Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King delivered the keynote address at the Action Summit to Combat Online Hate, April 14 and 15. The son and daughter-in-law of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. have both been deeply involved for many years in fighting racism, antisemitism and all forms of discrimination.
The summit was organized by the Canadian Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, an initiative of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and funded by the Government of Canada.
King reflected on the legacy of Black-Jewish alliances in the civil rights movement and quoted his late father’s words: “Rabbis of Jewish congregations took their places on the frontlines as the Old and New Testament ethic of social justice flamed with a fire that had once transformed the world.”
King has worked in Israel and Palestine, educating young people to advance nonviolent resolutions to conflict.
“It was a wonderful experience and everywhere I went I experienced great hospitality and kindness from the people of Israel,” he said. “My father and mother, Coretta Scott King, were very concerned about the spread of antisemitism, racism and all forms of hatred, prejudice and bigotry, particularly among young people. Both of my parents made a commitment to doing everything that they could to help educate people about their shared vision for greater interracial understanding, cooperation and goodwill. Long after my father was assassinated, my mother continued to speak out against antisemitism and remain active in building the Black-Jewish coalition of social justice and human rights in Atlanta and throughout the world.”
Waters King worked for years at the Centre for Democratic Renewal, an organization that monitors and reports on hate groups, also delivering a broad range of educational programs to combat hate groups in the spirit of nonviolence that empowered the American civil rights movement.
“I have learned that the proponents of hate never sleep and our struggle against racism, antisemitism and all forms of bigotry and prejudice must remain ever-vigilant. What we can and must do is declare war on the ignorance that fuels hatred and the only known and proven cure for ignorance is education.”
King spoke about the advent of technologies over the past decades that hate groups have used to disseminate their messages. “But let’s remember that this communications revolution we have all lived through also gives us powerful tools to combat online hate,” he said.
The summit also featured keynote presentations by Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission coordinator on combatting antisemitism, and Steven Guilbeault, federal minister of Canadian Heritage. More than three dozen others participated in two days of sessions, lectures, workshops and panel discussions. The Kings’ presentation is available online at actionsummit.ca.
B.C. Premier John Horgan opened the commemorative event. (screenshot)
A uniquely British Columbian virtual commemoration of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, took place April 8, convened by the Government of British Columbia in partnership with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Pacific Region.
Premier John Horgan opened the event.
“On Yom Hashoah, we remember the six million Jewish lives that were lost during the Holocaust. We also remember and honour the millions who lost their lives or were murdered because of their ethnicity, sexual identity or disability,” said the premier. “Today, we also pay tribute to Holocaust survivors and, as that community grows smaller, it’s all the more important that we work together to carry that message forward – that we will never forget and it will never happen again, especially in light of the ongoing threats of violence and discrimination Jewish people are facing worldwide today.”
Horgan noted an incident in Victoria where a Chabad centre was defaced with antisemitic graffiti a day earlier.
“These are the types of acts we must stand together and fight against with a united voice, regardless of where we come from, regardless of our orientations or ethnicities or our faith. We must stand against antisemitism and racism whenever we see it,” said Horgan. “As we light the candles at Yom Hashoah in remembrance, we must remain vigilant and, as we take action today and honour those who lost their lives and those who have struggled since the Holocaust, we must again remember that we cannot repeat our past.”
Michael Lee, MLA for Vancouver-Langara, also spoke.
“As the living memory of the Holocaust fades, the important act of remembering and coming together each year grows in importance,” he said. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure that we never forget and such a thing never happens again, because, sadly, this is not just about remembering history, but about standing together today against the racism, bigotry and antisemitism that still exists in our world.… As a community, now and every day, we must stand against these acts of hate and bigotry.
“Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are reminded of why it is so important to come together, to reflect and to ensure that the past is not forgotten. We must remember both the parts of this dark, dark history that we must not let be repeated and the acts of heroism that took place amid such tragedy. Even during a period of humanity’s darkest chapters, there was still good in the world, people who risked their lives to hide and save others from the Shoah. Amidst the horrors and atrocities, there were tales of love, hope and bravery, including with the many righteous among nations, people who demonstrated that light can triumph over darkness. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to never forget; remember the victims, the survivors and the heroes; and we pledge to build a better world in their memory.”
Dr. Robert Krell, founding president of the VHEC, lit six memorial candles. The premier lit a seventh candle “to honour the millions of Roma, Slavic, LGBTQ2+ and people with disabilities who lost their lives.”
Krell, speaking on behalf of Holocaust survivors, noted that 1.5 million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were children. An estimated 93% of Jewish children in Europe were murdered, which makes his survival extremely remarkable. The fact that both his parents survived, when more than 80% of Dutch Jews were killed, is additionally miraculous.
“I had lost all grandparents, uncles and aunts,” Krell said. “One first cousin remained. The war left its mark and I bear a special responsibility to remember what happened and try to derive lessons from that unfathomable tragedy. The tragedy was unique in its objectives, its focus and its ferocity. Jews were extracted wherever they resided, whether Paris, Prague or Vienna, whether city or countryside or the isles of Rhodes or Corfu. The enemy pursued us and tortured and murdered without mercy, without exception.”
While Dutch citizens remember the Canadian military’s role in liberating that country, Krell also noted Canada’s failure to save European Jews before the war.
Krell also addressed the issue of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism. Around the world, he said, 34 countries have adopted the definition, as has the province of Ontario.
“As a survivor who has been deeply involved in Holocaust remembrance and education, it strikes me as unconscionable not to accept the IHRA definition to assist us all in recognizing the signs and symptoms of the scourge of Jew hatred,” he said.
Yom Hashoah fell the day before the federal New Democratic Party convention that was to consider a resolution rejecting the IHRA definition. The matter never made it to the floor, but another resolution condemning Israel passed by an overwhelming margin.
“It is my hope that we will soon see the provincial government’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” said Krell.
Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom also took up the issue of the antisemitism definition.
“The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism is, I think, the tool that guides us in our work to combat anti-Jewish sentiments,” he said. “I want to urge our provincial government to join other jurisdictions in embracing the action that is required to combat both historical and contemporary hatred of the Jewish people.”
He added: “When we think of the death of a human being, we mourn the loss of the body and the soul, but, in my work, standing with too many grieving families at graveside, it is not the body that we miss most, that is merely the vessel for the soul, the part of that person that is unique in all the world,” he said. “That’s the part that we fall in love with and are forever changed by. The soul of another leaves an imprint on our heart. So, today, we remember six million murdered Jewish souls, their lives that have been extinguished, their dreams unrealized, their loves and relationships gone forever. We pray that those dear souls are comforted and embraced under the wings of God’s presence and that now, remembered so publicly, will never be forgotten.”
