Anat Ishai, aka Challah Mom, leads a women’s bake session on May 13. She teaches challah baking as a form of therapeutic self-care, mindfulness & spiritual grounding. After years marked by grief, conflict & collective trauma, this gathering is an intentional, welcoming & apolitical space for joy, connection & togetherness. (photo from thechallahmom.com)
Click here for tickets (by donation) to the Vancouver in-person event presented by NCJW Vancouver and sponsored by PJ Library.
– NCJW Vancouver
Rob Roberts, editor-in-chief of the National Post, will discuss bias and truth in media with writer and journalist Dave Gordon, a regular contributor to the Jewish Independent, at Upstanders Canada’s first-ever live event.
Media Bias and What to do About It will take place in Vancouver on May 24. Janet Dirks, a veteran CTV news reporter, who served six months in Jerusalem among her decades in front of the camera, will contextualize the changed media landscape. Pat Johnson, president of Upstanders Canada and a member of the JI editorial board, will welcome the audience and explain the work of Upstanders, a national organization that is responding to the antisemitism crisis in Canada by developing innovative initiatives and assembling a broad network of non-Jewish allies in every demographic sector.
Presented live in Vancouver at 2:30 p.m. on May 24 (location to be announced), the program will also be livestreamed nationally. More information and tickets, $18, are available through UpstandersCanada.com.
– Upstanders Canada
Left to right: Minister and Solicitor General Nina Krieger, Holocaust survivor and keynote speaker Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Premier David Eby and survivor Leo Vogel at the Legislative Assembly on April 14. (photo from Province of BC)
The annual Yom Hashoah commemoration ceremony at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia took place on April 14, with political leaders, Holocaust survivors and representatives of the Vancouver and Victoria Jewish communities in attendance.
Raj Chouhan, speaker of the Assembly, started the proceedings. “Now, more than ever, it is important that we reflect on and remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and I stand in solidarity with you as we honour survivors today,” he said.
“When I think about the Holocaust, I think of the six million lives of men, women and children lost, the grief, the decimation of entire communities,” said Premier David Eby. “Beyond that, there is the extinguishment of so much potential that could have improved the world.”
Trevor Halford, interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, echoed the premier’s sentiment, calling the Holocaust a genocide unprecedented in its scale. “We lost men, women and children. We never got to see their full potential of what they could be or how they could change and impact this world,” he said. “We must call out hate every time we see it. Every time. Each one of us.”
Jeremy Valeriote, representing the BC Green Party, said that Yom Hashoah is not only a day of mourning but a call to action. “It reminds us of the dangers of hatred, antisemitism and indifference, and challenges us to confront injustice wherever we see it,” he said.
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, an author, educator and survivor, was the keynote speaker. She described a happy, ordinary childhood in Poland in the 1930s. Hers was an assimilated family that participated in Jewish life. Her father was a lawyer and her mother had a large social circle consisting of many friends, both Jewish and not Jewish. That all changed in September 1939.
“There isn’t a day that I don’t ask myself why I survived. How did I survive when six million of us perished, and 1.5 million were children? And one of them was my sister. I lost my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and the list goes on and on,” Boraks-Nemetz said.
Commemorations, such as the one in Victoria, will hopefully ensure that an “apocalyptic event” like the Holocaust never happens again, Boraks-Nemetz said. Through education, she said, we sow the seeds of truth and understanding, the lesson that racism, intolerance and prejudice must have no place in society.
Through the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Boraks-Nemetz and other survivors have spoken to thousands of schoolchildren in the province. She thanked Eby’s government for mandating Holocaust education for students in Grade 10. “Through such actions, we may find a glimmer of hope for a better future,” she said.
Boraks-Nemetz is the author of several books that reflect on her experiences as a survivor and subsequent life in Canada. Her award-winning young adult novel, The Old Brown Suitcase (1994), is used in school curricula to teach about the Holocaust and multiculturalism. Her most recent books are volumes of poetry, Out of the Dark (2020) and Hidden Vision: Poems of Transformation (2024), written under the name Jagna Boraks.
Towards the end of the commemoration, survivors Leo Vogel and Arlette Baker joined Boraks-Nemetz on stage to honour the victims of Nazi terror.
During the ceremony, Rabbi Meir Kaplan led attendees in prayer, and he reflected on how, over the last 20 years, the room had gone from being filled with survivors to having just a handful. Local community member Ari Hershberg read Boraks-Nemetz’s poem, “A Survivor Remembers the Six Million.”
Nina Krieger, minister of public safety and solicitor general, and former executive director of the VHEC, essentially led the proceedings.
“It’s by engaging with the Holocaust that we consider questions like, What is at stake to remain a bystander?” she said. “What are our obligations in times of moral crisis? We learn about the dangers of denial and distortion of history and memory.”
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Malka Pischanitskaya, centre, told her story of survival at the Vancouver community’s Yom Hashoah ceremony. Her daughter, Inna Turner, and granddaughter, Sophie Turner, also spoke at the April 14 event. (Rhonda Dent Photography)
Even before the Holocaust upended her life, Malka Pischanitskaya’s family was hobbled by poverty. Her father left before she was born, and she was largely raised by her grandmother and great-aunt while her mother worked elsewhere. After the Nazi invasion reached Romaniv, Ukraine, in 1941, when Malka was 10 years old, she saw Jews murdered in the streets. On Aug. 25, 1941, Romaniv’s Jews were rounded up for mass execution.
