Canadian Friends of Peace Now is deeply dismayed that a leading member of Canada’s progressive Jewish community was fired from her job at a mainstream Jewish organization after standing up for her beliefs on Israeli politics.
Maytal Kowalski is on the board of JSpaceCanada and the New Israel Fund of Canada, both strong allies of Canadian Friends of Peace Now. Until recently she was also an employee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
However, last week Kowalski was dismissed after publicly disagreeing with the Federation’s CEO, Ezra Shanken, about what should be done here in Canada regarding the Netanyahu government’s assault on Israeli democracy. Kowalski’s story is another sign that mainstream Jewish organizations are out of step with a growing segment of the Jewish community and are attempting to silence dissent.
Kowalski spoke out during a meeting on July 24 between Shanken and members of Vancouver’s UnXeptable movement, which protests the judicial overhaul taking place in Israel. She says she attended the meeting as a private citizen, rather than in an official capacity with the Federation.
When Shanken told the meeting that little can be done from outside Israel to influence the judicial reform issue and that the Federation has done its part, behind closed doors, Kowalski urged much stronger action. She did not directly criticize the Federation, but she argued for a stronger Canadian government stance on supporting Israeli democracy and opposing Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. The next day the Federation dismissed Kowalski from her marketing and communications job, which she had held for about one year.
The reason given for the termination was that she had spoken to her employer disrespectfully and unprofessionally in public. But Kowalski has no doubt she was fired because of her political stance.
In an email to CFPN, Kowalski says she hopes her story will motivate her fellow progressive Jews to become more engaged with mainstream Jewish organizations, and to pressure for change, rather than turning away from them. These organizations do important work, she says.
“So we need to still be in the community, as our whole selves, we need to demand to be accepted, and we need to ensure that our voices, our worldviews, and our politics are also reflected in that work that they do…. The best thing people can do… is to courageously fight against this system of discrimination for the good of the future of the Jewish community in Canada.”
Read the full story of Maytal Kowalski’s firing in the Canadian Jewish News here.
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