Iran deal based on ‘fiction’, U.S. Jewish leader says

Actress Mayim Bialik, centre, poses with CJA general chair Barry Pascal and Women’s Philanthropy campaign chair Karen Soussan

The nuclear deal with Iran will provide the regime with more money to sponsor international terrorist groups and increase its own presence in the world, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said at the launch on the 2015 Combined Jewish Appeal (CJA) on Aug. 26.

The agreement between the United States and five other world powers, plus the European Union, has only emboldened Iran in its anti-American policy, he said. 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “mocked and fooled” the Americans and Europeans in the negotiations, he said, and the deal was reached on “the basis of fiction” spun by Iran. 

“They ran circles around us,” he said. “Rouhani knows what he pulled off…We not only lost, the world will lose.”

There are already 30,000 Iranian secret agents in South America and the regime has doubled its diplomatic missions on that continent, Hoenlein said, because of its proximity to North America.

Iran already controls four capitals in the Middle East: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana, and is making inroads in Sudan and Libya, he said.

Control of the region has become a battle between Iran and Turkey, which under Recep Erdogan, is also a serious threat to the world, according to Hoenlein, while ISIS is “building an empire.”

The campaign kickoff was meant to be a celebration, but Hoenlein, and another speaker, Israeli journalist Zvika Klein, left an impression that the situation of Jews is growing more worrisome.

Klein’s video report of the jeering, threats and spitting he experienced walking Paris streets over two days apparently because of his Jewish appearance drew “tens of millions” of views on the Internet and international media attention.

“The gates of hate have not closed 70 years after the gates of Auschwitz were opened,” Hoenlein said. “It’s hard to be optimistic.”

Rouhani, he said, is no less anti-Semitic than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “He just smiles more,” Hoenlein said.

He advised Jews to “throw off the yoke and stand up proudly and declare that Jerusalem is our eternal and indivisible capital” in the face of Arab attempts to deny the Jewish historical presence in Israel.

Klein wore a white kippah and dangling tzitzit as he walked with someone holding a hidden camera and a bodyguard through different Parisian districts a few weeks after the deadly terrorist attacks at Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper-Marché kosher store. He was hassled mostly in Muslim and immigrant neighbourhoods.

Although observant, Klein said he usually did not wear a kippah on his frequent trips to Europe out of concern for his safety.

The sight of thousands of heavily armed soldiers in the streets of Paris and throughout the country, especially around Jewish institutions, signals that “France has changed; it’s a whole different ball game,” he said.

He believes the number of French Jews immigrating to Israel this year will exceed the 7,000 last year.

If he drew any positive lesson from the experience, Klein said it is that those who hate Jews “see us all as Jews, not Ashkenazi or Sephardi, or religious or secular. If we did that, it would be amazing.”

American actress Mayim Bialik, the third guest speaker, lightened the atmosphere with her account of how she, the holder of a PhD in neuroscience, became a star of a popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory and earned four Emmy Award nominations.

She also spoke about her adoption of observant Judaism, which includes modest dress, not even baring her arms, something that sets her apart in Hollywood.

The 40-year-old mother of two grew up in a Reform home to “bohemian” parents in Los Angeles and attended public schools. Her parents were not well off, and the Jewish community subsidized the Jewish weekend camps she attended.

Speaking to Jewish federations is her way of thanking them for the support they gave her when she was a child. The camp experience contributed to her Jewish consciousness, and at UCLA she took a minor in Hebrew and Jewish studies and became a Hillel leader.

She is related to the Hebrew poet Hayim Nahman Bialik. He was her great-grandfather’s first cousin, a connection that gets her free admission to the Bialik Museum in Tel Aviv, she joked. 

More than 800 people, most of them volunteers that CJA relies upon, attended the launch held at New City Gas, a renovated mid-19th century former industrial building in Griffintown, now a trendy dance club and performance space.

The surprise entertainer of the evening was the Juno Award winner Trevor Guthrie, who had the crowd on its feet singing his hits, including Soundwave, the score of which is used in the campaign video theme song.

Campaign general chair Barry Pascal, the son of a child survivor of the Holocaust, affirmed that, “In Montreal, we have no concept of being afraid to be Jewish. Being a Jew, juif or yehudi is a badge of honour.”

Recalling how his mother, Dana Bell, his aunt and grandparents were welcomed and helped by the Montreal Jewish community when they arrived here with nothing after the war, Pascal said, “The lesson I learned in this community is that it is not ‘their kids’ and ‘our kids’; every Jewish child in Montreal or Israel or around the world at risk is taken care of.”

In 2015-16, Federation CJA allocated a total of over $34.4 million from last year’s campaign proceeds, 77 per cent of which was spent locally, mostly on social and educational needs.

Less than 10 per cent of campaign proceeds go to overhead. Corporate sponsorships, which for the fifth consecutive year amount to at least $1 million, help defray the cost of running the campaign, which concludes in November.

“Our campaign this year pays particular attention to the exponential power we have as a community,” Pascal said. “The opportunity is boundless. This is what sets Federation apart. This is what is at the heart of the collective gift. It speaks to the unparalleled depth and breadth of our organization.”