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Protesters gathered Tuesday afternoon outside the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal in Snowdon to voice their opposition to the synagogue hosting a trade fair called ‘The Great Israeli Real Estate Event’. The group, Independent Jewish Voices — Montreal, has an issue with the trade fair selling properties in three Israeli settlements in the West Bank whose legality is the subject of fierce dispute. Those settlements are Neve Daniel, Ma’ale Adumim and Efrat.

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“It’s not a synagogue event at all, the synagogue is just hosting a real estate tour that is advertising properties, including properties in internationally recognized illegal Israeli settlements,” said Sarah Boivin from Independent Jewish Voices. “We really did not want to be there (today). We started an email and call campaign from concerned community members, really asking the synagogue to take leadership and be a force for unity right now and just cancel the event. It was as simple as that. And the synagogue issued a statement to its members yesterday saying this was intimidation and that they weren’t going to cancel the event. So unfortunately we have had to ask Jews in Montreal and our allies to gather today to really show that it’s unacceptable for our religious and cultural spaces to be used for that kind of purpose.”

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Reverend Hazan Daniel Benlolo from the Spanish and Jewish Synagogue contested the notion that these settlements are illegal.

“They’re disputed areas, but it doesn’t make them out of reach to Israeli citizens or the Jewish community,” Benlolo said. “It’s going to be disputed no matter what it is even if it’s not these areas. Tel Aviv is going to be disputed. Jerusalem is disputed. So what, does that mean that people have to stop doing everything and living? … We’re going to agree to disagree … that they don’t want us to sell land and we’re in the position that we want to sell the land or the properties that are rightfully ours, rightfully (belong) to the Jewish people. It’s going to be a long-standing fight and it’s going to be disastrous for everybody at the end of the day because we have to come to a conclusion that the land of Israel is the land of our forefathers.”

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Boivin from the protesters group said it’s disappointing to hear the leader of a synagogue justifying this event.

“It’s a real shame for me to hear that kind of mentality coming from our community leaders,” said Boivin. “That to be Jewish we have to support the sale of land in illegal settlements or the massacre of 30,000 people (in Gaza) in a four-month period. We are really working as an organization to rebuild Jewish communities that are justice-oriented and that exist beyond Zionism because Zionism has never been equal to what Judaism is. Judaism is so much more and I really think our community leaders are stirring division when they don’t give people the option to stand for human rights and still live as full Jews in the community.”

But Benlolo argues that to cancel the event is to give in to intimidation.

“I myself was even thinking at one point, ‘Why are we doing this right now?’ ” Benlolo said. “And we did have the intention to pull out … and then we changed our mind because if we cave in all the time, we’ll have to stop doing things we need to do just because we have some pressure from the Palestinians or from those that are extremists. If we cave in all the time, we might as well throw (in) the towel. So we decided, no this time we’re going to go ahead. I mean we’re doing so many things in the Jewish community that could seem antagonizing but it’s not. It’s just living. It’s just going about our regular day.”

bkelly@postmedia.com

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