Dror Israel representatives Noam Schlanger and Joanna Zeiger-Guerra visited Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver last month. (photos from Dror Israel)
Last month, two representatives of Dror Israel, Noam Schlanger and Joanna Zeiger-Guerra, paid a visit to the region – Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver.
“We are educators at Dror Israel, a grassroots educational organization which works all through Israel,” Schlanger told the Independent. “Our 16 intentional communities of young, trained educators operate a variety of programs, including a network of innovative schools for at-risk youth and Jewish-Arab encounters, which all aim to bring together Israel’s different populations and create a more just and equal society. Our pedagogy focuses on empowerment and community building.”
Comprised of 1,300 people, Dror Israel works in a multitude of fields in Israel and has an impact on the lives of more than 150,000 people each year.
As for their specific involvement in Dror Israel, Schlanger has led a youth centre in Kafr Manda, an Arab town in Lower Galilee, and now works at the community garden in Acre (in northern Israel). Zeiger-Guerra is an educator who is familiar to many young people in southern British Columbia, having worked at Camp Miriam, the Jewish summer camp on Gabriola Island, for several summers. She is also a Habonim Dror alumna.
“I founded and operate a community garden where I work with mainly elderly Russian speakers, and Joanna mentors a cohort of our young educators taking their first steps in a variety of formal and informal educational settings,” explained Schlanger.
During their local visits, Schlanger and Zeiger-Guerra met with a variety of individuals, groups and communities to inform them of their work, specifically Dror Israel’s coexistence programs and ongoing relief efforts with Ukrainian refugee children. These gatherings included talks at Congregation Emanu-El in Victoria and with the Victoria Multifaith Society.
The pair also met with representatives from the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. Those encounters involved “thinking about creative opportunities for programming collaboration,” said Schlanger.
For Schlanger, the message Dror brings – an inclusive vision of Zionism that strives to create a place for everyone, and the dream of a just and equal Israel – is a breath of fresh air amid the polarized discourse about the country.
Dror Israel was started in 2006 by graduates of the Israeli youth movement Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, who served together in the Israel Defence Forces and shared a belief in the founding principles of Zionism. “Through truly innovative education based on dialogue and understanding, we teach leadership and responsibility for self and community. We promote social activism to drive positive change,” the organization states on its website.
Both Schlanger and Zeiger-Guerra live on urban kibbutzim established by Dror, a recent adaptation of the rural kibbutz. Between 30 to 100 young adults, aged 20 to 40, live on each of Dror’s 16 kibbutzim in Israel and work on the organization’s educational, cultural and social projects. With an emphasis on social justice, members of Dror Israel reside in the neighbuorhoods they serve, seeking to bridge gaps and solve local problems.
Throughout the pandemic, Dror Israel has been engaged in opening daycare centres for the children of doctors, nurses and healthcare workers; delivering groceries and medicines to home-bound seniors and those in need; volunteering on farms; and providing online programming for thousands of teens.
“Our message and the story of our work really resonated with everyone we met and sparked a variety of thoughts about future cooperation between Dror Israel and local organizations,” said Schlanger of his time here. “Our hearts were warmed by people’s decision to support our programs. It really attests to the strong, living connection between the Jewish communities here and Israel.”
After more than two years of being unable to visit or host trips to Israel due to COVID, Schlanger said Dror Israel hopes to reinvigorate connections that began many years ago in the region. Aside from delegations of educators to British Columbia, it looks forward to hosting visits in Israel.
“Joanna and Noam were very well-received,” said Sid Tafler, one of organizers of the emissaries’ stay in Victoria. “Many people were inspired by their message of peace and coexistence in Israel, principles they don’t just espouse but practise and live every day.
“We learned about their compassionate and community-building work with youth-at-risk, isolated older people, members of minority communities – including Druze and Arabs – and integrating new olim recently arrived from war-ravaged Ukraine. We have received guests from Dror before and expect we will welcome them again.”
Tag Meir chair Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu speaks, as moderator Maytal Kowalski and the live and Zoom audience listen. (photo from New Israel Fund of Canada)
Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu, chair of the Israeli anti-racism organization Tag Meir, addressed live and Zoom audiences last month in a talk organized by the New Israel Fund of Canada and hosted by Or Shalom Synagogue.
At the event, titled An Israel at Peace with Itself: Solutions to Racism and Inequality, Gvaryahu described his early efforts in social activism, which began after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. “The fact that a religious person with a kippah on his head decided to get rid of our prime minister was a crucial point for me,” he said.
Gvaryahu established the nonprofit Yod Bet b’Heshvan (12 Heshvan, named for the date of the assassination on the Hebrew calendar) and the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Synagogue in Rehovot, where he resides.
According to Gvaryahu, the creation of Tag Meir came about in 2009, following an escalation of racist rhetoric and acts on the part of far-right religious groups in Israel. Tag Meir is a play on words in Hebrew related to tag meicher, or “price tag.” Since the early 2010s, a small percentage of extremist settlers has carried out attacks against Arabs, meant to show the Israeli government “the price” of failing to support their cause.
“Tag Meir, on the other hand, means ‘light tag.’ We try to bring light into the world,” Gvaryahu said. “If there is a price tag attack, we want to be with the victims. We don’t distinguish if they are Jewish victims or Muslim victims. It is crucially important to be with them. We tell them they are not alone and support them.”
Gvaryahu gave several examples of Tag Meir’s work. One followed the July 2014 kidnapping and murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian. Immediately afterwards, Tag Meir chartered buses from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to visit those grieving. The large Israeli contingent wished to pay its respects to the Abu Khdeir family, and they were eventually welcomed in the mourners’ tent.
