Matthew Gindin

Rebuilding Volozhin Yeshivah

Volozhin Yeshivah in Belarus, 2017. In learning about the institution, Mark Weintraub was moved to sponsor a lecture on it, in honour of his mother, and to champion restoration efforts. (photo by Da voli)

“How did I not know about this?” That was the question echoing through the mind of Vancouver lawyer Mark Weintraub, a longtime student of Jewish intellectual history, when he first learned about Volozhin Yeshivah, a once-illustrious place of study that he describes as “the Harvard, MIT and Yale of the Jewish people rolled into one.”

Once Weintraub understood the influence Volozhin – which was open from 1806 to 1892 in what was then Russia – had on the Jewish world, he was stunned that it was so little known. His passion about this treasure of Jewish history led to his participation in organizing a recent online class, From Volozhin to Vancouver, taught by Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz, the rav and a teacher of Ohr Samayach Yeshivah in Israel, whose resumé includes having been a professor of law at the University of Maryland. It led, as well, to Weintraub’s championing of an effort to restore the still-standing building of the yeshivah, which is in Belarus.

To spread knowledge of Volozhin and to honour his late mother, Rita Weintraub, z”l, a lifelong devotee of Jewish learning, Weintraub helped organize and sponsor the online class with Congregation Beth Hamidrash, Congregation Schara Tzedeck, Vancouver Hebrew Academy and Shalhevet Girls High School. On Oct. 18, more than 60 people gathered to learn from Breitowitz on Zoom. Weintraub introduced the lecture, dedicating it to his mother, and Rabbi Ari Federgrun of Schara Tzedeck moderated the discussion. Breitowitz had risen at 5:30 a.m. in Israel to give the lecture about the legend and history of Volozhin, whose very name, he said, “carries an aura of mystery and delight.”

Volozhin is sometimes called “the mother of yeshivot,” since it was the first modern, institutionalized yeshivah, explained Breitowitz. It was established by Rav Chaim Volozhiner (1749-1821), a famed kabbalist and Torah scholar. Rav Chaim was a student of the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797), a towering figure at the time and the leader of non-Chassidic Jewry in Eastern Europe. The Vilna Gaon had led the Orthodox opposition to Chassidism, concerned about its radical theological ideas and the possibility that Chassidim might transgress Jewish law and lead to extremist mystical movements that would disrupt or damage the Jewish community. Followers of the Vilna Gaon came to be known as Misnagdim (Opponents), as the Chassidic movement grew to become the dominant force in Eastern European Jewish life.

Rav Chaim, who did not sign the Gaon’s writ of excommunication against the Chassidim, took a gentler stance towards the movement than his teacher. He focused his efforts on teaching an intellectually intense absorption in Torah study for its own sake and a fierce devotion to the observance of halachah (Jewish law) as a form of devotion to God.

Rav Chaim formed the Volozhin yeshivah to create a new kind of environment for study. Instead of the local learning that took place in small houses of study in the shtetls, Volozhin was a large institution that provided both housing and food to its students, and taught young Jewish men from near and far. “The Volozhiner wanted yeshivahs to be non-local institutions which all of Israel had a stake in,” explained Breitowitz. “He didn’t like a few large donors but many small donors.”

The yeshivah had 24-hour learning that was intended to sustain the world with the power of Torah and de-emphasize practical legal rulings for the sake of pure disinterested study. Volozhin – and its immediate offspring in the form of other similar yeshivot started by its graduates – created both a new model of Jewish learning and a generation of non-Chassidic luminaries with a far-ranging and decisive influence on orthodoxy and beyond. A short list of the graduates it produced, or who taught there, included Rav Chaim Soloveitchik (the Brisker Rav, 1853-1918), Rav Nafatli Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv, 1816-1891), Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) and many others, including both Zionists and anti-Zionists, mystics, ethicists and legalists.

The yeshivah environment encouraged creative ferment and demanded intellectual rigour, and Volozhin was not only famed for the Orthodox leaders it produced. Some of the students became leaders in the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, and it was rumoured that secret books were passed among students and housed in a hidden library full of philosophy, science and secular language texts. Among its luminaries in this regard was Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), the renowned Israeli poet and writer.

In 1892, the Russian government closed Volozhin when the heads of the yeshivah refused to change the daily schedule to curtail Torah study and include hours of government-approved secular studies. While it reopened in 1899 on a smaller scale, its glory days had passed.

Volozhin functioned until 1939, when the Second World War broke out. During the war, German soldiers used the building as a stable; later, it was a canteen and deli. The site was returned to the Jewish community of Belarus in 1989. In 1998, it was registered on the State List of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Republic of Belarus.

It was the discovery of this history that so excited Weintraub. His mother had been a devotee of learning, libraries and study. “I wanted to have lectures to honour her, since it was difficult to communally mourn her during COVID,” said Weintraub. “I approached Rabbi [Don] Pacht at Vancouver Hebrew Academy about bringing in Rabbi Breitowitz.”

Wondering if the topic was too Orthodox for his mother, Weintraub, who has been involved in the Conservative movement for years, decided, “Nothing was ever too Jewish for her. She saw the goodness in everyone’s Judaism, no matter what it was, so I went ahead to tell this fascinating story of Jewish learning in her honour.”

For his part, Breitowitz has taken on a project to raise awareness and money for the reconstruction of Volozhin. He has begun organizing a group to work on it and is beginning “to raise momentum and find a way.”

