Alas!

Canadian Jews lose their sanest, most progressive voice:

Effective July 1st, the Canadian Jewish Congress is discontinuing its activities. Canadian Jewish advocacy will be handled by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA). In the near future, the CIJA website will be overhauled and expanded to reflect the enlarged mandate.

Note that Canada's largest Jewish advocacy group now has "Israel" in its name.  A real pity that.

PS. Though sad, this news is not unexpected.

CJC Not Dead Yet

Plans for a single central Jewish public affairs group, which would include Canada's oldest Jewish organization, need to be more detailed before any restructuring happens, board members said in a unanimous vote on Sunday.

The decision to proceed thoughtfully was good news for the 91-year-old Canadian Jewish Congress, which has raised fears that it would, in effect, dissolve if its name and identity were played down or lost altogether in a larger organization that would include four others.

Up the Liberal Jews forever! Somewhere, Ron Jeremy, their patron saint, is smiling.

CJC On Lemire Case: Wrong In Law

"The Supreme Court of Canada clearly ruled that s. 13 was constitutional long before the penalty provisions were added to it. As such, Mr. Hadjis should have simply ignored the penalty provisions and applied the appropriate cease and desist order against Mr. Lemire," [Joel Richler, CJC National Honourary Legal Counsel] added.

"This action is known as the doctrine of 'reading out' - a well-established practice endorsed by the Supreme Court of Canada under which the portion of a law that may be unconstitutional is edited out but the remaining constitutional elements are applied. Mr. Hadjis should have 'read out' of section 13(1) the penalty provisions and preserved the rest of the section. Mr. Hadjis failed to consider this option, even though the Supreme Court of Canada has been clear that section 13(1) is perfectly constitutional," Richler explained.

"This was a decision by a single member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. We should recall that there have been two previous decisions by the Tribunal that rejected the constitutional challenges to s. 13. In order to clarify the law, we strongly urge the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Mr. Warman to appeal this decision," CJC CEO Bernie Farber said.

Read the rest through the link.