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Israel’s human capital

Some of the attendees at the July 16 event, left to right: Daniel Wosk, Julia Goudkova, Shai Josopov, Sigal Kleynerman and Daniel Milner. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)

Israel’s best “natural resource” is its people. On July 16, at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, four speakers, representing diverse segments of Israeli society, gave TED Talk-style presentations before a sold-out crowd at the Jerusalem: City of Gold and Tech event. The common denominator of the speakers was their connection to Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Presented by Canadian Friends of Hebrew University (CFHU) in conjunction with the Jerusalem Foundation and the JCCGV, the evening presented the many ways in which Israel is using its human capital to leverage its place in the world and continue to be the innovative nation for which it has become renowned.

Lior Schillat is the head of the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research (JIPR), an organization that collects data on multiple aspects of Jerusalem. Although statistics don’t tell the whole story, the data collected by Schillat’s institute shed a great deal of light on how people in Jerusalem live, work and play. He explained that the city is constantly faced with a power struggle between three groups with very different worldviews: ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arabs and “the general public.” These groups have not only diverse needs and interests but also huge variances in almost every part of daily life. JIPR attempts to use the data they collect to influence lawmakers to try to minimize conflicts and use the city’s diversity to empower everyone, said Schillat, “instead of the zero-sum game we used to play, where we win and the others lose. We want to turn Jerusalem into a win-win for everyone.”

Schillat’s optimism was shared by the second presenter, Maya Halevy, director of the Bloomfield Museum of Science in Jerusalem. Although her goal is to promote an interest in and love of science, her ultimate objective is to ensure that Israel has a workforce equipped for the future. She explained the programs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) that her museum provides to all segments of Jerusalem’s population.

“We need to make connections with families and students,” she said. “Over 200,000 Arab and ultra-Orthodox visitors use our museum. We serve all communities with STEM literacy.”

Halevy said that, while it is easier to attract ultra-Orthodox families to the museum, Arab families as a whole stay away but they send their children through school programs. Her message, similar to Schillat’s, was that Israel will thrive when all segments of the population are educated and have equal chances to be successful.

Meanwhile, Yonatan Avraham is living his dream of becoming a physicist and an entrepreneur. He is an example of someone who is thriving because of the education he is receiving at Hebrew U. He is also the beneficiary of Toronto philanthropist Seymour Schulich’s scholarship program. Avraham expressed his gratitude regarding the place where he is studying.

“I am at the intersection of three unique resources that are ecosystems for innovation: the academic knowledge at Hebrew U, Jerusalem as a municipality supportive of start-up companies and a young, dynamic student atmosphere,” he said. “The combination has produced many innovators who are able to take their ideas to market and grow the Israeli economy.”

Helping smart people turn their ideas into companies that make money is how the final speaker of the night fit in. Tamir Huberman serves in several capacities at Yissum, Hebrew U’s technology transfer company. He works with researchers who are constantly asking the question, “How can I make this better?” What “this” is depends on the scientist, he said, but, with Israeli chutzpah, tachlis (getting to the point quickly), problem-solving ability and the pressure of existential threats fueling the process, Huberman explained that Israel is producing many great companies. Yissum is the exclusive owner of all intellectual property produced at Hebrew U and has created 120 spin-off companies since its creation in 1964. Profitable for the university, Yissum helps monetize the brain-power Halevy nurtures, Schillat influences and Avraham exemplifies.

ROM’s Evidence Room

Interior perspective of The Evidence Room, with models of an Auschwitz gas column and gas-tight hatch, plaster casts and a model of a gas-tight door. (photo by Fred Hunsberger, University of Waterloo School of Architecture)

Visitors to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) will see an obscene display among the collections of dinosaur fossils, Egyptian mummies and suits of armour – a scale model of a gas chamber of the kind used at Auschwitz, where more than one million Jews were murdered between 1942 and 1945.

The Evidence Room exhibit, as it is named, consists of white plaster replicas of elements of the Nazi death camp murder machine, including the steel mesh columns through which pellets of Zyklon B insecticide were lowered to asphyxiate the prisoners locked inside the gas chambers. Similarly, it depicts the heavy door, which was bolted from the outside.

The exhibit features a reproduction of the original architectural drawings prepared by German architect, engineer and SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff, who served at Auschwitz as chief of the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS.

Visitors to ROM will note the meticulously planned airtight seal around the gas chamber’s door to prevent toxic leaks, and the grill-covered peephole that allowed dignitaries to watch the prisoners die.

