education – Jewish Independent

Climate crisis a top priority

Teen activists talk with Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart at a climate-strike action on Dec. 7. (photo from Rebecca Hamilton)

“It’s going to be our future, so it’s up to us to take it into our own hands and show that, even if we can’t vote, we can still make a difference in our communities and the world,” Malka Martz-Oberlander told the Jewish Independent when she and fellow activist and friend Rebecca Hamilton met with the paper to discuss recent – and future – efforts to draw awareness to the climate crisis.

The two high school students are part of the group Sustainabiliteens, which was inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Last year, Thunberg started monthly school strikes, stating that preparing for a future that won’t have a livable climate was pointless. The strikes, called “Fridays for Future,” have spread to at least 270 countries, including Canada.

Inspired by Thunberg, strike action took place at Vancouver City Hall on Jan. 16, the day that Vancouver city council unanimously passed a motion put forward by Councilor Christine Boyle (OneCity) to declare a climate emergency. Similar motions have been adopted in other cities, including London, Los Angeles and Oakland, but Vancouver is the first in Canada to do so.

“Climate change is already impacting the people of Vancouver and will continue to. We need to respond to this crisis urgently and compassionately with a path towards a more equitable society,” said Boyle in a release. “Adequately addressing the climate emergency won’t be easy, but we are a smart city, capable of doing difficult things.”

Hamilton was an organizer of the strike at City Hall, and the groups Force of Nature and Extinction Rebellion Vancouver also supported the action. There was a previous school walkout and strike for the climate on Dec. 7, said Martz-Oberlander. She and Hamilton are among a growing number of Metro Vancouver teens coming together in what Martz-Oberlander describes as a “shared passion for climate justice.”

“With some of my friends, it’s just doom and gloom,” said Martz-Oberlander. “There’s this sense of this is all going to happen and no one can do anything, so why do anything? It’s out of our hands, we’re just kids…. But there’s also a lot of people that I know who are hopeful and see the bigger picture.”

“When I ask kids about the climate crisis,” said Hamilton, “they say that they think it’s a real problem and they’re scared. But the world around us doesn’t recognize what’s happening with the same sense of urgency that we feel. We are living in a confusing and weird time. On the one hand, we understand the science, we’re being told the scientific facts that we’re in a crisis. We’re being told these very conflicting messages, and there’s this dissonance. So what am I supposed to believe? The world is just going as normal, but why are you telling me then that we’re in this crisis and everything needs to change? I think that’s really frustrating. Me, personally, every day I’m frustrated by that.”

Both Martz-Oberlander and Hamilton grew up in the Vancouver Jewish community and say their Jewish values inform their activism. Martz-Oberlander’s family has been involved with Congregation Or Shalom since before she was born, and Hamilton grew up going to Temple Sholom.

“In the Torah, it talks about needing to pass down this world better than we got it,” said Martz-Oberlander. “That’s the concept of l’dor v’dor, ‘from generation to generation.’ The Jewish teaching that really influenced me is the sense of responsibility towards future generations.”

“Camp Miriam was most important to me in cultivating my Jewish identity,” said Hamilton. “I think it played a huge role in what I’m doing and why I care about it. The focus on youth agency, being told we could create change. It’s tikkun olam – environmentalism and climate justice is the most important way to try and help other people and create a more just world.”

photo - On Jan. 16, students walked out of school to be at Vancouver City Hall to raise awareness of the climate crisis and support Councillor Christine Boyle’s motion to declare a climate emergency — On Jan. 16, students walked out of school to be at Vancouver City Hall to raise awareness of the climate crisis and support Councillor Christine Boyle’s motion to declare a climate emergency. (photo from Rebecca Hamilton)

Both teens avoid the word “climate change,” preferring instead to talk of the “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” and the need for “climate justice.”

“Climate change doesn’t sound urgent enough,” said Martz-Oberlander. “It’s an emergency.”

“I prefer climate emergency or climate crisis,” said Hamilton, who cites Jewish writer and activist Naomi Klein as an important influence on her thinking. “It’s not about preventing this catastrophe but about healing the foundation of our world. The climate crisis is a manifestation of these unjust worldly systems which exploit nature, animals and people, so fixing that manifestation will also mean fixing those systems.”

Hamilton and Martz-Oberlander were inspired to join the climate-strike movement after it came to Canada with a strike in Sudbury, Ont., led by 11-year-old Sofia Mather.

“I feel like I have been concerned about climate change my whole life,” said Hamilton, “but I began to want to do something when I realized that nothing else really matters if we live on a dead planet.”