“This family became our friends and every year since then we visit them – usually around Hanukkah. We bring sufganiyot [jelly doughnuts] and they bring oranges from Jericho,” Gvaryahu said, pointing out that this was a good illustration of how, even in the face of terrible tragedy, a victim’s family can be shown how the perpetrators are not representative of a whole people.
Gvaryahu stressed that Tag Meir gives no preferential treatment to Jewish or Muslim victims of terrorism or hate crimes. In instances of Muslim terrorism, Tag Meir delegations, comprised of Jews and Muslims, are also sent out to those grieving.
Tag Meir is a coalition of 48 organizations that works to build tolerance and fight racism in Israel. It is made up of groups from various religious backgrounds – Arab, secular, Reform, Masorti (Conservative), Orthodox – which Gvaryahu views as a key reason for its success. With volunteers located at several places in Israel, Tag Meir is able to dispatch help quickly, supporting victims with emotional, financial and legal assistance.
At its core, Tag Meir sees the battle against racism as a part of a campaign that supports both the democratic and traditional Jewish values of loving one’s neighbours and justice for all. Whatever their politics, the organization argues, the majority of Israelis oppose acts of violence against innocent people who “are being used as pawns in a political fight that has little or nothing to do with them.”
During the violence that erupted in Israel in May 2021, Tag Meir members worked to ease tensions between Jewish and Arab communities. They set up a human chain around the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, visited areas that had been affected by riots, and handed out flowers in cities with large Arab populations in a gesture of peace.
Each year, Tag Meir orchestrates Flowers for Peace on Jerusalem Day, a time when activists hand out roses to residents of the Old City.
The umbrella group goes beyond responding to Jewish-Muslim attacks. In 2012, following riots against African refugees in South Tel Aviv, the home of some Eritrean refugees in Jerusalem was firebombed. Tag Meir organized a rally in the area and provided the family with material support.
Tag Meir also offers training in Israel, with programs for teachers in the national Orthodox school system and workshops in educational institutions across the country. Among the workshop topics are caring and empathy, open-mindedness and mutual understanding.
Responding to an audience question about the current political situation in Israel, Gvaryahu said, “I have no doubt in my mind that the next coalition will have Arab members and that the party of Mansour Abbas (the United Arab List) will be bigger and stronger,” citing the chance that more Arabs will vote in the next election. “This trend of governments working with Arab parties is good news and hopefully it will continue.”
Gvaryahu’s cross-country speaking tour included stops in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. His Vancouver talk on June 20 was moderated by Maytal Kowalski, a local board member of NIF Canada, and opening remarks were given by Ben Murane, executive director of NIFC.
Imam Mohammed Tawhidi once preached hatred, but now is known as “the Imam of Peace.” (photo from imamtawhidi.com)
Imam Mohammad Tawhidi once preached hate towards Jews from the pulpit, and believed the very worst stereotypes about the Jewish people. He was indoctrinated by the Ayatollah’s preachers in Iran. But, today, Tawhidi is known as “the Imam of Peace” for a reason. He’s preaching coexistence and common ground for Jews and Muslims.
In late May, Tawhidi spoke at a United Grassroots Movement event at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda, a Toronto synagogue, on how people of all backgrounds can – and should – unite against antisemitism and extremism.
An Iranian Muslim of Iraqi origin, Tawhidi sees his former peers actively engaging in hate-filled rhetoric. For example, as in years past, the politics of division and derision were widespread at the Al Quds march in Toronto earlier this year – chants included slurs against Israel and Jews.
Government officials are either incapable of preventing hatred on city streets and property, or unwilling to do so, he said. To answer problems such as these, he encouraged talk attendees to find, and bring together, as many allies as possible, to speak out and even take legal action wherever warranted.
Tawhidi’s change from preaching hatred, to becoming a friend of Israel and the Jews, did not come overnight.
First, he spoke out against ISIS war crimes in the Middle East and Africa. When he was met with condemnation from his peers, he said it opened his eyes to the radical elements that existed within his circle.
“I was still a fundamentalist, an extremist and antisemite,” he said of his views until then. “I thought I was doing this on behalf of God.”
And yet, he began thinking of how he could reconcile the slaughter of innocents in the name of Islam.
The next significant moment for the imam was when he met a Jew. Needing roadside assistance one day in England, it was a visibly Jewish man who helped him.
Later, Tawhidi was invited to a synagogue for an interfaith dialogue. Although he was skeptical, initially, of the people he was communicating with, he left the event feeling a special connection.
His decision to criticize ISIS and radical Islam and preach for peace with Israel and Jewish people was met with a severe backlash.
“I knew I would lose my community, but I also knew I would be welcomed into a new one,” he said.
If he could turn a corner, so can others, Tawhidi maintained. But if they can’t do quite that, then it’s important, he said, to at least defend the truth in public, so that the people who are on the fence or ignorant of the issues can be exposed to all sides.
It’s hopeful for us to note, he said, that the kinds of beliefs he once held are no longer normative in many parts of the Arab world. He highlighted the signatories to the Abraham Accords with Israel, which is breathing new life into modern coexistence, he said.
Further proof of the power of allies, said Tawhidi, is that he received nearly three-quarters of the vote in favour of him winning the position of vice-president of the Global Imams Council, a transnational nongovernmental body of Muslim religious leaders.
