I was asked just before Shabbat to provide a personal statement which a lawyer will draft into an affidavit to block the Zionist request for an injunction to block the Al Quds Day rally in Toronto tomorrow. Because this is one of my communities here, I want to share here what I wrote:
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I am Rabbi David Mivasair, a 74-year-old retired Canadian rabbi currently residing in Hamilton, Ontario. I served for nearly 25 years as the spiritual leader of two Vancouver synagogues, as a spiritual care provider for the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia and the chaplain of the largest homeless shelter in British Columbia about fifteen years ago. I am a member of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. I also hold a Master of Social Work degree and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity.
I have lived in Israel for four years and have returned a number of times to support the work on the ground there for peace and justice for everyone living in that land. I speak, read and write Hebrew and have been directly, personally involved with Israel and Palestine for well over fifty years.
I am very aware of real antisemitism in our society. And, I am very aware of the intentional misuse of accusations of antisemitism for political reasons in our society as well.
I am directly, personally familiar with the Al Quds Day rally in Toronto. I was a speaker at the Al Quds Day rally on April 15, 2023. I was invited by the organizers to speak at the rally as a rabbi, as exactly who I am. I am a Jew, a rabbi and, at this time in my life, I am an anti-Zionist, which is a perfectly legitimate position for anyone to hold on the question of Israel and Palestine.
When I spoke at the Al Quds Day rally in 2023, other rabbis spoke there as well, as they do every year. Like me, they are also anti-Zionist Jews. None of us are anti-Jewish or antisemitic in any way. That is a preposterous proposition.
Zionist organizations promote the belief that the Al Quds Day rally is antisemitic in order to shut down the public expression of completely legitimate political speech.
There is absolutely no danger to any Jews anywhere because of what is said and done at the Al Quds Day rally. No one there expresses any intention to hurt any Jews in any way. There is no advocacy of violence.
At the Al Quds Day rally there are calls for the elimination of the State of Israel. I myself make those calls. The State of Israel is a thoroughly racist endeavor which was founded on the expulsion and elimination of the majority of the Palestinian population of Palestine in 1948. It continues at the present to enforce on Palestinians over whom it rules a regime which most objective observers agree is accurately described as apartheid. And even at this very time, the State of Israel is conducting war crimes and what is determined by most experts to be a genocide against Palestinians. Calls for the elimination of the State of Israel are calls for it to be replaced by a state in which all are equal, just as in Canada. The elimination of the State of Israel is not synonymous with the elimination of or any harm to the Jewish population in Israel or any Jews anywhere in any way. It is simply the call for Jews in Israel to end their regime of ethnically-based domination and extreme inequality.
Any claim of feeling fear by any Jews with regard to Al Quds Day, if it is in fact sincere and real, is because of their own intense identification with the State of Israel and their feeling that they will be harmed if the State of Israel ceases to exist. People feel fear for many reasons. Not all fear, which is a subjective emotion, actually correlates to any real threat. The feelings of fear expressed by some Jews regarding the Al Quds Day rally have no basis in anything at all that anyone says or does at that rally. Those feelings are simply their feelings. That does not mean that there is any actual, external reason for them to feel fear. Although there is strong rhetoric against the State of Israel, there is absolutely no threat to Jews. Claims by some Jews to feel fear need to be assessed in light of the reality that there is in fact no threat or danger to them. The subjective feelings of some people are not a basis on which to deny the charter rights of others.
BREAKING: Chinese workers in Israel were BARRED from bomb shelters after warning sirens sounded.
"I find it almost impossible to feel sympathy for Israelis," said one Chinese national.
Israel is opening one way only for people from Gaza to get out and never come back again. Israel allowed the food to be stolen or kept aside and not delivered to the starving children in Gaza. Israel is not doing what it should be doing as the person responsible for the genocide.
Israelis do not allow anyone who isn't a white Jewish Israeli citizen into their shelters. It doesn't matter if the person is working in their homes, office buildings, or a contract migrant worker from another country like China, India, or Africa. BIPOC are expendable to them.
BREAKING:
Spainโs MEP Irene Montero:
โBecause no one stopped the genocide in Gaza, the United States and Israel are now targeting Venezuela and Iran.โ
โWe must isolate the U.S. and Israel now, so they can no longer spread terror across the globe.โ
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