Hamilton and Martz-Oberlander are currently preparing for a Canada-wide school strike on May 3, and have a local action planned for Feb. 15.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

From Hitler’s library

Library and Archives Canada recently acquired this 1944 book previously owned by Adolf Hitler. (photo from Library and Archives Canada)

Library and Archives Canada recently acquired a rare 1944 book previously owned by Adolf Hitler. The 137-page German-language report Statistik, Presse und Organisationen des Judentums in den Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada (Statistics, Media and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada) was compiled by Heinz Kloss. The data contained within it provides details on population statistics in certain cities, as well as key organizations and presses of Canadian and American Jewish communities. The bookplate bears a stylized eagle, swastika, and the words “Ex Libris Adolf Hitler,” indicating it came from Hitler’s personal library.

Kloss, who visited the United States in 1936-1937, was a noted German linguist whose specializations included German speakers living in the United States. He was the head of the Publikationsstelle Stuttgart-Hamburg, which dealt with research on nationality issues, particularly in the United States, and this book was part of a confidential series and for official use only.

The work hints at the story of what might have happened in Canada had the Allies lost the Second World War. It also demonstrates that the Holocaust was not a purely European event, but rather an operation that was stopped before it reached North America. The book adds many insights worthy of reflection for Canada about the Second World War, and is an important tool to fight Holocaust denial.

“It is fundamental for a national institution like Library and Archives Canada – and other memory institutions around the world – to acquire, preserve and make available documents no matter how controversial or contentious they could be,” said Guy Berthiaume, librarian and archivist of Canada. “It allows us to educate and to advocate for the most complete historical record possible. The truth of history is woven from many sources, and it is only when history is presented in its entirety that it can support the free exchange of ideas that lies at the heart of a democratic society.”

This book by Kloss was likely brought to the United States as a war souvenir, as thousands were taken by American soldiers from the Nazi leader’s alpine retreat outside Berchtesgaden in the spring of 1945. The library acquired it from a reputable Judaica dealer who had obtained it as part of a collection owned by a Holocaust survivor, and it will be preserved in the Jacob M. Lowy Collection, where other important items related to Holocaust remembrance reside.

The acquisition of this book highlights the library’s mandate to acquire material that reflects the published record of Canada, as well as to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. It is also a way to let us reflect on what would have happened in Canada had the Second World War ended differently.

“This invaluable report offers a documented confirmation of the fears felt so acutely and expressed by so many Canadian Jews during the Second World War: that the Nazis would land on our shores and, with them, the annihilation of Jewish life here,” said Prof. Rebecca Margolis, department of modern languages and literatures and Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program, University of Ottawa, and president, Association for Canadian Jewish Studies. “While these fears may seem unfounded given the geographic distance of Nazi Europe to Canada, this handbook offering detailed statistics of Jewish populations across North America underlines their nightmarish potential.”

Teaching entrepreneurship

Students at the Bachar school in Even Yehuda, which educates for leadership and entrepreneurship, prepare to welcome a delegation of educators from developing countries, who came to learn how Israeli schools educate for entrepreneurship. (photo from Galit Zamler)

For Galit Zamler, a course that began as a volunteer position at one school has become a full-time job, with more and more schools picking up her program.

In 2009, when Zamler’s third child was in Grade 6, his school principal wanted to have an after-school activity. She brought representatives of a company that was not only expensive to hire, but would only present to outstanding students, and required at least 20 of them.

Seeing the value of educating kids about entrepreneurship, Zamler – who has an MBA and has co-founded two businesses – told the principal that she would do such a presentation at no charge, as long as her son could be one of the participants. A month later, Zamler was teaching her first group of 12 children. She knew she was onto something great after she had sent the students’ parents notes about what was being taught, and the parents responded with thank you letters.

Word spread and, after volunteering for six years, Zamler turned her volunteer work into a full-time career. Now, 10 years into it, she said, “At the beginning of the course, I’d count each one of them, but now there are a lot of schools and there’s awareness of the need to teach entrepreneurship. I don’t need to go and try to convince anyone. They are going out looking for it.”

One of the first things Zamler teaches is that there are different kinds of entrepreneurs. It is not strictly about entrepreneurs of technology or inventions, and it is not just about opening a business. Students are taught that, to succeed, one must stand out from others – be creative and make their initiative unique.

“Then, they raise ideas and learn that there are no bad ideas,” said Zamler. “Each idea can be good and that’s how we do it. Being critical will prevent others from raising ideas. It’s very important that the class be open-minded and let everyone, whatever their idea, say it aloud and learn to explain it. Sometimes, what they have in their head is not clear to the others. They learn to stand in front of the class and explain their ideas.

“It’s not that every idea is great,” she clarified. “It’s just that we won’t criticize ideas. We ask questions to understand, and we discuss what difficulties we see in ideas – things like, how much it will cost, who will need it, to take a good look at it.

“Sometimes, this makes the student drop an idea, because they understand it can’t be implemented…. For example, there was a student who said she wanted every student to have a cupboard in the class to put their books into. The kids asked where she would put them, with very little space. And, she realized it couldn’t be done.”

photo - Sixth graders at the Hayovel school in Ashdod present their social project: A Birthday to Everyone — Sixth graders at the Hayovel school in Ashdod present their social project: A Birthday to Everyone. *(photo from Galit Zamler)*

Once all the ideas are shared with the class, students start to determine which ones they like the most and come up with business plans – tackling the process like a cake recipe, considering which ingredients they will need to bring their concepts to life. This includes the physical elements, as well as how to make their business unique, part of which involves seeking advice from experts in various fields to see if any changes might be needed.