“Five hundred years from now, Harvard, Yale and MIT are in ruins and everyone just walks by it?” he challenged. Volozhin, he said, “is a place that needs special attention from the Jewish community.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He has been published in Philosophy Now, Tricycle, the Forward and elsewhere. He blogs on Medium and is master teacher at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver.

CIJA fights online hate

“We were saddened, horrified and deeply angered by the murderous terrorist attack in Christchurch, which was clearly motivated by hatred of Muslims that was at least in part fomented online,” Martin Sampson of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) told the Independent. “This is another disturbing example of how terrorists and mass murderers make use of social media – both before and after attacks – to spread their heinous message.”

On Friday, March 15, 50 Muslims were murdered by a white nationalist terrorist at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. On Oct. 27, 2018, 11 Jews were murdered at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Penn. Both perpetrators had been active in spreading hatred online. In the case of Tree of Life Synagogue, the shooter had written a post announcing his intentions hours before the attack.

“This issue has been of interest to us for some time,” said Sampson. “We included it as a core federal priority in our Federal Issues Guide, which was released in September of 2018. The horrific shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in late October, and the fact that the assailant had been highly active in promoting antisemitism on social media – it is reported that he posted more than 700 antisemitic messages online in the nine months or so prior to the attack – underscored the urgency of the issue and the need to increase awareness about the connection between online hate and offline violence. This is why we launched notonmyfeed.ca.”

The goal of CIJA’s #notonmyfeed campaign is to reduce the spread of online hate speech. “In any democratic society that values freedom and individual rights, no right is absolute,” said Sampson. “Striking a reasonable balance between preserving free speech and protecting Canadians from those who systematically demonize and slander entire communities is a challenging, complex task, but not an impossible one.”

CIJA is calling for a comprehensive response that addresses hate in a variety of forms, not just antisemitism, he said. “We can preserve free speech while protecting Canadians from those who deliberately promote hostility – and even glorify violence – against entire communities.”

Sampson said there is a direct link between online hate speech and violence. “In countless cases – such as in the case of individuals who have been radicalized to participate in terrorism or hate crimes – online propaganda has been a significant factor,” he said. “This is a complex issue. Understanding it and developing tools to counter it is why we are calling on the government of Canada to take the lead by launching a national strategy to tackle online hate, working in partnership with social media platforms and internet service providers.”

Some people contend that, if online hate speech foreshadows offline violence, there may be some value in monitoring it, rather than forcing it underground. As well, if kicked off one social platform, those inciting hatred can just move to another one.

“In cases of ignorance, inappropriate statements or offhand comments that are bigoted, counter-speech is clearly the best response, and these types of online behaviours are not the focus of our calls for a national strategy to tackle online hate. In cases of propaganda being systematically produced by extremists – particularly when it includes the glorification of violence – allowing it to continue can in some cases pose significant risks to public safety,” said Sampson about these concerns. “Moreover, allowing such behaviour to take place on social media platforms often violates the basic terms and conditions of those sites. Social media platforms should enforce their own existing policies.”

The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel over its treatment of Palestinians is controversial, with some seeing it as a legitimate tactic opposing human rights abuses and others seeing it as a form of discrimination rooted in antisemitism. “It is neither the focus of our policy position on online hate, nor can I perceive any scenario in which BDS would be implicated or affected by a national strategy to tackle online hate,” said Sampson, when asked whether BDS was one of the intended targets of CIJA’s campaign. “To be clear – we strongly oppose BDS and work to expose and counter the real agenda of the BDS movement, but that is a very separate challenge and completely distinct from our call for a national strategy to combat online hate.”

Asked if CIJA has any plans for addressing hate speech in the Jewish community itself, Sampson said, “Our position on online hate is that a national strategy should address hate in a variety of forms, not just antisemitism. This is why we have mobilized a coalition of communities, including the Muslim community, to join us in this effort. We believe every online account should be held to the same standard, regardless of the identity of the person who runs the account. When it comes to the Jewish community, we strive to set an example in how we manage our social media accounts, allowing debate and diverse opinions in the comments section of our posts, while having a zero tolerance policy toward bigotry and hateful comments.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Beth Hamidrash celebrates

Congregation Beth Hamidrash is celebrating its 50th year with a gala dinner to raise funds to better serve the congregation’s increasing number of young families. (photo from Beth Hamidrash)

“I want this to go on and on,” Albert Melul told the Independent about Congregation Beth Hamidrash. The longtime member said, “We have something precious. I don’t want it to be lost.”

Beth Hamidrash celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with a gala dinner March 31. Melul, who hails originally from Tangier, Morocco, has been involved with the congregation from the beginning. In the early 1960s, when he worked as program director at the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre, he was approached by some other members of the Sephardi community, who were looking for a space at the JCC for services. Melul helped the fledgling congregation get started.

In recent years, the synagogue has seen an increase in the number of young families attending services, with an average of 25 children present on Shabbat. In September 2018, the congregation hired Shira Puterman to lead their children and youth programming. The upcoming 50th jubilee celebration will raise money for the building of an expanded multi-purpose room to better serve these, and other, families.

The fundraising dinner, which will offer a door prize of two tickets to Israel, will include the induction of Beth Hamidrash’s new spiritual leader, Rabbi Shlomo Gabay, by the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. Gabay, who most recently worked as a high school teacher in the Sephardi community of Gibraltar, came into his position in the community following the departure of Rabbi Ilan Acoca in the summer of 2016. (See jewishindependent.ca/looking-to-the-future.)