Moskovitz then chanted El Moleh Rachamim and a version of the Mourner’s Kaddish that includes the names of the Nazi death camps.
In addition to the B.C. event, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre also partnered on April 8 with the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto, the Azrieli Foundation, Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, Facing History and Ourselves, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, March of the Living Canada and UIA in a Canada-wide Yom Hashoah online program that included survivor testimony from individuals across the country and a candlelighting ceremony.
A day earlier, the VHEC partnered with the Montreal Holocaust Museum for a virtual program focusing on the importance of remembrance in the intergenerational transmission of memory. Survivors and members of the second and third generations spoke about their experiences. Video recordings of all three events are available at vhec.org.
In 2002, when the once and future prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, visited Montreal, a violent riot by anti-Zionists erupted at Concordia University. That was a turning point in a now two-decades-long period of anti-Israel and, in some cases, anti-Jewish activism on Canadian campuses.
Universities across Canada would go on to host events such as Israel Apartheid Week and, on multiple campuses, countless peaceful and less peaceful attacks on Israel and its supporters have occurred. As all of this has transpired, Concordia has had the reputation of having probably the most anti-Zionist and antisemitic campus culture in the country. So, many Jews and other observers were stunned when the Concordia Student Union issued an apology to the Jewish community. Released the day before Yom Hashoah, the statement from the CSU began: “Today, we strive to acknowledge our mistakes and begin the process of correcting ourselves.”
The 500-word letter of apology was an unequivocal denunciation of past CSU actions and approaches.
“Overall, our mistakes can be described in one word, indifference,” it reads. “Indifference to one of the world’s oldest forms of discrimination. Indifference to the concerns of our Jewish students. Indifference to the struggles they have faced. While a common topic of our meetings has been how the CSU can tackle other forms of discrimination or support certain minority groups, the Jewish community and antisemitism are seldom brought up.… The CSU has assisted in fostering a campus culture where Jewish students are afraid to openly identify as Jewish…. Our silence on these issues only benefits the oppressors and sets the belief that these acts are somehow justifiable, which encourages the oppressors to continue this behaviour. This behaviour continues well outside the boundaries of our campus and into a society where they may harm many more individuals.”
In addition to the apology for past behaviours, the statement promises concrete action now and in the future. All elected student union officials will receive training on antisemitism every year. Executive members of all Concordia campus clubs will also receive annual training to identify antisemitism and help foster an environment where Jewish students and members of the community can feel safe and fully included. A bystander prevention program is being developed to help students “identify and safely intervene and/or support Jewish students if they witness an act of antisemitism.”
“While we stood idly by in the past while acts of antisemitism occurred, we hope not to repeat those mistakes again and hope the Jewish community will give us another chance to support them in the future,” the apology concludes.
The statement was issued after a process of listening to Jewish students express their fears and experiences with antisemitism at the university. It was drafted by Eduardo Malorni, currently the student life coordinator of the CSU, who will assume the role of general coordinator (the equivalent of union president) in June.
“We got feedback that it was very appreciated,” Malorni told the Independent. “Some people brought up that it was too little, too late, which is a fair criticism for an organization that’s been around as long as us. But our feedback all seems to be positive.”
Two Jewish campus leaders who also spoke with the Independent were emotional.
“I cried the first time I read it,” said Nicole Nashen, an elected CSU councilor and incoming president of Concordia Hillel.
“We cried together,” said Harrison Kirshner, a vice-president of Concordia Hillel, a CSU councilor and incoming executive member.
“As a student, when I first came to Concordia, I knew in my mind what type of institution this is and I knew that I had to hide part of myself in a sense,” said Kirshner. He would think twice, he said, before mentioning celebrating Jewish holidays, for example. Part of the progress that culminated in the apology, he suggested, was students like him opening up and sharing their experiences.
“I realize that conversation and speaking to people about what we face is a much better way than hiding it and not talking about it and not addressing those issues,” he said. “Because, if we don’t address them, nothing is going to change. But, if we do address and we do talk about the experiences that we face, change can stem from that. That’s what we are seeing happening.”
The campus climate is significantly better than he expected when he arrived.
“I noticed that people were receptive to those discussions, people that I thought maybe wouldn’t be receptive to those discussions were receptive to those discussions,” he said. “Part of the reason is because, instead of going in with a fighting attitude, we need to go in with a respectful attitude, a dialogue attitude, an attitude that allows us to open up a conversation with our fellow councilors who I consider to be allies, friends.”
Nashen also acknowledged a feeling in the pit of her stomach when fellow students would raise the topic of ethnicity.
“I didn’t know how I was going to be labeled or what the reaction was going to be or what assumptions are going to be made about me because of the fact that I’m Jewish,” she said. Elected to the CSU recently for the second time, she said she never foresaw being so welcomed.
Both Kirshner and Nashen credit Malorni, who is not Jewish, for encouraging them to share their stories and for making other Jewish students comfortable to come forward and share their experiences. The letter, they said, came from his heart.
“It did come from the heart,” Malorni admitted, “but it only came from the heart because Harrison and Nikki were so open about talking about the issues they faced and also in setting up meetings with other Jewish students who would never have come near the CSU with a 10-foot pole, setting up meetings and saying it’s safe, you can explain it to them, they’re not going to bite your hand off, because students would never have told us 95% of what they told us, unless those meetings were facilitated by both Harrison and Nikki. That’s why I think, in terms of writing the apology, when it came down to it, it became – I wouldn’t say it was easy to write it – but the words were a little easier to come from brain to paper.”
The letter, of course, comes from a new group of CSU leaders, not from the individuals who were involved before and perpetrated some of the extreme activities, such as a Passover Against Apartheid event a few years ago. The current crop of leaders was elected in a campus vote that saw extremely low turnout. However, Malorni noted, student union votes at Concordia and most universities are notoriously and chronically low, so the small number of voters who endorsed the current leaders is commensurate with the number who voted for the earlier, problematic representatives.
“The majority of messages that I’ve received are shock,” Nashen said. “I would have never imagined this could have ever happened at Concordia.… I think a lot of people, especially maybe people who went to Concordia and were involved in Concordia 10 to 20 years ago, but haven’t kept in the loop about CSU affairs, were just utterly shocked, could not believe it. Then, a lot of current students were reaching out to me saying, ‘I just had shivers reading this.’ I can’t believe that our issues are really being taken seriously and that the CSU really cares to help us fight antisemitism.”
She acknowledged that the apology is the beginning of a process, not the end.