“To understand this room … we first have to acknowledge that it’s related to the most murderous place,” said the exhibit’s creator, Robert Jan van Pelt, at a ROM Speaks lecture on June 27.

Van Pelt’s grisly display is the first in a ROM series intended to engender discussion of contemporary issues. And the issue here is forensic architecture, a relatively new field that uses planning and design tools to understand human rights abuses, in this case genocide.

For van Pelt, a Dutch-born architect who teaches at the University of Waterloo, The Evidence Room represents the culmination of two decades of work.

Van Pelt served as an expert witness during a trial, in London in 2000, in which Holocaust-denier David Irving unsuccessfully sued Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel after Lipstadt, in a book, called out the pseudo-historian’s falsehoods. Irving famously quipped “No holes, no Holocaust.”

Van Pelt testified that indeed there were apertures in the gas chambers’ ceilings through which poison pellets were dropped. His testimony led to his 2002 book The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial.

The 592-page volume greatly impressed Alejandro Aravena, curator of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale. The Chilean, who was awarded architecture’s Pritzker Prize for his work transforming slums and making architecture a tool of justice and social change, commissioned van Pelt to create an exhibit explaining the workings of an Auschwitz gas chamber. A model was on display at last year’s Venice Biennale.

In preparing for the current exhibit at ROM, van Pelt – together with colleagues Donald McKay, Anne Bordeleau and Sascha Hastings – wrote a supplementary book, The Evidence Room, published by the New Jewish Press in association with the University of Toronto’s Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.

“It is difficult to imagine the details of a gas chamber, where humans were locked in to die,” says one Holocaust survivor quoted in van Pelt’s new book. “One has to feel the double grates that protected the bucket filled with poison pellets from the desperate hands of the condemned, peer into the bucket, imagine the pellets melting away, the poison oozing out of them.

“I knew a good deal about the Auschwitz-Birkenau murder factory,” says the survivor, “but the gas column really shocked me. Because of what I had read about people thinking they were going into a shower room, I had always imagined the gas being dispersed by sprinklers. Touching that construction had a profound effect on me – a new visceral recognition all these years later.”

And what of the pristine white plaster van Pelt and his architecture students used to build the reproduction?

For me, it jarringly evoked a sense of peace and innocence. But, as well, it called to mind that those murdered in the gas chambers defecated and urinated as they died and that Sonderkommandos (a special unit of slave labourers who removed gassed corpses and hauled them to the crematoria) had to whitewash the gas chambers after each usage.

The Evidence Room is on display at the Royal Ontario Museum until Jan. 28, 2018.

Gil Zohar is a journalist based in Jerusalem.

Teach it to your children

You’re reading the weekly congregational email. Something radical seems to have happened. Within a week, everything has changed. Well, maybe the format seems the same, ready to lull you into “services this week, events, make a donation …” but then it hits you. It’s like a revolution happened. Instead of the regular schedule, where the adult service is happening at 8 p.m. Friday night, and davening starts at 9:30 Saturday morning, it’s all changed. Imagine this:

Come for our weekly great Kabbalat Shabbat service at 4:45! Join us for prayers, story time, snack, dancing and singing. The service ends by 5:45, followed by an Oneg Shabbat with fruit, veggies, cheese cubes, challah and grape juice.

Want to stay up later? Join us in the sanctuary for a summer camp-style sing-along of Shabbat music and study the Torah portion with the rabbi and your friends.

On Saturday morning, daven with us! Services begin at 8:45, with morning prayers, movement activities, another great story (with a picture book!) and three dances to help us learn new psalms. We’ll learn the Torah portion of the week, act out some of it, and end with a rousing Adon Olam. Let’s march around and pretend we’re playing in a band.

Services end by 10:30. We’ll provide a healthy Kiddush snack, including whole grain crackers, juice and water, lots of fruits and veggies, and more. (It’s a nut-free environment, but feel free to bring along dairy or pareve snacks to share.)

If the weather’s good, after snack, let’s play outside at the shul playground. If not, we’ll run in the shul gym so you can get tired before going home to have a big Shabbat lunch and nap.

In the evening, join us for Havdalah at the shul at 5! We’ll be serving pizza and salad, with cookies for dessert. (Click here for costs, to register and for the Jewish movie of the week.) After dinner, we’ll be showing a G or PG movie in the gym for families who want to stay out late.

Also there’s a Saturday evening study session. This week: Jewish advice for managing our busy modern family life, at 6:30 in the library. (Free.)

Note: If doing the rabbi’s Saturday evening study session, please be sure one parent or friend is in the gym to supervise your offspring and enjoy the movie together.