Only then do the students try to implement their project, which can sometimes be as simple as composing a letter to the municipality.

“I have a school that wanted to have a gym,” said Zamler. “But, the school is small and there’s no place. So, they wrote a letter. The municipality sent an expert to explain why it can’t be done, but gave them money to buy equipment for activities they can move from place to place; using it outside and bringing it back inside as needed. And, they were satisfied with this.”

The curriculum is offered to grades 2 through 9 in Israel and it is funded in part by the government, as principals are allowed some leeway to allocate funds as they see fit within a list of external programs pre-approved by the Ministry of Education.

“Sometimes, they teach it as a science class,” said Zamler. “Other times, it is categorized as a life skills lesson in the curriculum … and, when the school principal thinks it’s important, he or she finds a way.”

Zamler – and other parents – consider the entrepreneurship course a great addition to what is being taught in school, as it will help in practically every aspect of life.

“I think, sometimes, it’s the parents that bring the program to the schools, because they know that children learn something useful for life … not just the ordinary curriculum,” which includes things that may not “help them when they grow up, as things change so quickly,” said Zamler.

Even armed with this entrepreneurial knowledge, Zamler acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of students – 90% to 95% – will end up as employees. But, she is hoping they will be leader employees.

“I was an employee with entrepreneur skills, and that’s what helped me go from the bottom up to management,” she said. “Being an entrepreneur in an organization means that you think big, you do more than you are told. Those are the kinds of workers we need in the workforce.”

While Zamler has not yet conducted follow-up studies on the students who have taken the program, other countries are taking note and looking for ways to implement the program in their own schools.

“The foreign office brings delegations to Israel twice a year and takes them to a school that educates for entrepreneurship,” said Zamler. “And what we see is that, instead of students who don’t like to go to school, we see students who are really enjoying their time in school, because they have choices.

“The army is also looking for these kinds of students…. If they don’t have these kinds of skills – persistence, creativity, and working on team goals – the army doesn’t want them. We know it helps them in the future, in the army and, I think, the workforce.”

The Hebrew Academy in Miami Beach was the first school outside of Israel to implement the program. Also, a company from Hong Kong has purchased the licence to bring the program there.

“They do amazing things there and they’re opening more and more classes,” Zamler said of Hong Kong. “But, there, it is an after-school activity, because it’s hard to bring it into the public school curriculum.”

Zamler has created an online training program for both students and teachers wanting to bring entrepreneurship into their school. For more information, visit tomorrowsuccess.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Emerging from terrible abyss

Robbie Waisman and Dr. Uma Kumar spoke Jan. 24 at UBC’s Hillel House. (photo from Hillel BC)

History’s resonance in the present was a recurring theme at a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day last week.

The event at Hillel House on the University of British Columbia campus, featured Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman speaking about his experiences in Buchenwald concentration camp and his life before and after the Shoah.

Thirteen survivors of the Holocaust lit yahrzeit candles, after which Hillel’s Rabbi Philip Bregman chanted the Mourners’ Kaddish.

Before Waisman’s presentation, the audience watched a 1985 video from CBC television’s national program The Journal, which followed Waisman as he traveled to Philadelphia to meet Leon Bass, the American soldier who had liberated him from the camp 40 years earlier.

Bass, an African-American, was the first black person Waisman had ever seen. At the age of 13, Waisman thought Bass and his fellow American soldiers must be angels.

“Indeed, they were,” he said.

At the event Jan. 24, which was co-sponsored by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Hillel BC, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and UBC’s department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (CENES), Waisman said the thing that kept him and his fellow survivors alive was the hope of being reunited with family.

“The enormity of the Holocaust was not yet known to us,” said Waisman. When it did become known, he said, “we had to find a way to deal and cope with the huge loss of all our loved ones.… How are we going to live with all these horrors?… Has anyone survived? If not, what is the point of my own survival?”

He and his father had seen one of Waisman’s brothers murdered, and his father died later in the same camp. He would learn that his mother and his other three brothers were also murdered, as were his uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. Of the family, only Waisman and his sister survived.

“I search for answers,” he said. “I only find more questions. How could anyone remain sane and functioning as a human being when humanity was destroyed in front of our eyes? Worst of all, how do you come to terms with the tragic loss of all our loved ones, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends that we grew up with, all innocent – everything gone – how is it possible? We started questioning the existence of God. How could this happen to us?… Before the war, we all came from Orthodox homes, rich in heritage and traditions. After coming out of the terrible abyss, the darkness, we questioned angrily. But what we learned in the home, from our parents, was not lost. The sense of humanity slowly returned to us. Our faith was shaken yet, in spite of it all, we remained true to it.”

