JNF Canada Denies Censorship in Dumping ‘Divisive’ Noa
Image by Getty Images
JNF issued a statement Thursday explaining its stance, a day after Israel’s embassy in Ottawa and its consulate in Toronto and Western Canada announced they would step in and help sponsor the Yom Ha’atzmaut event in May.
Though JNF did not cite the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign specifically, its decision to pull its sponsorship of an event featuring the artist known as Noa followed a Jerusalem Post article — later retracted — that claimed Vancouver Jews were “outraged” over the singer’s upcoming performance at the event and alleging she supports BDS. An online petition, titled “Stop Achinoam Nini from performing at our Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration,” garnered hundreds of signatures.
“When we heard that the artist chosen to perform at this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration was one who has generated divisiveness both in Israel and throughout Diaspora communities, we were concerned,” JNF Canada CEO Josh Cooper and President Jerry Werger said in this week’s statement. “We consulted with Keren Keyemeth Le’Israel senior staff, JNF Canada and JNF Pacific Region leadership to discuss our responsibility to our constituency, many of whom had expressed discomfort with the artist’s views and organizational affiliations.
“At no time did we claim that the artist supported BDS. We contacted [the Vancouver federation] and agreed to disagree on the choice of entertainment and respectfully decided to take a one-year hiatus from sponsorship of the event.”
JNF said it was not “protesting, boycotting, delegitimizing or censoring this event. After hearing from so many of our donors, we simply are not comfortable using charitable funds to support this particular artist.”
Last June, JNF canceled an event in Ottawa that was to have featured Mike Huckabee after protesters charged the former Arkansas governor had made hateful remarks about transgender people.
JNF said it “respects Judaism’s rich tradition of debate and dissent. Nevertheless, we hold Jewish community harmony as our utmost priority.”
The Vancouver Israel Independence Day event will go forward as planned on May 11. JNF said it was looking forward to working with the federation on the event next year.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
