http://educate-yourself.org/cn/banibrithcanadafacesrevolt08feb08.shtml
Feb. 8, 2008

B'nai Brith Canada Encounters the Law of Cause & Effect (Feb. 8, 2008)

Subject: B¹nai Brith Canada Faces Revolt
From: "The Radical Press" <radical@radicalpress.com>
Date: Fri, February 8, 2008
To: "RADICAL PRESS" <radical@radicalpress.com>

Dear Radical Reader,

The article below came out one week before I received my complaint from the Canadian Human Rights Commission is a good illustration of what I continually talk and write about with respect to Harry Abrams and the B¹nai Brith¹s attack upon me and my website  adicalPress.com. Here is an organization quickly shifting into more and more secrecy and unaccountability and resembling the Israeli Mossad rather than just another benevolent, for-charity organization here in Canada.

Can you imagine any other charitable organization that refuses to allow its members to see the books or refuses to send out audited information to its members or manhandles members out the door if they happen to question the Minutes of an AGM or refuses to publish the names of the Board of Directors?!!!

Could it be they don¹t want members or the general public to know where they¹re getting their money from or who they¹re bankrolling? Or is it information regarding their exaggerated influence upon the Harper Conservative government that they want to keep hidden from the public eye?

As the article states, for a group composed of only four thousand members they seem to be extremely adept at manipulating government policy. Is this a surprise? Not to me. This organization is 100% pro-Zionist and its mandate IS to influence Canadian government policy in favour of Israel. That, I suggest, is one of the main reasons why Abrams and B¹nai Brith want to shut me up.

Please pass this article along to anyone who still believes that Zionism is nothing but a benign political philosophy that only supports a spiritual homeland for Jews.

Peace and Justice for All,

Arthur Topham
Pub/Ed
The Radical Press
Canada¹s Radical News Network
radical@radicalpress.com
http://www.radicalpress.com
³Digging to the root of the issues since 1998²
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B¹nai Brith Canada Faces Revolt

By Sheldon Gordon
Tue. Nov 13, 2007

Toronto ‹ One of Canada¹s foremost Jewish advocacy organizations is being shaken by an internal rebellion of members who say that the organization lacks "responsible governance."

A group calling itself Concerned Members of B'nai Brith Canada is challenging B'nai Brith Canada, a 132-year old service organization. The group of dissenters says that its members include four past presidents. The rebels have declined to reveal their identities, claiming they would face summary expulsion from B'nai Brith.

Former Toronto lodge president Henry Gimpel, a spokesman for the dissidents, said, "It's not that they¹re trying" to oust B'nai Brith Canada's top officers, "they have to."

"There's no way you can reverse the situation with the existing [leaders]," Gimpel said. "There¹s too much of [B'nai Brith Canada] being run by one person."

Frank Dimant, who has been B'nai Brith Canada's executive vice president for the past 29 years, rejected the charge of one-man rule. "I would categorically deny that," he told the Forward. "This organization is made up of many leaders, many of them well known in the community."

B'nai Brith is one of the Canadian Jewish community's leading names. It was founded in 1875 as a Jewish service organization and later morphed into a defender of the community against antisemitism. Like its American counterpart, B'nai Brith Canada is affiliated with B'nai B¹rith International. Unlike its American counterpart, it plays a leading role in Canada's Jewish political advocacy and has a high-media profile ‹ standing as a right-of-center alternative to the more centrist Canadian Jewish Congress.

In recent years, B'nai Brith Canada¹s political agenda has enabled it to build close ties with the ruling Conservative Party, giving it greater influence on the federal government than its limited base ‹ 4,000 full dues-paying members ‹ would suggest. The dissidents claim that B'nai Brith Canada¹s membership has declined, and there's no doubt that the organization has been struggling financially: Last January, it had to re-mortgage its head office building to raise $850,000.

Gimpel, who is an ex-member of B'nai Brith Canada's national administrative board, warned that three lodges, accounting for one-quarter of the national organization¹s dues-paying membership, are discussing breaking away. Sources inside B'nai Brith denied this. Lodge officials could not be reached for comment.

Since May, the dissenters have distributed an anonymous monthly newsletter called BBC News Without the Spin. In the June issue, they wrote, "We want to end the current dysfunctional corporate governance at BBC and restore it to its once prominent position."

Some of the criticism has taken on the organization's political nature, with dissidents claiming that B'nai Brith Canada has become too closely identified with the Conservative Party, to the point that it could endanger its status as a charitable institution. Sources close to the organization
say that these complaints come from dissidents who are supporters of the Liberal Party.

Much of the criticism, however, takes on the organization's financial governance. The rebels complain that there is "no financial accountability," no annual general meeting involving participation by the lodges and no elections of officers. The dissidents have said that "senior officers" have failed for the past five years to provide members and donors with audited annual financial statements for the annual general meeting.

Prior to the 2006 meeting, the president of the organization, Gerry Weinstein, wrote a letter to dissidents in which he said that "the business heretofore conducted at the [annual general meeting] is now within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board of Governors and the Executive Committee."

Members wishing to review B'nai Brith Canada's audited financial statements can do so only at the organization's offices and cannot make copies.

The dissidents filed a complaint with a federal agency, Corporations Canada, in December 2005, stating that the restricted financial disclosure violated the Canada Corporations Act. They asked for a probe of B'nai Brith Canada's status as a registered not-for-profit. The agency told the group that it should take the matter to court.

The rebels lost at the B'nai Brith International Court of Appeals, an internal tribunal that ruled against them in July and stated, "No irregularity in the procedures followed by B'nai Brith Canada has been made out that would invoke the jurisdiction of this Court.

Weinstein declined to be interviewed, but in a written statement he said, "These disgruntled individuals have chosen to attack B'nai Brith Canada and its leadership in a manner that we believe is without just cause and destructive to the organization and the Jewish community as a whole."

Weinstein said that B'nai Brith Canada was acting similarly to other Jewish organizations, including B'nai Brith International, that had changed their power structures '"o protect themselves from both internal and external challenges."

B'nai Brith sources said that the dissident past presidents are motivated by personal grievances against the organization or individuals in the organization, and that some have not been active members for decades.

The rebels, for their part, say that there have been vigorous efforts to stifle their dissent. When an officer of B'nai Brith Canada's biggest lodge disputed the contents of the minutes at the 2006 annual meeting, security personnel attempted to forcibly remove him, according to the rebels. More recently, they say, five members received a letter from the organization's lawyers warning them not to publish the critical newsletter.

The dissidents also are upset that B'nai Brith Canada refuses to reveal the names of its board of governors. A spokeswoman for the organization initially agreed to provide the Forward with "some names," then later said that in order to protect the members' privacy, the names would not be disclosed.
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