Canadian Zionist Federation Trying to Exclude LAVI

When LAVI Canada submitted our application for entry to the World Zionist Congress, it was expected to be a formality. With half a decade of experience in organizing on campus and with the movement expanding across the country to Calgary, the rejection and continued efforts to exclude LAVI Canada from entry to the Canadian Zionist Federation (CZF) comes as a bit of a surprise. Especially since other groups granted entry fell short of some of these requirements we met.

The Zionist movement as a whole has in recent decades struggled with engaging younger Diaspora Jews and claims to consider this a priority. At the 2011 and 2015 World Zionist Congresses, there had been motions and vain efforts to engage younger Jews in the Zionist movement. 

Yet while the Zionist establishment seem to be keen on younger members, they are not interested in new ideas. While they want our generation active in local and national federations, their mandate simultaneously excludes the voices of youth-run organizations. 

It surprisingly doesn’t feel as if it’s our political affiliation that’s threatening to the establishment but rather the challenge we pose to long-standing organizational norms.

Younger activists put off by the structures built by a previous generation of Zionists often find a home in LAVI. But now they’re being told by the federation that their organization is invalid. The CZF is effectively telling them that their voices can never be fully heard in the Zionist world. 

In listing reasons why in their view, LAVI Canada was not an actual organization, the federation argued that LAVI’s events were somehow not legitimate since there was no evidence vis-a-vis program ads in the CJN or program fliers. LAVI Canada, however, keeping with their student-run organizational structure, advertised in financially feasible ways, through social media and word of mouth. 

“Activists and organizations are welcome under their umbrella,” a fellow LAVI member told me. “So long as they don’t point out that it’s not raining.”

The federation cannot ignore the fact that our organization has met every requirement for entry to the CZF so they must question our very existence as an organization. 

We have of course appealed the federation’s decision to exclude us and a hearing has been set with the CZF for January 9. 

If the federation insists on excluding LAVI Canada, they will only strengthen criticism of the Zionist establishment and further alienate our generation.