This overshadows even Russell Crowe’s gesture:
The kids come from Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Turkey and China. They’ve experienced famine, war and death. They know hatred when they see it.
When students from the All Rights Committee (ARC) and the Student Parliament at the Islington Junior Middle School [in Toronto] heard about the firebombing of the United Talmud Torahs (UTT) library in Montreal earlier this month, they responded quickly and collected $440 and 250 books to help UTT rebuild.
[ . . . ]
When the UTT arson happened, “we wanted to show the Jewish people that we care and that we think it should stop,” Sarah Gaikwad, 13, says.
The article says that every class in the school contributed something, as much as they could. These are the kids who are being taught the right values, and they should be applauded for their help.
Wow.
It might be relevant to put in that Islington is in Toronto — at first I thought this was foreign aid from schoolkids (which is kind of disturbing, that we’re somehow pulling charity for our own disturbing-but-limited problems when there are flattened neighbourhoods to rebuild and people who have to haul jugs several kilometres to get fresh water…), but all the people saying that Canadians are a zillion solitudes that don’t understand, like or help each other… well, these Islingtonian kids from all kinds of backgrounds are eroding that point.
Nice thing to wake up to, that.
As a jew, I’m very touched by all the attention. But, the vandalism was the action of a few thugs. What is even worse was the banning of the Jews at Concordia. This was much worse and much more intimidating to me because it was not the action of “thugs” but that of a respected institution. In this case racism was institutionalised. I know that there are people like Hanthala who believe that intimidating Canadian jews in this way is the best way to help the Palestinians, but I don’t agree with that view.
Jews weren’t banned at Concordia, Hillel was. And that received international attention and got big demonstrations against it too.