Reminders: On Sunday morning, the shul opens bright and early as usual for religious school, yoga for parents, coffee klatch and the usual lecture series after the morning minyan.

Our congregational soup kitchen, visit to the local Jewish seniors centre, nursing facilities and once-a-month cemetery clean-up all meet on Sunday afternoons. (Cemetery group, next week is our hike at the lake, so bring your boots and bathing suit and we’ll see you on the bus – we might let others attend if there is room! Click here to register.)

See you then!

* * *

OK, as you read this, you’re thinking, this is all well and good for those few young families out there. I mean, maybe my children or grandchildren might go sometimes? But, for me, well, I feel left out. This doesn’t seem like what I’m used to.

But consider the model some congregations still use: Join us for a family Shabbat dinner! (It happens only once or twice a year.) Services start by 5:30. Food is offered, one course at a time, starting after 7. There’s no finger food or even challah on the table. The kids’ food comes after the salad course. Parents who don’t want to create a scene take their children home long before dessert is served to avoid a train wreck…. And nobody wants to come back.

Should Jewish life be all about young families? Well, no. We shouldn’t give up traditional services or customs, but the V’ahavta says “we should teach it [Judaism] to our children.” How do you do that better, so there will be Jews a generation from now? Should your congregation include positive experiences for younger people? Does that create a plan for the future?

Based on a random sampling of kids’ events in my Jewish community (Winnipeg) over the last six years, here’s a generic sampling of what I’ve seen.

If a shul schedules a Tot Shabbat irregularly – although kids thrive on routine – it happens during kid dinnertime or even at bedtime. If your preschooler eats dinner at 5:30 and is in bed at 7:30, how does that service at 6:15 work for you? Hear any angry screaming in that sanctuary?

How about the big kid events scheduled for 1-3 p.m.? Many kids are grouchy creatures around then. We love naps. If we’re skipping them, well, the activity had better be fabulous … and tolerant of crying, hitting and screaming.

Many congregations do a great job of integrating families into their activities and planning. Instead of having kids’ events as an afterthought once a year, most events are designed with whole families in mind … and preschool activities meet the needs of families with babies and small kids.

Teenagers and adults have relevant events. People of all ages have good family programming, too. Sometimes, this is all the same service. Can kids have roles in the service, like saying the Shema or leading a song? Can kids’ restless behaviour be tolerated at the same level as we tolerate adults’ conversation and restless behaviour?

How about making registration accessible and online? Include active learning as part of all events, so Judaism remains relevant?

The kicker – somebody always says: It can’t be done. This isn’t the way we do it here. It’ll be expensive. It’s not possible.

I say: dream bigger.

Joanne Seiff, a regular columnist for Winnipeg’s Jewish Post and News, is the author of a new book, From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016. This collection of essays is available for digital download, or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her on joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Commemorating Yom Hazikaron

Left to right, Canadian Defence Attaché Col. Tony Lovett, Canadian Ambassador to Israel Deborah Lyons and Israel Defence Forces Widows and Orphans chief executive officer Yuval Lipkin light a memorial candle. (photo from IDFWO)

Canadian Ambassador to Israel Deborah Lyons, who attended a memorial lighting at Israel Defence Forces Widows and Orphans’ (IDFWO’s) office in Givat Shmuel to commemorate Yom Hazikaron, said, “Having had the opportunity to learn about the IDFWO and attend the bar and bat mitzvah in Jerusalem early after my arrival in Israel last year, I was, and remain, very impressed by the number of programs provided to support the widows and orphans of Israel’s fallen soldiers.”

The connection between Canada and IDFWO is at many levels. Every year, Canadian families open their homes to IDFWO orphans as they visit Toronto as part of the B’nai Mitzvah North America trip. And, as part of Toronto’s Bnei Akiva Schools’ effort to experience the Holy Land from a variety of perspectives, IDFWO organized for them to meet with the Israel Air Force at Sde Dov airport, where the pilots spoke about IDF orphans and the price they paid to protect the state of Israel.

For more information on IDFWO, visit idfwo.org/eng.

Bridging STEM gender gap

LeadWith’s leadership team at one of the organization’s events, left to right: co-founders Shira Weinberg and Dalit Heldenberg and managing director Aviv Ziv. (photo by Hadas Eldar Photography)

STEM-related women’s groups are popping up all over the world – and Israel is no exception. In fact, the country is a leader in this area.

Shira Weinberg and Dalit Heldenberg co-started LeadWith, a group for women like them – women interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and seeking camaraderie.

