Oliver Moore ’00

On Yom Hashoah, April 20th, 2009, the United Nations convened the first day of the “Durban Review Conference” in Geneva (which is carrying on as I write this). Durban II, as it is commonly known, is the sequel to the infamous 2001 World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa. The 2001 conference degenerated into an anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hate fest, and at the time of writing, the second one is not faring much better, except that a great many countries have had the good sense to boycott it. This article focuses on a Bialik graduate who is at the forefront of combating the double standard that is too commonly applied to Israel when the human-rights records of states are evaluated.

Growing up in Quebec City, Oliver Moore ’00 was home schooled (with a few short exceptions) until Grade 10, when he and his parents chose Bialik High School. The notion of being home schooled was difficult for me to fathom, so I sought out more information. Oliver explained to me that his parents preferred to take on the task of educating him themselves rather than send him to schools they found unsatisfactory. Moreover, home schooling allowed him to learn more deeply and to develop a more independent way of thinking. However, as his 16th birthday approached, Oliver’s parents decided it was time to look elsewhere for a worthy school. Investigating the Jewish schools in Montreal, they settled on Bialik and began the process of moving the family to Montreal.

In Bialik, Oliver’s family found a school that they felt provided Oliver with the requisite characteristics: a true Labour Zionist background (read: love for Israel) combined with a complete Jewish education without the sacrificing any of the vital secular topics like math, science, or English. And they certainly didn’t overlook the Yiddish, either!

After graduating from Bialik with the class of 2000, Oliver graduated from Marianopolis College’s Liberal Arts program and then obtained his BA in Political Science from McGill University. In 2005, he was accepted into Law at McGill, and he expects to graduate this spring. He already has a job with a major national law firm waiting for him in Ottawa after he graduates.

Over the 2007–08 academic year, Oliver supplemented his law studies by following the Student Israel Advocacy Program run by the renowned Montreal think tank CIJR, or the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research. After that, Oliver was offered a specially tailored six-month internship in Jerusalem with the Israeli research institute NGO Monitor. For political science novices, non governmental organizations, or NGOs, are entities that work to influence governmental and international policy on a range of issues. But as it stands, a vastly disproportionate number of human rights NGOs are unfairly critical of Israel relative to blatant human rights violations in other countries. NGO Monitor is itself an NGO with a mandate of “ending the practice used by certain self-declared ‘humanitarian NGOs’ of exploiting the label 'universal human rights values' to promote politically and ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas.”

From July 2008 until the end of December, Oliver lived in the heart of Jerusalem, taking one semester away from McGill to work full time defending Israel in the international community. During his time in Israel, Oliver was in charge of an NGO Monitor project to study and publicize university-based anti-Israel activities in various countries. “Besides the privilege of making Jerusalem my home and getting to know the country up close, I improved my research skills and gained a real motivation to Israel advocacy,” he said.

Since he returned home in January, Oliver has been following through on that motivation; although he only had one semester at McGill left, he has been propelled to the forefront of Israel-advocacy on campus by getting involved with the Jewish Law Students’ Association. Working with his colleagues in the JLSA, the CIJR, and Hillel, he participated in organizing numerous pro-Israel events at the law faculty this semester. He has also kept up a practice of informal political dialogue with his counterparts and friends in the Muslim Law Students’ Association.

According to Oliver, the reason why events like the two Durban conferences become such dismal displays is that “many authoritarian regimes want to cover up and divert attention from their own horrific human right records, so they seize on widespread anti-Semitism to turn the spotlight on Israel. At the same time, they incite further anti-Semitism. It’s base political exploitation.”

Ten years from now Oliver expects to be either a professor or a practicing lawyer, or a little of both. The next Irwin Cotler? Don’t bet against it.

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