On that day, there was a pounding on the family’s front door and orders to assemble at a central location. What followed was chaos, crowds converging from all directions, families separated. Men were taken away and executed.
“The screams of men were just horrible,” she recalled.
Malka and her mother survived only because, after hours of terror, some mothers with children were unexpectedly released. Most of their family and community were murdered.
What followed were years of hiding, near-starvation and repeated brushes with death. The title of Pischanitskaya’s memoir, A Mother to My Mother, published by the Azrieli Foundation, comes from the reversal forced on her by war: her mother was so traumatized that young Malka often became the more practical, protective figure, begging for food and helping keep them alive. (See jewishindependent.ca/a-harrowing-survival-story.)
Pischanitskaya shared her story April 14 at the annual Yom Hashoah community event, marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, in conversation with Ellie Lawson, education manager of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
Each day, Malka left her mother hidden – in a haystack, a trench, wherever they could remain unseen – and went from door to door in nearby villages, begging for bread. Malka had gone to a Ukrainian public school and spoke Ukrainian fluently, while her mother was identifiably Jewish by her accent. Sometimes people helped, sometimes they could not, but two people in particular probably ensured Malka and her mother lived.
One of those people was Lydia. When Malka first approached her, Lydia demurred. “My home is so empty,” she said. “Like a crystal bowl.”
Malka proposed that, if Lydia would hide her and her mother, she would continue to gather food and share it. Lydia agreed and, for more than a year, Malka and her mother lived hidden in Lydia’s home.
Eventually, neighbours became suspicious. Malka and her mother moved, this time to the home of a young orphan who, like Lydia, chose to help despite the risks.
Both women would be recognized at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
“They needed us as much as we needed them,” Pischanitskaya said of the relationships forged in desperation.
By the end of the war, nearly 40 members of her family were gone – and she began to rebuild a life. “I was not sitting and crying,” she said. “I was mobilized.”
They returned to Romaniv to find almost nothing left. Malka finished school, earned a teaching diploma in Zhytomyr in 1954. She married, had two children, lived in Tashkent and Uzhhorod, and immigrated to Vancouver in 1975. For decades, she did not speak about her Holocaust experiences.
Pischanitskaya’s daughter, Inna Turner, who joined her at the Yom Hashoah event, grew up with the emotional weight of that silence.
“I didn’t know she was a Holocaust survivor,” Turner said. “But I felt it.”
Turner said the silence had a profound effect on her life.
“I think many Holocaust survivors suffer from PTSD,” she said. “And, in the olden days we didn’t know much about it. We know more now, or at least we think we do, and we know that it affects an individual. But it affects not just an individual, it affects people who are the closest to the individual, like children, grandchildren, spouses, siblings, the family. Being a child of a Holocaust survivor, well, what can I say? Not a walk in the park, that’s for sure.”
Only years later did Pischanitskaya begin to speak – through a community of survivors, art and writing.
Pischanitskaya’s granddaughter, Sophie Turner, introduced her not only as a survivor, but as a grandmother who is strong and resilient. She sees her grandmother’s story as a responsibility she and others of her generation are obligated to sustain. “This is not only history,” she said. “It is living memory that we carry with us.”
Survivors lit candles representing six million lives lost, including one and a half million children. Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and US Consul General Shawn Crowley were among the dignitaries who attended. Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, which hosted the event with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, with support from the Jewish Federation’s annual campaign and the Province of British Columbia, welcomed attendees.
“We live in a time when the language of the Holocaust is being used in ways that empty it of meaning,” said Moskovitz, “Words like genocide, once anchored in specific historical reality, are now invoked casually…. Comparisons are made that collapse moral distinctions rather than clarify them. And, perhaps most troubling, the Holocaust itself is sometimes inverted – Jews recast not as victims, but as perpetrators. This is not just inaccurate, it is dangerous. The Holocaust was not a metaphor. It was not a slogan. It was the systematic, industrialized attempt to annihilate the Jewish people. Six million Jews were murdered, families were erased, entire communities were destroyed. That reality demands precision, honesty and reverence. And when that truth is blurred, something else is lost as well. Empathy is lost. Understanding is lost. And the moral clarity that the Holocaust calls us to carry into the world begins to fade.”
“Remembrance is not a passive state of being,” said Hannah Marazzi, executive director of the VHEC. “It is an act of moral choice … an act of resistance.”
In addition to mourning those murdered, she said, Yom Hashoah is about honouring survivors. “Those who endured unimaginable suffering and yet found the strength to go on,” she said. “Many rebuilt their lives here in Canada. Their resilience, wisdom and testimony have shaped not only this community, but the city of Vancouver, and continue to shape the work that we undertake at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.”
A musical program included Abbygail Sandler, Cantor Michael Zoosman, Cantor Shani Cohen, Lisa Kesselman and Ellie Sherman. They were accompanied by Eric Wilson on cello, Erin Marks on oboe, Wendy Bross Stuart and Perry Ehrlich on piano. Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted the memorial prayer El Moleh Rachamim.