Weinberg, a senior product manager at Microsoft, started out as a software developer while in the Israel Defence Forces’ marine core, and then worked and studied as a software engineer for five years. She’s been with Microsoft for nine years, first as an engineer and then as a product manager.

“As a woman in the industry, I always felt like there aren’t many women,” said Weinberg. “At the beginning, I got used to it and I figured that’s how it is in this area and that’s OK. But, after a few years in the industry, I realized it doesn’t have to be like that.

“That’s one of the reasons I started LeadWith, and I’m also doing some other stuff related to promoting girls and women in the tech industry.”

Raised by a father who worked in the industry in Herzliya, Weinberg was much more familiar with computers than were most of her friends. She went into computer science in high school, which paved the way to her position in the IDF.

Like Weinberg, Heldenberg also started her career as a software engineer. “As a kid, I was always attracted to computers more than the others,” said Heldenberg. “I knew that this is what I wanted to learn, computer science.”

Both young women feel strongly that there is no reason the gender gap should be as big as it is today.

“As you look higher and higher in management positions, there are fewer women,” said Weinberg. “This is something we want to change. And this is one of the main reasons I wanted to lead this change.”

Heldenberg added, “Even when I studied computer science, I’d always see too few women in this field. When I was learning high school physics and when I studied computer science, I was always missing women. We want to see more women wanting to be in management roles.”

Weinberg and Heldenberg understand that, in order to create this change, they need to provide mentorship to other women. They now have bi-monthly get-togethers that include networking and education sessions.

“We found a lot of demand from women for these kinds of events,” said Heldenberg. “At the first event, we weren’t sure how many women would come. We planned for about 50, but ended up with 200 attendees.

“We are currently doing three types of activities. One, the meet-ups, where we usually have 100 to 200 women come.

“We also have the mentoring program, where we hold events also every two months. The mentoring events are smaller in terms of size, but we have our team of mentors all volunteering and joining in for the events. We hold sessions of one-on-one mentoring conversations for around 30 minutes…. For each mentoring event, we have about 25 mentees.”

The third activity is an accelerator program for women entrepreneurs who are at the end stages of launching their start-up. In the first program, they had 13 entrepreneurs. It involved nine full days of sessions over nine weeks, with each day focused on different tools relevant to entrepreneurs.

“At the end, we had a big demo day with important people in the industry,” said Heldenberg.

With more than 1,600 people now involved with LeadWith, it is clear that they are filling a previous void and that their approach is working.

“At the events, we put a lot of focus on networking,” said Weinberg. “We usually have a short networking session before the main session begins. We make sure every woman will talk with one or two women she hasn’t met before … that really helps them know more women in the industry and creates more conversations.

“Always after these kinds of events, you hear good stories about things that happen because of the networking and the new connections. Of course, you get to know other women in the industry.

“Also, at the time when a woman wants to change roles, she can draw upon the extensive connections she has gained at our events. You can never know what will come out of this kind of connection. We always hear great stories.”

LeadWith’s focus is both on connecting women who are already in the industry, as well as those who studied computer science or technology but, for one reason or another, did not go on to work in the field. The organization hopes to draw these latter women back into the field.

“A month ago, we did a hackathon in collaboration with another organization, called Cyber Girls,” which brings computer science to those around 16 and 17-years old, said Weinberg. “They brought the girls and we brought the women, and we divided into teams that included both women from the industry and the girls. It was a few hours. There were multiple teams. Each team had a big mission and a lot of tasks along the way – quizzes and such – to figure out solutions that involve writing code.

“What was amazing was that each team in this hackathon was … 10 teenaged girls and a woman from our community, and the quizzes they had to do were really tough. The young girls were very ambitious, they couldn’t get the answers from us. It was really good to see that. They are very smart.”

LeadWith is a nonprofit organization and volunteers are an integral part in whatever they do, said Heldenberg. “We get some help in posting events in certain offices, [donations of] snacks and drinks for events, those kinds of things, from Microsoft, Google and Wix.”

Both Heldenberg and Weinberg think there are multiple reasons for the lack of women in STEM fields, from how children are raised, the educational system and society as a whole. They also are concerned that, if they spread themselves too thin, they will achieve less. As such, they have opted to focus, for now, on industry women in their 20s to 40s. For more information, visit leadwith.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

NCSY at Sheba centre

Dr. Amit Segev gets his heart checked out by one of the participants in NCSY Canada’s Jewish Journeys summer program. Segev gave all the teens a stethoscope to commemorate their visit to Sheba Medical Centre. (photo from SMC)

More than 30 teenage participants from NCSY Canada’s Jewish Journeys summer program were recently treated to a VIP tour of Sheba Medical Centre’s Olga and Lev Leviev Heart Centre.

