Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • [email protected]! video

Search

Archives

"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

Recent Posts

  • New housing partnership
  • Complexities of Berlin
  • Obligation to criticize
  • Negev Dinner returns
  • Women deserve to be seen
  • Peace is breaking out
  • Summit covers tough issues
  • Jews in trench coats
  • Lives shaped by war
  • The Moaning Yoni returns
  • Caring in times of need
  • Students are learning to cook
  • Many first-time experiences
  • Community milestones … Gordon, Segal, Roadburg foundations & West
  • מקטאר לוונקובר
  • Reading expands experience
  • Controversy welcome
  • Democracy in danger
  • Resilience amid disruptions
  • Local heads CAPE crusaders
  • Engaging in guided autobiography
  • Recollecting Auschwitz
  • Local Houdini connection
  • National library opens soon
  • Regards from Israel …
  • Reluctant kids loved camp
  • An open letter to Camp BB
  • Strong connection to Israel
  • Why we need summer camp
  • Campers share their thoughts
  • Community tree of life
  • Building bridges to inclusion
  • A first step to solutions?
  • Sacre premières here
  • Opening gates of kabbalah
  • Ukraine’s complex past

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @JewishIndie

Byline: Friends of the Jacob Sheep

El Al aids sheep

El Al aids sheep

Friends of the Jacob Sheep directors Jenna and Gil Lewinsky with their flock. (photo by Mustard Seed Images)

El Al has agreed to come on board as a partner and subsidize the flight of the Jacob sheep from Canada to Israel. The flight would take place from an airport in North America with logistics to be determined.

The airline’s announcement came as the Israeli Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development gave the green light for the export of the Jacob sheep flock of approximately 120 animals, subject to a quarantine on both the Canadian and Israeli side, and medical testing. Despite having a low incidence of blue tongue in Canada, the quarantine is to protect the sheep. After the Canadian quarantine, the sheep will be medically tested for blue tongue and then flown to Israel.

The Israeli agricultural ministry told the Times of Israel in June that Canada is not on the list of countries that are approved to export livestock to Israel, so the Jacob sheep flock “will be approved under special circumstances, on a one-time basis for tourism purposes only.”

The project has been endorsed by the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, which blessed the endeavor to return the sheep “to their land of origin, the state of Israel,” in a letter released in May.

The Jacob sheep’s return also has received rabbinical endorsements. Rabbi Amram Vaknin of Ashdod has called the return of the sheep a “highest mitzvah” and wishes to be there to bless their return. Late last year, local Chabad Rabbi Falik Schtroks visited the Jacob sheep flock for parashat Vayeitzei, to deliver a sermon and to wish them a safe return to the land of Israel.

Friends of the Jacob Sheep directors Gil and Jenna Lewinsky have started a crowdfunding campaign to help fundraise for the costs of transporting the sheep to Israel, for feeding costs and to build appropriate infrastructure for them on the Israeli side. The campaign can be found at gofundme.com/jacobsheep.

Format ImagePosted on July 1, 2016June 29, 2016Author Friends of the Jacob SheepCategories LocalTags El Al, Israel, Jacob sheep, Lewinsky
Sheep closer to home

Sheep closer to home

Jenna and Gil Lewinsky with Israeli Ambassador to Canada Rafael Barak, who is holding one of the Lewinskys’ Jacob sheep. (photo from Friends of the Jacob Sheep)

Israeli Ambassador to Canada Rafael Barak was recently hosted by Friends of the Jacob Sheep, a Jewish organization in Abbotsford whose mandate is to conserve the endangered four-horned heirloom Jacob sheep and to send them to a future heritage park for their conservation in the Golan Heights. Barak visited the sheep barn on Feb. 16.

Barak came to give an endorsement of the Jacob sheep project – led by Gil and Jenna Lewinsky – and offered to continue to help facilitate the sheep’s return to Israel.

“The first thing I did when I heard of this [project] from Jenna, was I opened the Bible to see if this is a true story … and, behold, the story was there. It is real,” said the ambassador. “Our hope is found in our national anthem, a strong hope of 2,000 years. And then we heard about the Jacob sheep. We have been helping Jenna [and Gil] with connecting with the agricultural ministry … it is right for the Israeli culture to give the green light for this and to help it.”

