The Canadian Jewish News welcomes your feedback on all our web articles and podcasts, and appreciates our community of engaged readers and listeners. The aim with Letters is to offer a forum for public feedback, and to showcase the range of viewpoints in the Canadian Jewish community. These are letters to the editor from readers or podcast listeners, not staff editorials. Letters are approximately 300 words maximum, and are vetted and edited for clarity.
If you wish to have your letter considered for publication, please submit using this form.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
The following four letters were written in response to Rabbi Seth Winberg’s Sept. 18 article, “Opinion: MAID in conflict with Jewish values.”
If one has experienced close up the death of a loved one from a terminal disease, one appreciates that the last weeks or days involve extreme emotional pain that can be avoided by MAID. It is the role of the rabbinate to delineate the position of Judaism on MAID and to advocate that Jews follow that position. However, rabbis should also uphold Judaism’s respect for the individual Jew’s choice in all ethical matters. Therefore rabbis should not attempt to have a government deny that choice to the individual Jew.
Matthew Price, Toronto, Ont.
Is there—or should there be—a singular Jewish response to the legality and morality of Medical Aid in Dying? Rabbi Seth Winberg says yes. I disagree.
As a member of Quebec’s National Assembly, I served as the Vice-Chair of its ‘Select Committee on the Evolution of the Act respecting End-of-life Care’ in the province. I contributed to the final report in December 2021 recommending the careful and regulated expansion of access to medical aid in dying (MAID). I suspect that so many members of our Jewish community will find comfort and validation in its provisions for the possible alleviation of irreversible pain and suffering—in prescribed circumstances and with comprehensive protection of the autonomy of each individual to exercise this ultimate option. As a secular Jew, I will not presume to go toe-to-toe with a rabbi on Talmudic values and their implication in this debate. I will nonetheless suggest that there is a ‘Jewish’ path for a just, compassionate and dignified decision to avail oneself of state-sanctioned and delivered end-of-life care.
For many Jews, the notions of sanctity of life and the inherent value of each individual do not conflict, in the face of prolonged suffering, in the absence of hope, lucidity or autonomy. Of course, as our report enumerated, individuals must be protected from any abuse of this right, any coercion upon the individual to choose this option or any undue expansion of MAID availability that compromises what must remain our collective obligation to combat illness and prolong life by every reasonable measure possible. That includes enhanced availability to palliative care. Can this complex and evolving compromise continue to be realised in a just… and Jewish fashion? Yes, I believe it can.
David Birnbaum, Lachine, Que.
I strongly believe that people and family should be able to choose when it’s their time to go. If the person has no positive future, is hooked up to machinery, no chance of recovery, the decision is in their hands and hearts. G-d gives us the right decision when the time is right. It’s a mitzvah for everyone involved.
Elayne Shuster, Toronto, Ont.
I am a proud Jewish Canadian physician and MAID provider. My father, a Holocaust survivor, ensured I could raise a Jewish family protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, where autonomy and freedom of choice are fundamental values.
While I respect the rabbi’s concerns, his perspective does not reflect the realities I witness daily. Suggestions that MAID is inherently unethical or motivated by economics are deeply troubling. This work is profoundly meaningful, particularly when supporting Jewish patients. Jewish thought elevates the sanctity of life but equally emphasizes kavod ha-briyot (human dignity), chesed (compassion), and bechirah chofshit (free will)—principles reflected in MAID practice.
The rabbi critiques state-sanctioned death, but MAID is about self-determination in end-of-life care, not coercion. Patients must meet strict eligibility criteria—including irreversible decline, decisional capacity, and voluntary request. Justice Rosalie Abella, known for her advocacy for human rights and equality, has championed the autonomy of vulnerable populations, principles that align with safeguards embedded in MAID legislation. Discriminating against those without a foreseeable death would be unjust. Claims that MAID promotes “ageism and ableism” overlook that many disability rights advocates support MAID—not to devalue life, but to affirm the dignity of choosing one’s own path.
