Some folks held a demonstration Sunday in front of the Jewish library in support of author Elise Gravel. Her pro‑Palestinian statements were judged antisemitic recently and her books – which as far as I know are not on that subject – were removed from their open shelves.
Adding this link to photos on X from No Borders Media.
Silo57 has the first preview of this year’s Nuit blanche, which will be on March 2 this year.
Exactly 150 years ago the city made St Helen’s Island into a public park. Vincent Larin traces the stages of its evolution through Expo 67 to Parc Jean‑Drapeau.
Interesting Le Devoir piece on how not to leave buildings empty needlessly. Vacant buildings inevitably deteriorate, leading to decrepitude and ruin – the house that collapsed this week on Van Horne is a small but telling example. Marco Fortier has a look at what’s been happening in the old Voyageur terminus, and he also points out that European cities have been more tolerant of “transitional occupation” than we are here.
Here’s a shot I took of the Van Horne collapse. Street is still blocked off.
Good photo – thanks, Ian.
Isn’t the owner supposed to deal with the debris, and as quickly as possible? Or will the city cart it away and send them a bill?
That house next door to the collapse doesn’t look too solid either.
Yeah all those big beams propping it up are new, but it’s just a facade too.
Only the façades of the two buildings remained, and if you walked in the back alley you could see they were barely propped by by some wood frames. Swimko owns the property and has approval to build a six-storey apartment building that incorporates the existing façades, but the development has been delayed for years:
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/outrelux-1100-1128-van-horne-6-etages/2242
Maybe they were just waiting for the façades to conveniently collapse.
Swimko are behind a lot of developments in the area, and yes, those facades have been exposed to the weather for over a year.
Hopefully the ground-up condo project they have the next block over is being built to code, but I have my doubts.
It’s a slow news day, so the week’s stories are being recycled. CBC is looking at the plan to use AI to spot metro jumpers, which was reported last week in La Presse and discussed here; CTV reports on artists being priced out of affordable studio spaces, which has been happening for a decade or more; CBC is pushing hard on the police use of genetic clues to solve cold cases, which it first posted last week. The SPVM is going to have to find a way to embark on genetic policing.
Incidentally, journalists love the genetic cold case theme. It’s got everything – crime, family drama, a bit of history, a bit of science. I respect journalists but you have to spot them building a narrative that will generate more material. In Montreal, sports journalists tried hard to get a professional baseball team back, for example. Of course they did. A major league team generates excitement and is an endless source of the side stories that are their bread and butter. Likewise, the genetic cold case angle builds great stories to tell. The fact that in most cases you’d end up arresting very old people who did something reprehensible decades ago fades before the demand for justice.
jeather 19:59 on 2024-02-11 Permalink
I’m fascinated that none of these articles link to specific statements of hers that people are responding to. (She did remove the post about the skin bank and apologized for not checking her sources.) I admit I only clicked on a few of them but they seemed fine — I blinked a bit when she described someone as an “Israeli Jew journalist” but I think that was a second language mistake. I have also some other disagreements with some of her instagram posts, and I think I could make a good argument that calling Israel, and only Israel, out as a country that gives more rights to people of a specific religion out is antisemitic, but overall the posts that I read are fairly clearly talking about Israel and Israeli politicians, not Jews as a whole or even Israelis as a group.
Ian 20:30 on 2024-02-11 Permalink
It’s complex, but navigable – and Gravel is doing a good job of it. For everyone wondering how to navigate this, I think this article is a great explanation:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic
bob 00:06 on 2024-02-12 Permalink
The myth is a myth – the argument is not that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic, but that one of the pervasive and socially acceptable, even lauded, expressions of antisemitism comes in the form of the age-old tropes and memes that are used to support anti-Zionist arguments. It’s acknowledging you farted but denying the smell.
JS 10:25 on 2024-02-12 Permalink
Does she regularly express sympathy for other beleaguered peoples around the world or voice opinions on any other wars in general? Or any other situations to which terms like “apartheid”, “genocide”, or “colonialism” cannot be unfairly applied? Does she engage in actual criticism of the Netanyahu government’s conduct or does she merely parrot the demonization of “Zionists” that characterizes the public policy positions of other MENA countries? Does she endorse the position promulgated by Hamas and its backers & fans that Israel must be annihilated or “dismantled”? If she does, but couches it in more anodyne, less explicitly violent language does she have any suggestions what to do with all the Jews in Israel should Palestine be “liberated”? Does she express any awareness of the Palestinians’ own and especially their neighbours’ agency and role in perpetuating their misery? Etc etc etc.
steph 10:46 on 2024-02-12 Permalink
@ JS, how “regular” would satisfy your measure? Is your arbitrary standard really a fair measure against people speaking up against genocide?
It’s a shame to watch them go through the same mistakes made may 10th at Bebelplatz square.
Ian 13:29 on 2024-02-12 Permalink
For those “asking” (I use quotes in this instance to indicate bad faith) Yes, Gravel has historically lent her voice to the cause of civilian casualties of war, especially refugees.
I find it interesting that there are so many first time posters here with such nicely polished rhetorical devices, commenting on.this one topic. You guys work for a think tank or something? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’ve already been accused of blood libel twice this month, by some dope fighting with a rhetorical knife too big for their smooth-brain baby hands.
Kate 18:00 on 2024-02-12 Permalink
JS, what international crisis is as prominent as Palestine? As longstanding, as difficult to resolve, and with so many international ramifications? Palestine has pushed Ukraine into the background. There are, sadly, many current stories about one group being oppressed by another, but few are getting any column inches these days. How are the Uyghurs doing? The civil war in Myanmar? Women and girls in Afghanistan? The situation in South Sudan? Nobody cares. But even mentioning Gaza is like lighting a Roman candle.
So it doesn’t surprise me that Gravel, along with many others, has had things to say about Gaza while she may not have spoken up on these other ongoing crises. She is not obliged to weigh in on them – she’s not a diplomat. She is allowed to have an opinion on the biggest story of the moment.
Anne 15:28 on 2024-02-14 Permalink
The gall or should I say (chutzpah) of a non-jew telling her 200k+ following what Zionism is and, even worse, getting it 100% wrong. I’m glad to see Jewish people speaking up. She also doesn’t support free speech since she turns off and deletes comments from Jews. However, she’s been claiming to listen to Jews now, i.e., taking a few of her problematic posts down. The damage has been done, Elise.