Waisman said his experience in the Holocaust, and the experience of other survivors, has taught that “evil must be recognized and that we all have a responsibility to make sure that it never happens again to anyone. And yet … what is the world doing about it now?”

He reflected on the concept of “Never again.”

“Noble, thought-provoking words, but only if we act upon them,” he said. “Today, over 70 years after my liberation, the promise of never again has become again and again. There have been a number of situations that have tested the world’s resolve, in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, in Darfur and in Syria – I could go on and on.

“When I speak at high schools, I try to convey to students the pain of my experience in order to inspire them to prevent such events from occurring again,” he said. “The world must learn from the past in order to make this a better place for now and the future. We must teach compassion, we must eradicate racism and religious persecution. We must teach ourselves, teach our children, each generation must learn.”

photo - IHRD at Hillel, right to left, Michael Lee, Rabbi Philip Bregman, Robbie Waisman, Sam Heller (Hillel BC), Joyce Murray — IHRD at Hillel, right to left, Michael Lee, Rabbi Philip Bregman, Robbie Waisman, Sam Heller (Hillel BC), Joyce Murray. (photo from Hillel BC)

Also at the Jan. 24 event, Dr. Uma Kumar, a lecturer with CENES, noted recent reports that indicate many Canadians and others are ignorant of the most basic facts of the Holocaust.

“Nearly half of Canadians cannot name a single concentration camp or ghetto that existed in Europe during the Shoah,” she said. “However, there is a positive point: 85% of the respondents of the study said that it was important to keep teaching about the Holocaust so that it does not happen again. Hence, there is a pressing need for more and better Holocaust education at schools and universities in Canada. We, as Holocaust educators, still have a lot of work to do.”

Joyce Murray, member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, brought greetings on behalf of the federal government and also reflected on her visit last year to Auschwitz.

“The Holocaust reality, for me, shifted from being a part of history that I thought I understood and regretted to a reality that I feel in my body and in my heart,” she said. “Commemorating mass atrocity and genocide in the continued sharing of the story of survivors is a vital part of prevention. These stories serve as a reminder of the dangers of hate, prejudice and discrimination, the dangers of seeing human beings as ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the dangers of excessive nationalism to the detriment of others that is stalking so many nations today.”

Murray also mentioned the Canadian government’s recent apology for refusing admission to passengers on the MS St. Louis in 1939 and reminded the audience that Canada is not immune to bigotry.

Michael Lee, member of the B.C. legislature for Vancouver-Langara, was also present.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was officially marked worldwide on Jan. 27, the date when Allied forces liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in 1945. Another ceremony and a film screening took place Sunday at the Peretz Centre.

For more about Waisman’s Holocaust experience, see the Independent story Feb. 28, 2014, at jewishindependent.ca/holocaust-survivor-robbie-waisman-receives-national-honor.

Much work left to do

One of the displays in the exhibit Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944-1945, which was at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in 2016. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Nearly half of Canadians are not able to name a single Holocaust concentration camp. A large number of Canadians do not know that six million Jews died in the Shoah, offering up numbers like two million, with nearly one in four admitting outright that they just don’t know. Among millennials, those aged 18 to 34, the numbers are particularly disturbing: 22% have not heard of the Holocaust or are not sure whether they have (which seems like much the same thing). One in three Canadians thinks that this country had an open immigration policy for Jewish refugees in the 1930s, unaware that very few Jews were permitted into Canada in the lead up to genocide.

These are some of the details found in a survey conducted on behalf of the Azrieli Foundation and the Claims Conference. The study was based on 1,100 interviews of Canadians to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day Sunday. (See story, “Emerging from terrible abyss. ”)

On the positive side, 85% of respondents said it’s important to keep teaching about the Holocaust in order to prevent such a thing from happening again, while 82% said that all students should learn about this part of history.

In reality, it is unlikely that all Canadian students will learn about the Holocaust. In British Columbia, for example, the Holocaust only became part of the core curriculum with the overhaul of the entire provincial curriculum three years ago – and only if the teacher chooses to include it. The history of genocide is one module that teachers are able to select from a range of subject components at particular grade levels. Therefore, it is still a crapshoot whether a student graduating from the British Columbia education system will have much or any knowledge on the subject.

It is extraordinarily unlikely that the curriculum will be revised again any time soon to make Holocaust education mandatory across the system. Educators complain, with good reason, that they are expected to teach more content than there are hours in a day. Competing needs, including career preparation and life skills, contend with subjects like history for class time.

In Canada, where the educational curriculum is determined by every province, similar discussions take place across the country and a patchwork of curricula exist.

At the same time, a massive shift in the larger culture has taken place, eliminating what had been, until the last few decades, a largely shared body of knowledge. In the days when there were only a couple of television networks, and hard copy newspapers were most people’s sources of information, everyone would generally be aware of similar issues and events. Half of all televisions in the United States in 1978, for example, were tuned in to the nine-and-a-half-hour miniseries Holocaust (a program that was admittedly not without its critics among Jews, historians and others).