“I don’t think this was a fix-all,” she said. “I think this was the first step that the CSU is taking toward telling the Jewish community that they do care about us now and they are ready to start listening to us and taking our issues seriously. What really put the cherry on top was not just words but it came along with actionable steps.”
Malorni said Concordia has had a national reputation as a tough campus for Jewish students, but he is well aware that other campuses have also had their experiences with conflict.
“While we had the worst reputation for it, it’s not something that doesn’t exist at the other universities,” he said. When the apology was posted, he said, commenters from all over North America recounted their own experiences with antisemitism at their universities.
“It’s not a thing limited to Concordia, despite our little extra bad reputation,” he said. “It’s something that seems to have crossed the bounds of our land.”
Dr. Claude Romney speaking to students pre-COVID. (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)
For many years, people dedicated to educating about the Holocaust and its moral lessons have been adapting to new realities. The declining number of survivors and the need to preserve their eyewitness testimony has necessitated innovative means of conveying these lessons to successive generations. As a result of these preparations, organizations like the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) have been remarkably prepared to continue their work despite the limitations imposed by a global pandemic.
Dr. Claude Romney has been sharing her wartime experiences with younger audiences for several years. Her father, Dr. Jacques Lewin, was arrested in Paris at the end of 1941 and was among the first prisoners transported to Auschwitz. While Romney and her mother survived the war in southern France, evading numerous close calls, her father survived the most notorious Nazi camp because his skills were useful to the Nazis – he was a doctor who was put into service at the camp. Romney has researched and spoken about the experiences of her father and other “prisoner-doctors.”
Since the pandemic began, Romney has done two virtual presentations to schools and, while she wishes the talks could be in person, she is grateful that the technology exists to allow them to happen at all.
“I personally, and I think the other survivors who continue to talk to students online, have to be grateful both to the [Vancouver] Holocaust Education Centre and, of course, most of all, to the teachers who still get in touch and haven’t given up,” she said. “It’s something which could easily have fallen by the wayside. I think it’s very fortunate that teachers are dedicated enough to continue.”
A year and counting into the pandemic, Romney said the global upheaval could have led to lost opportunities.
“We feel there is some urgency because we’re not getting any younger,” she said. “It’s very important.”
The online events differ, depending on the audience. Some classes that are still meeting in person are set up so that the speaker sees the teacher but not the entire class. When classes are virtual, the speaker is one of many faces on a Zoom call.
“This would never have been possible for students 15 years ago, 10 years ago maybe even,” Romney said. “It makes a big difference because, of course, there are books and articles, but it’s not the same as hearing somebody tell their personal stories.”
While the survivor speakers are talking about their past, the lessons they aim to impart are for the present and future.
“I think it’s vital that the new generations know about what happened because it’s up to them to prevent this kind of thing from happening again,” she said. “And to understand that it’s vital to be tolerant of other people who may be different in some ways because they come from different cultures, different religions. It’s a cautionary tale really.”
Ashley Ross has been teaching a course in genocide studies at Aldergrove Community Secondary School for four years. She can attest that students make connections between the present and the past – and that relevance has been honed more sharply in the past couple of years.
“When I first started teaching it, it was very hard for them to understand the German context of that era,” she said, noting that she was challenged to demonstrate the “slippery slope” of hatred, fear and scapegoating. Sadly, students understand that phenomenon better than just a few years ago. “Right now, they are immediately seeing connections and understanding and seeing it play out in their current world.… More than ever, the lessons of the power of propaganda and the fear and the scapegoating are really resonating in our world. It’s through those historical lessons that we are better equipped to process what we’re currently facing.”
She maintains that the survivor speakers’ virtual events are every bit as powerful on the students as an in-person one. She even sees a benefit in the fact that, when they know they can’t be seen by the speaker, students may be more open with their emotional responses.
“Because the Holocaust survivor is only looking at my face rather than their faces, I find that it’s often more raw for the students. In a large auditorium, it doesn’t have that same personal impact,” said Ross, who has led a student trip to Europe that included a visit to Auschwitz.
Sharing firsthand accounts with young generations puts a human face to a part of history that is enormous in scope and perhaps remote in time from the perspective of a teenager.
“I think there’s a sense of honour to have a direct connection to this history that sometimes feels so far away,” she said. “It’s a reminder that it isn’t so far away. I think it’s really impactful to hear first-person accounts [about] something that can get so bogged down in huge numbers.”
Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar, education director and curator at the VHEC, acknowledges that her team did not know what to expect when the pandemic began a year ago. At the same time, the remote delivery of programs and resources that was necessary due to COVID was something for which the centre was already prepared. Not only were Holocaust survivors and other educators delivering virtual talks to student groups in remote parts of British Columbia, a vast digitization process over the past several years has made much of the centre’s collections accessible online, including artifacts, documents, written testimonies and videos.
“In a way, that’s nothing new for us,” she said.
Some research requests saw an uptick as teachers encouraged students to undertake individualized projects – and because the revised provincial curriculum also emphasizes “self-directed learning.”
The VHEC also saw an increase in donations of artifacts and documents. This may be because people are spending more time at home and deciding to clean out attics and closets. Shulman Spaar also thinks people may have a little more time to read the communications they send to supporters, which often include appeals for family records and other items.
Echoing the Aldergrove teacher, Shulman Spaar thinks another factor for increased interest in the VHEC’s programs and resources may be due to current events. Political situations in the United States and around the world, the increased awareness of violence against minority communities and other topics in the news daily underscore the relevance of the organization’s work.
“Ultimately, we are an anti-racism-based Holocaust education centre,” she said. “If you look at what’s going on, it does seem very relevant at the moment.”
There were challenges in rapidly scaling the delivery of virtual programs to more groups. Docents, educators and survivor speakers had to learn the new technologies and adapt their messages to the medium.
Conversely, there have been silver linings. Some survivors who, for health or mobility reasons, could not present their testimonies in person have been able to do so virtually. As capacity has grown for delivering programs remotely, so have requests. The VHEC has welcomed invitations from other provinces, as well as schools in northern British Columbia and other remote parts of the province where survivors are unlikely to visit.
Moreover, said Shulman Spaar, some participants have commented that seeing survivors in their own homes, rather than on a stage, is unexpectedly powerful.