“This is a huge honour and privilege. Frankly, to have such a distinguished personality visit us is incredible,” Gabay told the Independent.

Induction is common in the United Kingdom but may not be familiar to Canadians. “It’s when a senior rabbi officially welcomes a newer rabbi into a leadership position,” said Gabay. “The joke around the synagogue is that I’m going to be knighted.”

Mirvis, formerly the chief rabbi of Ireland, is known for his close connection to the British Royal Family – he took Prince Charles on a trip to Israel last year – as well as for his interfaith work, and he has a reputation for moderation and diplomacy. When a scandal broke out in the United Kingdom last year after an Orthodox day school censored all mention of homosexual victims of the Holocaust in its textbooks, Mirvis supported an initiative to introduce LGBTQ+ education into Jewish schools in the United Kingdom. In 2012, he appointed Lauren Levin as Britain’s first Orthodox female halachic (Jewish law) adviser at Finchley Synagogue in London.

In addition to Mirvis, several prominent local politicians are expected to be in attendance at the 50th jubilee, including Janet Austin, the lieutenant governor of British Columbia.

Rabbi Shlomo Gabay will be inducted as part of Beth Hamidrash’s 50th anniversary celebrations on March 31. (photo from Beth Hamidrash)

Beth Hamidrash is Vancouver’s only Sephardi synagogue, keeping alive the Jewish traditions of the Sephardim, the Jewish community whose roots go back to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. The Sephardim (from the Hebrew word for Spain, Sefarad) immigrated to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire and other parts of Europe, where they sustained their unique liturgies, customs and musical culture for centuries. Beth Hamidrash carries on these traditions, passing them onto each new generation.

The first meeting of the Sephardi community of Greater Vancouver was held in the late 1960s, followed by the first organized Sephardi prayer service. In 1973, the Sephardic Congregation was incorporated as a society in British Columbia, with the goal of establishing a synagogue. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, High Holiday services were held in the kindergarten classroom of the previous building of the JCC at 41st Avenue and Oak Street, and in the Vancouver Talmud Torah gymnasium. During the 1970s, the congregation began holding regular services at 3231 Heather St., in what was then a dilapidated former synagogue, which the congregation renovated and made into the beautiful congregational space there today.

The synagogue website notes that Beth Hamidrash congregants hail from Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Israel, India, France, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Russia, and many other parts of Canada and the world.

“What we have here is very special,” said Melul. “When you walk in the door here, you are a somebody. Our community is very warm, and we share each other’s sorrows and joys. When you visit this shul, someone will welcome you, someone will give you a siddur, someone will tell you when is Kiddish, someone will want to get to know you.”

“I landed in a spectacular community,” added Gabay. “The people are so kind and generous and forthcoming – they want to grow and they want to do. I really feel blessed to be here.”

To RSVP for the March 31 afternoon induction ceremony, email [email protected]. For tickets to the dinner gala, call the synagogue office at 604-872-4222 or email [email protected].

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

IsraAID helps around world

This picture of Molly Bernstein, right, was taken last year at the School of Peace, a program run in partnership by IsraAID and the Israeli Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement on Lesbos, Greece. (photo from IsraAID)

“I say crisis with air quotes because I think that’s a bad attitude,” Molly Bernstein told the Independent. “It’s an opportunity.”

In discussing the number of displaced people in the world, usually referred to as “the refugee crisis,” Bernstein said, “I strongly believe that diversity is a social good for our societies. When we integrate new people into our communities, we learn more about ourselves and others, build bridges between communities, and build relationships that breed positivity in the world.

“When we open our doors and our hearts to refugees, we’re doing exactly this,” she said. “That’s why it’s an opportunity to expand our worldview and the spectrum of opportunities for doing good that stands before us.”

Bernstein, a 27-year-old resident of south Tel Aviv, works for IsraAID, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that works in emergency and long-term development settings in dozens of countries. The humanitarian aid organization responds to conflict, natural disasters, acute poverty, discrimination and displacement.

Bernstein, currently working in the communications department at IsraAID headquarters in Tel Aviv, spoke to the Jewish Independent during a recent trip to Vancouver, Jan. 31-Feb. 3.

“My parents were longtime members of Habonim,” she said, referring to the Zionist youth movement. “We lived in Israel for a time and I became interested in learning Arabic, so as to have a deeper understanding of the conflicts in Israeli society and how to address them. Learning Arabic opened up a lot of doors for me.”

Bernstein completed a bachelor of arts at the University of Maryland, College Park, then lived in Morocco, Jordan and Tajikistan. She began working with an Arab-Jewish Israeli NGO in Israel, the Abraham Fund Initiatives, which focuses on the creation of a shared society, and then landed a job with Ha’aretz.

It was while she was working at Ha’aretz, combing through pictures of the Syrian military’s chemical attacks on Syrian civilians, that she decided she wanted to do relief work. She had heard of IsraAID and considered working for them “an item from my bucket list.” So, when a job opportunity with the organization arose, she jumped at it, and got it. She was sent to the Greek island of Lesbos as head of missions, where she oversaw programs supporting refugees. Six months later, she was promoted to the NGO’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.

“IsraAID started when a group of buddies who were connected and had networks of doctors, nurses [and] engineers, and search-and-rescue folk would organize themselves and fly out and get some work done,” explained Bernstein. “When [the 2010 earthquake in] Haiti happened, they realized they needed a long-term response plan and so they started an NGO to develop that capability. They were in Haiti for eight years.”

