Suggestions
Chad Finkelstein
Partner at Dale & Lessmann LLP
Chad Finkelstein is a legal professional known for protecting brands and a dedicated father.
He obtained his LL.B. in Law from Western University and also participated in an Exchange Program in Law at Hanzehogeschool Groningen / Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen. Furthermore, he holds a B.A. in Political Science from Western University.
Currently, Chad Finkelstein serves as a Partner & Registered Trade-mark Agent at Dale & Lessmann LLP. Previously, he gained experience as an Associate in Franchise Law & Gaming Law at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, as well as positions at Elkind & Lipton LLP and Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP.
Highlights
I’ll admit, I never fully appreciated the significance of certain public statements. Not out of apathy, but because they so often reflected the blatantly obvious – truisms that seemed to me, naively, to be so manifest that seeing them called out had no bearing on the recognition I already possessed.
Of course, Black lives matter and there are generations of prejudices to be corrected. Of course, I support the women who are victims of sexual harassment and assault. Of course, residential schools are ghastly and Indigenous rights should be better realized. Of course, the LGBTQ+ community should be treated as equally as anyone else. Of course, we stand with Ukraine. And if 9/11 occurred in the age of social media, of course we would be unified in our expressed outrage. (Please note that I am not seeking to equate any one of these causes or injustices with any other).
And since so many of us rational people share these fundamental values, I thought, then the statement of a company or a thought leader was meaningful, but also unexceptional.
I now see things a bit differently.
To unequivocally acknowledge, and not seek to rationalize, the brutality of Hamas against innocent Israeli citizens is not tantamount to taking a side in the decades-long, complicated Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, as with the other injustices we’ve all so publicly recognized, it ought to be obvious.
Because if the beheading, torturing, maiming, burning alive, murdering and kidnapping of children and the elderly does not rise to your threshold of abject terrorism without qualification, then what does?
And if a company, business leader, politician, community organizer, thought leader, influencer, union, law firm, student group or anyone else is silent on such grotesque acts of savagery or, worse, seeks to explain or justify them, then your Jewish friends, colleagues and neighbours are left to wonder – if the targeted hate and violence against Jews extends to my community, who will stand up for us?
Will those same groups and individuals who stood up to recognize so many other injustices recognize and care about the injustice done to us? Or will you be indifferent, or worse, accepting of it because it can be rationalized?
Again, this matter transcends the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of which many perspectives and opinions exist. This is a matter of humanity and of civilization.
For your Jewish friends, neighbours and colleagues, these public and private statements mean a great deal at a time of unimaginable vulnerability and fear.
