Month: September 2022

Help teens with their English

Want to make a difference in the lives of Israeli teens? Consider joining Israel Connect, a program where local adult volunteers connect online, one-on-one, via Zoom, with Israeli high school students who want to improve their English conversation and reading skills. The program starts on Oct. 23 and is organized by Chabad Richmond, in partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Education. It entails a small and rewarding commitment of 45 minutes once a week.

There are currently 15 local volunteers participating in the Israel Connect program as tutors/mentors, and Chabad Richmond is looking to increase that number, since the need continues to grow.

“We’re looking for volunteer retirees, seniors or any adults with flexible schedules to join the Israel Connect program. No previous tutoring or teaching experience is necessary and the curriculum is provided for tutors/mentors,” said Shelley Civkin, local program coordinator. “If you’re an adult and a fluent English speaker, you have basic computer skills and you own a computer with a camera, that’s pretty much all you need. Oh, and, of course, a strong desire to help Israeli youth.”

Volunteers do not need to speak Hebrew and can tutor from home. Basic training and technical support are available.

Time preferences of volunteer tutors/mentors will be coordinated beforehand and sessions take place in the morning between 7 and 11 a.m. Vancouver time, any day between Sunday to Thursday. “All Israel Connect asks is a minimum commitment of one school year, in order to ensure consistency for the students,” said Civkin.

“It’s a meaningful and practical way for community members to support Israel and build bridges between diaspora Jews and Israelis,” said Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman of Chabad Richmond. “You’ll be doing a mitzvah, while investing in Israel and its young people. Plus, good English skills will give them an advantage in accessing post-secondary education and getting better jobs. English proficiency is crucial to Israeli students, since it accounts for a third of their entrance exam marks for university.”

“Partnering with the Israeli Ministry of Education, the Israel Connect program targets teens from less advantaged neighbourhoods in Israel. Most volunteers really enjoy helping their Israeli students and develop a lasting bond with them. It often goes beyond simply tutoring the curriculum, and turns into friendship and mentorship,” added Civkin. “Conversations sometimes continue long after the school year is over. This kind of one-on-one tutoring makes a huge difference in their lives, both educationally and personally…. Estimating the impact of this program on Israeli youth is, of course, speculative, but we do know for certain that it helps improve their school grades. It’s incredibly satisfying to know that you’re doing something concrete to help Israeli students better their lives.”

The curriculum consists mainly of a tour of Israel, focusing on the wealth of historically, culturally and biblically significant cities and sites. It’s not uncommon for both the students and the tutors to learn something new about Israel at each lesson.

To volunteer, or for more information, contact Deborah Freedman at Chabad Richmond, 604-277-6427, or email programs@chabadrichmond.com.

For anyone who can’t participate as a tutor, Chabad Richmond welcomes financial support for the Israel Connect program, which covers overhead costs like technical support, staffing and other administrative costs. To support the program call Chabad Richmond or email admin@chabadrichmond.com.

– Courtesy Chabad Richmond

Finding my “why”

As a former World Jewish Congress Ronald S. Lauder Fellow, I attended the first Ronald S. Lauder Fellowship Diplomacy Summit. The fellowship is an international cohort of top Jewish students with an interest in global Jewish advocacy who are invited to Europe to participate in high-level meetings with government institutions. From the moment I arrived at the summit in Brussels, the excitement felt by the other fellows and staff was infectious.

We began the trip in the European Union offices, hearing from EU members about the state of Europe and advocating for the European Jewish community. This was followed by a visit to NATO. The number of brilliant minds in these rooms was astounding, and it was such a privilege to watch as my small cohort of young Jewish students and professionals posed challenging questions to EU and NATO leaders regarding the state of European Jewry, global antisemitism and recent world tensions.

The same can be said about our visit to UNESCO in Paris the following day. As a media and information studies student with a niche interest in big tech policies, I was intrigued to learn about the organization’s recent report, History Under Attack: Holocaust Distortion and Denial Within Social Media, directly from its writers. I am hopeful that, combined with efforts to address online harms in countries such as Canada, the UNESCO report will spur positive change in hate speech regulation worldwide.