Tawhidi stresses that Islam is not a religion that hates Jews, and anything to the contrary is a perversion of the Quran.
To defend against antisemitism, he insisted that Jews and non-Jews must call it out, take legal action when merited, and bring together many communities: “Do not underestimate the power of your allies!” he said.
A staunch supporter of Israel and what he sees as Israel’s right to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Tawhidi said, in response to a question from the Jewish Independent, “There can be no circumstances where the Israeli government should give away any land that belongs to the Jewish people. The holy Quran has made it very clear that God, the God of Abraham, wants Jews to live in that region and for Jerusalem to be their capital. That is the teaching of my Quran, and it is clearly stated in Chapter 5, verse 20 onwards.”
As for developing allies out of those who do not support Israel, yet will speak out against antisemitism, Tawhidi said, “You can’t hate a people and you can’t hate a whole country, but I guess they have issues with certain policies of that government, so they need to provide productive and constructive criticism, so that the problems can be solved, and that solutions can be placed forward.”
However, he continued, “a blanket hate on a nation or a people does not come from a person that is worth making a friend, I don’t believe.”
Jon Wasserlaufis a freelance writer, and a political science major and law student based in Montreal.
Mexican-Canadian singer Gustavo Herrera helped finish off the 2021/22 season of the Jewish Seniors Alliance Snider Foundation Empowerment Series. The classically trained operatic tenor, who has a powerful and melodic voice, entertained the audience with a mixture of classical and popular songs.
A Summer Afternoon of Music, the final event of this year’s Empowerment Series, was co-sponsored by JSA, the Kehila Society and Congregation Beth Tikvah. It took place in the synagogue’s sanctuary on June 27 and began with a catered BBQ lunch for the approximately 55 seniors who attended the event in-person. The program was also available via Zoom, making the total audience about 70 people. Herrera’s 94-year-old mother and his sister were among those who joined the concert virtually.
Toby Rubin, coordinator of the Kehila Society, welcomed everyone and introduced the guest. Herrera sang many songs, including “Somewhere,” “Could I Have This Dance,” “Granada,” “O Sole Mio,” “La Donna è Mobile,” “My Way” and “Only You.” He encouraged everyone to join in and to clap to some of the songs.
He pointed out that, although “My Way” is generally associated with Frank Sinatra, it was written by Canadian Paul Anka. A member of the audience requested “Hallelujah,” which Herrera sang in Spanish. Another request was “Boléro.” For the finale, Herrera asked everyone to join him in ending with “Hava Nagila.”
Gyda Chud, co-president of JSA, thanked Herrera, saying that the concert had been very uplifting and that his mother must be very proud.
Shanie Levin is program coordinator for Jewish Seniors Alliance and on the editorial board of Senior Linemagazine.
Leamore Cohen (photo by Efrat Gal-Or Nucleus Photography)
The Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s inclusion services program is one of the recipients of the Lieutenant Governor’s Arts and Music Awards, in the category of visual arts. This one-time honour, marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, recognizes organizations like the JCC that have excelled in fostering wide community engagement through a robust spectrum of arts and culture programs. Most important: the award emphasizes the JCC’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity.
It all began with a passionate letter of nomination by Chaia Schneid, whose daughter, Sarah Halpern, discovered “a previously untapped creative passion” in the Art Hive and Theatre Lab classes she attended, among other programs run through the JCC’s inclusion services. Writing to the Hon. Janet Austin, lieutenant governor of British Columbia, Schneid stated: “The quality of the arts and culture programs is unlike anything we have found elsewhere. They are professionally delivered and of the highest calibre, and yet individualized to meet the special needs of the diverse participants.” In particular, Schneid praised the JCC’s annual Jewish Disability and Awareness Inclusion Month (JDAIM). Schneid also praised current program director and inclusion services coordinator Leamore Cohen, calling her a “rare individual.”
Shelley Rivkin, vice-president, local and global engagement, at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver wrote a letter of support for the nomination. In it, she highlighted several inclusion services arts and social programs, and Cohen’s leadership.
“Leamore Cohen is the driving force behind these programs and her compassion, creativity and commitment to inclusion shine through in all aspects of the program,” wrote Rivkin. “She is always generating new ways and ideas for participants to engage with the arts and to create to the best of their abilities. These programs break new ground by offering meaningful educational and recreational opportunities for people with diverse needs. Having had the opportunity to attend some events, I have seen firsthand the joy that participants feel in being able to express themselves in a variety of mediums and the pride that their parents and family members experience when they see the creativity and talent of their loved ones.”
For a growing number of Vancouverites from all religious and ethnic backgrounds, and across all ages and abilities, the calibre and range of the JCC’s work is well-known. A schedule of performing and fine arts programs coincides with an array of sport, leisure and fitness options inside a facility that houses a theatre, library, gymnasium and pool. The JCC is also widely known for its annual Jewish Book and Chutzpah! festivals – both occupying a key place in the city’s cultural calendar – alongside community services including preschool and toddler daycare.
“While the arts programming is the centrepiece of what is being offered,” wrote Rivkin, “other inclusion programming for adults includes free memberships and access to all the fitness and wellness facilities at the Jewish community centre along with two virtual classes offered five days a week that are designed to be sensitive to the sensory stimulation needs of participants.”
Noting that activities continued throughout the pandemic, Rivkin concluded, “the program demonstrates its dedication to equity and inclusion daily by the range of programs embedded in the arts that have been opened up to this population and, of course, commitment, both on the part of Leamore Cohen, who dedicates so much time and thought to designing these programs, and to the participants themselves, who have remained active and involved despite their personal barriers and the COVID restrictions.”
