Good grief

Hardly a day goes by when the Canadian Jewish Congress doesn't put out a press release hectoring the government to enforce some form of state censorship against its political enemy of the day. Here's a list of all of their news releases for 2008 so far: a third have been about thought crimes.

Is this really what the Canadian Jewish Congress is about? I remember attending Jewish day school and being taught that the Jewish way was argument and debate and analysis and persuasion, and that it was our historical enemies who had resorted to violence over reason. The Jewish Talmud is one big debate between scholars Hillel and Shammai. To this day, in Jewish theological seminaries, students study in pairs, including for the specific reasons that they are to engage and challenge each other. There's even a cliche: "two Jews, three opinions". What happened to that tradition?

Is it a lack of confidence in our own skills to debate the Ahenakews and Zundels and Ickes of the world? Or is it a contempt for the intelligence of Gentiles, thinking they'll be fooled into turning against us? Is it just laziness? Or is it the intoxicating power of the tyrant -- the thrill of punishing one's enemies, and not having to debate or refute them?

Whatever the explanation, it's bloody embarrassing when the self-appointed spokesmen of the People of the Book now ban books.