Once the summit concluded, with my Jewish pride at an all-time high, I hopped on a plane to Israel for a much-needed reunion with family and friends, celebrating Shabbat with my great-aunt and others at her beautiful Jerusalem apartment.

After we studied the week’s parashah (Torah portion), a neighbour began to translate a book written in Hebrew by our relative about our family’s history in Israel. Although I had heard these names growing up, I had not fully understood their weight or meaning. It was there, sitting with family and friends, and with the WJC experience fresh in my mind, that I began to appreciate their significance and what my Jewish heritage really means to me.

My great-great-grandfather was Zvi Pesach Frank, chief rabbi of Jerusalem during the end of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate of Palestine. He was instrumental in the creation of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and in the appointment of Rav Kook (Abraham Isaac Kook) as the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi. I learned more of his historic contributions and my family’s legacy of working to build and protect Israel.

My experience as a World Jewish Congress Lauder Fellow and attending the summit took on a new layer of meaning. Not only am I inspired and committed to continuing my work in global Jewish advocacy, but I have also developed a determination to follow this path, grounded in my profound pride in my family and their accomplishments over the generations.  For that, I am grateful to World Jewish Congress, to my great-aunt and to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. I look forward to what’s ahead, fully appreciating the rationale supporting my aspirations, and I will hold the summer of 2022 near and dear to my heart.

Following the conference and my visit to Israel, it became clear to me that, in high school – when I found my footing in Jewish leadership and learned more about my intersecting Muslim and Jewish background – I had found the “what” of my life’s passion. It was this summer that I found the “why.”

Tia Sacks is a Vancouver native going into her fourth year at Western University in the faculty of media and information studies. She participated in the World Jewish Congress Lauder Fellowship and is currently the vice-president of the Israel committee at Hillel Western and an intern at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

Introspection’s the hard stuff

Before the pandemic, we were once at synagogue on Shabbat when the clergy person leading the family service reminded us that, hey, Elul was here, and we could hear the shofar blown if we came to morning minyan. The next day, Sunday, one of my kids decided we needed to go hear the shofar. It was just a normal Sunday. The minyan was small, largely comprised of senior citizens. My elementary school-aged kid rocked and wiggled in his seat. Most of the adults there smiled and gave him high fives and handshakes and made him feel welcome.

When I explained our shofar mission, they nodded. They all understood why we were there. My kid was given honours and made to feel special. When it was time to hear the shofar, he sat up and listened intently. It was one of those times when I thought, “Oh, we should try to come to minyan to hear this every day.”

This was one of those moments when my aspirations were much higher than my capabilities. Years later, I can’t pretend we’ve ever made it to morning minyan regularly again, even virtually, even during Elul. Maybe, someday, I’ll be one of those senior citizens in the frequent minyan attendee club. For now, I’m rushing to get everyone up, fed and out the door to school and work.

Still, I think that morning minyan experience may stick in a kid’s mind. The Elul shofar is a quintessential wake-up sound for many Jews. It’s the time to think about how the year has gone. We can focus on what’s ahead on the Jewish calendar, how we can make amends and do better in the future. What will change next year? What, most likely, will stay the same?

Is this wake-up ritual true of everyone? No, of course not. I recently saw a TikTok reel of a man, probably in his 20s or early 30s, with a beard. The guy was joking that he observed Jewish holidays through food, and then jokingly said, “Rosh Hashanah? That’s the one with the matzo balls, right?” Maybe I haven’t remembered the skit’s details quite right, but I wasn’t its intended audience. I inadvertently cringed. It was grating to me, jarring, like driving the wrong way down a one-way street.

Here was this guy, probably an influencer, showing everyone that he not only wasn’t religiously literate, but also thought Ashkenazi food was the only essential part of the ritual or the holiday. I mean, food is part of Jewish ritual, don’t get me wrong, but, it rubbed me the wrong way.