Michael Posner, author of Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories, was Kolot Mayim’s final speaker in this season’s Zoom lecture series. (photo from Michael Posner)
Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025/26 Zoom lecture series on Jewish music concluded April 12 with a talk by Michael Posner on Hallelujah and Beyond: Leonard Cohen’s Torah of Song.
Posner, a playwright, author and journalist living in Toronto, penned Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories, covering the musician’s life from his early years in Montreal to his death in Los Angeles in 2016. Posner drew on more than 500 interviews with Cohen’s family, friends and others to offer a complete portrait of the man and his art.
“It won’t surprise many of you to know that Leonard was a very complex character, a very complicated individual,” Posner said. “In fact, when I speak about the Jewish soul of Leonard Cohen, it’s necessary to attach what I would call an asterisk to that description. The asterisk is actually very appropriate to Leonard, and maybe essential, because he was a man of many moods and many masks, many manifestations and many contradictions.”
Cohen had a profoundly Jewish soul, according to Posner. Not only was he a kohanim (descendant of Jewish priests), but an ancestor was the unofficial chief rabbi of Montreal, his grandfather was a talmudic scholar and portraits of Cohen’s forefathers feature prominently on the walls of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal.
“From the time that he starts writing, as a teenager in the early 1950s, Jewish themes and motifs, Jewish imagery and history infuse his art – they are a very essential part of the first four books of poetry that he wrote,” Posner said.
It is through his music, however, that Cohen achieved international fame, and many of his songs “cleverly exploit Jewish ideas and scripture,” said Posner.
In “Who by Fire,” for example, which echoes the Unetaneh Tokef prayer of the High Holy Days, Cohen is not rejecting faith, so much as trying to establish, in the wake of the Holocaust, the grounds of continuing faith, argues Posner.
“The metaphor here,” he said, “is a kind of corporate secretary fielding phone calls on behalf of humanity itself, some of whom will live and some of whom will die in the next year, according to the decree of the caller. But who, exactly, is the caller? Who is at the other end of the line? Dear God, it’s me, Leonard. Are you still there? Can you please identify yourself? This is a theme that Cohen mines continually.”
In “Hallelujah,” Posner spots irony in the line, “There was a time you let me know / What’s really going on below / But now you never show it to me, do you?”
The song is often perceived as a celebration of God, but, Posner said, “I don’t think people have paid close enough attention to the lyric, because the lyric is really saying, we want to believe in you, God, but it’s not that simple.”
Posner discussed Cohen’s struggles with established Judaism and his spiritual exploration that delved into other faiths, including Christianity, I Ching and Sufism; Cohen was devoted to Rinzai Zen Buddhism and ordained as a monk in 1996. Nonetheless, there were several aspects of Judaism that Cohen honoured.
“In the 1970s, he began to study with a Chabad rabbi in Montreal and routinely traveled when he was on tour with his tallis and tefillin bags,” Posner said. “In later life, he joined a synagogue in Los Angeles, whose rabbi, Mordecai Finley, was deeply steeped in kabbalah. And, later still, he studied online with Yakov Leib HaKohain, another rabbi who was immersed in the mystical aspects of Judaism.”
Cohen, in Posner’s view, touched upon everything that is human – magnificent, brilliant, humorous and generous, yet capable of being cynical, depressed, angry and jealous.
“I think that is really what I ultimately draw from this fantastic human being – that enormous complexity, an enormous soul that tried to reach beyond our everyday lives and look at the enduring qualities that make us human,” Posner said.
Kolot Mayim’s next series starts in November, with the theme of “Lech Lecha: Journeys of the Soul.”
Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
ראש ממשלת ישראל בנימין נתניהו ונשיא ארצות הברית דונלד טראמפ פתחו במלחמה נגד איראן, הנחשבת למסוכנת ביותר. לשני המנהיגים הללו לא הייתה תוכנית מסודרת לגבי המלחמה באיראן, והם כנראה לא חשבו מספיק על התוצאות ההרסניות שלה. הן מבחינת כמות הנפגעים הגדולה, הנזק לרכוש והנזק לכלכלה העולמית. ולא פחות הגרימה ללחץ נפשי גדול מאוד לאזרחי ישראל שצריכים כל העת לחפש מקלטים ומקומות להגן על עצמם, מפני הטילים מאיראן ושל החיזבאללה מלבנון – שהגיעו בכמויות עצומות. הקלישאה אומרת כי ידוע איך מלחמה מתחילה אך לא ידוע כיצד היא תסתיים. זה נכון מאוד לגבי המלחמה הנוכחית
המלחמה עם איראן משרתת בין היתר את הקברניטים שפתחו בה נתניהו טראמפ. נתניהו מחפש לבסס את עצמו כמנהיג ביטחוני ממעלה ראשונה שהרחיק את הסיכון האיראני, תוך שהוא מנצל את העליה בפופולריות שלו בישראל, לקראת הבחירות שאמורות להיערך בתוך מספר חודשים. יש שחושבים שהוא מסוגל להמשיך במלחמה עד הבחירות, או ליצור מלחמה אחרת, כדי לדחות אותן. ואילו טראמפ מבקש להשכיח מהציבור האמריקני את פרשת תיקי אפשטיין שכוללת מידע חדש גם עליו. במקביל הוא מבקש להציג את עצמו בתור הנשיא האמריקאי היחידי שביטל את הסכנה האיראנית. ובכך בעצם הוא בוגד בבוחריו הרבים שקיוו שהוא יעסוק בפתרון בעייות הפנים של ארה”ב והכלכלה בראשה, ולא בפתיחת מלחמות חדשות שעולות מיליארדי דולרים
בתקופת הנשיא ברק אובמה נחתם הסכם הגרעין בין מדינות המערב לאיראן שמנע ממנה להתקדם בפרויקט. הסכם זה כלל פיקוח הדוק על מה שאיראן עשתה בנושא הגרעין, אך טראמפ בקדנציה הראשונה שלו, שמע בעצת נתניהו וביטל את ההסכם. מרבית גורמי הביטחון בישראל טענו שזו הייתה טעות קשה לבטל את הסכם הגרעין עם איראן, אך זה לא הטריד ממש את שני מנהיגים אלה, שלאור כך, מנהלים עכשיו מלחמה קשה מול איראן. הפופולריות של נתניהו וטראמפ בעולם ממשיכה לרדת פלאים. נתניהו עדיין נחשב פופולרי יחסית בישראל, בקרב למעלה משלושים אחוז מהאוכלוסיה, אך מצבו של טראמפ בסקרים בארה”ב הולך ומחמיר. טראמפ שחושש שהמפלגה הרפובליקנית תאבד את הרוב שלה בסנאט ובקונגרס, ינסה בכל דרך לפגוע בתקינות בחירות האמצע של ארה”ב, שגם הן אמורות להיערך עד סוף השנה
כך או כך לאזרחים בארץ פשוט נמאס מהמלחמה הנוכחית כאשר כל העת עפים על המדינה עשרות טילים מאיראן ומלבנון. לא זכורה תקופה כזו בישראל מעולם. כבר כשנתיים וחצי שמתנהלת מלחמה בישראל, שהחלה לאחר הטבח של השבעה באוקטובר. מתי יהיה כבר הסוף לכך ונוכל לחזור למסגרת חיים נורמלית שואלים רבים בארץ. התקופה הקשה והבלתי נתפסת הזו גרמה לישראלים לא מעטים לעזוב את המדינה. גם האנטישמיות הגואה בעולם לא מרתיעה אותם
לפי נתוני מדינת ישראל לפני כשנתיים למעלה משמונים אלף ישראלים עזבו לחו”ל, ואילו אשתקד כשבעים אלף ישראלים עזבו לחו”ל. במקביל יש פיחות משמעותי במספר הישראלים החוזרים לגור במדינה. כצפוי הסיבות העיקריות לגידול המשמעותי בירידה הן המצב הבטחוני ולאחר מכן חוסר היציבות הפוליטית ובעיקר המהפכה המשפטית. גם לחוסר יציבות בכלכלה הישראלית יש משקל בהחלטה של הישראלים לעזוב. יצויין שחלק מהעוזבים הם עולים חדשים שהגיעו לישראל בשנים האחרונות ועזבו לאחר זמן קצר. במונחים כספיים מדובר בנזק של כמיליארד שקל בשנה לישראל
לא ברור מתי ישראל תחזור לתקופה שלפני המלחמה האחרונה והשקט יחזור על כנו. יתכן ומנהיגים חדשים בישראל ובארה”ב יעזרו בקידום היציבות באזור
BC students at the StandWithUs conference in Las Vegas March 15-18 included, left to right, Adar Latak, Alexis Moscovitz and Ethan Doctor. (photo by Pat Johnson)
What happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. That was the defiant message from Roz Rothstein, the chief executive officer and co-founder of StandWithUs, as she welcomed about 1,000 Jewish and pro-Israel high school and college students, alumni, activists and assorted allies to the organization’s conference in the Nevada city, March 15 to 18. They assembled to become more informed and empowered, to return to their campuses and communities to advance the fight against antisemitism and antizionism.
Among the delegates were about 100 Canadians, including 15 BC students, as well as Vancouverite Zara Nybo, StandWithUs Canada’s campus and high school manager for Western Canada.
StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy and education organization, provides leadership training and educational programs to students at hundreds of schools, as well as operating many other initiatives, including legal supports for Jewish and pro-Israel individuals and groups.
Among the BC students were four Leventhal high school interns and 10 Emerson fellows, who are part of the organization’s college and university track, Nybo said.
Students are selected based on demonstrated leadership in pro-Israel activism. They attend two immersive educational international conferences like the Vegas meeting during their year of service and are required to initiate several Israel-related programs in their communities or on campus.
Delegates heard from a roster of noted speakers in plenary sessions and more intimate, often hands-on breakout sessions.
The intensive morning to late-night schedule included speakers like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; singer, dancer and online influencer Montana Tucker; sociologist David Hirsh, who is head of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism; Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel; Luai Ahmed, a Yemeni-Swedish journalist; Oct. 7 survivors, including Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage for 505 days; and scores of others.