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MP Joyce Murray, left, with Annette Whitehead at Trimble Park, June 18. (photo courtesy a community member)
On June 18, Annette Whitehead was awarded a Queen’s Platinum Jubilee pin by MP Joyce Murray. Whitehead was nominated for the honour by Kitsilano Community Centre for her outstanding commitment and dedication to her community. She also received a certificate as a sign of gratitude for all the wonderful and hard work she does for her constituency.
June 2022 marked the 70th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. To commemorate this milestone, Murray was issued a number of Platinum Jubilee pins, which she decided would be best used to celebrate and thank those who volunteer in Vancouver Quadra. The ceremony took place at Trimble Park.
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On July 7, the National Audubon Society announced the winners of its 13th annual Audubon Photography Awards. This year, judges awarded eight prizes across five divisions from a pool of 2,416 entrants from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and seven Canadian provinces and territories.
Local Jewish community member Liron Gertsman won three awards:
Professional Award Winner for his photo of a white-tailed ptarmigan,
Professional Honourable Mention for his photo of a sharp-tailed grouse, and
Video Award Winner for his sharp-tailed grouse video.
In a July 7 Facebook post, Gertsman writes about his wins: “Getting a chance to shine some light on these often under-appreciated birds brings a big smile to my face!”
He also writes about the white-tailed ptarmigan:
Liron Gertsman’s Audubon Photography Award-winning photograph of a white-tailed ptarmigan, titled “Mountain Chicken.”
“Perfectly adapted to harsh alpine conditions, they spend most of their time foraging on small plant matter in the tundra, insulated from the wind and cold by their warm layers of feathers. Ptarmigan are also famous for changing their feathers to match their snowy surroundings in the winter, and their rocky surroundings in the summer. This mastery of camouflage makes them very difficult to find, and I’ve spent countless hikes searching for them, to no avail. On this particular day, after hiking in the alpine for a couple of hours, I stumbled right into my target bird! This individual was part of a small group of ptarmigan that were so well camouflaged, I didn’t notice them until some movement caught my eye just a few yards from where I was standing. Wanting to capture these remarkable birds within the context of their spectacular mountain domain, I put on a wider lens and sat down. The birds continued to forage at close range, and I captured this image as this individual walked over a rock, posing in front of the stunning mountains of Jasper National Park.”
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At the Rockower Awards banquet, held in conjunction with the American Jewish Press Association’s annual conference, June 27, 2022, in Atlanta, Ga., the Jewish Independent received two Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism. These awards honoured achievements in Jewish media published in 2021 and there was a record-breaking 1,100-plus entries from AJPA members.
In the news story category, in the division of weekly and biweekly newspapers, the ˆI took second place for Kevin Keystone’s article “What constitutes recruiting?” The piece explored the allegation by a coalition of foreign policy and Palestinian solidarity organizations that Canadians are being recruited for the Israel Defence Forces.
For excellence in editorial writing, in which all member papers competed, the JI editorial board of Pat Johnson, Basya Laye and Cynthia Ramsay received an honourable mention, or third place. “Strong reasoning and writing, relevant to Jewish audience,” wrote the judges about the trio of articles submitted. The submission included “Ideas worth the fight,” about university campuses and the need to keep “engaging in the battle of ideas, however daunting and hopeless the fight might appear”; “Tragedy and cruelty,” about the response to the catastrophe at Mount Meron on Lag b’Omer in 2021; and “Antisemitism unleashed,” about how the violence in Israel in May 2021 year spilled out into the world with a spike in antisemitic incidents.
To read all of these articles again, visit jewishindependent.ca. For the full list of Rockower winners, check out ajpa.org.
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Myriam Steinberg’s Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of Infertility, with illustrations by Christache, has won two gold medals for best graphic novel. The first was the Independent Publishers (IPPY) Awards, and the second is the Foreword Indies Award. This is after having won the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature last fall.
“This book was not only a labour of love, but also a call-out to the world to recognize and acknowledge the very real experience of so many people,” wrote Steinberg in an email. “Pregnancy loss and/or infertility touch almost everyone in some way or other. It affects those who are trying to conceive the most, but it also touches (often unbeknownst to them) their children, friends, family and colleagues.”
To celebrate the honours, Steinberg is offering a 20% discount on books bought directly from her (shipping extra). To order, email [email protected].
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Ben Mink (photo from sonicperspectives.com)
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) and the VSO School of Music (VSO SoM) are excited to recognize the appointment of Ben Mink, CM, as a Member of the Order of Canada. On June 29, 2022, Governor General of Canada Mary Simon announced that Ben Mink, who is a member of the board of directors for both the VSO and VSO SoM, has received the distinction “for his sustained contributions to Canadian music as a producer, multi-instrumentalist and writer.”
Mink has amassed a critically acclaimed body of work spanning decades, styles and genres as an international musical force. His influence is tangible and enduring in the widest range of musical styles and directions, and his imprint can be found in countless recordings, film scores and television programs. As a producer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Mink has brought his signature style and approach to major musical artists and productions. He has an impressive list of recording collaborations that include k.d. lang, Rush, Daniel Lanois, Roy Orbison, Elton John, Alison Krauss, Heart, Feist, the Klezmatics, Wynona Judd, Method Man, James Hetfield (Metallica), and many more.
He has been nominated for nine Grammies, winning twice for his work with k.d. lang. The song “Constant Craving,” which he co-wrote and produced with lang, won her a Grammy for best female pop performance and has been used in several TV shows.
