Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] HONORS 343
JSA Merit Award: The Righteous Who
Fight Antisemitism
Stephen J. Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
For his acts of unwavering support and protection of Canada’s Jewish people,
we hold Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the highest regard and
honor him with the JSA Lifetime Achievement Award. Below is a partial list
of acts of his compassion and care.
2012
• In March 2012, John Baird, the Canadian foreign affairs minister, said,
“There is no better friend to Israel than Canada.”
• In his keynote address at the 2012 National Holocaust Remembrance
Day ceremony at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Prime Minister
Harper said that in spite of the magnitude of the number six million,
each individual person who perished in the Holocaust was innocent,
each had a name, each was “precious, irreplaceable, and deserving of
honor,” and he gave thanks “for those who survived and found their way
to our country, and who have enriched its life immeasurably.” He went
on to say:
We strengthen our resolve to defend the vulnerable, to challenge the
aggressor and to confront evil.
We renew our vow: never again.
Truly remembering the Holocaust must also be . . . an undertaking of a
solemn responsibility to fight those threats.
We see it in the manifestos of organizations which deny the right of
Israel as a Jewish state to exist.