“It’s not the same as an in-person encounter,” she acknowledged, “but, also, hearing the speaker speaking from her or his living room, it’s a different intimate situation that happens. Yes, there is this screen still, but some students and teachers comment how they feel very close and it feels like an intimate encounter rather than being in a big hall and on a stage.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, vote on March 23. While the prime minister’s party won the most number of seats in the Knesset, he will still struggle to form a government. (photo from IGPO)
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu makes a stunning deal with lawmakers to abandon his post and replace Reuven Rivlin as president of the country when the president’s term expires later this year. An agreement to pardon Netanyahu around corruption charges he currently faces is part of a deal that leads to Netanyahu ending his run as the country’s longest-serving leader. With “King Bibi” finally in a sinecure of symbolic eminence, the polarized Knesset manages to cobble together a coalition and stave off the fifth round of elections in two years.
This was one of the most fantastical possibilities mooted in a webinar presented by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) March 25, just two days after Israelis voted in the fourth of a series of elections during a two-year period of instability.
The panelists were CIJA’s chief executive officer Shimon Koffler Fogel and Adir Krafman, the agency’s associate director for communications and analytics. They sifted the entrails of the convoluted election outcome.
While ideological schisms divide Israeli politics, as does the secular-religious divide and other fractures, Fogel and Krafman concurred that the elephant in any discussion of the next Knesset is Netanyahu. CIJA is a nonpartisan organization and Fogel emphasized that the panelists, and moderator Tamara Fathi, were not advocating any outcomes, merely commenting on possibilities.
And the possibilities are almost endless. The vote sent 13 parties into the 120-seat Knesset. Some of these are not even parties, so much as umbrellas under which different factions coalesced for electoral purposes, so the mosaic of the chaotic chamber could refract in countless ways. But, while there are myriad permutations of possible coalitions and strange bedfellowships, Fogel, Krafman and most commentators in Israel and abroad think the most likely outcome is a fifth election. That is how difficult it would be for either side to patch together 61 members of the Knesset to govern.
Krafman presented graphic evidence of the challenges the pro- and anti-Netanyahu factions face in reaching that magic number. The pro-Bibi side likely has 52 dependable seats; his opponents probably have 57. That means an anti-Netanyahu coalition could form with the support of Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party, which holds seven seats. For Netanyahu to eke out 61 seats would require the backing not only of Bennett but also of the four seats won by the Arab party Ra’am. Such a partnership would be historic and would have been almost unthinkable in the recent past. But Netanyahu of late has been making amenable noises toward Arab Israelis in general and to the Arab parties in particular. However, even if the prime minister and his unlikely allies in the Arab sector made a deal, it could upend the consensus on the other side, as some on the right would probably balk at joining a coalition that includes Ra’am.
Ra’am is one of the big stories of the election. Exit polls indicated the party would not make it over the 3.25% threshold to win any Knesset seats. That created a scenario where Netanyahu and his probable allies were seen as almost certain to form a government.
But, as actual counting took place through the night and into the morning, it became clear that Ra’am would cross the minimum support for representation. Instantly, the calculations shifted.
If Ra’am were to enter a coalition government, or even if it merely supported a government from the sidelines, it would be a turning point in the role Arab parties play in Israeli politics. Ra’am has already upended conventional Arab approaches to politics. The umbrella of Arab parties, recently running under the banner of the Joint List, has always played a spoiler role. They are oppositionist and anti-Zionist groups that are as much protest movements as conventional political parties.
Perhaps learning a lesson from the outsized power of small, right-wing and Jewish religious parties, Ra’am adopted a more pragmatic and transactional position than their former allies in the Arab bloc. The leader, Mansour Abbas, has not ruled out supporting a coalition or playing a role in government. Like smaller Jewish parties, he would be expected to come to coalition discussions with a shopping list of demands, such as more funding for projects and programs that benefit his constituents.
Ra’am’s success makes it an unqualified winner in the election sweepstakes. Fogel and Krafman discussed other winners and losers.
“The first loser, I think, is Netanyahu,” said Fogel. “Despite his party winning the most number of seats, 30 seats out of 120 in the Knesset, [he] is still not able to form a government.”
That might have been survivable if other parties that are Netanyahu’s likely backers did not also come up short.
“The other two losers are other right-wing parties,” Fogel added. Naftali Bennett, whose Yamina took seven seats, and Gideon Sa’ar, whose New Hope party took six, had hoped to siphon off a larger chunk of Likud’s votes.
“Both of them really failed to do that, winning only a handful of seats,” said Fogel.
It is a profound statement about tectonic changes in Israel’s ideological fault lines that the Labour party, which took seven seats, and another left-wing party, Meretz, which took six, are viewed as having had a good night. In the days leading up to the vote, there were questions whether either party would overcome the minimum threshold. The Labour party was the indomitable establishment political party for the first three decades of Israel’s existence.
Another loser, Fogel said, was Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party. Lieberman is a right-wing but avowedly secularist politician. He ran a campaign promoting separation of religion and state and against Charedi privileges. His message may have backfired: while turnout was down overall from the last election, Charedi voters turned out in greater numbers, possibly in reaction to Lieberman’s message.
The discussion turned again to what may be the most likely path for a right-wing government, which could be the exit of Netanyahu. There are centrist parties, Fogel said, that do not have issues with Likud policies so much as they do with the prime minister personally. With him gone, a bloc of anti-Bibi members might engage with Likud under a new leader and form a centre-right coalition.
As unlikely as this scenario might be, it would stave off another unsavoury development.
Any hope of forming a Netanyahu-led coalition probably depends on support from the extremist grouping called Religious Zionism. This new umbrella of racist, misogynistic and homophobic extremists, which holds six seats, would taint any coalition as the most far-right government in Israel’s history. (Click here to read this week’s editorial.)
Whatever happens – whether someone can manage to hammer together a government, or whether exhausted Israelis will trudge to the polls for a fifth time – there are serious issues facing the country.
“There are some pretty daunting challenges out there,” Fogel said. “Most especially on the economic side. We see that some other countries have already begun to emerge [from the pandemic] with a fairly robust recovery. Israel isn’t there yet…. There is a sense of urgency that they do have to get an Israeli government in place that is going to be able to effectively address these issues and it’s not clear that the election result will offer that to Israelis, so I think it makes a situation, if anything, more desperate.”
Since the High Holidays last year, a group of demonstrators has met every Thursday afternoon opposite the Chinese embassy in Ottawa to protest in support of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The protest was initiated by members of Kehillat Beth Israel, a synagogue in Ottawa, but has grown to include other faith communities and cities, including Vancouver. (photo from Phil Kretzmar)
The Chinese government is perpetrating a genocide against Uyghur people in the northwestern part of that country – with possibly millions incarcerated and untold numbers coerced into slave labour and forced sterilization. Reports also suggest organ harvesting. Children are being separated from their families.
