Former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked visited Toronto, Canada, this week and participated in an event, during which a discussion was held between her and former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler concerning Israel's judicial reform plan and the differences between the Israeli and Canadian judicial systems.
Shaked discussed the changes to the judicial system and said that the reform itself is not the end of democracy. Israel is a strong and stable democracy, and even if changes were to be made to the judicial system, it would not be a disaster.
When asked about the current situation of the reform and whether or not it will pass, she answered that the reform as initially presented is dead, and either there will be a consensus or it will disappear.
Besides the panel, Shaked also visited the city's Chabad community. "There are 200,000 Jews in Toronto; of those, 50 thousand are Israeli, one of the largest communities in the world. I was a guest of Rabbi Levi Gansburg and his wife Rivki, who manage a community of religious and secular Jews together. Everyone sits together in the synagogue without looking at who you are and what your opinions are. They built an amazing Jewish education system that includes preschools, and now they want to build a school. I spoke to them about the need to strengthen Jewish education in the diaspora since that is what keeps the Jews' identity."
Shaked added: "I am visiting different Jewish communities in the world now, and I see the holy work that Chabad does. They literally protect the Jewish identity of entire communities in the diaspora. They do it without a budget from the state, and every emissary is there without making a shekel. He needs to fend for himself. They are a community of entrepreneurs safeguarding Jewish identity in the diaspora."