Letter in the National Post (August 18, 2009 )
Re: Boycott to some, shunning to others (August 13)
This story mentions a document that was on the Independent Jewish Voices table at the United Church of Canada meeting in Kelowna, B.C. It was written by former Reagan administration official and Wall Street Journal editor Paul Craig Roberts. While Mr. Roberts says that the reality of the Nazi genocide is “buttressed by hard facts,” he implies that it is a legitimate form of historical inquiry to question the Holocaust.
Independent Jewish Voices absolutely reject this idea. Mr. Roberts’ article was not properly screened by us beforehand, does not reflect the views of our organization and should not have been on our table.
Andy Lehrer, for the Steering Committee of Independent Jewish Voices, Toronto.
The question, then, is why Independent Jewish Voices would allow a pamphlet that does not reflect your views to be distributed on your table.
Another question would be why an organization called “Independent Jewish Voices” would have collective views. By definition, each member should have his or her own independent view.
As to your good question, “why IJV would allow a pamphlet that does not reflect your views to be distributed on the table”, what happened was that someone not part of the IJV delegation asked us to put the pamphlets on the table, and we assumed they were OK without checking. So the fault was ours in not carefully checking the contents. As they say, you can’t judge a book by its cover.