In 2007, he was co-nominated for his work on Feist’s Grammy-nominated “1234,” which gained global popularity in the roll out campaign for the iPod Nano. His recent collaborations with Heart were Billboard hits. Mink’s work helped set new and significant directions in Canadian popular music, and his writing and producing has been recognized with seven Juno nominations (three wins) and the SOCAN Wm. Harold Moon Award for international recognition.
Reesa Steele and family have the absolute pleasure to announce the upcoming marriage of Talia Magder and Weston Steele on Sunday, July 24, 2022, under the chuppah in front of family and friends in Vancouver.
Mazal tov to Nicole and Philip Magder of Montreal and Reesa Steele and David Steele of Vancouver.
Mazal tov to Talia and Weston. May this be the first of many simchas ♥
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Emmy nominee Molly Leikin is the author of Insider Secrets to Hit Songwriting in the Digital Age, published by Permuted Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, in July 2022. It is Molly’s eighth book.
ORT delegate Nata Saslofsky with students from the D. Dan and Betty Kahn STEAM Centre at the Rodman Middle School in Kiryat Yam, Israel. (photo from ORT)
As a town with one of the highest percentages of new immigrants in Israel, Kiryat Yam is welcoming many refugees from Ukraine. One of the most important elements of helping these families process their trauma and settle is ensuring that their children’s education resumes.
Kiryat Yam’s low socioeconomic index means that local students face more academic challenges in comparison to their counterparts in the centre of Israel. But it’s here that kindergarten children are being taught how to build and even program simple robots, enabling them to gain rudimentary familiarity with technology in preparation for studying STEAM (science, tech, engineering, art, math) subjects in the future.
“Through our robotics programs in kindergartens, and continuing at the D. Dan and Betty Kahn STEAM Centre at the Rodman Middle School, we provide under-resourced children with an extra boost from the youngest age possible, so that they’ll gain the tools and the confidence to pursue higher education and fulfilling careers,” said Dan Green, chief executive officer of World ORT. Green was speaking on May 16 to World ORT delegates who, for the first time in more than two years, convened in Israel to experience firsthand the extensive work of World ORT and meet students who are directly impacted by it.
During a packed visit to Kiryat Yam, between meetings with the mayor and high-level municipal and educational representatives, delegates got an up-close view of the natural progression of World ORT’s STEAM education in action. After watching 5-year-olds playing with the robots they’d built and programmed, the group met middle-school students at the Kahn STEAM centre’s robotics lab who were delighted to show off the robots they’d built and coded from scratch.
“I was impressed by the Kadima Mada robotics demonstrations in Kiryat Yam,” said Jack Kincler of Montreal, who serves as the ORT Canada co-president. “It teaches kids from a young age about following a thought process, team effort, and step-by-step execution until the final, rewarding result is achieved.”
As an added value to the program, students who have gained a basic level of proficiency are encouraged to mentor their peers, thereby acquiring additional skills that will serve them well.
Nata Saslofsky of Atlanta, Ga., a member of ORT America’s National Leadership CohORT program, said, “Seeing firsthand the passion and excitement of ORT students for the robots they built from ideation to conception was exciting, impressive and heartwarming. It would be an amazing world if all kids had opportunities to pursue their interests by taking courses in STEAM subjects that advanced their skills and knowledge. I believe this will lead to fulfilling careers that bring them self-worth and an opportunity to give back to humanity with greater impact.”
Technion graduate Natalie Korlick, a resident of Kiryat Yam and originally from Russia, is one of the instructors at the STEAM centre. “I remember when an interest in science was considered nerdy. Today it’s become cool. Everyone wants to learn robotics.”
Korlick, who also works as a math and science tutor, said academic gaps are evident in almost all students from all grades. “It’s as if they lost an entire year,” she said, referring to the sporadic, long-distance schooling during COVID. “This year, they have to work extra hard to catch up.”
If that’s true for the students at Rodman, it’s all the more so for the Ukrainian students, who’ve seen their whole world turned upside down, and who must adapt to a new country, language and mentality. Thanks to her knowledge of Russian, Korlick is able to provide an extra level of support for the newly arrived Ukrainian students.
“Helping these kids who have been through so much and who arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs is exactly what we’re about,” said Conrad Giles, who has served as World ORT president for the last six years. “We couldn’t be happier that our programs are being used to help get them on track to a better future.”
– Courtesy International Marketing and Promotion (IMP)
British-Israeli composer Loretta Kay Feld. (photo by Michal Sela)
Loretta Kay Feld was asked by someone close to Queen Elizabeth II to compose three tributes, which, said Kay Feld, “were gifted to Her Majesty to honour her 70 years on the throne, a life filled with grace, fortitude and dedication to her country.”
One work is a personal song, called “The Queen’s Soliloquy,” that premièred last February. The second is “A Symphonic Medley of Music for Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee,” which includes four instrumental segments – from “Soliloquy,” the pieces “We Never Felt So Glorious” and “The Lord Chamberlain’s Processional March and Song,” and the third tribute Kay Feld composed for the Queen, which premièred last month, called “70 Years a Queen.”
Kay Feld was born in London and trained in music composition and drama at the Royal College and Guildhall School of Music. She toured with plays and musicals in the West End of London and has published several books. She is a prolific, award-winning composer, lyricist and author, who now lives in Ra’anana, Israel. She made aliyah 11 years ago and is in her final year of a master’s at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.