Dr. Amit Segev, director of Sheba Medical Centre’s cardiac division, showed the group a short presentation of how the heart can malfunction and what doctors can do to save patient’s lives in such instances. As there is nothing like a dose of reality to enhance the experience, Segev showed the teens a live view of a medical procedure being performed on a patient suffering from a heart malfunction.

As a token of appreciation for their visit – and perhaps spur their interest in a future medical career – Segev gave each participant a Sheba Medical Centre stethoscope.

Increasing inclusivity

Jay Ruderman (photo by Noam Galai)

The Ruderman Family Foundation is working to reshape societal attitudes about people with disabilities. Established in 2000 in Boston, the foundation attempts to foster inclusion by way of example, with a special focus on the Jewish community.

Jay Ruderman, a lawyer who spent nine years in Israel, has been at the helm of the foundation since 2008.

“Our first major initiative was including children with disabilities in the day school system in Boston,” Ruderman told the Independent. “We got into this issue of disability and inclusion out of a sense of fairness – principles within our family – that everyone deserves a fair shake.

“In terms of Jewish day schools, even within the same family, we began to ask why some kids were being included and enjoyed a Jewish education while others were not. Then, when I took over – my background is law and the civil rights aspect appealed to me – I began to see a broader picture and thought there was a vacuum in the Jewish community,” that advocacy was missing.

“You should know that people with disabilities are the largest minority in the world. And, not only that, they are also the poorest minority in the world and the most segregated [because of] stigmas and so forth.”

Initially, the foundation operated as a reactionary organization, wherein people would approach Ruderman’s parents for support. But, Jay Ruderman did not see this as a good way to make a positive impact.

He said that, traditionally, disability has been approached from the viewpoint of charity, and that a majority saw people with disabilities as unfortunate and in need of help. The “help” given usually led to segregation – separate schools, separate housing and separate work.

According to Ruderman, a transformation of perception was in order – the focus needed to be about each individual’s rights. He started his work to change views by doing a lot of outreach to the media, as well as awareness-raising and developing strategic working partnerships with major Jewish organizations.

“We are all connected to disability,” he said. “Everyone has a child, parent, sibling, neighbour with some sort of disability. For us, initially, we thought we didn’t really have a personal connection, but then, of course, like everyone else, I had a nephew born with autism – and my father developed a debilitating disability. It’s a widespread issue. But yet, I think the way we approached it was somewhat unique…. We’ve been doing this for a long time. It takes a long time to change attitudes.”

Within the Boston Jewish community, the foundation created an employment initiative called Transitions to Work, which has employed hundreds of people with disabilities and seen more than 100 employers hire people with disabilities. The foundation has also engaged in a community-wide synagogue inclusion project, which has spurred congregations from various denominations to be more inclusive and accepting of people with disabilities and their families.

In Israel, the foundation’s major effort has been a partnership with the government of Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to create a more inclusive society.

“That’s been a partnership with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Welfare, and we’ve engaged in that for many years,” said Ruderman. “Then, we began getting more involved nationally in the U.S. and looked for influential partners in the Jewish community. We developed partnerships across different streams of Judaism, the Foundation for Jewish Camp and Jewish Federations of North America.

“Internationally, we’ve had a prize called the Ruderman Prize in Inclusion, which has been awarded to communities and organizations excelling in inclusion, anywhere from Argentina to Uruguay, Mexico, all across the U.S. and Canada, England, Israel, South Africa, Australia and many different places around the world.”

Over the last few years, the foundation has developed an advocacy branch that has so far put out six white papers, garnering attention from the general media, including the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times.

“The first paper we did was on police brutality and the fact that half the people in the country killed by the police have some form of a disability,” said Ruderman. “That’s gotten a lot of attention because, unfortunately, since the papers have come out, there’s been more people killed by the police and we’ve commented on those cases.

“We did a white paper on Hollywood and TV, as we found out that 95% of the characters with disabilities that you see on TV are played by able-bodied actors, and that really tapped into a diversity conversation in Hollywood that’s mainly focused on race. We injected disability into that conversation.”

The foundation also created the Ruderman TV Challenge, where they challenge creators to include more people with disabilities in new TV shows.

Elections are another area the foundation has examined – studying voting accessibility – as was self-driving cars and the transformative impact they could have on people with disabilities.

“People with disabilities should be thought of as these technologies develop,” said Ruderman.

The foundation also issued a paper about the murder of people with disabilities. “On average,” said Ruderman, “once a week, someone with a disability is killed by a caretaker – whether a family member or a professional.”