The internet and the proliferation of cable TV channels has refracted our attention in unlimited directions. People now largely self-select the information they receive and that can blind us to matters outside of our spheres.

In a better world, knowledge of the Holocaust would be universal. In the world we live in, it remains vital to continue to focus attention on the subject whenever possible – and to use this history to educate about other genocides and violations of humanity while not diminishing the uniqueness of the Shoah itself.

Organizations devoted to the critical work of Holocaust education, including the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, are carrying a heavy burden for the larger society and depend on public support to meet their mandate. The Azrieli Foundation, which undertook this study, publishes survivor memoirs and funds a variety of Holocaust-related projects across Canada. Other groups, to varying degrees, share the burden of teaching this history, including universities, synagogues, Hillels, book publishers and authors, and so forth.

Unquestionably, the most powerful form of Holocaust education is firsthand testimony from survivors and witnesses. British Columbians who are survivors of the Holocaust have spoken to tens of thousands of students but, in a handful of years, this method of transmitting history will no longer be possible. Innovative strategies are being developed, such as the New Dimensions in Testimony oral history project, a collaboration involving Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation, which includes holographic representations of survivors with whom students and others can interact virtually. This project recognizes that the issue is not only to continue educating, but to find ever-advancing means of doing so effectively.

The breadth of the challenge was underscored by Prof. Jan Grabowski, who delivered the Rudolf Vrba Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia last November. He and a team of scholars and researchers are visiting town and city archives across Poland, doing primary research on the events that led to the murder of three million Jews in that country. In other words, we’re still compiling the most basic facts of that history and, it may be safe to say, we are just as far away as ever as to understanding the larger moral questions – How? Why? – the Holocaust raises. Much work remains to be done.

Israelis heading to the moon

Left to right: Inbal Krayes, Morris Kahn, Sylvan Adams and Dr. Ido Anteby at the Israel Aerospace Industries facility in Yehud, Israel. (photo from SpaceIL)

On Nov. 19, SpaceIL announced that Canadian billionaire and businessman Sylvan Adams, who brought the Giro d’Italia Big Start cycling race to Israel this year, joined the project to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon and contributed $5 million to the organization.

Adams announced his contribution as part of a special tour that took place at the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) MBT Space facility in Yehud, where the spacecraft is being assembled. Also attending the tour were SpaceIL’s president Morris Kahn, SpaceIL chief executive officer Dr. Ido Anteby and other senior IAI officials, including IAI vice-president of space operations Inbal Krayes.

Adams, who was celebrating his 60th birthday, said at the event that “this contribution to strengthening the Israeli space program, and encouraging education for excellence and innovation among the younger generation in Israel, is the best gift I could have asked for.”

He added: “I believe that sending the first Israeli spacecraft to the moon will inspire Israeli schoolchildren to take up STEM studies and think about space exploration, and especially to believe that everything is possible.”

Since SpaceIL’s establishment in 2011, the mission of landing an Israeli spacecraft on the moon has become a national project embodying educational values. Adams joins a group of donors who have contributed to the project, including Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Sammy Sagol, Lynn Schusterman, Steven Grand and others.

Kahn, a businessman and philanthropist, took it upon himself to lead the project and bring it to its completion, donating $27 million and serving as the project’s president. He regards its completion as his personal mission.

“We are in the final stretch,” said Kahn, “and I believe that his [Adams] joining will help us raise the remaining money to complete our ambitious mission.”

“The teams of SpaceIL and IAI are making great progress in a series of tests and trials being carried out at IAI’s space facility,” Anteby said. “At the same time, we are stepping up activities to promote scientific and technological education in the state of Israel, ahead of launch.”

In October, SpaceIL and the Israeli Space Agency announced a collaboration with NASA that would enable SpaceIL to improve its ability to track and communicate with the spacecraft before, during and after landing on the moon.

IAI, which is the home of Israel’s space activity, has been a full partner in this project from its inception. Over the years, additional partners from Israel’s private sector, the Israeli government and from academia have joined as well. The most prominent among these are the Weizmann Institute of Science; Israel Space Agency; the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space; the Israeli telecom firm Bezeq, and others.

The same week of Adams’ donation, Ofir Akunis, Israel’s minister of science, technology and space, visited the IAI facility where the spacecraft is being built, after the ministry announced an additional NIS 7.5 million ($2.66 million Cdn) in support for the project.

“The moon mission is one of great national pride. There is a short time before the spacecraft’s launch, and I have no doubt all Israelis will feel great joy when the spacecraft blasts off,” Akunis said. “I am a great believer that the landing will be one of the highlights in the history of the state of Israel, and the educational activity we are doing around the mission sets the foundation for engineers who will work in the field of space and science in the next decade.”