Here is a full-blown Jewish adult. And yet, he doesn’t think knowing anything about his ethno-religious identity or choosing to observe anything in regards to its religious context is his responsibility. As a Jewish woman who cares about this stuff, this irked me, because with his masculinity comes a lot of privilege in some parts of the Jewish world. He might be so privileged that he doesn’t even have to know any of this but he still would count in an Orthodox minyan and I don’t.

Our household philosophy is that, if people may potentially harass us or kill us for our Jewish identities, we should know more about who we are and why – and try to find joy or meaning in it. Focusing on Jewish knowledge and joy is kind of a “thing” for us.

This is when I have to remind myself, hey, it doesn’t matter how knowledgeable or observant or ignorant this guy on TikTok is. He’s still Jewish. I am no more or less Jewish than he is. It’s not a competition.

Elul is for introspection. It’s also the time to admit that we are all works in progress. I sure need to keep working. As we grow, learn and age, we can recognize and understand new and different things. Hardest, of course, is to recognize what we don’t know: our biases, intolerances and prejudices. We all have these blind spots. This emphasis, each year, on working on ourselves is valuable in many ways, not least of which is trying to be more inclusive and kind.

Elul is also about wonder – through our senses, when we hear, see, touch, smell and, yes, taste the holiday. It’s the primal feeling we get when hearing the shofar, or the release one gets after a heartfelt apology to a loved one. That wonder continues into Tishri, throwing our bread (like sins) in the water at Tashlich. The wonder is in sweet honey on apples and other holiday symbols. It’s in this season, in the northern hemisphere, when the days shorten and get cooler, the trees lose their leaves and we start again.

As I write this, it’s still summer. I’m the first to say that I’m not ready to embrace Elul. It’s coming though, no matter what. In preparation, we’ve already been apple picking at a neighbour’s tree. We got honey from a local farm. The food part is easy. It’s the introspection that’s the work – and I’m looking forward to hearing the shofar remind me to get busy doing it.

L’shanah tovah (Happy New Year) in advance. May the year ahead be sweet.

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.

Belief in a future Poland

Editor:

Your editorial of Aug. 19 entitled “Does history matter?” recounts some of the terrain of recent right-wing Polish political machinations against an open, self-critical approach to Shoah research and discourse in the country. It is sad, unfortunate and, I dare say, stupid of many Polish politicians to think that avoiding rigorous debate will somehow improve the standing of Poland and Polish culture internationally.

I am a proud Polish Canadian, raised in an amazing, secular Catholic family, and now for the last decade-and-a-half (officially, anyway): a Jew. I love the choice I made and I love Judaism, however the world does look very odd from where I stand. I am often too Jewish for Poles and too Polish for Jews.

An artist by schooling and a software engineer by profession, I am not an historian. However, I have to be one just to muddle through my own life. Poland has always been a cultural floodplain between great powers. Most Poles, perhaps like most Israelis, have to be very finely tuned both to history and to current geopolitical rumblings. To be otherwise would be existentially precarious. Because of my conversion to Judaism, a significant portion of the last two decades of my life has been spent studying topics relating to Polish Jewish history, Polish/Jewish relations, Israeli history and contemporary Polish politics (especially as they relate to Israel, the diaspora and the history of the Shoah).

It is quite exhausting to sit between two communities that I love very much (the now thinly overlapping Polish and Jewish Venn diagram) and have to read occasional inaccuracies, such as the one sadly published in your fine publication in an otherwise excellent text.

When your editorial asserted that Poland is “the society that bears more blame for complicity with the Nazis than any other,” I got quite angry. It is simply not true. This claim is pernicious misinformation that Poles regularly have to dissipate. It is not true on the level of governance, nor is it true on the level of day-to-day street life at the time. Poland was the only Allied force to fight Germany from the very first day of the war to the very last. It never surrendered to Germany as did France. It never made any secret collaborative pacts with Germany as did Russia. Poland knew that Germany was planning the Shoah and it shared solid evidence with Allied command as early as 1942. That the Allies did not act upon this is another story.

