Canadian Anti-Hate Network founder Bernie Farber has always been a supremacist masquerading as anti-racist. But will greater recognition of this point change leftists view of those who’ve been ahead of the curve on the matter?
Recently, longtime journalist Bruce Livesey posted about the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and current board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network “being a progressive, intelligent and open-minded member of the Jewish community. I always enjoyed interviewing him. But somewhere along the line he took a hard turn to the right.”
Livesey pointed out that Farber was quoted in the new book The Jewish Moment saying:
After October 7th it was an entirely new world. Yes the left blamed the policies of Israel for what happened. I don’t buy into any of that shit, not for a moment. What happened on October 7th was a terror attack. Israel came to me with all its bumps and bruises, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to lose that. I’ve taken a lot of lumps for it from the left. But I don’t give a shit. I am a Zionist [Jewish supremacist colonialist]. That’s what I am. If Zionism means that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish [supremacist] state among all other states in the world, then I am a Zionist [racist]. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself.
Apparently, Farber posted the statement to his Facebook page to which Livesay responded “by calling him a racist, noting that he was supporting an apartheid state engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide and that religions shouldn’t have countries. Not surprisingly, Farber didn’t like being called a racist and defended his track record for fighting racism and then said if I continued to call him a racist, I would be blocked from his page.”
Many leftists and pro-Palestinians re-posted Livesey. Good. But Farber began working at the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1984 and has been an ardent Jewish supremacist for decades. When the Israeli military killed 1,400 Palestinians, including 345 children, over 22 days in 2008 and 2009, Farber denounced those protesting the slaughter across the country for their purported “vile, disgusting, hateful rhetoric of the kind that should be absolutely frightening to Canadians.” Further stoking anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, the then head of CJC labeled the protests “uncivil, un-Canadian, that demonize Jews and Israelis.”
In a 2010 letter to the Toronto Star denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week, Farber wrote that “to falsely accuse Israel, and by extension the vast majority of the world’s Jews who support the Jewish state, of ‘apartheid,’ is a form of anti-Semitic bullying.”
In a stunningly jingoistic speech after Israeli troops killed 10 international activists challenging the brutal siege of Gaza in 2010, Farber described the Turkish activists murdered by Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara as “thugs” who engaged in “savagery”. But Israeli commandos killed 10 when they boarded a humanitarian ship in international waters to enforce an illegal blockade of a small strip of land largely populated by Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes in 1948. In the speech Farber also celebrated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s participation in Toronto’s Walk for Israel and concluded by declaring we must “stand in support of Jewish honour and most important my friends we must stand today and always for Israel.”
Since the CJC went defunct in 2011 Farber hasn’t been front and centre in promoting apartheid. But he’s continued to actively enable Jewish supremacist colonialism and violence. Farber participated in attacks on the small left-wing anti-apartheid sandwich shop Foodbenders and eco-socialist minded British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn. In a 2020 debate Farber and Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Vice-President Richard Marceau argued in favor of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) anti-Palestinian definition of antisemitism and Farber was quoted promoting an odious 2022 report into antisemitism at the University of Toronto faculty of medicine that came in response to demonstrations of Palestine solidarity. In 2023 he labeled a rally at a Regavim event “an antisemitic act no matter how it is defined.” In June Canada sanctioned Regavim for facilitating and supporting extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
A decade ago, I questioned leftists working with one of Canada’s highest profile Jewish supremacists. In the 2018 article “Why do liberals and the progressive left align themselves with Bernie Farber?” I wrote, “despite this anti-Palestinian activity, many leftists and liberals partner with him. Alt-weekly Toronto Now regularly publishes Farber’s articles; anti-racist journalist/activist Desmond Cole spoke with him at a recent forum put on by Farber’s Mosaic Institute; Judy Rebick, Sandy Hudson, Jerry Dias and others co-authored an op-ed with Farber calling on ‘Progressive Voters To Rally Around Andrea Horwath’; a slew of individuals have supported the new Farber-chaired Canadian Anti-Hate Network; the Treyf podcast interviewed him twice last year; the Torontoist quoted him in an article titled ‘Toronto’s Jewish Left is Alive and Well and Resisting Extremism.’”
Fortunately, more now see Farber as a supremacist. But how many leftists and ‘anti-Zionist’ Jews who’ve worked to ‘cancel’ me and others for raising this and similar points will reflect on it?
During a quarter century of writing and activism on this subject, I’ve seen the pendulum shift whereby positions many pro-Palestinian Jews and leftists labelled “antisemitic” — BDS, antizionism, the term “Jewish supremacy”, discussing Jewish institutional power, mocking Canada’s antisemitism envoy, calling Gaza a “holocaust”, etc. — became widely accepted.
My pendulum pushing view of Farber is he established the Canadian Anti-Hate Network to provide (sophisticated) “anti-racist” cover to Jewish supremacist colonialism. His ‘anti-racist’ work is principally designed to influence a movement that should be campaigning against a nakedly supremacist state/movement.
Another high-profile example of this supremacist pathology is Irwin Cotler. His international human rights campaigning is principally a way to accumulate influence in certain milieus to defend his beloved genocidal state.
Cotler, Farber and other Zionists have used their influence in various parts of the left to distract, obfuscate and confuse some people regarding the reality of a racist, genocidal apartheid state that is supported by a network of schools, camps, synagogues, community centres etc. in Canada. As their influence dies, they start to attack the left and reveal themselves as the anti-Palestinian racists they have always been.
has always been a supremacist masquerading as anti-racist. But will greater recognition of this point change leftists view of those who’ve been ahead of the curve on the matter?