“I wanted to come here [Israel] since I was a child in Hebrew school but life has a way of changing your plans,” she said. “I got married and lived in America. I gave concerts all over New York, from 1973 into the ’80s.”
Kay Feld wrote for a children’s television network and composed music in many genres. She has written about 900 songs and musical compositions. One of those is the song “Hymn for Israel.”
“I wrote it after the Yom Kippur War [in 1973] and I received letters from Moshe Dayan and Menachem Begin thanking me. The ‘Shabbat Song’ I wrote is also on YouTube and is sung in communities all over the world. ‘I’m Going to Keep America Singing,’” she said, “was performed at the inaugurations of presidents Obama and Biden, played by the Marine band.”
Making aliyah was one dream come true. Composing for the Queen was another.
When Kay Feld was 19, she performed for the royal family at the Variety Club for Great Britain at Victoria Palace and, after the show, was escorted to the box where the royals were seated. She remembers speaking with Princess Margaret and shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II.
The opening lyrics of “The Queen’s Soliloquy” are: “You may ask me what I’m thinking on my Platinum Jubilee / And of all these celebrations, what they really mean to me / Well, my mind keeps drifting backwards, to a life yet unforeseen / Trembling at my coronation, unprepared to become a queen.”
“If we make it to threescore and 10,” said Kay Feld, “we’re considered by Judaism to be filled with wisdom, and the Queen is definitely filled with wisdom. They say the Queen learned five languages when she was young, and one of them was Hebrew.”
Kay Feld said she was offered a singer from the Royal National Opera House for “The Queen’s Soliloquy” but instead chose classical and contemporary singer Shlomit Leah Kovalski, who was born in Jerusalem to parents who made aliyah – her father from Montreal, her mother from New York.
Jamie Clarkston Collins and Eli Schurder of SoundSuiteStudio in Jerusalem do post-production of Kay Feld’s music and the videos are directed and edited by Jason Figgis.
Describing her creative process, Kay Feld said, “I compose when I’m out walking along the sea or in nature, and I think about what I’m composing and usually it just comes to me as if from the air. I write all the music in my head and the lyrics usually come at the same time and I go home and write out the manuscript.”
For her third royal tribute, “70 Years a Queen,” Kay Feld said, “I tried to write a song that I felt everybody throughout the world would be able to sing if they desired to. The melody is simple and the lyrics memorable with a tinge of humour.” Such lyrics as “… 70 years a queen / Four children in between / The Grandmama of future kings / Elizabeth, our Queen.”
The music is accompanied by the singing of renowned baritone Noah Brieger, who, Kay Feld said, “Has an outstanding voice with a great tone. He sang the lyrics with meaning and emotion.”
Brieger, like Kovalski, was born in Israel. He graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and continued his training in the United States. An award-winning performer, he has sung in dozens of productions at the Israeli Opera, including lead roles in Don Pasquale (Donizetti), La Cenerentola (Rossini), La Bohème(Puccini), Romeo et Juliette (Gounod), Schitz (Rechter) and more. He also has performed in Germany, the United States, France, Italy and China.
Kay Feld is excited about a new project she has been working on for a number of years – 1897, The Musical. There are 27 original songs and the choreography is by her daughter, Dorothy Eisdorfer.
“The story is about the degrading things they did in Victorian times, but I want to tell the story with dignity,” said Kay Feld. “It expresses the desires of two women, one in the lower and one in the higher class.”
Her plan is to hire an all Israeli cast and crew, “to showcase all the wonderful talent we have here in Israel,” she said. “I’d like to find enough funding so I can pay all the performers fairly.”
She wants to film the musical and livestream it globally “for all the world to see. It will be a most splendid performance.”
For someone whose music has been performed for presidents and queens, Kay Feld remains humble. “I just believe everyone has a gift,” she said. “And if one can use the gift to make the world a better place, that’s what matters.”
Toby Klein Greenwaldis an award-winning journalist, educational theatre director, teacher and the editor-in-chief of wholefamily.com. Anyone interested in supporting 1897, The Musical can write to Loretta Kay Feld at [email protected].
As soon as they got into power, German Nazis began to make life hell for German-Jewish men – partly to promote their sadistically comic-book ideal of “Aryan” masculine supremacy, and partly out of a desire to plunder valuables and property. And also, it must be said, out of simple criminal/pathological malice.
Fighter, Worker and Family Man: German-Jewish Men and Their Gendered Experiences in Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 (University of Toronto Press, 2022) is a thoroughly researched book. In it, Sebastian Huebel – a sessional instructor in the history department at University of the Fraser Valley – depicts various strategies used by the Nazis to isolate and degrade German-Jewish men in the years prior to the concentration camps. His metaphor for this program of debasement and humiliation is “emasculation,” and the word identifies the book’s focus: how the Jewish-German (heterosexual) male was shamed by the dispossession of any masculine identity as “fighters, workers or family men” – the traditional markers of masculinity in Europe in those days.
Gender is a rare focus in Holocaust literature and, when the topic of gender arises there, it is almost always about women, and written by feminist scholars, as Huebel notes.
But men’s victimization, as Huebel demonstrates, also deserves scrutiny. During the 1930s, the overwhelming percentage of camp internees were male (“cheats,” “traitors,” “greedy bankers,” “race defilers,” “manipulators of international capitalism,” etc.): in other words, women did not fit the Nazi stereotype of the gendered male Jewish fifth-column “enemy.”