The Israeli embassy in Ottawa further commented: “We follow the project and do our best to help more than a year after the Lewinskys contacted us. Now there has been great progress in bringing the sheep and it is evident that the ministry of agriculture is trying to help the issue. We hope that all the bureaucratic procedures required to bring the sheep will be completed soon and will be brought to the ground.”

Format ImagePosted on March 4, 2016March 3, 2016Author Friends of the Jacob SheepCategories LocalTags Israel, Jacob sheep, Lewinsky, Rafael Barak
Shepherding biblical sheep

Shepherding biblical sheep

Jacob sheep Molly and Leah. (photo by Mustard Seed Imaging)

Chabad Rabbi Falik Schtroks of the Centre for Judaism of the Lower Fraser Valley delivered a lecture on the meaning of the Jacob sheep in conjunction with parashat Veyetzei during a visit to the flock in Langley on Sunday, Nov. 15. He was accompanied by his students and invited guests.

The rabbi explained how the sheep look just as they are described in the Tanach: they have spotted ankle bands (akudim), spotted and speckled patterns (nikud), patches (tiluyim) and bands (broodim), all of which are mentioned in the Bible.

“It is very likely that the animal we are looking at is the Jacob sheep, as there are no other sheep in the world that have all these characteristics. If I would have ever imagined Jacob’s flock, I wouldn’t have imagined them any different than the flock in your field,” he said.

photo - Rabbi Falik Schtroks holds Moshe, while Isaac and Solomon look on. The Jacob sheep’s “shepherds,” Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, are trying to get their flock back home to Israel
Rabbi Falik Schtroks holds Moshe, while Isaac and Solomon look on. The Jacob sheep’s “shepherds,” Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, are trying to get their flock back home to Israel. (photo by Mustard Seed Imaging)

In his lecture, Schtroks taught that the patterns of the sheep have relevance for day-to-day living by comparing the patterns to the progression of human civilization, as well as to personal growth. The ankle bands represent the incubation phase or childhood. The speckles represent individualism, but the blotches represent our growth in this world, which allows us to recognize and include others. The goal is for the blotches to “bleed” into each other to form a band, for individuals to live in harmony with the outside world.

“It is not very often that one can be down to earth, mingling with sheep, and find there vivid clarity of mystical teachings. What is usually an obscure narrative comes bursting into life,” said Schtroks.

The rabbi was very excited to observe the sheep’s behavior. The sheep operate as a collective, he noted. If one sheep were to go missing, it would cause mass distress in the flock. “Take a look at how these sheep behave only as part of a herd and none act truly independently … it is comparable to the Jewish people who are compared to one flock.”

He continued, “Seeing the Jacob sheep as they have survived until this day, as an heirloom breed with the biblically described characteristics, seems to parallel the miracle of the Jewish people and their survival – despite all odds – for the duration of the past 4,000 years.”

Schtroks said he hoped that the sheep’s transition to life in Israel would be easy. The flock’s “shepherds,” Gil and Jenna Lewinsky have been lobbying the Israeli government to allow their Jacob sheep to return to the Golan Heights. The couple would like to establish a heritage park where this endangered breed of four-horned and speckled, spotted and ankle-banded sheep can be preserved, and put to their biblical and original use.

Rabbi Amram Vaknin, the rabbinical mystic from Ashdod, Israel, endorsed the Lewinskys’ Jacob sheep in October, telling Friends of the Jacob Sheep, later reported to Breaking Israel News, that the sheep do not belong in Canada but rather “in the land of Israel.” He told the news outlet and the couple that it is permissible for the sheep to return as long as the shepherds are G-d fearing.

Following the rabbinical endorsements, the Lewinskys are optimistic about the prospect of negotiating for the return of the Jacob sheep and feel that their flock will bring a tremendous blessing to the nation of Israel. “It’s the spiritual wealth of Jacob and the national animal of the Jewish people according to the Tanach,” they said.

For more about the Jacob sheep, visit friendsofthejacobsheep.weebly.com. To see the sheep in action, check out youtube.com/watch?v=asI7tSB6p_w.

Format ImagePosted on December 4, 2015December 3, 2015Author Friends of the Jacob SheepCategories LocalTags Falik Schtroks, Israel, Jacob sheep, Lewinsky, Veyetzei
Proudly powered by WordPress