Founded in 2001, IsraAID has an annual budget of about $10 million and has worked in emergency and long-term development missions in 46 countries, including the United States. Volunteers with IsraAID, for example, continue to work in Reno, Nev., with evacuees from the wildfires in Northern California. In 2017 alone, IsraAID worked in 20 countries.

As an Israeli aid organization, IsraAID sometimes finds itself in the crosshairs of those who want to view their work through the framework of either Zionist or anti-Zionist ideology. Bernstein said IsraAID is having none of it either way. “We are really just focused on the work,” she said. “Other people may want to raise other questions about it, but we’re just like, OK, you have that conversation, there’s a person I have to help over here.”

That said, the organization’s Israeli base means they have unique contributions to offer. “We are proud to bring technologies from the country we come from,” said Bernstein. “And it’s not a coincidence that we’re really good at water management and trauma processing. Those are two things Israelis have needed to become good at it.”

Bernstein is continuing her academic studies at Tel Aviv University, pursuing a master’s degree in Middle Eastern history, while working for IsraAID. Meanwhile, the NGO is looking to expand the ranks of their volunteers. They’ve opened a headquarters in Los Angeles and Bernstein said another North American base may follow, possibly even in Canada. In Vancouver? “It’s not impossible,” she said.

Climate crisis a top priority

Teen activists talk with Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart at a climate-strike action on Dec. 7. (photo from Rebecca Hamilton)

“It’s going to be our future, so it’s up to us to take it into our own hands and show that, even if we can’t vote, we can still make a difference in our communities and the world,” Malka Martz-Oberlander told the Jewish Independent when she and fellow activist and friend Rebecca Hamilton met with the paper to discuss recent – and future – efforts to draw awareness to the climate crisis.

The two high school students are part of the group Sustainabiliteens, which was inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Last year, Thunberg started monthly school strikes, stating that preparing for a future that won’t have a livable climate was pointless. The strikes, called “Fridays for Future,” have spread to at least 270 countries, including Canada.

Inspired by Thunberg, strike action took place at Vancouver City Hall on Jan. 16, the day that Vancouver city council unanimously passed a motion put forward by Councilor Christine Boyle (OneCity) to declare a climate emergency. Similar motions have been adopted in other cities, including London, Los Angeles and Oakland, but Vancouver is the first in Canada to do so.

“Climate change is already impacting the people of Vancouver and will continue to. We need to respond to this crisis urgently and compassionately with a path towards a more equitable society,” said Boyle in a release. “Adequately addressing the climate emergency won’t be easy, but we are a smart city, capable of doing difficult things.”

Hamilton was an organizer of the strike at City Hall, and the groups Force of Nature and Extinction Rebellion Vancouver also supported the action. There was a previous school walkout and strike for the climate on Dec. 7, said Martz-Oberlander. She and Hamilton are among a growing number of Metro Vancouver teens coming together in what Martz-Oberlander describes as a “shared passion for climate justice.”

“With some of my friends, it’s just doom and gloom,” said Martz-Oberlander. “There’s this sense of this is all going to happen and no one can do anything, so why do anything? It’s out of our hands, we’re just kids…. But there’s also a lot of people that I know who are hopeful and see the bigger picture.”

“When I ask kids about the climate crisis,” said Hamilton, “they say that they think it’s a real problem and they’re scared. But the world around us doesn’t recognize what’s happening with the same sense of urgency that we feel. We are living in a confusing and weird time. On the one hand, we understand the science, we’re being told the scientific facts that we’re in a crisis. We’re being told these very conflicting messages, and there’s this dissonance. So what am I supposed to believe? The world is just going as normal, but why are you telling me then that we’re in this crisis and everything needs to change? I think that’s really frustrating. Me, personally, every day I’m frustrated by that.”

Both Martz-Oberlander and Hamilton grew up in the Vancouver Jewish community and say their Jewish values inform their activism. Martz-Oberlander’s family has been involved with Congregation Or Shalom since before she was born, and Hamilton grew up going to Temple Sholom.

“In the Torah, it talks about needing to pass down this world better than we got it,” said Martz-Oberlander. “That’s the concept of l’dor v’dor, ‘from generation to generation.’ The Jewish teaching that really influenced me is the sense of responsibility towards future generations.”

“Camp Miriam was most important to me in cultivating my Jewish identity,” said Hamilton. “I think it played a huge role in what I’m doing and why I care about it. The focus on youth agency, being told we could create change. It’s tikkun olam – environmentalism and climate justice is the most important way to try and help other people and create a more just world.”

photo - On Jan. 16, students walked out of school to be at Vancouver City Hall to raise awareness of the climate crisis and support Councillor Christine Boyle’s motion to declare a climate emergency — On Jan. 16, students walked out of school to be at Vancouver City Hall to raise awareness of the climate crisis and support Councillor Christine Boyle’s motion to declare a climate emergency. (photo from Rebecca Hamilton)

Both teens avoid the word “climate change,” preferring instead to talk of the “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” and the need for “climate justice.”

“Climate change doesn’t sound urgent enough,” said Martz-Oberlander. “It’s an emergency.”

“I prefer climate emergency or climate crisis,” said Hamilton, who cites Jewish writer and activist Naomi Klein as an important influence on her thinking. “It’s not about preventing this catastrophe but about healing the foundation of our world. The climate crisis is a manifestation of these unjust worldly systems which exploit nature, animals and people, so fixing that manifestation will also mean fixing those systems.”