Stephens, the New York Times columnist, spoke of the revolutionary impact the potential fall of the Iranian regime could have on regional and global affairs but also warned of unintended consequences.
“Regime change is not at all easy,” he said. “There are all kinds of imponderables.”
The state could spiral into chaos and even more bloody and brutal repression than the government has already brought down on anti-regime protesters, he said.
“I do think there is, in fact, quite a plausible scenario [of regime change] – not now, not during this war, but in six months or a year – if [it’s] a militarily crippled and humiliated regime that is still under sanctions, still cannot pay its bills, cannot pay its civil servants, cannot pay its soldiers,” said Stephens.
Iranian street activists, he said, need to “kick this regime when it’s down.”
“If anyone can do it, 90 million Iranians, 88% of whom, at least, despise the regime and had the courage to come out and cheer when the late ayatollah was killed … I think that that creates conditions in which I can see it happen,” he said.
Ahmed spoke of his ideological and physical journey from being an antisemitic young man in Yemen to a new life in Sweden advancing coexistence with Jews.
“It is our duty as reformist Arab Muslims to stand with our Israeli and Iranian brothers and sisters to reject radical Islam, to fight radical Islam,” he said. “It is our duty to fight the terrorists who occupied my country, who believe that firing ballistic missiles at Jews is more important than feeding the starving population of Yemen.
“Radical Islam occupied Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza,” he said. “Radical Islam married my mother off at the age of 8. Radical Islam is our problem and, today, I stand here as a Yemeni who was taught to hate Jews. And I’m telling you something that radical Islamists fear the most: Jews and Israel are not our enemies.”
Alshareef shared a similar transformation.
“I used to be hardcore antizionist,” he said. “I used to be deeply antisemitic. In my local mosque, I repeated after my imams, ‘Death to Israel, death to Jews, death to Zionists,’ without ever having met a Jew or a Zionist before. Today, thank God, I no longer believe in that cancerous ideology that not only impacts the Jewish community, but it also impacts my community as well.… A society that learns to hate Jews more than loving our own children is not a healthy society.”
After Oct. 7, 2023, Alshareef decided to visit Israel.
“I learned that the Jewish community and Israelis were desperate for peace, that the vast majority of Jews and Israelis do not want war with us,” he said. “They want peace, and they are very desperate for this peace. That is something that no one had ever told me until I went to Israel myself to see the truth. I then took it upon myself to try to hammer this newfound truth to my friends and family members. And, since then, I’ve been creating content, sharing the hidden truths about Israelis and Jews that my society either dismisses or is completely unaware of.”
Students shared their experiences with antisemitism and bias from teachers, administrators and fellow students. A high school student explained how he helped get an ahistoric and antisemitic handout removed from his school’s curriculum – it had gone unchallenged since 1998. In plenaries and breakouts, individuals shared personal experiences of harassment, discrimination and loss of friendships.
StandWithUs does not only educate but also uses the law to seek fair outcomes in cases of discrimination.
The conference heard from Yael Lerman, founding director of Saidoff Law, a legal arm of StandWithUs, which includes a team of attorneys backed by a network of hundreds of pro bono lawyers and law firms.
“Imagine being a Jewish student in a high school where there are very few other Jewish kids,” Lerman said. “Day after day, classmates taunt you. They call you ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘Zio,’ they send antisemitic messages. Sometimes, they shove you or punch you. You never know when the next message or the next attack is coming. The school knows about it. Nothing changes. Then you reach out to StandWithUs Saidoff Law. Our attorneys step in. We represent you, we fight for you, and we win. We secure a transfer to a new school, and the original school must pay for it for the rest of your time in high school.”
No student should ever face antisemitism alone, Lerman said.
“Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in legal complaints, not only on campuses, but across everyday community spaces,” she continued.
“Recently, one man went to pick up a clothing order at a store where he had been a loyal customer for several years. The clerk looked at his kippa and muttered, ‘You Jews think you can get everything you want.’
“Later that day, he received an email telling him he was banned from the store and the entire chain. So, he reported the incident to StandWithUs. Our lawyer filed a complaint with the appropriate government agency and negotiated a settlement. The store had to lift the ban and compensate him. That is what accountability looks like,” said Lerman.
The conference heard diverse emotional testimonies.
Shem Tov shared the harrowing story of dancing at the Nova festival and, minutes later, being thrown in the back of a pickup truck and transported across the border into Gaza, beginning a nightmarish ordeal of 505 days of being shuttled between locations and then confined in underground labyrinths. For 50 consecutive days, at one point, he was held in complete darkness in a cell where he could not stand up.
“They used to abuse me physically and mentally,” he said of his captors. “There wasn’t any human interaction, I would say.”
Shem Tov was held in near-starvation even as he saw piled boxes of United Nations-supplied rations.
His captors once took him to a house above a tunnel that had been rigged with explosives and told him he would be forced to trigger an explosive blast when Israeli soldiers entered the boobytrapped structure. When they threatened to kill him if he refused, Shem Tov told them they could shoot him, but he would not do it.