The foundation’s latest endeavour is called Rapid Response, where they try to respond to events more quickly, as they did when Donald Trump was running for president and mocked a reporter with a disability.

“We’ve done this too with Israeli officials and celebrities – mainly to shine a light on derogatory ways of acting or speaking about disability. So, we tend to speak out, and have developed a very active social media presence. We are now a combo of funding innovation in inclusion and doing a great deal of advocacy.”

Ruderman has found most Jewish institutions and synagogues to be very open to looking at ways of increasing inclusion, but also has heard many stories of people with disabilities and their families having been turned away by inaccessible or unwelcoming synagogues.

“I think rabbis know this is an issue,” said Ruderman. “What most don’t understand is that most solutions for accommodation are already available and, while the Ruderman Family Foundation doesn’t engage in capital financing, most communities have other foundations that do.

“I’ve always believed, we live in North America, in the wealthiest Jewish communities in the world, [and] the challenge with disability inclusion is that of willingness and awareness. To welcome a child with autism and their family, it takes some willingness to have a service that maybe is not as quiet as some congregants might like or be open to. Physical access for people using a wheelchair may be needed or, if someone is blind, they may need a Braille siddur. There are all sorts of different disabilities, but I find that when rabbis and community leaders are open, solutions can be found.

“Older generations tend to look at people with disabilities, even those in their own family, as separate and undeserving of being part of the community, but I think younger generations accept more diversity.

“My impression of Canada – I have spent some time, mainly in Eastern Canada – is that Canadians are very open-minded and progressive and there’s opportunity to find some real leadership that can reverberate across the world.”

For more information, visit rudermanfoundation.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

The future of Jewish learning

A picture from Smart Money, a study intended to help the Jewish community navigate the high-tech world. (photo by Lewis Kassel courtesy of Moishe House)

By day, Liora Brosbe is the family engagement officer for the Jewish Federation of the East Bay in Berkeley, Calif., where she reaches out to the community with a menu of opportunities for “connecting to Jewish life and each other.” But when she’s not at work, Brosbe’s main job is raising three kids, ages 2, 6 and 8. Their home? A laboratory for Jewish learning strategies.

“Yes, they’re little Petri dishes,” their mom, who is also a psychotherapist, said with a laugh. “Like most families, screen time is a huge issue at our house, both for time and content, but I tell families it’s also an amazing opportunity for low-barrier Jewish engagement.”

With the avalanche of new technologies – many of them being tapped for Jewish learning – educators, funders and parents are often befuddled about where to invest their money and their kids’ or students’ time. A recent report on the implications of the wave of educational technology and digital engagement is designed to guide the Jewish community through this complex space.

Sponsored by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation, Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy examines many of these innovations and provides suggestions for navigating the high-tech world. The study’s recommendations include using virtual and augmented reality (a user could, for example, experience the splitting of the Red Sea); creating games based on alternative scenarios for “Jewish futures,” such as rebuilding Jewish life after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple; offering opportunities for students to learn coding and other technological skills, which can foster connectedness among Jewish youths and introduce them to Israeli high-tech companies; and increasingly using video, music, podcasting and other platforms.

The report is garnering far more attention than expected, according to the sponsors.

“We did not originally intend for this to be a public report,” said Barry Finestone, president and chief executive officer of the Jim Joseph Foundation, “but the substance of the findings and recommendations really challenge us, as funders, to think strategically, creatively and collaboratively about how we can utilize educational technology and digital engagement to advance our Jewish educational missions.”

For the report, Lewis J. Bernstein and Associates interviewed 50 experts, investors and educators from both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds to create the recommendations.

“It’s a huge media marketplace out there and most Jews are exposed to the same information as the rest of the world,” said Lewis J. Bernstein, a former producer of Sesame Street and the report’s lead researcher. “Parents and educators have difficult choices to make, and Jewish learning and wisdom compete with the secular world.”

Read more at jns.org.

פורום הישראלים בקנדה של תפוז

פורום הישראלים בקנדה של אתר תפוז מכיל כבר ארבעה עשר אלף עוקבים. בהודעה של הנהלת הפורום נאמר בין היתר כי: פרום לקהילת הישראלים בקנדה הוא בית לישראלים הגרים במדינה השנייה בגודלה בעולם, למי שמעוניין לדעת על החיים כאן, ולאלו שבדרך. זה המקום ליצירת קשרים ומתן מידע לישראלים הרבים החיים ברחבי קנדה, עבודה, מגורים מסעדות ושאר הבילויים. הבמה פתוחה לכל נושא שמעניין את הישראלים.