Canada, the United States and the Netherlands have accused the Chinese government of committing genocide. There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in the region of Xinjiang, which some Uyghurs prefer to call East Turkestan, reflecting their connection to central Asian cultures. A United Nations Human Rights Committee report in 2018 asserted that as many as one million Uyghurs were being held in at least 85 concentration camps, though other estimates say possibly three to five million are now incarcerated. The Chinese government acknowledges the existence of the camps, but claims they are education and skills training facilities.
Uyghurs who are not imprisoned have been subjected to intensive surveillance, repression of religious expression, slave labour and forced sterilizations.
A concerted campaign has been waged to suppress Uyghur culture and the Muslim religion to which most of them adhere. It began with a ban on men growing long beards or women wearing veils and expanded into the destruction of dozens of mosques.
The region is an economic powerhouse, producing 20 to 30% of the world’s entire cotton supply. It is also rich in oil and minerals, and produces China’s largest supply of natural gas.
A webinar was presented March 22 by the Canadian Multifaith Initiative for Uyghur Rights. In addition to three Uyghur expatriates who spoke from a personal perspective, three clergy members of different traditions spoke of the moral obligation to defend the imperiled people.
Vancouver anthropologist and author Alan Morinis was one of the organizers and moderators, and Rabbi Susie Tendler of Richmond’s Beth Tikvah Congregation introduced one of the speakers. Rev. Christopher Pappas, an Anglican priest, and Mufti Aasim Rashid, a Muslim scholar, also spoke.
Mihrigul Tursun, who spoke on the webinar, was incarcerated several times and said she was electrocuted and subjected to other forms of torture. She saw detainees beaten, starved and strip-searched. Scores of prisoners were kept in tiny spaces, forcing some to stand up while others slept sideways.
The Chinese government has contested Tursun’s testimony, claiming she was taken into custody on suspicion of inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination. The government also insisted she was not imprisoned, but spent time in a skills training facility.
Akeda Pulati described the personal anguish from a family’s perspective. Pulati’s mother, Rahile Dawut, disappeared on Dec. 12, 2017, and her family has had no contact and seen no trace of her since. She assumes her mother is in a “re-education camp.”
“The Chinese government has been claiming that those kinds of centres, those kinds of places, are educational centres for people to receive education and job training,” she said. “How could my mom, in her retirement age, need job training?”
Pulati stayed silent for some time for fear of reprisals by the Chinese government against other members of her family and community.
“I stayed silent for too long,” she said. “One day, I realized I cannot stay silent anymore. Our people is experiencing a genocide. I don’t want my mother to die in this horrific place. I lost hope for the Chinese government to have mercy on my mother, have mercy on the Uyghur people.… I am not the only one experiencing this tragedy. There are many, many Uyghur children like me searching for their parents. We found each other on social media and we decided to do something together.”
Mehmet Tohti is a Uyghur-Canadian activist and executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, based in Ottawa. He is a cofounder of the World Uyghur Congress and has twice served as vice-president. By extrapolating the Chinese government’s own limited information on the subject, Tohti estimates there may be 7.8 million Uyghurs incarcerated.
“Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs living abroad are not communicating with their family members,” he said. “They don’t know whether their families are alive or dead. I don’t know whether my mother is alive or dead.”
The world must make China realize they will pay a price for their actions, Tohti said. “Unless there is a cost, the Chinese government won’t stop,” he said.
Canadian companies are the fifth largest investors in the region, Tohti said. “The Chinese ambassador [to Canada] said that Canada’s exports to China soared more than 95% in the last year,” he added. “We are still continuing business as usual.”
Canadians, Tohti said, should be calling on our elected officials to introduce legislation to ban imports of products that may have been created with forced labour. “We have to force our companies to disclose their supply chain,” he said.
Other Canadians are also stepping up on the matter. An ad hoc group coordinated by Ottawa Jewish community member Phil Kretzmar helped schedule a demonstration outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver during Passover, on April 1. The local team intends to demonstrate outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver, 3380 Granville St., every Thursday at 3 p.m. until further notice. For more information, email [email protected].
Michael Sachs, the new executive director of Jewish National Fund of Canada, Pacific region, with his wife Shira, a Hebrew and Judaics teacher at Vancouver Talmud Torah, and their children Izzy, 8, and Desi, 5-and-a-half. (photo by Michael Sachs)
The Jewish National Fund, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1901, is inextricably tied up in the history of the land and the state of Israel. Associated in the minds of generations of Diaspora Jews with planting trees in Israel, the agency – and its Canadian arm – have expanded into almost every area of civil infrastructure in that country.
The Jewish National Fund of Canada raises awareness and funds for projects that still include planting trees, but many years ago expanded into constructing water reservoirs, preserving natural habitats and building parks and bicycle trails. More recently, the focus has included social service infrastructures for vulnerable populations, such as at-risk youth, victims of domestic abuse, children with special needs, veterans and those with economic disadvantages.
For many years, JNF was represented in British Columbia by a shaliach, an emissary, sent here to advocate and raise funds for projects in Israel. Ilan Pilo was the last shaliach appointed and, when the Israeli office of JNF decided to stop funding the position, Jewish National Fund of Canada hired him and he continued in the role as executive director. Pilo and his family returned to Israel permanently this year after eight years in the community here.
Immediately after Passover, on April 5, Michael Sachs becomes the first non-Israeli to helm the Pacific region office. “I’m making history without doing anything,” he joked.
Sachs has spent the past decade working in the wholesale diamond sector as vice-president of sales at ERL Diamonds. In his off hours, he has been involved in an array of community organizations, including serving as president of the Bayit, a Richmond synagogue, during a time of exponential growth in membership. He has also served on the boards of the Kehila Society of Richmond, Vancouver Hebrew Academy, Tikva Housing, and on the development committee of Jewish Family Services. His efforts have been recognized both with a Jewish Independent 18 Under 36 Award, as well as a Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver Young Leadership Award.
Although his community work has been extensive, Sachs may be familiar to most as a member of the family that ran Kaplan’s Deli for years. His mother and stepfather, Sally and Marshall Cramer, owned the restaurant and young Mike worked the counter.
“I always joked that one of the best sitcoms ever written would be something about being behind the counter of a Jewish deli because you hear everything that’s going on in the community, you meet everybody and it’s like watching a show,” he said.
In his early 20s, Sachs traveled to Israel on Birthright and he was transformed. “I came back and I longed for that connection,” he said, “because, when you’re there, it is electrifying through the soles of your feet; the energy, the buzz.”
Taking a leadership role in JNF may be a direct legacy of the impact of that visit.