The Jewish male “enemy” was uniformly forced out of work, his business expropriated; he was excluded from the military, and his military service in the First World War ignored. In public, he was ridiculed, he was caricatured in propaganda and openly derided – all, as mentioned, to further the absurd Nazi fantasy of the “Aryan” übermensch. For what reason? Simply to “justify the need for protecting Germany from within” by inventing a supposed internal threat – to this day, a tried-and-true strategy practised by would-be and extant dictators.
(It’s worth noting that Huebel does not address the perceived threat emanating from the predominance of Jewish men in the German Communist and Social Democratic parties, in labour unions, and among other dissidents.)
In private, the Jewish father/husband paradigm crumbled under the weight of Nazi deprecation. With no work, no “bread being won,” the only way the Jewish father/husband could show his worth to the family was to arrange for emigration. But, as Holocaust historians have amply shown, by the time it was clear to the German Jews that the Nazis were not going to go away, the “free world” had closed its doors to them. (Canada’s famous response to the question of how many Jewish refugees should be admitted was “None is too many!”)
On a more positive note, Huebel notes that the at-home father model led to increased bonding – unusual for the time – between father and family, and Huebel offers lots of documentary evidence of signs of love and affection between the unemployed father and his children. As well, fathers frequently became at-home teachers to their expelled children – more evidence of “a new presence at home” that led to a reaffirmation of men’s role as father/mentor-educators.
On the streets, as Nazi violence against men increased, men were often coated with tar, made to walk barefoot over broken glass, made to stand for attention for long hours in bitter cold, and forced to open their mouths for Nazis to spit in. As a result, women were more and more often required to go out in public for menial chores.
The gender-specific treatment of men in the camps has not, Huebel says, been examined as closely as has been the treatment of women. To illustrate his point, he stresses how forced labour demanded of men, particularly in brickworks and quarries, led to disfigured bodies, “violated psyches” and premature death. Those who survived returned home like ghosts, permanently traumatized both physically and mentally, tortured by nightmares and often considering (and committing) suicide.
At no point in his book does Huebel denigrate the experiences of Jewish women under Nazism: “different horrors, same hell,” as Myra Goldenberg and Amy Shapiro said in the title of their excellent 2013 book.
Huebel’s oft-stated intention is to draw attention to the specific way men were abused, from beard-pulling to climbing up and down rock quarries until death. Jewish males were, as mentioned, typically regarded by Nazis as the “greater threat,” and were victimized accordingly.
Overall, Huebel shares the hope, in his conclusion, that a study of the erosion of Jewish male masculinity under Nazism can “sharpen our understanding of contemporary issues related to gender.”
This is a daunting objective, if not fulfilled, at least boldly addressed in this groundbreaking book.
Graham Forst, PhD, taught literature and philosophy at Capilano University until his retirement and now teaches in the continuing education department at Simon Fraser University. From 1975 to 2010, he co-chaired the symposium committee of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
The author with her grandmother. (photo from Becca Wertman-Traub)
In the story of the Jewish people, it is not just about our patriarchs but the matriarchs, too. I grew up knowing that both my grandparents, Babi and Zaida, were Holocaust survivors. Zaida would tell me his stories – I know them backwards and forwards from how he spoke about them. But Babi, who was just 13 when the Second World War began, did not really tell hers.
She did talk about her brother – Shaike – who was taken to his death by the Nazi SS when he came out of the house to help young Frieda carry a pail of water. He was taken to a police station and killed in its basement along with numerous other Jews from the town. And she told us that her father, mother, sister and another brother all perished in the Holocaust. But not much else. She was too busy making blintzes, perogies, chicken patties, chicken soup with kreplach and more for her family.
Thankfully, though, she did have the extreme courage to tell her full story to the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation, where I learned the details of how she survived. Frieda’s childhood home in Kamionka-Strumilowa, Poland, became part of a ghetto. During the liquidation of the ghetto, Frieda and her brother, sister and mother hid in a hiding space in the wall and managed to survive, when the rest of the Jews of the town were taken to their deaths at Belzec extermination camp.
Following the liquidation, the German’s declared the town “Judenfrei,” free of Jews, but Frieda and her remaining family were still there. Since their home was located on the edge of the ghetto, they jumped off the balcony, surpassing the ghetto’s fence, and walked to Busk, a town 30 kilometres away, where they had heard that Jews were still living. They went to the Busk ghetto and lived with an aunt. Frieda’s mother died of typhoid there, and Frieda was left with her brother and sister. Unannounced, the Nazis started liquidating the ghetto, and Frieda again hid but was separated from her brother and sister – she never saw them again.
While in the Busk ghetto, Frieda worked as a gardener for a German man who said, if she returned to Kamionka-Strumilowa, he would help hide her. At the time, Frieda did not believe such a thing was possible and simply mentioned it to her cousins. However, after the liquidation, with no immediate family, she decided to give it a shot and walked back to her hometown by herself. The man took her to the village of Obydiv, where she met Mr. Svets, a Polish farmer. Frieda hid in this Polish farmer’s barn for 12 months and, today, his sister-in-law Janina Pelc is listed among Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations.
Frieda was one of just 20 from a town of 3,000 Jewish people who survived the Holocaust and lived to tell her story.
And did she live!
Babi and Zaida met after the war and moved to Vancouver in 1949. Babi was always walking, or speed-walking, usually leaving Zaida behind so she could do laps back and forth around him. She just could not sit still, whether it was cooking for her three children and, later, eight grandchildren, or cleaning the entire kitchen with a single square of paper towel – there could never be any waste. I remember sitting at Babi and Zaida’s kitchen counter as a little kid and Babi giving me milk in a tiny shot glass because “if you finish this, you get some more.”