Recently, longtime journalist Bruce Livesey posted about the former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and current board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network “being a progressive, intelligent and open-minded member of the Jewish community. I always enjoyed interviewing him. But somewhere along the line he took a hard turn to the right.”
Livesey pointed out that Farber was quoted in the new book “The Jewish Moment” saying: “After October 7th it was an entirely new world. Yes the left blamed the policies of Israel for what happened. I don’t buy into any of that shit, not for a moment. What happened on October 7th was a terror attack. Israel came to me with all its bumps and bruises, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to lose that. I’ve taken a lot of lumps for it from the left. But I don’t give a shit. I am a Zionist [Jewish supremacist colonialist]. That’s what I am. If Zionism means that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish [supremacist] state among all other states in the world, then I am a Zionist [racist]. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself.”
Apparently, Farber posted the statement to his Facebook page to which Livesay responded “by calling him a racist, noting that he was supporting an apartheid state engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide and that religions shouldn’t have countries. Not surprisingly, Farber didn’t like being called a racist and defended his track record for fighting racism and then said if I continued to call him a racist, I would be blocked from his page.”
Many leftists and pro-Palestinians re-posted Livesey. Good. But Farber began working at the Canadian Jewish Congress in 1984 and has been an ardent Jewish supremacist for decades. When the Israeli military killed 1,400 Palestinians, including 345 children, over 22 days in 2008 and 2009, Farber denounced those protesting the slaughter across the country for their purported “vile, disgusting, hateful rhetoric of the kind that should be absolutely frightening to Canadians.” Further stoking anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, the then head of CJC labeled the protests “uncivil, un-Canadian, that demonize Jews and Israelis.”
In a 2010 letter to the Toronto Star denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week, Farber wrote that “to falsely accuse Israel, and by extension the vast majority of the world’s Jews who support the Jewish state, of ‘apartheid,’ is a form of anti-Semitic bullying.”
In a stunningly jingoistic speech after Israeli troops killed 10 international activists challenging the brutal siege of Gaza in 2010, Farber described the Turkish activists murdered by Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara as “thugs” who engaged in “savagery”. But Israeli commandos killed 10 when they boarded a humanitarian ship in international waters to enforce an illegal blockade of a small strip of land largely populated by Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes in 1948. In the speech Farber also celebrated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s participation in Toronto’s Walk for Israel and concluded by declaring we must “stand in support of Jewish honour and most important my friends we must stand today and always for Israel.”
Since the CJC went defunct in 2011 Farber hasn’t been front and centre in promoting apartheid. But he’s continued to actively enable Jewish supremacist colonialism and violence. Farber participated in attacks on the small left-wing anti-apartheid sandwich shop Foodbenders and eco-socialist minded British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn. In a 2020 debate Farber and Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Vice-President Richard Marceau argued in favor of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) anti-Palestinian definition of antisemitism and Farber was quoted promoting an odious 2022 report into antisemitism at the University of Toronto faculty of medicine that came in response to demonstrations of Palestine solidarity. In 2023 he labeled a rally at a Regavim event “an antisemitic act no matter how it is defined.” In June Canada sanctioned Regavim for facilitating and supporting extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
A decade ago, I questioned leftists working with one of Canada’s highest profile Jewish supremacists. In the 2018 article “Why do liberals and the progressive left align themselves with Bernie Farber?” I wrote, “despite this anti-Palestinian activity, many leftists and liberals partner with him. Alt-weekly Toronto Now regularly publishes Farber’s articles; anti-racist journalist/activist Desmond Cole spoke with him at a recent forum put on by Farber’s Mosaic Institute; Judy Rebick, Sandy Hudson, Jerry Dias and others co-authored an op-ed with Farber calling on ‘Progressive Voters To Rally Around Andrea Horwath’; a slew of individuals have supported the new Farber-chaired Canadian Anti-Hate Network; the Treyf podcast interviewed him twice last year; the Torontoist quoted him in an article titled ‘Toronto’s Jewish Left is Alive and Well and Resisting Extremism.’”
Fortunately, more now see Farber as a supremacist. But how many leftists and ‘anti-Zionist’ Jews who’ve worked to ‘cancel’ me and others for raising this and similar points will reflect on it?
During a quarter century of writing and activism on this subject, I’ve seen the pendulum shift whereby positions many pro-Palestinian Jews and leftists labelled “antisemitic” — BDS, antizionism, the term “Jewish supremacy”, discussing Jewish institutional power, mocking Canada’s antisemitism envoy, calling Gaza a “holocaust”, etc. — became widely accepted.
My pendulum pushing view of Farber is he established the Canadian Anti-Hate Network to provide (sophisticated) “anti-racist” cover to Jewish supremacist colonialism. His ‘anti-racist’ work is principally designed to influence a movement that should be campaigning against a nakedly supremacist state/movement.
Another high-profile example of this supremacist pathology is Irwin Cotler. His international human rights campaigning is principally a way to accumulate influence in certain milieus to defend his beloved genocidal state.
Cotler, Farber and other Zionists have used their influence in various parts of the left to distract, obfuscate and confuse some people regarding the reality of a racist, genocidal apartheid state that is supported by a network of schools, camps, synagogues, community centres etc. in Canada. As their influence dies, they start to attack the left and reveal themselves as the anti-Palestinian racists they have always been.