Hamilton and Martz-Oberlander were inspired to join the climate-strike movement after it came to Canada with a strike in Sudbury, Ont., led by 11-year-old Sofia Mather.

“I feel like I have been concerned about climate change my whole life,” said Hamilton, “but I began to want to do something when I realized that nothing else really matters if we live on a dead planet.”

Hamilton and Martz-Oberlander are currently preparing for a Canada-wide school strike on May 3, and have a local action planned for Feb. 15.

Let’s talk mental health

Michael Landsberg will deliver the talk Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sport and Me on Feb. 13, as part of Jewish Family Services’ Family Life Education Series. (photo from JFS)

Michael Landsberg is a Canadian sports journalist and former host of Off the Record for TSN. He is also a passionate advocate for removing the stigma around mental illness, and will be coming to Vancouver next month to deliver the talk Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sport and Me. A Jewish Family Services (JFS) Family Life Education event, the talk will be held at Congregation Beth Israel on Feb. 13, with all proceeds going to support JFS mental health initiatives in the community.

Landsberg, who suffers from depression and generalized anxiety disorder, has in recent years been an ambassador for Bell Let’s Talk, an initiative that raises awareness and encourages dialogue about mental health. In 2013, his documentary, Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports and Me, was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best history or biography documentary program or series. The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health has named Landsberg one of its Champions of Mental Health. Landsberg is known for his Twitter hashtag #sicknotweak, which encourages discussion around mental health and creates a forum for those needing help.

“We’re thrilled and delighted to have Michael Landsberg come and do a talk at Beth Israel,” said Alan Stamp, clinical counseling director at JFS. “He has become an ambassador and a pioneer for mental health. He took a risk coming out about his struggles, [and] for him to come out and share his experiences is quite captivating. What he does best of all is he addresses stigma and, when someone in his role can speak out, it helps to lessen the suffering of the one in five Canadians – which is a conservative estimate in my opinion – who experiences a mental health concern over their lifetime.”

In Vancouver, Landsberg will be doing a one-hour talk with a question-and-answer period afterwards. He spoke to the Jewish Independent about helping people struggling with mental health issues.

“In general, sports mimics life,” he said. “When I speak about life and the stigma around mental health, I know we’re not as far ahead as we think we are. I don’t think we’re nearly as far ahead as we would want to believe. We’ve been working hard and it’s way better, yet I hear from people in the sports world all the time who are still in the closet, or they’re feeling shame.”

A major focus of Landsberg’s work is combating the idea that mental illness is a sign of weakness or is something “self-inflicted.”

“That is the arrogance of mental health,” he said. “Mentally healthy people sometimes believe that they would have been able to overcome the illness – they don’t understand the reality that people with mental health issues face, and how unchosen and beyond their control it can actually be. I try to educate the non-sufferer to better understand what mental illness is, and that it is like any other illness, no different from a physical ailment.”

There are a number of reasons why both Stamp and Landsberg feel sport is a good entry point for this discussion.

“I’m a huge believer that the best way to break people of the stigma is to find really strong people, like Clara Hughes, who have struggled with this, to talk about it,” said Landsberg.

Hughes, a Canadian cyclist and speed skater who has won multiple Olympic medals in both sports, has struggled with depression. “If [Hughes] was close at the end of the race, she would win. If you find that even a person of that strength and accomplishment can suffer from depression, it changes your perspective,” said Landsberg. “Everyone with depression feels that they are not understood, [but] when you hear someone else talk about it, then you know we all feel some things in common, and … that is incredibly empowering. Real-life examples are great.”

Landsberg has also partnered with firefighters who suffer from mental health issues, encouraging them to share their stories.

Landsberg and Stamp believe that reaching youth is key to changing the future, and sports can be key in doing that.

“We have to help younger people to understand that mental health concerns are a natural part of being alive,” said Stamp. “We have to do that much younger, like 6 or 7 years old. They need to know that when you feel distress, there is a way out.

“We have to start with language,” he said. “How do we describe somebody who is struggling? Children can be injured by the labels we use … we should be teaching youth and adults how to be listeners, how to approach someone and see if they need help. Having some education around a mental health problem is tremendously impactful. We need to be kinder, gentler and more empathic in our dealings with people.”

Tickets to hear Landsberg speak are $10 and are available from jfsvancouver.ca or 604-257-5151.

Sharing holiday spirit

Left to right: Archbishop JohnMichael Miller, Dr. Gregg Gardner, Fr. Nick Meisl, Dr. Jay Eidelman and RabbiJonathan Infeld. (photo by Rabbi Adam Stein)

“This is a unique opportunity to learn and growtogether. What better way to open ourselves to that holiday spirit, to welcomethe mysterious and send away the fear of the unknown,” said Congregation BethIsrael president Helen Pinsky in introducing the Dec. 5 program at thesynagogue on Chanukah and Christmas, which was co-hosted by Beth Israel and theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver.

After the lighting of a giant electronic chanukiyah by Rabbi Jonathan Infeld, the reciting of the motzi by Archbishop of Vancouver John Michael Miller and a latke-laden dinner, the crowd moved into the sanctuary to hear three scholars: Dr. Gregg Gardner, Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at the University of British Columbia; Fr. Nick Meisl, a professor at St. Mark’s College; and Dr. Jay Eidelman, who lectures on the Holocaust and Jewish history at UBC.