SpaceIL was the only Israeli contestant in the international Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. To win the first prize of $20 million, the participants were required to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon. The competition ended officially with no winner on March 31, when Google announced that it would no longer sponsor the competition.

After succeeding in raising the critical funds to continue its activity, SpaceIL announced that it was determined to continue on its mission and to launch its spacecraft, regardless of the competition. Concurrently, the nonprofit is continuing its efforts to raise the funds necessary to complete this mission.

SpaceIL aims to set in motion an “Apollo effect” in Israel: to encourage the next generation of Israeli children to choose to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and to change their perception of these subjects; to generate a sense of capability, and to allow them to dream big dreams even in a small country.

A first of its kind in Canada

The University of Manitoba is now accepting applications for its interdisciplinary master’s degree in human rights. (screenshot)

The first interdisciplinary human rights graduate degree program in Canada will be starting soon, spearheaded by the director of peace and conflict studies at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Adam Muller, who helped design it.

The new degree will be the first of its kind in the country. Offered by the faculty of law at the U of M, it will train students for careers in human rights work in collaboration with the university’s faculties of arts, education and social work, as well as the Centre for Human Rights Research. Up until now, students wanting an interdisciplinary education in human rights law, theory and qualitative research methods had to go to the United States or Europe.

“We’re going to be training generations of students to serve domestically and abroad in a way that’s deeply inflected by rights, culture and ideas of dignity and social justice that, I think, in some ways, is uniquely Canadian and importantly Canadian,” Muller told the Independent.

“It’s worth noting that, when South Africa transitioned from an apartheid to a post-apartheid state, and they needed to rewrite their constitution, and particularly their charter of rights and freedoms, they drew upon the Canadian model and used Canadian jurists to assist in that drafting process.”

photo - Dr. Adam Muller spearheaded the new human rights program — Dr. Adam Muller spearheaded the new human rights program. *(photo from Adam Muller)*

Muller spent the first nine years of his life in South Africa. His family emigrated from there in the late 1970s in the wake of the Soweto Uprising, for political and other reasons. In addition to his position at the U of M, he is also the first vice-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

Most of his work is about representations by artists of mass violence and atrocity, said Mueller. “So, I’m particularly interested in photographers, but also painters, musicians … people who try to give shape to unimaginable violence with the view of educating people about it.”

While there are other master’s of human rights programs in Canada, this is the first interdisciplinary master of human rights program in the country, said Muller.

The program will be housed in the faculty of law for a number of reasons, he said, the main one being that the language of human rights is first and foremost a legal language.

While other aspects of the program will look at the philosophical, sociological and anthropological discourses, Muller said, “There are different cultural inflections on the idea of human rights, partly because of the [perspective] that human rights practitioners have – an idea of a universal moral subject, which is complicated when you look at it anthropologically. Not all communities around the world share the same moral presuppositions, so those differences matter in terms of the understanding of global rights culture.”

While students will be encouraged to be human rights champions and advocates, the aim is that they not be so in a naïve way. “We want them to actually understand that human rights can be seen by other people as potentially unwelcome, super-impositions of a Western frame of reference over indigenous ways of thinking about the relationship with a person to the group,” said Muller.

In learning about what happened in genocides such as the Holocaust, students in the program will also be taught the continuing implications. For example, Muller wants the master’s students to go into the German studies class and learn, not just about the Holocaust, but about why it still matters in the German context today.

One of the unique aspects of this interdisciplinary program is that the courses available to students will vary from year to year, depending on what is being offered by the different faculties that have agreed to open up their classes to MHR students.

“We expect there to be, for example, considerable coverage of indigenous issues, just because there is a lot of that kind of work going on at the U of M,” said Muller. “We fully expect the MHR students to be both interested in and to become cognizant of the kind of debates surrounding human rights and indigenous people in the Americas.

“What we have is, I think, a healthy elasticity, in terms of the actual curriculum of the program,” he said. “So, there are three required courses, and then three courses students will be able to select from a vast range of options made available.”

Applications are now being accepted through the Centre for Human Rights Research at the U of M for admission in September 2019. It is not a prerequisite to have a degree in human rights.

Since the goal is to train students to become human rights professionals, the program will offer a practicum component for those students who prefer a hands-on approach.

Belle Jarniewski, who recently took on the role of executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada and is probably most known for her work at the Holocaust Education Centre, which is an integral element of the JHCWC, is one of the scholars who was asked to review the MHR program proposal.

photo - Belle Jarniewski of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada was one of the scholars who reviewed the master’s in human rights program proposal — Belle Jarniewski of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada was one of the scholars who reviewed the master’s in human rights program proposal. *(photo from Belle Jarniewski)*

“I was quite honoured that Adam asked me to be one of the people across the country to review the proposal for the program and to submit a recommendation,” said Jarniewski. “I think that it’s very exciting to have a post-graduate human rights program offered. One of the things that I really like about it is that it really allows people to work in or concentrate on different areas of human rights.