Sachs refers to his new position as “an absolute dream.” He said, “Something like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” And added, “JNF is, in my eyes, the global Jewish community’s hand in building Israel.”
Sachs and Pilo have been in contact and the former executive director will be on hand from his new home in Israel to assist virtually in the transition. Meanwhile, Sachs has set his sights on expanding the geographic reach of the Pacific region office. He aims to increase the agency’s presence in the Okanagan, on Vancouver Island and in the outlying Metro Vancouver communities.
Speaking before he formally takes on the role, Sachs said he doesn’t want to prejudge what changes might come, but he guarantees two things: “Excitement and energy.”
The staff of two in the regional office – Liisa King and Moran Nir – “do the work of five people,” he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a group of dedicated community members as I have on the board of JNF,” he added, specifically citing Pacific region president Bernice Carmeli and vice-president Shannon Gorski.
Carmeli and Sachs would like to not only reach a broader geographic area, but a larger demographic. Just before the pandemic hit, Carmeli told the Independent, they were about to launch in earnest a new young adult division called JNF Future. As the reopening continues, both she and Sachs hope to develop that cohort and build a strong base of support among the next generation.
Carmeli sees Sachs, who turned 40 on March 27, as the ideal fit for expanding JNF’s message to wider audiences. She shares Sachs’ overt enthusiasm for the future.
“Onward and upward,” she said. “We have a new ED, a lot of exciting things are going to happen.”
Pam Wolfman is chair of the Yom Ha’atzmaut committee and Geoffrey Druker leads the Yom Hazikaron committee. (photos from Jewish Federation)
For many years, Vancouver has been home to North America’s largest celebration on erev Yom Ha’atzmaut. While Israel’s Independence Day is marked in many cities around the world, Vancouver is unusual in that it marks the occasion on the day it occurs – many bigger communities celebrate on an adjacent weekend or later in the spring. The event is usually the largest Jewish community gathering of the year in British Columbia, which is a statement about the connection between Vancouver’s Jewish community and the state of Israel, say organizers.
Last year, with the pandemic declared mere weeks before Israel’s anniversary, the tough decision was made to cancel the local event and join an international celebration convened virtually by Jewish Federations of North America.
While Pamela Wolfman, chair of the Yom Ha’atzmaut committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, wishes the community could come together in person, being online does have a silver lining – it allows the program to be more expansive. Every Yom Ha’atzmaut features an Israeli musical performer or group. This year, the committee has arranged for five performers who have joined the Vancouver celebrations in years past to return in a virtual “best of” concert.
“We decided to bring back five of the favourite artists from recent years who performed here already, so they already had a connection with Vancouver, they’d already visited us and gotten to know us and vice versa,” said Wolfman, who has chaired the event since 2014.
She credits Stephen Gaerber, who preceded her as event chair, and his brothers and father, as the impetus for the focus on Israeli talent at the annual get-together.
“Our community really responds to that,” said Wolfman. “A majority of our community really does feel connected to Israel, wants to celebrate all the positive things about Israel. We want to take a break from the news and we want to celebrate Israel, the miracle of Israel – Israeli art, Israeli culture, Israeli music – and to do that together is just really fun for everybody, really positive.”
Wolfman herself became involved via an earlier involvement with Festival Ha’Rikud, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s festival of Israeli dance for young people. Since the festival began 18 years ago, the kids have participated in Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations every year.
“This year, especially, there’s a lot to celebrate, with everything positive that’s going on with Israel … with the Abraham Accords, with the vaccine rollout, it’s a really good year to get together and celebrate – and lots and lots of great music has come out of Israel this year, too.”
In addition to the “five favourites,” Wolfman promises “cute kids and a few surprises.” Lu Winters and Kyle Berger will emcee, and keep an eye out, as well, for many other familiar faces, as scores of community members have come together virtually for a community song – the iconic 1970 Israeli ballad “Bashana Haba’ah” (“Next Year”).
Since the community event always sells out, this year’s virtual version will turn no one away – plus, it’s free. (Donations are welcome during registration at jewishvancouver.com. Food can also be ordered online via links at the same time.)
There can be no Yom Ha’atzmaut without Yom Hazikaron. Israel’s Independence Day is celebrated the day after Israel’s national day of remembrance for those lost defending the country or killed in terror attacks. This year’s commemoration of Yom Hazikaron will also be online, but the committee, led by Geoffrey Druker, has experience at a virtual version of the solemn commemoration – they delivered a virtual commemoration last year.
Like Yom Ha’atzmaut, Yom Hazikaron holds a special place in Vancouver’s Jewish community. Many other cities in North America mark the occasion, but ours is somewhat unusual, said Druker. Gaby Peled, an Israeli-Canadian who passed away in 2019, was pivotal in structuring our commemoration along the lines of the Yom Hazikaron he knew on his kibbutz, Givat Haim.
When Druker, also from Israel, arrived here in 1988, he was surprised to discover how many members of the Vancouver Jewish community had lost loved ones – family and friends – in Israel’s various conflagrations. A slide show every year remembers the individuals who are connected to British Columbians – and, every year, more faces are added. Often, local people have not shared their stories of loss, and so, as they come forward with their experiences with bereavement, their people are added to the ceremony. Druker invites anyone to contact Federation to add a loved one to be acknowledged and mourned communally.
This year’s gathering will share the story of, among others, Shaul Gilboa, a pilot shot down in 1969 and a cousin of Vancouverite Dvori Balshine. Shimi Cohen will remember his brother, Shlomo Cohen, by reciting Yizkor.
“The ceremony itself is for the bereaved families,” Druker said. “That’s how I see it. We want to remember their loved ones and we want to give them a community hug to recognize their loss and their pain. Everything is geared toward that.”
The event has grown significantly over the years, partly because the Israeli population in Metro Vancouver has grown significantly. Many or most of the participants in the annual Yom Hazikaron commemoration have Israeli ties and it is a hugely significant day in Israel.
The virtual format does not allow the person-to-person interaction that a regular gathering does, where people can share condolences and commiserate, said Druker. But virtual is absolutely preferable to no commemoration at all.
“It’s a significant date for many,” he said, “so that’s why we have to keep going.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the start of a cabinet meeting this past January in Jerusalem. The two outside flags are the Moroccan national flags, placed there to celebrate the fact that Israel and Morocco had just established diplomatic relations. (photo by Haim Zach/IGPO via Ashernet)
The Israeli elections, which take place March 23, are not turning on conventional ideological schisms, according to two top observers. Rather than a left-right divide, the ballot question for most voters is yes-Bibi/no-Bibi.