Infeld started things off with a short talk.

“The neighbourhood we grew up in, in Pittsburgh, was 50% Jewish or Catholic,” he said. “The kids did not refer to themselves as Jewish or Christian but as ‘Chanukah’ or ‘Christmas.’ We don’t love this, but it shows that the holidays have a particular power.”

Noting that, for many Jews and Christians of the past, neither Chanukah or Christmas were important as religious holidays, the rabbi quoted a documentary he had watched that argued that Charles Dickens had created Christmas, quipping that maybe Dickens “created Chanukah as well, in its modern version.”

Gardner spoke on the origins of Chanukah, noting it was a festival created by the Maccabees to mark their military successes against the Greeks in an effort to preserve traditional Jewish culture. “Ironically,” he said, “creating a holiday to honour yourself is, in fact, a very Greek thing to do.”

The “subversive” rabbis of later generations altered the holiday to downplay its militaristic elements and its focus on the Maccabees, Gardner explained, replacing that with a focus on God’s miraculous intervention in the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days in the rededicated Temple.

In his remarks, Meisl said the balloon of his “naive beliefs” about Christmas popped when, in the course of his studies, he learned that Dec. 25 was not Jesus’s birthday, but rather a date chosen for other reasons. He explored the theories linking the day to the ancient Roman Saturnalia festival of late December, or the Dec. 25 holiday of Sol Invictus (Unconquerable Sun). With humour, he quoted the ancient Christian theologian Origen, who questioned whether Jesus’s birthday should be celebrated at all, noting that, in the Hebrew Bible, only “bad people celebrate their birthdays.” In seriousness, he said it seems that it was around 336 CE that Christians began celebrating Jesus’s birthday on Dec. 25.

Eidelman took to the podium to the sound of the 1970s classic “Eight Days of Chanukah” by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, while changing from his suit jacket to a tacky Chanukah sweater, in the style of the dreaded Christmas sweater. His speech covered various historical and pop-culture themes related to the two holidays, with a focus on how Jews have imagined and reimagined Chanukah “as a way to define ourselves spiritually and a way to claim space in a culture largely based on Christian customs.”

After a short question-and-answer period in which people asked about the development of certain Chanukah customs and the role the story of the Maccabees has played in the Christian tradition, among other things, the archbishop wrapped up the event.

“This has been a wonderful evening of sharing the joy we each feel in the holidays with each other,” said Miller, who made a point of thanking everyone involved in the event by name, right down to the members of the catering and kitchen staff.

“The event was a splendid manifestation of the ties that bind Christians and Jews together in an age-old spiritual heritage,” Miller told the Jewish Independent by email. “Such occasions foster friendships and mutual understanding, and my hope is that they continue. I am very grateful to Rabbi Jonathan Infeld for his leadership role in interfaith relations.”

Supporting Israelis in need

Dr. William and Ruth Ross (photo from Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University)

Dr. William Hy Ross tears up talking about the motivation behind his philanthropic activities in Israel. Sitting behind a desk in his room at the medical clinic he runs, over which hangs a watercolour painting of the Mount of Olives, Ross said it is because of the grandparents he never met, both of whom died in the Holocaust. “If we had a state back then, that wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I would have grandparents.”

Ross met with the Jewish Independent last week to talk about the projects the Ross Foundation has undertaken in Israel, projects aimed at lifting up the underprivileged on the fringes of society there. He was accompanied by Sagie Shein, senior program manager of the Jewish American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Shein has acted as philanthropic advisor to Ross, and was recently made the fund manager of the Ross Family Foundation, in which role, he told the JI, he identifies projects that will achieve the foundation’s goals in Israel, whether through JDC or otherwise.

Ross and Shein met after Rabbi Shmuel Birnham, formerly of Congregation Har El, introduced Ross to Prof. Jack Habib of the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute in Jerusalem. Shein has now been working with the Ross foundation for six years.

Ross is a surgeon and a clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia. In 2012, he established the Morris and Sarah Ross International Fellowship in Vitreo-Retinal Surgery, which funds the training of ophthalmologists from Israel, including, so far, 12 Israeli Jews, three Israeli Muslims and three Israeli Christians.

Also in 2012, he and his wife, Ruth, established the Ross Family Scholarship Program for Advanced Studies in the Helping Professions, which funds education for nurses and social workers serving in the underserved peripheral communities of Israel. Their contributions have gone to select students at Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and they have been recognized as founders of the university, in honour of their contributions. The Ross Foundation appears on the walls of BGU’s Marcus Campus in Be’er Sheva.

In 2016, the Ross Foundation

extended its activity to another initiative – the Project for the Advancement of Employment for Ethiopian Immigrants, which supports the education of engineers, web developers and others.

“Israel is a fantastic success story,” said Ross. “You hear about the start-up companies, etc., but there is a whole fringe society who doesn’t have any of those advantages.”

Ross spoke to the JI about the particular importance of supporting Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel. “When they’re done serving in the army, they often end up in dead-end jobs,” he said. “We are providing living expenses for them in a way that is a game-changer, allowing them to get jobs as practical engineers and in other needed industries.”

Ross and Shein explained that, even when given support to pay for education, many underprivileged Israelis cannot afford to stop working and go to school full-time. The Ross Foundation’s initiatives give recipients a stipend that allows them to stop working and complete a course of education. The foundation is also supporting other communities facing challenges in the workplace, like Arabs and Charedim.