לתפוז פורום נוסף בנושא ישראלים וקנדה והוא מתמקד באלה שעוברים לקנדה. לפורום זה יש כבר עשרת אלפים עוקבים. הוא משמש למתן סיוע הדדי ומקצועי, לאלו שמתחילים או נמצאים בהליך המעבר לקנדה. ובמקביל של אלה שכבר גרים כאן “ויש להם סבלנות”, רצון או אינטרס לעזור למי שמעוניין לעבור לקנדה. מטבע הדברים נושאי פורום זה מתמקדים בעיקר בהגירה, עבודה, לימודים, ניהול עסקים וגידול משפחה.

להערכת הפורומים של תפוז כמאה אלף ישראלים גרים כיום בקנדה. מרביתם כצפוי גרים באזור מטרו טורנטו וברחבי הפרובינציה הגדולה והעשירה של קנדה – אונטריו. אחריה בפרובינציה השנייה בגדולה בקנדה – מונטריאול. לפי הערכת ארגון הגג של הפדרציות היהודיות של קנדה, במדינה חיים כיום למעלה מארבע מאות אלף יהודים. מדובר אפוא בריכוז היהודים השלישי או רביעי בגודלו בעולם (מחוץ לישראל כמובן) אחרי ארה”ב, רוסיה וצרפת. יתכן שכיום מספר היהודים בקנדה אף משתווה לאלה של רוסיה וצרפת.

בחזרה לפורומים של הישראלים בקנדה. הנושאים המרכזיים העולים לדיון בפורום הישראלים בקנדה, במהלך בחודשים האחרונים הם: מערכת החינוך הציבורית הנחשבת למהטובות בעולם, חיפוש עבודה, האם ישראל יותר מושחתת מקנדה, שאלות בנוגע למיסוי לעצמאים, המלצות באיזה בנק לפתוח חשבון, מהן הדרכים להעברת כסף מישראל לקנדה, המיסים על רכישת בית או דירה בפעם הראשונה, ויזות עבודה, המלצות על חברות הובלה, רשיונות נהיגה, תחום האוכל, מבחן האזרחות בדרך לקבל אזרחות, השקעות בישראל של ישראלים שגרים בקנדה, רופאים ישראלים שעובדים בקנדה, מציאת יועצי מס, שיתוף פעולה בינלאומי של רשויות המיסים בקנדה וישראל, יועצי הגירה, טיסות מוזלות, היכן רוכשים ספרים משומשים בעברית, כמה זמן לוקח לקבל את הדרכון הקנדי המיוחל, שינויים בנושא הזכאות להגר לקנדה, האם אזרח קנדי שחיי תקופה ארוכה בקנדה מחויב להפוך לתושב, האם להשאיר את קרן הפנסיה בישראל ועוד.

הנושאים המרכזיים שעולים לדיון בפורום של תפוז שמיועד לישראלים שעוברים לקנדה הם: ויזות לזכאים, זכויות לתושבים כשעוברים ממחוז למחוז, ויזות לסטודנטים, שאלות למהגרים ותיקים, רכישת בית מיד עם המעבר, איזה תארים אקדמיים תקפים בקנדה, הגירה לעובדים עצמאים, כיצד אפשר לבדוק מראש מהי רשימת הניקוד לצורכי הגירה, העברת כספים בין ישראל וקנדה, המלצות על עורכי דין להגירה, תשלומי פנסיה בישראל למי שגרים בקנדה, יוקר המחייה כאן, זמן הטפול בבקשה להתקבל ללימודים, משפחה בקנדה, פעוטונים בקנדה, שאלות בנוגע לסיכויי ההגירה, אישורי בדיקות רפואיות ואישור משטרה לספונסרשיפ, האם ניתן להחזיק ביותר משתי אזרחויות בקנדה, מה דרוש במעבר לקנדה, האם אפשר לבקש כרטיס פי.אר אם יש כבר אישורי עבודה וכמה זמן ההליך לוקח, מערכת הבריאות בקנדה, ויזת סטודנט, חיי הייטק בקנדה, לימודים בקולג’ או אוניברסיטה בקנדה, ביטוח בריאות לסטודנטים בקנדה, לימודים לתואר שני בקנדה, תרגום מסמכים לאנגלית באישור נוטריון, המרת שקלים ודולרים אמריקנים לדולר קנדי, מורה ללימוד אנגלית לבחינה בהליך ההגירה, כיצד שולחים מטענים לקנדה, מה עדיף קנדה או ארה”ב, מסלול מזורז לאישור עבודה ועוד.