After Shem Tov’s presentation, hundreds of students rushed to the front of the hall, surrounding the former hostage and dancing ecstatically as music blared and massive screens declared: “We are dancing again.”
The executive director of StandWithUs Australia, Michael Gencher, led a memorial for the 15 victims murdered during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach last Dec. 14.
Sami Steigmann, a child survivor of the Holocaust, spoke of the series of flukes and strokes of luck that saved his life.
In addition to Canada and all regions of the United States, student delegations came from Europe, Latin America and Australia. Due to war-related airspace closures, only two delegates were able to travel from Israel for the event.
BC delegates spoke to the Independent about their experiences.
Adar Latak, a University of Victoria psychology student in his final year, said he gained confidence at the conference and made important connections.
“You’re meeting Jews from around the world, and that’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s easy to get brought down by everything, and coming here really lifts your spirits. You’re with other Jews, you’re all facing the same thing, and you’re all talking about it, and you’re giving each other advice and tips, and it is really just a beautiful thing.”
Alexis Moscovitz, a second-year physical and health education student, also at the University of Victoria, echoed Latak’s sense of community.
“Obviously, everybody has different experiences, but it’s all basically the same,” she said. “We’re all fighting antisemitism on our campuses and so, having a support system, amazing staff here, it’s just amazing to be able to be with people that you know are experiencing the same things.”
Vancouverite Ethan Doctor, a Langara College student, has faced threats on campus, including being followed and intimidated by a group of masked and keffiyeh-clad activists. His experience as an Emerson Fellow helped him navigate the college bureaucracy, seeking appropriate security and prevention steps.
“If it wasn’t for organizations like StandWithUs, I wouldn’t know how to properly deal with it and wouldn’t know the proper steps to take,” said Doctor. “I am just eternally grateful to organizations like this.”
Jesse Primerano, executive director of StandWithUs Canada, told the Independent his group’s role is to help young pro-Israel activists, but also people of all ages, find their voices.
“In many cases, they don’t feel comfortable with the facts, to engage with people who are coming at them very aggressively,” he said. “So, our job is to help them understand the facts and how to communicate them to people who disagree.”
Earlier, Primerano briefed the convention on the state of affairs in Canada.
“We look back on times [of] the Holocaust, and I think what we said for many generations was that, as long as our government didn’t turn on us, we would be safe in the countries that we live,” he said. “And, you know, since Oct. 7, antisemitism has become emboldened in a way in Canada that it feels like our politicians know the only way to stay in office is to take an anti-Israel position.
“So, we’ve seen our mayor of Toronto be unwilling to come to an Oct. 7 vigil, unwilling to come to an Israeli flag-raising,” Primerano continued. “Our prime minister in Canada said that he would arrest Bibi [Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] should he come to Canada. He put an arms embargo on Israel and, most importantly, as I’m sure many of you are aware, he rewarded Hamas with support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“That type of rhetoric and action from our government has spilled into the streets because it has emboldened those who are willing to take shots at the Jewish community. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. Just [days earlier] in Toronto, we had three synagogues that were shot overnight in four days,” he said.
StandWithUs partners with many different groups, Primerano said, but because they work extensively with university students, some people might wonder how they fit with agencies like Hillel.
“Hillel is, in many ways, the voice on campus,” he said. “They are the coordinators of Jewish life. Their goal and their work and their ultimate obligation is to bring Jewish students and their allies together. Our job is, once those students are together, to help supplement the work that Hillel is doing with Israel education, with helping awareness towards antisemitism. Hillel has a wide array of responsibilities that go far beyond just advocacy. Our job is to supplement their work, to work with them as a partner and bring our resources into their space while they bring the students here to meet our resources.”
At the Vegas conference, StandWithUs unveiled SWUBOT, a free, downloadable artificial intelligence tool providing at-the-fingertips information on Israel, antisemitism and activism.
StandWithUs was marking 25 years since Rothstein founded the group with her husband, Jerry Rothstein, who is the organization’s chief operating officer, and Esther Renzer, who is the president.
Jews are not a homogeneous group in ritual, beliefs, thought or experience. We are diverse, coming from many different places, speaking countless languages, putting our unique spins on food, music and other cultural aspects. We are both a religion and a nation. Yet, despite the differences, we are connected to one another in myriad ways, linked by shared ancestry and core values, as well as by external forces that, all too often, are hostile.
“The documentary you are about to watch highlights the resilience and unity of the Jewish people, surviving thousands of years of persecution, violence and dispersion while staying connected, hopeful and shining light in the darkest times,” narrates Becky Wosk at the beginning of her film One Thread, which screens May 3, 1 p.m., at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, as part of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.
The documentary is a reminder that, while there are so many reasons to be proud of being Canadian, many (most?) immigrants to Canada, Jews included, have come here from somewhere else not so much by choice, but because of adverse conditions in their home country. We must also remember that Canada has not always been a welcoming place for newcomers or, of course, for the peoples who were here before any Europeans arrived. Sometimes, Canada has completely closed its doors, as in the case of Jews fleeing the Holocaust on the MS St. Louis in 1939.