“Certainly, I think human rights have always been important. But, in this particular time, where human rights are being abused in so many different countries, and where the mere understanding of what human rights are is being clouded, I think that a program such as this, that will produce scholars in this area, is of extreme importance.”

Jarniewski said Winnipeg is the perfect place to host such a program, with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights being in the city.

“Winnipeggers don’t fully appreciate the importance of it,” said Jarniewski. “When I go overseas, this museum has put us on the map. I think it’s just a logical city to host such a program, given that we have this wonderful museum, and our ability to access it for research purposes, as well as the ongoing work that they do in hosting lectures.

“I’m thrilled that this is happening, that it’s happening in Winnipeg, and that Winnipeg is taking on an important role in the area of human rights.”

For more information about the program, visit law.robsonhall.com/future-students/master-of-human-rights-mhr.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Good neighbours, good work

Students in grades 6 and 7 hand out sandwiches on the Downtown Eastside Nov. 15. (photo from RJDS)

On Nov. 15, 60 students from Richmond Jewish Day School and Az-Zahraa Islamic Academy went to the Downtown Eastside to meet the people in the neighbourhood and hand out food that had been prepared earlier.

photo - Students in grades 6 and 7 hand out sandwiches on the Downtown Eastside Nov. 15 — Students in grades 6 and 7 hand out sandwiches on the Downtown Eastside Nov. 15. *(photo from RJDS)*

“The students, staff and administration of Richmond Jewish Day School have always been committed to doing what we can to improve the lives of those less fortunate among us,” said Reesa Pawer, student life coordinator at RJDS. “One of the ways we have done this is by actively participating in a week of Random Acts of Chesed.”

As part of Random Acts of Chesed Week, Grade 6 and Grade 7 RJDS students worked together with their neighbour school, Az-Zahraa, to put together 700 bags of food and more than 500 sandwiches.

Give a gift of language

Tina Turner, the late Leonard Cohen, TV presenter and comedian Bill Maher, the bands Madness and Led Zeppelin, actor Richard Gere and others have recently been added to the list of celebrities like actors Tom Selleck and Ben Stiller, musician Mick Jagger and former president Barack Obama who, perhaps unknown to them, have helped learners of Hebrew around the world acquire new vocabulary. Two years after the publication of the book Hilarious Hebrew: The Fun and Fast Way to Learn the Language, a fifth print run – which is also an extended edition – has recently been published.

Co-creator and Hebrew teacher Yael Breuer is convinced that, once readers find out that singer “Tina Turner does not hold a grudge,” for example, they are not likely to forget that the Hebrew word for grudge is tina.

“The method is a great way to memorize Hebrew vocabulary but, in fact, could be adapted as a teaching aid for any vocabulary in any language, and we have been asked about producing versions of the book for French, German and even Chinese speakers,” said Yael Breuer.

The book has been popular with Jews and Christians, tourists and students, and is sold in shops, Jewish museums and online. “The book was placed on the recommended book list by famous London-based Foyles bookstore and someone recently told me, half-jokingly, that our method could help lift the biblical curse of the Tower of Babel, which caused communication problems by separating people into speaking different languages,” she added.

Hilarious Hebrew is divided into sections, which helps users identify words according to their need or interest, including vocabulary for vacationers, shoppers and restaurant-goers. It has been used as an aliyah gift to new immigrants to Israel by the Jewish Agency and has also been adopted as a language teaching tool by Edinburgh Hebrew congregation, who have started converting some of the book’s illustrations into animations. Hebrew tutorials, based on the method, are now available on the internet and co-writer Eyal Shavit, who is a musician, is in the process of composing a song using the Hilarious Hebrew method. “Just like the book, the song will teach Hebrew words in an entertaining way that will stick in the listeners’ minds,” he said.

For more information, see jewishindependent.ca/from-nonsense-knowledge. And event information about the book is available on hilarioushebrew.com; it is sold by Amazon.

מלגות לסטודנטים חרדים

עמותת ידידות טורונטו עוזרת במלגות לסטודנטים חרדים כדי “ליצור אליטה אקדמית מקצועית רחבה באיכות ובכמות, התורמת רווחתה הכלכלית של החברה החרדית ולפיתוחה של הכלכלה הישראלית“. (צילום: Wikimedia Commons)

עמותת ידידות טורונטו תומכת בסטודנטים מהמגזר החרדי בישראל ומעניקה להם מלגות בשווי של עד שלושה עשר אלף ש”ח. המלגות מיועדות לסטודנטים חרדים בגילאי 20-40 שנמצאים בשנה הראשונה של התואר הראשון. תאריך הגשת הבקשות יסתיים ב-5 בחודש דצמבר, מספר המקומות מוגבל ואין צורך בשום פעילות חברתית התנדבותית לקבלת המלגה. התשובות יוענקו לסטודנטים שהגישו את הבקשות למלגות לפי מצבם הסוציו- אקונומי.