Lahav Harkov, diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and Chemi Shalev, senior columnist and U.S. editor for Haaretz, analyzed the possible outcomes in a virtual event presented by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs March 2.
Israel is in its fourth election cycle in two years, an unparalleled time of political turmoil. Harkov said she tends to err on the side of optimism but expects a fifth election before too long.
“I don’t see how we get out of this mess,” she said.
Shalev concurred, using a sports metaphor. “There is a saying in soccer, or football,” he said. “You play soccer for 90 minutes and, in the end, the Germans win, meaning no matter what you think during the game, the result is always that the German team wins and, in soccer, it’s usually true. In Israeli politics, it is also usually true.”
In each of the past three election campaigns, Shalev said, media and opponents of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convince themselves he is headed for defeat. Then the votes come in and coalition talks begin and he holds onto office.
True to script, said Shalev, polls suggest Netanyahu’s support is faltering, estimating his Likud party will take about 28 of the 120 Knesset seats, down from the 36 he holds now. But, as much as Netanyahu will face an uphill climb to cobble together 61 votes to form a working coalition, his opponents face even steeper challenges.
Netanyahu, nicknamed Bibi, has led Likud since 2006 and has been prime minister since 2009. Having also served for three years in the late 1990s, Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history and his doggedness in holding on to power has earned him another nickname: King Bibi.
Shalev depicted Netanyahu’s manoeuvrings after the last vote, in March 2020, as a sheer political masterstroke. Benny Gantz led Kahol Lavan (Blue and White), a centre-left coalition whose principal promise was to keep Netanyahu from another term. When coalition talks appeared doomed and another election inevitable, Gantz entered into a power-sharing agreement that delivered another term to Netanyahu and, in the process, exploded the Blue and White coalition. The broad spectrum of centre-left politics that had come together under Blue and White disintegrated and some of those voters have drifted off to the right and may never return to the left, said Shalev.
Gantz is running again but, while the question last election was whether he could best Netanyahu, the issue now appears to be whether he can garner the 3.25% threshold needed to eke out any Knesset seats whatsoever.
In fact, many parties are hovering in the polls around the cutoff mark, which could be a defining factor in the outcome. The Labour party, once the indomitable force in national politics, is on the ropes. Likewise, another erstwhile force on the left, Meretz, could also be wiped out of the Knesset. On the other hand, the smaller parties that do cross the electoral threshold will have outsized influence on whether Netanyahu hangs on or whether another leader can topple him.
Netanyahu’s political survival will depend on the ability of small right-wing parties to pass the electoral threshold to enter the Knesset and help him get to 61 seats. Among the parties Netanyahu would need to depend on are Yamina, led by Naftali Bennett, which is seen as an ideological heir to the defunct National Religious Party.
He would probably also need to rely on another new entity, called the Religious Zionist Party, which iss in an electoral agreement with two other small, far-right factions. The RZP, which tends to represent settlers and Charedi voters, is in partnership (for this round of elections, at least) with Noam, a party whose primary issue is opposition to rights for LGBTQ+ Israelis, which party adherents equate with the “destruction of the family.” The third party in the triumvirate is the extremist party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), which Harkov said is a descendant of the outlawed movement of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Kahane was an anti-Arab politician whose speeches in the Knesset were usually boycotted by all other members, leaving him to speak to a room consisting only of the speaker and the transcriptionists. In 1985, the Knesset passed a law banning parties that incite racism, effectively outlawing Kahane’s Kach party. He was assassinated in New York City in 1990 by an Egyptian-born terrorist.
While Kahane and his compatriots were shunned in their time, Harkov noted that Netanyahu intervened with the smaller right-wing parties, encouraging them – including Otzma Yehudit – to band together to help them collectively pass the electoral threshold.
“If they had not run together, they probably wouldn’t have made it into the Knesset,” she said, adding that tens of thousands of right-wing votes would have been effectively wasted.
Harkov added that she found it “interesting and sad” that, in the first of this four-election cycle, Netanyahu encouraged the small right-wing parties to run together and this caused a huge scandal, given the extremism of Otzma Yehudit.
“When Kahane was in the Knesset, everyone would walk out, no one would listen to Kahane speak when he would have his racist rants in the Knesset,” Harkov said. “Now, the prime minister is encouraging them to be in the Knesset.”
She credits an exhaustion with politics for the lack of outrage over the alliance this time around.
Shalev agreed. Israelis have had more than enough, he suggests.
“I have never seen such fatigue and, if I venture something about the elections, [friends] all look at me as if I’m a lost case,” he said.
Where the fault lines in Israeli politics were once left versus right, that paradigm is at least temporarily inoperable. The Israeli left is in disarray and Netanyahu’s greatest challenges come from the right, including several former allies. Gideon Sa’ar challenged Netanyahu for the Likud leadership last year and was soundly defeated. Frozen out by the prime minister, he left the party and formed New Hope.
“Policy-wise, they’re not that different from Likud,” said Harkov. “Sa’ar is quite right-wing.” He is pinning his hopes on voters seeking more of the same with less of the corruption surrounding the incumbent, who is under indictment on a number of bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges.
The second-largest party in the current Knesset is Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid. This more centrist, secular grouping could bridge some of the divide and make Lapid a possible successor to Netanyahu, but, like all scenarios, would require a coalition-building process akin to a jigsaw puzzle. While there are factions that would be happy to support Netanyahu and others that would support anyone but Bibi, the divisions are exacerbated by internal grievances and personality clashes.
Given the moving parts in any coalition talks, Shalev predicted a potential “outrageous scenario.” Netanyahu has been courting Arab voters and, with the Arab Joint List in disarray, he hopes he can dislodge some votes from those quarters. However, after the election, he would face a new challenge. Cobbling together 61 members might require recruiting Arab parties, which would likely be met with flat-out rejection by the far-right and religious parties Netanyahu would also need to hold. Likewise, religious and secular factions that might agree on supporting a particular candidate for prime minister might balk at joining a coalition with one another. In other words, while there might be 61 members ready to support Netanyahu, they might refuse to do so if it required sitting alongside ideological enemies. Every potential prime minister faces a similar dilemma.
A recent high court decision threw the issue of religious-state separation and the influence of the ultra-Orthodox on national policy and life into the headlines. The ruling recognizes conversions by Reform and Masorti (Conservative) rabbis in Israel (but not abroad). While this re-ignition of the divide between secular and religious Israelis is significant, it may or may not have a major impact on voters. Yesh Atid is avowedly secular, as is Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party. Whether they will gain any political traction from the issue is a mystery.