In One Thread, Wosk interviews 15 members of the BC Jewish community. They share brief overviews of their family histories, how they ended up in British Columbia. Most of their ancestors were fleeing persecution or arrived as a survivor of it. Their families sometimes traveled via other countries or provinces before settling here.
Wosk asks interviewees what being Jewish means to them, what they wish non-Jews knew about Jews and Judaism, their favourite parts about being Jewish, and other questions. The answers are both similar and different. They offer a glimpse into the challenges and joys of being Jewish.
Wosk has done a masterful job at editing some nine hours of interview recordings into a 42-minute documentary that includes some wonderful archival footage and photographs. She lets viewers know that Jews are roughly 0.9% of the Canadian population (2021 data) and 0.2% of the global population (2023). She bookends the film with two quotes that reinforce her themes of resilience, unity and hope, and she highlights Canada’s message to Jews wanting to come here after the Holocaust: “None is too many.” But, mostly, she lets her interviewees tell the story.
“I was a student in the Langara film arts program (directing stream) and the head of the program, Jonas Quastel, sent me the application for the Earl Parker Award for Jewish Film via the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival,” Wosk told the Independent about the film’s origins. “I applied with the idea to document some of the history of the Vancouver Jewish community, as well as the commonalities of Jews in the diaspora. As someone who is a documentary lover, and a genuinely curious human, I really wanted to share local community members and their stories.”
She found those community members by putting a call out through local organizations and social media groups. She wanted people from a range of ages and genders. While everyone she spoke with lives in British Columbia, some of them are from other places originally, including Argentina, the United States and other provinces.
Her own family history illustrates the different places from which community members have come and the impacts they have had here.
“My paternal great-grandparents came to Canada from Ukraine in the early 1900s,” said Wosk. “That side of the family was actually documented in the book by Shirley Barnett, Don’t Break the Chain: The Nemetz Family Journey from Svatatroiske to Vancouver. My paternal great-grandfather, Abrasha Wosk, was a pioneer of the Vancouver Jewish community. He secured the building and funding for the original Schara Tzedeck and helped start the Hebrew Free Loan Association.”
Her paternal great-grandmother, Abrasha’s wife, Chava (Nemetz), was a community builder in her own right.
“My maternal great-grandmother, Rose Cohen (Beckerman), came from North Dakota; her family came over from Eastern Europe. My maternal great-grandfather, Maurice Cohen, was from Lithuania, the rest of his siblings went to South Africa. He came to Prince Rupert and opened a dry goods store called Director, Cohen & Co.”
Wosk’s grandparents were all born in Canada, she said, except for her paternal grandmother, who was from Manchester.
“It reinforced the feeling of being part of something bigger than oneself, something very deeply rooted in ancient spirituality,” said Wosk about making the film. “I loved being able to chat with the interviewees about our favourite foods and holidays. I just love witnessing the common thread in our existence, the ties to our ancestors, and the genuine desire to learn.”
As winner of the 2024 Earl Parker Award for Jewish Film, One Thread screened at the Edmonton Jewish Film Festival in 2025.
“It’s one thing to create something, but to get it in front of an audience is a whole other matter, so having these opportunities is invaluable,” Wosk told the Jewish Federation of Edmonton’s HaKol at the time.
She is very excited to have the film now screen at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. “I want our community to know that we are stronger together, and we need to lift each other up – especially in the face of adversity,” she told the Independent.
“As a people, we face a lot of hate, especially online” she said. “It’s easy to open up Instagram and just be bombarded by antisemitic individuals and just awful comments. I try to find peace and strength in the fact that we do have this incredible community of resilient, strong and compassionate people. We are part of an ancient quilt, and we can always tap into that communal comfort whenever we need to.”
Currently working as a freelance director and videographer, Wosk said she will soon be starting a feature screenplay that relates to her family history and, separate from that, she is hoping to start a new documentary film in the next year or two. Her band, Hollow Twin, will be releasing some new music later this year.
The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival runs April 30-May 8 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas, which is a 19+ venue, and May 10 at the Rothstein Theatre. For the full lineup of films and tickets, go to vjff.org.
Driving south along Oak Street on a recent sunny spring morning, it was hard not to feel the hope of renewal. Paralleling Vancouver Talmud Torah is a majestic line of cherry blossoms in full flourish. A few metres on, outside Congregation Beth Israel, waves of daffodils tell the cyclical story of nature and regeneration.
If hope itself were temporal, springtime would be its incarnation. Sometimes, though, recognizing and feeling hope can take effort.
For many of us, the just-ended celebration of Jewish redemption and rebirth held special resonance, as it has since 2023. The ageless stories, relived at the seder, remain so relevant. We are living through a period that feels, at once, ancient and immediate, because hatred has resurfaced so ferociously and wears familiar disguises.
The redemption of the last hostages from Gaza and the end of that war gave little reprieve before a new war began in a cycle with which Israelis are all too familiar. Jewish history, though, teaches that darkness is never the whole story.
