Last thoughts on Leo Adler

Today at my speech at the Jewish Civil Rights Association, I challenged Leo Adler of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to a proper debate. Considering he sat through about an hour of my monologue before being able to put a brief question in a Q and A session, you'd think he'd go for something a little more even-handed. I'd fly back to Toronto anytime to do it -- and I'm sure we'd get a helluva crowd. If 100 tickets to this event were sold on a couple of weeks' notice, I'm sure that a debate between the two of us could, truly, move close to 1,000. I'd be happy to donate the proceeds of such an event to a charity -- I'd pick Ken McVay's Nizkor project, because I care about rebutting Holocaust deniers, and I can't think of a guy who gets better bang for the buck.

Of course Adler won't debate me, though. He's not really into that sort of thing.

So why did he attend what must have been a frustrating, even demoralizing, event today?

Why did he pay money to listen to what must have sounded like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard for an hour?

Why did he suffer the gentle hostility of a room full of free speechers?

Because it's June. 2008, not January, 2008. In January, 2008, the idea of abolition the section 13 thought crimes provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act was unthinkable. Today it's being publicly advocated by federal cabinet ministers, and every media organ in the country from left to right.

Who knows? By the time December rolls around, by which time I expect true changes to be afoot, the bravest of the Official Jews might even deign to debate me. It's not something they're used to, but it's a very Jewish thing to do. They should try it some time.