“JDC empowers all Israelis as a social innovation incubator, developing pioneering social services in conjunction with the Israeli government, local municipalities, nonprofits and other partners to lift the lives of Israel’s children at risk, elderly, unemployed, and people with disabilities,” Michael Geller, JDC’s director of media relations, told the Independent.

Operating since 1914, JDC has provided “more than $2 billion in social services and aid to date,” he said.

The JDC funds and organizes experimental programs in the hope that the government will see their success and launch similar efforts.

“We’re looking to pilot programs that can be adopted by the Israeli government,” Ross said.

“In 2020,” added Shein, “the foundation is expected to further expand its activities to additional programs based on the foundation vision.”

“Hy and Ruthie Ross really get Israel,” said David Berson, executive director of Canadian Associates of BGU for British Columbia and Alberta. “They speak the language of social impact and they lead by example. I am so impressed and moved by their understanding of the human equation for social change. Great training, proper guidance and supportive accompaniment can lead to gainful employment.

“As a social worker who trained and worked in Israel with some of her significant social challenges for two decades years, I know that Hy and Ruthie really understand the most critical needs of Israel. It is also an honour for me to be able to partner with JDC Israel, one of Israel’s most noteworthy agencies of real social mobility and empowerment for Israel’s most at-risk populations.”

Ross summed up the strong belief that drives his philanthropy in Israel simply: “I believe every Jew has an obligation to support Israel in some way.”

Honoured for their heroism

On Nov. 7, members of the Kalkman family – left to right are Danielle, Victoria, Matthew, Peter and Bonnie – received the Righteous Among the Nations award from the consulate general of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada and the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, on behalf of Dirk and Klaasje Kalkman. (photo by Rhonda Dent Photography)

One night in the Dutch village of Moordrecht, the call went out: the Nazis were doing a round-up. In a round-up, the Nazis would surround a neighbourhood and then search house by house for those they hunted: Jews, resistance fighters and others they deemed enemies. Wim Kalkman’s family rushed to prepare for their arrival: two Dutchmen who refused to work as forced labour building battlements for the Nazis were taken through a trap door under the carpet in the living room. The really dangerous guest of the family, however, was hidden in plain view. Tanta Ina, they called her, saying she was an aunt who had fled the battle zone on the coast to find refuge with the family.

Tanta Ina was not related to the Kalkmans, however. She was a Jewish woman, the widow of a Dutch-Jewish nobleman who the family had been urged to protect by Reverend Henk Post, the brother of Dutch resistance fighter Johannes Post and a fellow clergyman to Wim’s father, Dirk.

Dirk Kalkman, a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church, and his wife Klaasje, had taken Catharina Six tot Oterleek-Kuijper in and given her a new identity. They hid her, with the help of their four children, from 1943 to 1945, at great personal risk. On that fearful night, the Nazis did not discover the two Dutchmen or Tanta Ina, who sat on the couch with the rest of the family while they were all interrogated. When a Nazi soldier asked young Wim if the family was hiding anyone, he broke into a gale of nervous laughter, which confused the Nazis, who also began laughing. Fearful of Wim’s sister, who was suffering from diphtheria, the Nazis rushed their search and left.

This was the story that was told to Wim’s son, Peter, and his grandson, Matthew, both of whom were in Vancouver Nov. 7 to receive the Righteous Among the Nations award from the consulate general of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada and the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, on behalf of Dirk and Klaasje Kalkman.

Righteous Among the Nations are non-Jews who assisted or sheltered Jews during the Holocaust, often at the risk of great peril for themselves and families. The project was established by Yad Vashem in 1963 and to date has granted the award to more than 26,000 people. It had been Wim Kalkman’s lifelong dream to see his parents honoured for their heroism, as Matthew Kalkman told those gathered at the Rothstein Theatre for the ceremony.

After Peter Kalkman read his father’s account of that terrifying night and told the story of his grandparents’ protection of Tanta Ina, Matthew Kalkman gave an emotional speech, often through tears, about the importance of his great-grandparents’ actions to his own life. He said he had first connected with the reality of what his great-grandparents had done when he visited the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.

When his grandfather Wim died in 2014, they discovered a note expressing his dying wish that Wim’s father be honoured. Matthew took up the task personally and, together with researchers in the Netherlands, was able to find definitive evidence of what happened in the Kalkman household so many years ago.

The award was given to the Kalkmans by Consul General Galit Baram on behalf of the state of Israel and by Josh Hacker on behalf of the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem. Liel Amdour, a classical guitarist born in Israel, played two pieces of music that embodied hope and rebirth, and Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar, education director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, and Salomon Casseres, president of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, also spoke, as did Karen James, the chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver board. All of the speakers touched upon the importance of remembering the heroes of the Holocaust as inspirations in the current times of resurgent nationalism, racism and xenophobia.

Casseres, who has Dutch ancestry, also stressed the relevance of the Kalkmans’ story for himself, as a descendant of Dutch Jews who survived the Holocaust. “In Hebrew,” he said, “we say kol hakavod, which means ‘all the respect.’” In Dutch, he added, “A hearty thank you for your family’s deeds of heroism.”

Breaking new ground

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner is both the first woman and the first Jewish Renewal rabbi to be elected head of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver. (photo from Or Shalom)

“I grew up in a household of many amazingly powerful spirits,” Rabbi Hannah Dresner of Or Shalom Synagogue told the Independent. “My parents’ circle of friends loomed larger than life.”