Poland was a massive net contributor to the Allied war effort. One source I read suggested that over half of British wartime intelligence reports came from Polish field agents. The Polish army was very active outside of Poland as a key member of the Allied forces during the war, commanded from their government-in-exile in London. The Polish army under General Wladyslaw Anders in fact made a famous march all the way to Israel, where its Jewish soldiers were offered the option of decommissioning and settling down there. The Polish resistance effort was also very active throughout the war throughout occupied Polish territory, where they applied lethal punishments upon those who collaborated with the Germans – matching the brutality that the Germans applied to any Pole who provided shelter to their Jewish neighbours. It was a dangerous time for everyone.

To your editorial’s point about Poland’s historical reputational ranking, I submit here a few other societies that “bear more blame for complicity with the Nazis” than Poland: Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovakian, Danish, Finnish, Burmese, Thai, Iraqi, Russian, French. Oh, and German.

Perhaps some of these are debatable, others much less so. I certainly agree with your editorial that history is important and should be open to public argument.

We live in different times today. To remember is important and we must remember well, but we must also be nimble enough not to get stuck in the ruts of history. One of my favourite Polish Jews, Shimon Peres, once said: “don’t be like us. Be different…. I have very little patience for history. I believe that to imagine is more important than to remember.” In that vein, I would like to echo the words of another Polish Jew I admire. Julian Tuwim, one of Poland’s best writers. He dared imagine: “I believe in a future Poland in which that star of your armbands will become the highest order bestowed upon the bravest among Polish officers and soldiers. They will wear it proudly upon their breast next to the old Virtuti Militari.”

I, too, believe in a future Poland. With criticism, I imagine that it could be something very good indeed.

Ian Wojtowicz
Vancouver

Be a cautious online shopper

As students prepare for the upcoming school year, supply shortages may limit the options available to shoppers – and make them more vulnerable to scams when shopping online.

“Last year, nearly one-third of scams reported by Canadians to BBB [Better Business Bureau] Scam Tracker were about online purchase scams, with a little over 73% of those targeted losing money,” said Simone Lis, president and chief executive officer of BBB, serving Mainland British Columbia.

Online purchase scams often start when scammers target shoppers with phony deals, enticing ads and attractive but fake websites. Once an order is placed, victims find they receive nothing or the items they do receive are counterfeit or inferior to what the ads promised.

To ensure you have a pleasant back-to-school shopping experience, BBB advises shoppers to keep the following tips in mind when shopping for supplies:

Shop with familiar retailers. Shop with businesses you know and trust to ensure you’re getting a quality product and good customer service.

Know what you’re shopping for. Set a budget, identify what tech (or other) capabilities will benefit your student and compare your options. Then, shop around for a reliable seller.

Avoid making quick purchases while browsing social media. Scammers advertise websites that offer great deals or hard-to-find products, but either don’t deliver the product at all or deliver counterfeit products. Do more research on those products by doing an online search for more information and reviews.

Don’t buy from impostors. Fraudsters may use the name, logo and other characteristics of brands you trust. Closely examine the website to verify that they are who they say they are. Make sure the website has “https” in the URL (the extra s is for “secure”) and a small lock icon on the address bar.

Pay by credit card. Credit cards often provide more protection against fraud than other payment methods. Never use debit cards for online purchases.

Keep a record of what you ordered. Make a note of the website where you ordered goods. Take a screenshot of the item ordered, in case the website disappears or you receive an item that differs from what was advertised.

Approach “too good to be true prices” with caution. If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Research the website before making a purchase. Some fake companies may copy the BBB seal to legitimize themselves. If it is real, clicking on the seal will lead to the company’s BBB profile. And do an internet search with the company name and the words “complaint,” “scam” and “review.” This may locate other complaints about the site or let you know if they are legitimate or not.

Scamadviser.com can often tell you how long a website has been in operation. Scammers create and close websites regularly, so a site that has only been operating for a short time could raise red flags.

Verify customer reviews. Scammers frequently post positive reviews on their websites, either copied from honest sites or created by scammers (fake profiles, bots, etc.). Look at the bad reviews first, as these are more likely to be real and can help identify scams.

If you think you’ve encountered an online shopping scam, be sure to report it to the right place and protect other unsuspecting consumers:

– Courtesy Better Business Bureau