More than 1200 delegates from all over Canada and abroad attended the first session of the 1980 plenary Assembly of the Canadian Jewish Congress, a triennial event which opened here today and will continue through May 4. Participating were such personages as Baron Alain de Rothschild, president of the Representative Council of French Jewry (CRIF), who came here from Paris; Ambassador Yehuda Blum, Israel’s chief representative to the United Nations; Prime Minister William Davis of Ontario; and Robert Kaplan, Solicitor General of Canada.
The initial discussion this morning, devoted to Canadian-Israeli relations, heard an appeal from Harold Buchwald, president of the Canada-Israel Committee for unity within the Canadian Jewish community. “Those occupying important pasts in the (Jewish) community have a special duty to keep their differences within the community by avoiding conflicts between Jews, “he said. “A responsible community speaks with one voice. I urge you to unite before the danger becomes larger.”
Buchwald spoke of the events which followed former Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark’s campaign pledge to move the Canadian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, noting that it was later rescinded on the recommendation of Robert Stanfield, Clark’s personal emissary to the Middle East, because of pressure from Arab governments and Canadian business interests.
“It is a sorry and scary experience for those engaged in promoting Israel’s interests in the non-Jewish community,” Buchwald said. “For the first time in Israel’s history it appeared that we were confronted with the tip of an iceberg of hostility and it marks the low point of Canadian-Israeli relations. The acceptance of Stanfield’s report by Clark set Canadian-Israeli relations three steps back.”
According to Buchwald, the most unfortunate aspects of Stanfield’s report were its recommendations to increase communications with the Palestine Liberation Organization, to bring the PLO into the Mideast peace process and its premise that Canada profits from huge amounts of business with Arab countries.
COTLER HONORED
In a parallel event last night, Prof. Irwin Cotler of the McGill University Law School received the first annual Human Rights Lectureship by Bar Hah University in Israel. The presentation was made by the former Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Mordechai Shalev, who flew here for the occasion.
Cotler, who is counsel to Prisoner of Conscience Anatoly Shcharansky, said that Shcharansky has emerged as the “symbol and substance of the struggle for human rights and Jewish dignity.” Canadian Poet Laureate Irving Layton read a special poem dedicated to Shcharansky. The evening was co-sponsored by the Bar Han University’s Institute for Holocaust Studies, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee and other national groups.
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