The tone and substance of lawyers’ communications on Israel-Palestine has become an embarrassment to the profession and gone way past anything seen before or that could or should be countenanced by our governing body.

What is happening now completely substantiates and underscores my pleas for organizations like the Criminal Lawyers Association and the Law Society of Ontario to set the appropriate tone for discourse by speaking to these issues and releasing a statement. I’ve been vocal in calling on organizations to lead, facilitate respectful dialogue and assist the bar in coming together rather than ripping each other apart.

Here is how my weekend was ruined, through no fault of my own.

I received an unsolicited and unwanted email from a lawyer colleague while I was having a short Sunday afternoon nap after working round the clock on my new book.

The email from this colleague read as follows:

“You’re a horrific joke and should be ashamed of yourself. The fact that some of your ancestors are Holocaust survivors or died in the holocaust is of no moment. It doesn’t give you any credibility. Your opinions are standalone tributes to antisemitism the fact that I am the only person to make negative comments about your opinion is neither here, nor there. Your opinions are disgraceful.”

This was in response to my Opinion Piece as published in the Law360 Canada, which calls for uniting against hate and working together toward peace with love, here:

https://www.law360.ca/ca/articles/1774165