Beryl Wajsman

Pay it forward. A faith that dares to care

During the holidays many of us tend to think all’s right with the world. Less so this year perhaps after the funny-money games of the greedy masters of the universe have caused the greatest economic dislocation since the depression. But too many still believe the advertising, the gimmicks and the statistics. The reality is there is much wrong. There is much pain. And the fleeting moments in those weeks when we decide to become more generous and giving, not only with money but with our time, rarely carry over into the rest of the year.

No fair play in education in Quebec

This past Monday, civil rights champion Brent Tyler told the Supreme Court of Canada that the Quebec government is violating the constitutional rights of immigrant parents by denying their children access to English-language public schools. Tyler added, and I concur wholeheartedly, that the policy could threaten the long-term viability of the English school system by eroding its student base. The issue this time is the constitutionality of Quebec’s Bill 104.

A very Canadian coup

Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot... - poem commemorating Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, 1605

Trivializing Hate, Hallmarks toward intolerance

This past week Rouba Elmerhebi Fahd, mother of the United Talmud Torah fire bomber, received a sentence of only twelve months probation after having been found guilty in September of being an accessory after the fact in the firebombing. The trial judge qualified the attack on the Jewish school as a terrorist act.

To Rouse The World From Fear

“I hear it said that West Berlin is militarily untenable - and so was Bastogne, and so, in fact, was Stalingrad. Any danger spot is tenable if men - brave men - will make it so.” ~President John F. Kennedy. Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That tragedy haunts us still. In many ways and at all times. The writer Mary McGrory said on that day that we shall never smile again. Daniel Patrick Moynihan answered no, we may smile again, but we’ll never be young again. For many it was the day hope died.

Police and their role

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Courtney Bishop let me recap the facts. Mr. Bishop, a citizen of colour, is a Concordia student and a member of its rugby team. Recently he and some twenty of his friends and teammates tried to enter the Sir Winston Churchill Pub on Crescent Street. All were dressed casually. All except Mr. Bishop were white.

Quebec’s misguided priorities

The launch of another election – this time on the Quebec provincial level - coming amidst the usual cornucopia of touchy-feely government initiatives, led me to reflect on whether we the people will really get to decide anything or are we just going to end up feeling like the proverbial pinball being whacked by messages that are meaningless produced by those who are mindless. You can decide.

Imagine…

“The Republican form of Government is the highest form of government; 
but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature.” ~ Herbert Spencer

Drumbeats of division

The tom-toms of the election call sound more like drumbeats of division than clarion calls to purpose. Prime Minister Harper was right in legislating a fixed election date for this country. He should stick to it.

The Big Easy North 
Montreal and the new prohibitionists

“Paris was always worth it, and you received in return whatever you brought to it. And this is how it was in the early days, when we were very happy. If you were lucky enough to have lived there, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris was a moveable feast.” ~ Ernest Hemingway


Freedom is indivisible

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

~ George Orwell

 We are now in the midst of a grievous struggle against an implacable Islamist foe whose demands hearken back to the hegemony of the theocratic tyrannies of the Middle Ages.

Justice done

Some one hundred years ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. constructed the foundational maxim of legitimate legal order: “Justice must be seen to be done as well as to be done.” These thirteen simple words embodied the hopes and strivings of those of compassionate conscience and noble purpose who recognized that a just society is predicated on the recognition of the claim by every citizen on a presumptive tolerance from the state.

What we’re for: Reflections on the Bouchard-Taylor Commission

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission’s recommendations stated many things very well. They echoed much that was obvious and most of the conclusions exhibited a great deal of common sense. But even coming in some twenty per cent below budget, a commendable achievement for a government mandate, common sense was the least we should have expected.

RFK: “A tiny ripple of hope…”

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” ~ Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon”, one of RFK’s favorite quotes

Enough is enough!

“We are a society of laws and not of men. But when bad men make bad laws, and when unprincipled officials compromise good ones, then citizens have a responsibility to protect their rights and exercise responsible agitation to keep governments from staggering drunkenly from wrong to wrong merely to preserve their own immortality.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi


Where’s the outrage?

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”

~Dante

Proportionality again?!

As Israel struggles to protect its citizens from the deadly rain of thousands of Qassam and Katyusha rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza bringing death and destruction to Ashkelon and Sderot, we are once again hearing cries around the world that Israel should exercise “caution” and react “proportionately”.

Division and discord

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire

To withstand comparisons

“It has been my lot to run the whole gamut of prejudices.. In 1896 I was excommunicated by the Roman priests, and in 1917 by Protestant parsons.”
~ Sir Wilfrid Laurier

The right to be let alone

“All civilized systems of law confer upon the people, as against their governments, the right to be let alone. That is the most comprehensive of rights and the most valued by civilized men.” — Justice Louis D. Brandeis