Honourable senators, I rise today in support of Bill S-232, An Act respecting Canadian Jewish Heritage Month. I am proud of my community, and it was a great honour for me to represent it. However, I must admit that I had a hard time deciding which aspects of this subject that is so near and dear to my heart I should focus on.

You have already heard about the history of the Jewish presence in Canada, the arrival of Esther Brandeau in 1738, disguised as a boy, as well as the waves of Jewish immigrants that arrived throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and that continue to settle here today.

You also heard about the role Canadian Jews have played in all sectors of Canadian society. When you can eat a smoked meat hamburger in Yellowknife, or a smoked meat poutine at La Banquise in Montreal — as a Montrealer, I am a little biased — and when you can go into any Tim Horton's and order a bagel —

— or something that passes for a bagel, no disrespect —

— you don't need me to explain the importance of Jewish food in the everyday lives of Canadians.

Nor, need I add, do I have to spend much time talking about the contribution of Canadian Jews to the arts. We listen to Leonard Cohen and to Drake. Yes, Drake is Jewish. We watch Sonia Benezra on TV. We go to see films by Ivan Reitman and now Jason Reitman in the theatres, and we tune into "Saturday Night Live" every week to see what Lorne Michaels has in store for us. Many of us — and I date myself here — grew up watching Wayne and Shuster on "The Ed Sullivan Show" or Lorne Greene on "Bonanza." I could go on and on.

The fact is that the very elegant and — allow me to say — moving speeches from Senators Frum, Wetston, Fraser and Jaffer simply make it unnecessary for me to catalogue the history of the Jewish presence in Canada, our struggles for equality, our achievements and our contribution to the social fabric of our country.

That said, I would encourage you to check out a wonderful website. It's called juifsdici.ca. It's an initiative of the Montreal Jewish federation, Federation CJA, to mark its one hundredth birthday.

On this site, you can learn more about Jewish Canadians who may be lesser known but nevertheless made their mark on Canadian history.

For example, you will meet Sigismund Mohr, an engineer credited with discovering hydro-electricity. He created the first urban electrical grid and introduced telephones to Quebec City in the 1880s. As the senator for Stadacona, I am particularly pleased to have a connection to this innovative pioneer.

You will also meet Jules Helbronner, who was the editor of La Presse from 1892 to 1908. You can even meet Harry Davis and other notorious Jewish gangsters. Yes, we also made a name for ourselves in more dubious circles.

On a sadder note, you'll also get a chance to learn about the life of a great Canadian who passed away tragically yesterday, Dr. Mark Wainberg, a friend and colleague, a world-renowned AIDS researcher, a discoverer of the antiviral drug 3TC, a fierce champion to make that drug accessible in Africa and elsewhere where people are suffering, accessible at an affordable price, and also an advocate for the opportunity of his colleagues in Quebec to share their scientific work in French. As you'll see from the remarks that follow, the late Dr. Wainberg exemplified the highest and best qualities that we expect of citizens of Canada and the contribution and values that underscore the Jewish contribution to Canada.

But I return to my question: What should I talk about? Because you know all of this. In true Jewish fashion, let me answer a question with another question, and the question is this: Why should we celebrate a heritage month or Jewish Heritage Month in particular? What can it teach us about who we are as Canadians? To answer this, let me begin by sharing a bit of my tradition with you. It is customary in Jewish circles to start an important meeting with some teachings from our Jewish texts as it provides a context for the issues to be discussed.

When I last rose in this chamber, I quoted a well-known religious leader who lived in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. Allow me to cite him again. Rabbi Hillel asked three questions:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

These three questions — and we Jewish people love asking questions — contain the key to understanding the contributions of the Jewish community to Canada and the significance of the bill that is before us today. The first question, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me," what does that mean? To me, it speaks of the Jewish belief in individual responsibility and the value of self-sufficiency. It helps us to understand why Jewish communities in every city and every town in this country and, indeed, around the world develop organizations and groupings to take care of fellow Jews in need. But it also explains Jewish entrepreneurship and the remarkable success that many Canadian Jews have enjoyed in a broad variety of business endeavours, and it also helps to explain the strong value that we place on education and on the pursuit of excellence, whether in the sciences, the arts or the professions.

The second question, ". . . if I am only for myself, what am I?" is the key to understanding how we view our responsibilities, not only to our own community but to the world at large. Our tradition teaches us that we have a responsibility to repair the world, a world that's broken, a world that is unjust, a world where too many people still don't live in freedom. How else to explain the large number of Jewish Canadians who have taken up progressive causes, like Lea Roback, a fearless human rights and social justice activist, feminist and labour organizer in Montreal during the 1930s and 1940s?

How can I explain how important philanthropy and helping one's neighbour are to us? The Hebrew word for charity is tzedakah, which shares the same etymological root as the Hebrew word for justice. Words are important. In Jewish tradition, helping others is not a matter of choice. It is a moral obligation, pure and simple.

The third question — "If not now, when?" — is subject to several interpretations, but I tend to view it as connected with another well-known teaching a few centuries after Hillel, when Rabbi Tarfon wrote the following:

You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.

Our tradition focuses on our relationships with our fellow human beings here on earth. Rewards there may be in an afterlife. It is a concept that is present but not very well developed in Jewish religious thought. The focus of Jewish tradition is on the here and now. We have a responsibility to act in the world, to seek justice for all, to be kind to strangers — for we were strangers in foreign lands — and, above all, to try to do our part to make the world a better place, and every day counts.

This may explain how impatient — some might, unkindly, say pushy — we sometimes can be, but it also explains our drive and determination to get things done.

I return to my question. Why should we support this bill to establish a Jewish heritage month in Canada? It is because it will give us an opportunity to reflect upon the underlying core values that have characterized the Canadian Jewish experience: respect for individual rights and beliefs, the importance of education and self-improvement; and the obligation to care for our family, our friends and all those who are less fortunate than us.

[Translation]

These values are deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition, but they are also part of the Canadian tradition. Although we may not always live up to those ideals, they deserve to be pursued, nourished, and yes, finally recognized.

I would like to conclude my remarks with the idea of a challenge and with the hope that establishing Canadian Jewish heritage month will be an opportunity for us to work together toward a fairer, more prosperous and more inclusive Canada.