While overseas observers assume the big political issues in Israel are the Palestinian conflict, Iran and national security, Harkov and Shalev say voters are more focused on bread-and-butter topics, including the pandemic and pocketbook issues. But the biggest question of all for voters, they both agree, turns on personality – primarily that of Netanyahu and voters’ feelings toward him.
Harkov believes Netanyahu has benefited from the Abraham Accords. It also won’t hurt him that Israel leads the world in the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine.
A particular challenge that a reelected Netanyahu would face is building a relationship with the new administration in Washington. Netanyahu bound his fortunes so personally to Donald Trump that Shalev believes it is impossible to build a meaningful connection with the Biden administration. Netanyahu was not an outlier on this front, he noted, citing opinion polls that suggested Israelis, were they able to vote for a U.S. president, would have supported Trump by a massive landslide.
After the Lower Eastside of Manhattan, there is perhaps no place that holds so enormous a place in the imagination of Jewish life in North America as the Catskills.
The Catskill Mountains, really a region of the larger Appalachian Mountain range, is a sprawling section of southeastern New York state. Just 160 kilometres from New York City, the area is a world away from the workaday life that lower- and middle-income Jews of mid-century America experienced. The relative proximity to the world’s largest Jewish population centre made the Catskills a destination for generations of Jewish (and other) Americans.
Phil Brown, a professor at Northeastern University, author of Catskill Culture: A Mountain Rat’s Memories of the Great Jewish Resort Area and founder of the Catskills Institute, delivered a webinar March 3. It was presented by the Jewish Study Centre.
The resort region emerged, to use an inapt metaphor, by farmers trying to create a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The land was not good for farming. Chickens and dairy cows were about all it would sustain, and farmers began opening their homes to temporary lodgers.
“You didn’t come to a hotel, you didn’t come to a resort, you came to our house,” Brown reflected. “You came to our family and they treated you like family. And it didn’t matter if you wanted another potato because we grew them here, we grew the corn, we made the cheese, we made our own butter and the cows were giving us milk twice a day. We could make all the butter and cream and sour cream that you needed…. It was served with a full hand because that’s what people came up here for.”
Elaborate menus were an invitation to excess. “So many things to choose from,” said Brown, “and it wasn’t like you chose one or two of these things for breakfast, you had one from each group. You had the fruit, you had the appetizer, then the cereal, then the eggs and the pancakes.”
In addition to the three meals a day the all-inclusive resorts offered, there was a concession to buy snacks while lounging by the pool or playing tennis, then noshes during the evening program at the “casino” – this wasn’t a gambling den, just the name most resorts gave to the theatre space – and, after that, maybe a drive into town for a bite at one of the late-night diners.
In an astonishing array of about 500 “resorts” – ranging across every quality – and another 500 or so “bungalow colonies,” there was something for everybody. One colony, with accommodations that were a cross between cabins and tents, attracted single young people and newlyweds.
In many cases, families would come for the entire summer – two months for a manageable price. Mom and kids might stay all through, with fathers commuting back to the city on Sundays. At its heyday, the Jewish Catskills drew 500,000 visitors a year, making it, in the 1950s and ’60s, the world’s largest resort area.
The glossy catalogues produced by the local tourism agency had subtle and less-subtle code words to segregate their clientele. “Dietary laws observed” was the signal for a Jewish resort, while “Churches nearby” sent the opposite message. The phrase “No Hebrews” left less to the imagination.
Brown’s own family story is a microcosm of Jewish American strivers taking entrepreneurial risks in the Catskills hospitality industry. “My parents began in 1946 as the owners of a small hotel called Brown’s Hotel Royal on White Lake,” he said. “They had that hotel until 1952. Not very long – six years.”
Economic challenge was a part of the Catskills experience in part because of extended families and the porous boundaries between work and play in vacationland. “It was a place where the family came to work, the family came to stay and no one could tell the difference if they were working or staying,” he said. “And this is partly why my parents went broke. People thought they would have a job there and they didn’t really do much work.”
After losing their hotel to bankruptcy, they worked for others. “My mother, always a chef, my father having other jobs, running a concession, working as a maître d’, working as a chauffeur,” Brown said. Young Phil started working in the resorts at a early age. By definition, the places that employed them were the smaller ones; the larger, swanky resorts only hired male chefs.
“After they lost their hotel in 1952, they moved down to Fort Pierce, a little town 150 miles or so north of Miami,” he said. “The idea here is that they would get a new start here and that all of the Jews coming down to go to Miami Beach would be so hungry for good New York food by the time they got to Florida that they would stop in here on the way.”
Opening a restaurant with a large sign declaring “Brown’s Jewish Restaurant” in a community where the Ku Klux Klan was still openly marching took chutzpah. They crossed local norms when an African-American family walked in and was served like any customers would be. But it was not racism or antisemitism that did the business in. “My parents, having lost a hotel because they were good businesspeople, did not do well running restaurants,” he said wryly.
They found their way to Miami Beach and they ran the coffee shop at the Haddon Hall Hotel, which was partly owned by the Kutsher family, who owned one of the Catskill’s most renowned resorts. It was not uncommon that proprietors of Catskills hotels would also own properties in Florida, capturing clientele for the summer season as well as the winter.
The resorts were not just getaways but miniature societies, where people knew lots about each other and created very intimate relationships. This was at least partly because the folks one would run into there were not usually strangers.
The Seven Gables Hotel, where Brown really learned the hotel industry ropes, was known as a “Jackson Heights hotel,” because most of the people who worked and lived there came from the Jackson Heights area of the New York borough of Queens. The owners came from there, they hired staff from there and they recruited guests via the local synagogues and social networks.
There was a huge diversity in the properties, but, generally, he said, lower-cost bungalow colonies had cabins with their own kitchens, so the food was prepared by the family rather than eating in a restaurant or dining hall. These were often built on a lake or river and so did not have swimming pools. Nor did they provide a wealth of entertainment. The bungalow colonies supplemented the low rent by selling groceries to the guests.
On the flip side, the higher-end hotels and resorts not only served multi-course meals, they also imported vaudeville acts from Manhattan’s Second Avenue theatres and other comedians, musicians and entertainers, who would work a circuit in the “Borscht Belt,” often making a good living and building a name for themselves.
By the 1970s, the Catskills were starting to decline as a destination. Some of the old resorts have become yeshivot or Jewish kids camps. Some are being used as boarding houses. Many of the smaller and mid-sized places have been converted into private homes. At least one is now a resort for Korean-Americans and another has been revived by Russian-speaking Jews. But the heyday is well and truly gone, Brown said.
“It’s a world mostly lost to us physically,” he said, “yet so powerful in our memories and emotions.”