Seeking peace is a central obligation in the Jewish tradition. But Jewish law, halachah, also acknowledges the role of force when necessary. Jewish survival has never been passive; it has never been the result of favourable conditions. It has been an act of will – a refusal to accept that the present moment, however dark, is permanent. From the destruction of the Temples to the expulsions of Europe and the Levant, from the crusades and pogroms of the Middle Ages to the ashes of the 20th century, Jewish history has been punctuated by chapters that seemed like endings. And yet, they were not.
Jewish hope is not blind. It is strategic – necessary and unavoidable. Consider what has happened in just the past century – an epoch that, in the annals of Jewish time, is the blink of an eye. A people nearly annihilated rebuilt not only our lives, but our language, our culture and our sovereignty. The rebirth of Jewish life in our ancestral homeland was not inevitable. It was improbable.
War is tragedy. There are no easy moral lessons in suffering, no easy narrative that redeems loss. But history demonstrates that moments of profound rupture can create the conditions for transformation. As David Ben-Gurion said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”
The peace between Israel and Egypt followed a devastating war. The Abraham Accords emerged from a recognition that endless conflict was untenable. It is not naïve to hope that, from the current devastation, a new framework might eventually emerge – one that prioritizes stability, dignity and coexistence over perpetual violence.
The same is true of the surge in antisemitism globally. It is alarming, yes. But it is also exposing something that has long simmered beneath the surface. Ideas that were once coded are now explicit. Relationships that were once assumed are now being tested. Perhaps, in these challenges lies opportunity.
There is a growing recognition that Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred are not isolated prejudices, but warning signs. Individuals and communities are standing ground and pushing back. Young Jews and “Oct. 8 Jews” – whose connections to Jewishness were limited until the shock of renewed hatreds motivated new inquiries into their identities – are rising to the moment.
Non-Jewish allies are speaking out, showing their support in their actions and presence. Take, for example, those daffodils at Beth Israel – planted in memory of those people murdered in the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the garden was inspired by a non-Jewish ally. (See jewishindependent.ca/flowers-for-those-murdered.)
The story of Passover does not promise that the journey will be easy. It does not deny the existence of hardship or doubt. It does insist that liberation is possible. And this idea is not just tradition. It is necessary and an obligation.
Local Israeli cover band HaOpziot will get people dancing at this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21. (photo from JFGV)
“As we hold Israel close to our hearts, we are reminded that our connection transcends oceans,” wrote Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, in a recent enewsletter. “We have the power to bring Israel closer, to feel it and to celebrate it together right here at home through our community’s signature Yom Ha’atzmaut event.”
On Yom Ha’atzmaut, April 21, 7:30 p.m., Israeli musician and producer Ben Golan will headline our local celebration of Israel’s 78th Independence Day. (See jewishindependent.ca/story-of-israels-north.)
Golan came onto Federation’s radar when Shanken saw him perform during a 2024 visit to our community’s partnership region in Israel, the Upper Galilee. Golan is from Kiryat Shmona, where he also runs a recording studio.
In addition to his own performance, Golan will join local Israeli cover band HaOpziot for a couple of songs during their set.
HaOpziot is comprised of Goor Cohen (vocals, guitar), Kobi Gabay (vocals, guitar), Yotam Ronen (bass guitar), Avishai Weissberg (lead guitar) and Omer Yehi Shalom (drums). The group was founded by Ronen and the band’s former drummer, Maoz Kaufmann, in 2022. The pair posted a call-out on Facebook looking for musicians.
“The rest of us responded, we clicked instantly, and the Optziot were born,” said Cohen.
The band performs a few times a year, at clubs around Vancouver, as well as at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. To find out where and when they’re playing, people can follow the band on social media: Instagram, Facebook and/or YouTube.
When asked how to describe their musical sound or style, Cohen said, “In short: high-energy, loud and often fast.
“Our sound is a fusion of hard rock, punk and heavy metal, with subtle touches of Mizrahi influences, creating a style that strongly resonates with Israeli musical taste and culture,” he elaborated.
Each band member brings their different influences to the music, said Cohen, “ranging from mainstream to underground, old-school to contemporary, and classic to anarchistic. That diversity is a big part of what shapes our unique sound.”
Federation’s website page promoting the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration highlights some of the songwriters whose music HaOpziot performs, including artists like Mashina, Eifo Hayeled, Berry Sakharof and Monica Sex.
The band’s popularity in the local Israeli community is how they came to Federation’s attention, their sound suiting the vibe that Federation would like the event to have, with the night ending in a dance party.
“This will be the biggest crowd we’ve played for so far,” Cohen told the Independent, “and we’re really excited to have more members of the community come see us in action.”
Unfortunately, Gabay won’t be able to make the Yom Ha’atzmaut concert. But no worries.
“For this show,” said Cohen, “we’ve asked Noga Veiman, our unofficial band manager, to join us on stage and take part as a band member – so, together, we’ll deliver the high-energy show we’ve been planning.”
The night, of course, will begin in a more sombre fashion, with the conclusion of Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembrance for Israel’s fallen soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in war and terror attacks. In Vancouver, the community’s memorial service will take place on April 20, 7:30 p.m., both in person and online. To attend or watch, register at jewishvancouver.com/zikaron.
For tickets ($36/adult, $12/youth, $75/family pack) to the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21, go to jewishvancouver.com/yh2026.
