interpretation. That said, there are certain points in which Levant's presentation of Garrity's work rests on no facts at all.

Levant claims that the CJC "helped organize the fledgling Canadian Nazi Party" but offers no proof for this.

He had previously stated that the CJC provided financial support to the party -- "bankroll" was the term he used -- although he seems to have backed off that claim.

Backed off the claim, but never admitted that it was in error in the 1st place, I should note. In any case, lets skip to the conclusion:

In the end, does Levant's contention that Canadian Jewish Congress "bank-rolled," "propped-up," "built up" or "organized" the Canadian Nazi Party of the 1960s have any merit? None whatsoever.

But of course this does not stop Terry O'Neill of the National Post from wheeling out the (by now) standard set of complaints against HRCs lifted from Ezra's faux research. Fortunately, Canada's political class has long-ceased to pay any attention to these guys.

h/t Mordechai.

10 comments:

Mike said...

Ezra Levant, self-serving liar? I'm shocked - SHOCKED I tell you - to discover that.

Next thing you'll tell me Mark Styen doesn't know anything about demographics....

Ti-Guy said...

I see Terry O'Neill is co-host of Roadkillradio.com, another "family values" (aka '6 degrees of Hitler') showcase.

Anonymous said...

Ellen Scheinberg has accomplished what many heretofore were unable to do, with no agenda and an eye only to the facts has proven what Richard Moon has said about Ezra all along; he makes things up.

Mitka said...

Kudos BCL for finding this (never quite sure how you do those things), man oh man this was a great piece. Not that Ezra will take a lesson from this. He will just find some baby-ass way to insult EllenScheinberg or some such thing-that's his style. However no getting around it, she nailed him big time for playing fast and lose with the facts.

Ti-Guy said...

Maybe Anna Maria Tremonti can invite LeRant back to The Current again...this time to actually challenge some of the assertions he made, instead of letting him gas on for 20 minutes.

gus williams said...

My prediction, Ezra's Evangelicals will find all kinds of excuses if prodded otherwise you will see a studied silence until the great one bellows. This could be fun.

meddy said...

"historians such as Frank Bialystok -- whose book, Delayed Impact, studied this era"
&
"While CJC already favoured a legislative approach to dealing with the issues of hate and hate propaganda, Bialystok's research indicates that then-CJC executive director Ben Kayfetz and Ontario vice-chair Sydney Harris were far more concerned with the growing activity of the neo-Nazis than building a case for amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada."


So this would be a better read than Levant's effort. I'm curious as to when the "false news" bit got inserted into the Criminal Code.

Mitka said...

The "false news" bit dates back to British common law that is why it was tossed by the Supreme Court.

And Meddy, let's not lose focus on what this is about. Ms. Scheinberg took aim at Levant for playing with the facts and found him more than wanting.

Hmmm could you be one of "Ezra's Evangelicals" so-called by Gus, insinuating yourself here to take the temperature of this issue?

Yariv said...

Just came across this...this should get much more play...I see that Mitka has tried to post it on BCF's blog and he appears quite flustered. Check out the comments here:

http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2009/04/cjc-and-nazis-what-world-ezra-blasts.html

We need to make some noise.

Yariv said...

Good ol' Mitka also placed it here on the front page of catfurs blog

http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.com/2009/05/ezra-has-great-free-speecher-round-up.html