Dresner has memories of playing ping-pong with Jesse Jackson, making paper dolls with Abraham Joshua Heschel and being read bedtime stories by Elie Wiesel. Her father, Samuel Dresner, was a rabbi and a renowned scholar of Chassidic thought. He was a close personal disciple of Heschel, who is widely regarded as one of the most important theologians and Jewish ethicists of the 20th century.

Dresner, herself an artist, dancer and academic for years before heeding the call to become a rabbi, walks softly and carries a big soul. Since coming to Vancouver to head Or Shalom after Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan stepped down from the pulpit to take on a role at the Vancouver School of Theology, Dresner has made waves by bringing a new range of creative programming to the shul. Events have included a dance troupe performing an interpretation of a Chassidic tale to live jazz music, a Shabbaton on Jewish wisdom about the afterlife, and guest Rabbi Benay Lappe teaching how to queer the Talmud.

Most recently, Dresner has again broken new ground in Vancouver, by being chosen head of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver. She is both the first woman to hold the position and the first Jewish Renewal rabbi.

The Jewish Independent spoke to Dresner just days after she had convened her first meeting as chair. She said she was heartened to see that her election was a comfortable choice for the mainly male membership of the RAV – Rabbi Carey Brown is also a member – and an exciting opportunity for her to serve both her own shul community and the wider Vancouver Jewish community.

“I see this as a way for Or Shalom to be more visible as a legitimate part of the Jewish community of Vancouver, to bring our own sensibility to fostering kinship between rabbinic colleagues, and an opportunity for myself to serve the Jewish people,” she said.

So far, Dresner – who said she is very much still learning the ropes of the RAV – has innovated by introducing a session of group Torah study into the association’s meetings.

photo - Rabbi Hannah Dresner — Rabbi Hannah Dresner *(photo from Or Shalom)*

Dresner is known for combining traditionalism and progressive Judaism, including a commitment to “deep ecumenicism,” an openness to the wisdom not just of the different denominations of the Jewish community but the different religious traditions of humankind. This is what drew her to the Jewish Renewal movement founded by Reb Zalman Shachter-Shalomi. Renewal is known for its embrace of both traditional liturgy and observance and Torah study with feminist, ecological and ecumenical perspectives.

She said, “My job here [at Or Shalom] is to really nurture the historic members and create a space that is bold and fresh and open and willing to embrace our contemporary thoughts and needs, and to be truly inclusive; to nurture the old and to welcome and open as many portals as possible.”

Before becoming a rabbi, Dresner went to Barnard College to study dance and art then taught at the Ramaz School in New York. She went to graduate school at the University of Chicago and got her master’s in fine arts, becoming an exhibiting painter at a blue-chip gallery, with a career as a working artist while teaching in MFA programs. Her longest tenure was at Northwestern University for 10 years, where she was tasked with inventing new undergraduate courses across the arts.

When Dresner got married and had children, she felt the need for a prayer space tolerant of young mothers, a community in which to raise kids. She founded the Lomdim Chavura, which some quipped stood for “lean, mean davening machine.” The group met on Shabbat mornings and co-parented – they “birthed each other’s babies into life, and doula’d community members into death as well,” said Dresner.

“It was spiritual improvisation,” she said, noting that the chavura regularly gathered to experiment with new forms of expression. It was within that space that Dresner became interested in leadership and discovered davening and ritual as new spaces for her creative expression. She began seeing Jewish communal life as another way of being an artist in the world.

“Everything was woven together in our communal life,” said Dresner. “We made sukkot out of gourds or sunflowers. Ritual life was part of gardening, was part of cooking, was part of life and dance and art.”

Dresner said her discovery of the seamlessness of those things made her transition into the rabbinate very natural. “It is about translating those family expressions into a larger family,” she said.

Dresner had begun studying Chassidic texts while still an MFA advisor, to feed her soul and connect again with the spiritual milieu of her childhood. “We used to study the Sefer Ba’al Shem Tov every Shabbat afternoon,” Dresner said of her early childhood immersion, “and we sang niggunim until dark and then made Havdalah.”

Dresner’s study of Chassidus gradually blossomed into studying for the rabbanut. “I’m not really in rabbinical school,” she told herself. “I’m just taking these classes.”

Dresner was eventually ordained as both a rabbi and mashpia ruchanit (spiritual counselor). She has been two different kinds of CLAL fellow, in the Rabbis without Borders and Clergy Leadership Incubator programs.

During her rabbinic studies, Dresner was close with Daniel Siegel, the founding rabbi of Or Shalom, and she was excited when a job opening arose at the synagogue. “Coming here to the congregation that he founded had a lot of meaning to me and I had a lot of respect for Laura, the previous rabbi, as an intellectual as well,” said Dresner.

In 2001, Dresner had gone to Berkeley with husband Dr. Ross Andelman to focus on integrating their families. They made a deal: she had left her dream job and moved for him, and he would repay the favour after the kids had graduated high school. Once Dresner was ordained as a rabbi with ALEPH, Andelman, who is known in the Or Shalom community as “the rebbetz” (a play on the traditional name for the rabbi’s wife, rebbetzin) was true to his commitment and left his job as medical director of a county mental health system in Northern California to come here. “He’s a man who acted on his feminism,” said Dresner.

One of Dresner’s first calls to public duty as head of the RAV came on Oct. 28, when she led the vigil remembering the victims of the Pittsburgh massacre, which claimed the lives of 11 Jews.