Babi played tennis at Richmond Country Club, exercised at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, and dined at the finest restaurants and cafés in downtown Vancouver.
Even when Zaida passed away, she was not done living. Right up until the end, my dad took her out for coffee.
In September, just a few days before my wedding, we were out for coffee and she took my left hand, looked at me and said, “Is he Jewish? Is he from a good family?” I said yes, and reminded her that she was coming to the wedding.
At 95, she came to my wedding. And she danced at it – to none other than “Od Lo Ahavti Di,” Hebrew for “I have not loved enough.”
Babi appreciated life and everything it had to offer to its fullest, never allowing any of its gifts to go to waste. We mustn’t either.
May her memory be for a blessing.
Becca Wertman-Traub grew up in Vancouver and currently lives and works in Jerusalem.
I was driving down the back lane, kids in the car, when I saw a neighbour. I stopped and rolled down the window for a chat. The neighbour’s children lived nearby and they were looking for flooring to refinish the landing on their stairs. Our family, through an ordering snafu, ended up with more flooring than needed. In fact, we’d avoided using any new flooring at all. We had asked our clever contractors to help us reuse 110-year-old quarter-sawn oak flooring from elsewhere in the house and the floor refinishers hadn’t needed any of the new “special order, not returnable” flooring. I asked the neighbour if her kids were still interested in it, because we had a lot. She said she’d ask.
The neighbour then asked me if we were doing serious “purging.” I smiled and said it was more like “redistribution.” She laughed, saying she’d have to remember that. She liked this way of seeing things.
We like to think of ourselves as a family that reuses, recycles and repairs things. While we’re not purists, we try to limit what ends up in the trash as compared to the compost. We try to give away or repurpose the things we no longer can use for their original purpose.
If one imagines three kinds of models for one’s household economies, there are sometimes three terms bandied about. A linear economy involves “take, make, use and waste.” A recycling economy involves something like “take, make, use, recycle, make, use … on repeat and eventually … waste.” A circular economy has a much more complicated chart or trajectory, involving words like “take, make, use, repair, make, reuse, return, make, recycle” but very little becomes waste. Everything is used.
The talmudic-era rabbis were part of a circular and recycling economy. We know it wasn’t entirely circular (most ancient civilizations weren’t) because archeologists keep finding the detritus of all those communities. Ask anyone interested in history about this. They wax rhapsodic about pottery shards, bone fragments, mosaics and more – these are essentially the great finds that finally broke completely. These trash bits were thrown down a privy a hundred to couple thousand years ago. Even that ancient trash has its use now: it tells us a lot about societies long gone.
I thought about all this as I began to study the talmudic tractate of Ketubot as part of Daf Yomi. In the practice of studying a page a day, it takes 7.5 years to finish reading the whole Babylonian Talmud. Nevertheless, this page-a-day approach is superficial. It’s just too much text for me to study in detail, so I try to explore one thing every day that I find interesting.
In Ketubot 4, there is a discussion about what to do if a death happens right when a wedding is supposed to take place. The short version is, well, it depends, according to the introduction offered by Rabbi Heather Miller for My Jewish Learning. However, in many circumstances, the wedding is supposed to happen even if someone has to leave a dead body nearby in another room. Why? There are several reasons.
One important reason is that there was no refrigeration. If a wedding feast was prepared and it couldn’t be sold to someone else, the food shouldn’t be wasted. It can’t be assumed that there was enough food to just waste a whole wedding feast. The rabbis really valued “bal taschit,” or “do not waste,” which comes from the Torah, from Deuteronomy 20:19.
Also, if the bride’s mother or the groom’s father died, it was essential to continue with the wedding. These parents had important roles in the planning of the wedding. Canceling the event would take away from their children’s opportunity to benefit from that work. A bride depends on her mother to help her get ready and setting up a wedding later, after a mourning period, would mean a do-over. The bride’s mother wouldn’t be alive to help then, either.
In a discussion with my online Talmud study group, it was pointed out that, in many cases, rabbis throughout history will find every way possible to help people not waste. If a poor family makes a potential kashrut mistake, asks the rabbi what to do and the rabbi knows they will be hungry without the food, the rabbi finds a way to enable the family to eat the food.
This tradition gives me hope for Jewish sustainability in the future. Here are legitimate Torah and Talmud references that encourage us to avoid waste and to reuse and value others’ work. It gives me extra motivation to recycle when it’s difficult to do so, or to patch and reuse a pair of pants yet again.
In some Jewish situations, these notions of avoiding waste are not always followed. Think of a big holiday meal or Kiddush, where everyone used disposable paper products and plastic utensils and, afterwards, it all went in the trash. Consider some well-to-do congregations where holiday services are a fashion show, and where being seen in new clothing is more valued than just being appropriately dressed. These are instances where perhaps we’ve fallen prey to a consumerist, linear economy.
It’s still possible to dress up or wear something new or different on a special occasion. It’s OK to occasionally make more trash than usual, too. However, doing it on a regular basis is not just bad for the earth now. It also affects us in terms of climate change. It’s probably also a violation of the rabbinic obligation to avoid waste.
It’s true that cleaning, decluttering and renovation trends these days are all about how much can be discarded. Maybe it’s time to save the old growth lumber. Reuse something really good. It’s also good to pass along that new flooring so it, too, can be used sustainably rather than discarded. Don’t just throw everything out and produce more waste. Reuse, recycle, make anew … the rabbis said so.
Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.