עמותת ידידות טורונטו עוזרת במלגות לסטודנטים חרדים כדי “ליצור אליטה אקדמית מקצועית רחבה באיכות ובכמות, התורמת רווחתה הכלכלית של החברה החרדית ולפיתוחה של הכלכלה הישראלית”. המלגות מיועדות לגברים ונשים המעוניינים לרכוש תואר אקדמי במוסדות המובילים להשכלה גבוהה בישראל. זאת כדי להעניק “מעטפת תמיכה וליווי במסלול הלימודים האקדמי, החל בשלבי ההכוונה ובחירת תחום הלימודים, ועד להשתלבות מיטבית בשוק התעסוקה”. תכנית החרדים באקדמיה פועלת ליצירת מסלולי לימודים ייחודיים ובעלי ישימות תעסוקתית גבוהה לחרדים.

תוכנית חרדים באקדמיה פועלת מזה שש שנים ובוגריה השתלבו בהצלחה בשוק התעסוקה המקומי. המלגות מיועדות לסטודנטים הלומדים בכל אחד מהמוסדות האקדמיים המוכרים בישראל (ומתוקצבים על ידי המוסדות להשכלה גבוהה). היקף המלגות נע בין ששת אלפים ש”ח ועד שלושה עשר אלף ש”ח. בין התנאים המקדימים להגשת הבקשות למלגות: על המועמדים להיות בגילאים המתאימים, להציג תחום הלימודים הנחשב לפורץ דרך (כמו חרדים לרפואה וחרדים לפסכולוגיה), עליהם להיות בעלי רצון ומוטיבציה גבוהה לקבל ליווי בתחום פיתוח הקריירה.

לפרוייקט תוכנית חרדים באקדמיה שותפים בין היתר: המשרד לפיתוח הפריפריה הנגב והגליל, אינטל, מבחר (מכללת בני ברק האקדמית), עמותת מרפא לנפש (מרכז סיוע ושיקום), אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, הלשכה המרכזית לסטטיסטיקה, המרכז האקדמי לב, האוניברסיטה הפתוחה, האוניברסיטה העברית וחברת מלאנוקס טכנולוגיות הישראלית (המתמחה בפיתוח ייצור של מוצרים ורכיבים למערכות תקשורת).

עמותת ידידות טורונטו (מיסודה של קרן פרידברג הקנדית) פועלת להעצמת אוכלוסיות מהפריפריה החברתית בישראל. תחומי העניין העיקריים של העמותה הם: ילדים, נוער וצעירים בסיכון, חילוץ מעוני של אוכלוסיות חלשות וטיפול רגשי, זהות יהודית, שיפור תדמית ישראל בעולם, חינוך, רווחה, בריאות ורפואה. העמותה מפקחת כיום על יותר ממאה ועשרים פרויקטים שונים.

קרן פרידברג עוסקת ברווחה ובצדקה ועזרה למי שנפגעו בעימותם צבאיים בישראל. ממשרדי הקרן ממוקמים ברחוב הביי שטורונטו – שם פועלת קבוצת פרידברג המתעסקת בתחום הפיננסי. את הקרן מפעילים ומנהלים אלברט פרידברג, ננסי פרידברג ויעקב פרידברג. הקרן תורמת ועוזרת לעשרות ארגונים ופרוייקטים שונים בקנדה ובישראל. סך הכל התרומות שלה נאמד ביותר מארבעים וארבעה מיליון דולר בשנה. כ-52 אחוז מהתמיכות מיועד פרוייקטים לרווחה, כ-41 אחוז לפרויקטים לחולים ונזקקים וכ-2 אחוזים לאזורי אסון.

חברת כריית המטבעות הדיגיטליים ביטפארמס מבקשת להיסחר בבורסת טורונטו

חברת כריית המטבעות הדיגיטליים הישראלית ביטפארמס הנסחרת בבורסת ת”א, מבקשת להיסחר גם בבורסה של טורונטו. בימים אלה הוגשה טיוטת תשקיף לנציבות ניירות הערך של מחוז אונטריו – במסגרת רישום מניית החברה למסחר בבורסה של טורונטו. ביטפארמס מעוניית לחשוף את פעילותה למשקיעים נוספים מחוץ לישראל, ובשלב זה טורונטו על הקו, לאחר שרישום מניית החברה למסחר בנסד”ק של ניו יורק לא צלח.

מנכ”ל ביטפארמס אומר: “קנדה נחשבת למובילה בתחום טכנולוגיית בלוקצ’יין וכן בנושא מטבעות דיגיטליים. אנו פועלים ומנוהלים מקנדה ולכן יש לנו יתרונות פוטנציאליים להיסחר בבורסה של טורונטו. הרישום בשתי הבורסות ת”א וטורונטו יכול להביא גם להפתחת דמי הניהול ושכר הטרחה, הנובעים מתפעול ודיווח בתחומי שיפוט שונים”.