Let's call it "Jews against book burning"

What can Canadian Jews do about the fact that the ethnic hustler who claims to represent us -- Bernie "Burny" Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress -- has hijacked the Jewish community's voice with his own radical, left-wing agenda?

It matters, because just like people might mistakenly believe that "human rights commissions" protect human rights, people might mistakenly believe that the Canadian Jewish Congress represents Canadian Jews. They don't.

I first realized what a bunch of partisan political hacks they were back in 1992, when the CJC endorsed the Charlottetown Accord, a constitutional amendment that had absolutely nothing to do with Jewish or Israel affairs. It was sheer prostitution for the sake of government grants and Burny was an exceedingly eager lass.

It's 2008, and Burny has moved even further to the left -- while Canadian Jews have, if anything, become more conservative, especially on the key issue of the day: the threat of radical Islam. Burny, by contrast, is shovelling Jewish charity money out the door to the Somali community. Huh?

Of course, the most embarrassing thing is Burny's fetish for book-burning. It's not surprising that his latest recruit is Warren "Adscam" Kinsella, who joined the CJC as a consolation prize after he was fired from the National Post. It's fitting, because both Burny and Kinsella believe in the 21st century analog to Nazi book burning: Internet censorship. The fact that Kinsella is a partisan Liberal hack means he fits right in with Burny and the CJC; the fact that a judicial inquiry found that Kinsella's unethical conduct during the Sponsorship scandal was "highly inappropriate" means that, like Burny, he has no problem with the corruption of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. And the fact that Kinsella sees a Nazi under every bed -- and in some boys' bathrooms -- fits in with the CJC just fine, too. Kinsella and Burny will do anything to avoid seeing the evil in radical Islam -- Kinsella actually gave help and advice to the anti-Semitic Canadian Islamic Congress. But they think Canada is overrun with Nazis -- including anyone who dares to criticize them.

So what can a Canadian Jew do?

I was talking about this with my father the other day, and he told me what he did several months ago.

Earlier this fall Calgary's United Jewish Appeal -- the Jewish community's central charity, like the United Way -- called him for his annual donation. My father agreed, of course, but insisted that none of his funds be sent to the CJC, which receives a small percentage of all Calgary UJA proceeds.

My father is not the biggest donor in Calgary, of course. But he's a serious contributor. And he was adamant that not a dime of his money go to the CJC and its book-burners.

The UJA was happy to comply, and they even went so far as to set up a separate bank account for my father's donation, with the promise that none of it would go to the CJC, and that it wouldn't "replace" other money that could be diverted to the CJC.

Again, there are bigger donors than my dad in town; and Calgary doesn't send a lot of dough to Burny's CJC. (The CJC feels the same way about Calgary, of course -- Calgary and Winnipeg were the only two Jewish communities not to go along with Burny's demand that we support the Charlottetown Accord. He's never forgiven Calgary for that, and we've never stopped calling him a lady of the night.)

What would happen if dozens, even hundreds, even thousands of Canadian Jews politely asked that their donations to UJA be "ethical donations" -- that they not go to the unethical CJC, with Book Burning Burny and Warren "Adscam" Kinsella steering the ship?

I mean, seriously: just about every other charity on the UJA's list is more worthy than the CJC's fetish for censorship. That's not even a charity -- that's the Liberal party at prayer.

And even if Jews wanted to support censorship (there might be a few, though they probably all work for the CHRC), would it really make sense to send money to an organization with Kinsella on board? This was a man who, when he was chief of staff to a Liberal cabinet minister, demanded that the civil service divert money to Chuck Guite, the criminal at the center of Adscam. Even if I were a Jewish censor like Harvey Goldberg or Ian Fine, I'd want to make sure Kinsella had no control over the CJC's budget.

So when the UJA calls you, give and give generously. Just make sure you say you want to make an "ethical donation" -- one where none of the funds are allowed into the hands of the CJC. If you're in Calgary, they already know how to do that. If you're elsewhere, tell them how Calgary does it, and for them to do the same.

If our new group -- call it "Jews against book burning" -- can divert even just a few thousand dollars away from Burny and Adscam towards real charity, well that's what I'd call a mitzvah.