Providing MAID is most certainly the “practice of medicine:; relieving intractable suffering and supporting patients through vulnerable moments is central to medical practice and a continuation of my ethical duty to care with empathy and dignity.
There is no single Jewish view on MAID, just as there is none on abortion, organ donation, or end-of-life care. MAID alleviates suffering when all other support fails. Sitting at patients’ bedsides, reciting the Shma, and hearing families, including survivors like my father, thank me for “this act of chesed” is profoundly humbling. The Jewish response should be nuanced engagement, not dogmatic rejection.
Karen Devon, Toronto, Ont.
Ed. note: On the Feb. 5, 2024 episode of The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner spoke with Dr. Karen Devon, who is a surgeon at Women’s College Hospital and Toronto General, and is one of the nearly 2,000 Canadian physicians trained to carry out medically assisted deaths.
***
I’m reaching out to say thank you to Ellin Bessner for profiling Tova and the Sault Ste. Marie Jewish community on the Sept. 17 North Star episode, “Sault Ste. Marie’s next generation vows to carry on Jewish life.” It’s always good to see smaller communities getting some attention on the national stage and I think (hope) that it helps people in the larger cities to conceptualize that there is the possibility of a rich Jewish life outside of the major urban centres. I always find that when I chat with people, the parents of my kids’ camp friends, for example, that just one or two generations in the past, they come from small towns: Kapuskasing, Cobalt, Sydney, etc… and I often wonder if, because Jewish life is so much easier in a big city with lots of Jewish infrastructure, we haven’t lost something by becoming more passive and reliant on institutions to provide those points of connection. In a small place, you don’t have that luxury and it forces you to make it a priority if you want it to continue.
Emily Caruso Parnell, Sudbury, Ont.
***
This is in response to Joel Ceausu’s excellent article, “Canada recognizes Palestinian statehood, in an abrupt reversal of foreign policy” (Sept. 22). Conrad Black, in his September 27 column in the National Post succinctly summed it up by suggesting that the entire process of recognizing a Palestinian state is just a ‘”charade.” Who knew?
Well, as far as I’m concerned Canada’s recognition of Palestine as a state is betrayal and appeasement to terror. And speaking of ‘appeasement,’ the idea that Canada and allies would reward Hamas by recognizing Palestine as a state now would make Neville Chamberlain glow. Ironically, one of the key takeaways I got from the U.S. President Donald Trump’s lengthy speech at the United Nations General Assembly was that the blockbuster trade that was initiated around 80-85 years ago in Europe—six million less European Jews for 46 million Muslims in Europe today doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for Europe.
That being said, if Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of the U.K. and his Western European leader buddies are so keen to recognize a Palestine state, why don’t they set up a mini Palestinian states in London and other European capitals, because from what I’ve seen and read in the mainstream media since October 8, 2023, Palestinians would feel right at home.
David Honigsberg, Toronto, Ont.
***
This is regarding Phoebe Maltz Bovy’s Sept. 15 column, “From ‘never again’ to ‘never mind.’”
Jewish communities around the world keep putting money into building or maintaining Holocaust Museums. Yet, nowhere around the world has the education these museums are supposedly providing prevented the horrific surge in the vitriolic antisemitism that Jews are now facing. In fact, the language of the Holocaust used by Jews is now being used against the Jews.
The Holocaust is not the story that should be told about Jews. It is an event that must be mourned, but it is not the event that should be defining this generation of Jews. It promotes a time when Jews were humiliated and easy to kill. In these turbulent times our young people need to be reminded of what should give them hope and pride. We should not be telling the world how we were defeated. We should be focusing on how the Jewish people, almost completely decimated after the war, created a new nation, their own state for the first time in their history, in just three years. If we must build monuments, then let them be about this amazing feat—not Holocaust museums, but monuments to hope, resilience and success.
Phyllis Levin, Toronto, Ont.