להזדקנות צי מטוסים

אייר קנדה השנייה בעולם בעולם באחזקת צי מטוסים ישן ואילו אל על במקום החמישי. (צילום: BriYYZ)

לחברת התעופה הלאומית של קנדה מסתבר יש צי מטוסים ישן והיא שנייה בעולם בטבלה לא מכובדת זו, לאחר חברת התעופה האמריקנית דלתא. ואילו חברת התעופה הלאומית של ישראל אל על נמצאת במקום החמישי בטבלת החברות “המובילות” בעולם בצי המטוסים הישן שלהן.

אתר איירפליטס.נט מנסה לנהל מעקב אחרי ציי מטוסים ישנים של חברות התעופה הבולטות בעולם. הנתונים של האתר אינם מדויקים אחד לאחד אלה מדובר בהערכות של האתר, כיוון שלא כל חברות התעופה משתפות פעולה במסירת מידע על גילאי המטוסים שברשותן.

האתר פרסם נתונים על חברות התעופה הבולטות הנחשבות למובילות בעולם מבחינת מספר הנוסעים שלהן. הנתונים נכונים לסוף חודש מרץ שנה זו, ולא נראה שחלו בחמשת החודשים האחרונים שינויים של ממש בתחום זה.

להלן עשרת חברות התעופה שדווקא בולטות בתחום אחזקת צי מטוסים ישן ומזדקן. במקום הראשון – דלתא (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על שבעה עשרה שנים), במקום השני אייר קנדה (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 14.2 שנים), במקום השלישי יונייטד האמריקנית (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על ארבעה עשרה שנים), במקום הרביעי בריטיש איירווייז הבריטית (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 13.2 שנים), במקום החמישי אל על (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 12.8 שנים), במקום השישי אייר פראנס הצרפתית שנמצאת בבעלות משותפת עם קלמ ההולנדית (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 12.6 שנים), במקום השביעי לופטהנזה הגרמנית (כאשר הגיל ממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 11.5 שנים), במקום השמיני סאות’ווסט האמריקנית (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד גם כן על 11.5 שנים), במקום התשיעי קלמ שנמצאת בבעלות משותפת עם אייר פראנס (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 10.7 שנים) ובמקום העשירי אמריקן איירליינס האמריקנית (כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 10.3 שנים). ווסט ג’ט הקנדית לשמחתה נמצאת מאחור כאשר הגיל הממוצע של מטוסיה עומד על 8.3 שנים. לעומתה חברת הצ’ארטר הקנדי אייר טרנסאט שזוכה לאחרונה לכותרות שליליות מבחינת היחס הגרוע לנוסעים, מחזיקה בצי מטוסים ישן ביותר, כאשר הגיל הממוצע שלהם עומד על 18.4 שנים.

יצוין כי להזדקנות צי מטוסים יש משמעות כלכלית משמעותית כיוון שהם הופכים בהדרגה להיות פחות ופחות רווחיים. זאת לעומת מטוסים חדשים המצטרפים לצי של חברות התעופה השונות, שנחשבים לחסכוניים יותר בצריכת דלק. וכידוע עלויות הדלק קובעות משמעותית את רווחיות או הפסדי חברות התעופה. מטוסים חדשים נחשבים גם לשקטים יותר לעומת עמיתהם הזקנים. הם גם נוחים יותר לנוסעים וכוללים מפרטים טכניים יותר איכותיים.

אתר לנושא איסוף ועיבוד נתונים בזמן אמת בענף התעופה – פלייטסאטץ פרסם לאחרונה דוח על ארבעים ואחת חברות התעופה הגלובליות, המדייקות והמאחרות בטיסותיהן. מהדוח למחצית השנה הנוכחית עולה, כי חברת אייר קנדה נמצאת במקום השלושים ושישה בעולם מבחינת עמידת בלוחות הזמנים של הטיסות שלה. חברת אל על שלושה מקומות לפניה והיא נמצאת במקום השלושים ושלושה.

חברת התעופה הספרדית איבריה נמצאת במקום הראשון מבחינת עמידת בלוחות הזמנים, במקומות השני והשלישי נמצאות חברות התעופה היפניות ג’י.איי.אל ואיי.אן.איי, במקום הרביעי נמצאת חברת התעופה של אבו דאבי  אתיחאד, במקום החמישי נמצאת חברת התעופה של סרי לנקה סרילנקן. ולעומתן חברת התעופה ההודית אייר אינדיה נמצאת במקום הארבעים ואחד שהוא גם האחרון.