Authoritarian Jewish supremacists are crowing about canceling a talk about the US empire. With Israel killing 11 human beings in Lebanon Saturday and a minister demanding 30+ be killed in Gaza daily, a ‘peace-minded’ Toronto Jewish restaurant owner bolstered her community’s most fervent authoritarian, genocidal supremacists. And she will no doubt feel like a ‘liberal’ for assisting in securing an alternative venue.
On Tuesday lawyer and journalist Dimitri Lascaris was scheduled to speak on “The Imminent Decline and Fall of the American Empire”. Late Saturday the owner of Toronto’s “Free Times Café” cancelled the event booking.
Celebrating their censorship, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism posted the publicity for the talk with the message “event cancelled” superimposed and the message, “Phew! That’s a relief. Free Times Cafe owner Judy really turned it around. We are so grateful to the organizations that helped us advocate. When our community works together, we are amazing.”
For their part, Tafsik Organization posted an image of the event with “cancelled” drawn through it. They stated, “Jew haters always lose. @dimitrilascaris Your event has been cancelled. Thank you to the Free Times Cafe! Tafsik is always going to advocate for our community. Shavua Tov [good week] everyone!”
Israel Now’s Meir Weinstein posted the “cancelled” image with “Good work everyone. The event is canceled.” Weinstein had previously posted, “Please contact the Jewish owned Free Times Cafe and ask them to cancel this anti Israel pro ‘Armed Resistance’ event.”
Judy Perly admitted in three different messages that she cancelled the event due to pressure from genocidal Jewish supremacists. Perly wrote, “The Jewish community is in uproar over this and they made me aware that he’s considered a big antisemite. Whatever it is it has to be canceled. I’m sorry. Judy.”
A follow up statement repeated the point. Perly wrote, “Hi Barry, you need to know that your speaker Dimitri is perceived by the Jewish community as an antisemite. I received a flood of messages telling me that if he spoke at Free Times, they would never come again and none of their friends would come again and all kinds of Jewish organizations contacted me about this.”
In a third message Perly added, “As it is my [Jewish themed] brunch reservations just went down from an average of 35 to 40 to 7. I understand what you’re talking about, but the Jewish community can be very emotional — and any perception of negativity towards anything Jewish or unfortunately Israel spreads like wild fire & is immediately labeled anti-Semitic.”
With a cafe in the “liberal/left” Kensington market, Perly frames herself as peace-minded Jewish Torontonian. But she has just bolstered open bigots and supporters of genocide in her community. She’s also (inadvertently) confirmed that few Jewish-owned institutions will defend free speech or simple humanism when it comes to the wanton slaughter of Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians. Whether its substantive ideological agreement, familial ties, a sort of Jewish ‘nationalism’ or different forms of financial leverage, Jewish institutions overwhelmingly concede to bloodthirsty fanatic supremacists.
The hardline Jewish supremacists who pressed Judy Perly centred her Jewishness in their campaign to repress speech precisely because they understand the religious/ethnic dynamic.
Whether the institutions state it crassly or just uphold it in practice, an authoritarian, genocidal supremacist ethos prevails among mainstream Jewish organizations in Canada. It’s pathetic and sad, but more important, odious.
Please email owner Judy Perly to condemn her decision to censor democratic discourse and bolster supporters of genocide.
The new venue for the August 18, 7pm, “The Imminent Decline and Fall of the American Empire” is Taco Taco restaurant (319 Augusta Ave.).
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