Byline: Pat Johnson

Rule of law broken: councilor

Panelists Rabbi Philip Bregman, left, and Aron Csaplaros. Toronto city councilor James Pasternak spoke via remote link. (photo by Pat Johnson)

A Toronto city councilor, speaking via remote link at an event at Richmond’s Beth Tikvah Synagogue, slammed Canadian society and leaders for permitting – even encouraging – antisemitism.

James Pasternak told the June 23 event that the rule of law has broken down in Canada.

“It’s mostly a result of timid policing, the refusal to physically engage protesters, spineless politicians who are either scraping the barrel for a few extra votes or simply afraid to speak out and, of course, a broken judiciary that has weak bail conditions and drops a lot of the charges,” said the councilor, who is Jewish and is seeking reelection this fall in the York Centre ward, which has a significant concentration of Jewish voters. 

Pasternak said anti-Israel protests have cost Toronto police more than $50 million, and yet activists continue intimidating people in Jewish neighbourhoods, harassing shoppers, interfering with subway commuters, and blocking major thoroughfares and rail lines. 

“We have seen attacks on synagogues and threats against Jewish daycares and schools, against summer camps. We have seen the shooting up of a Jewish girls’ school, the firebombing of a Jewish-owned grocery store and the arrival of hateful mobs coming up to the area I represent, at Bathurst and Sheppard, every Sunday to harass the Jewish community,” he said. “There are no embassies there. There are no consulates. There are no government buildings. There’s no town square. They are up there to harass the local Jewish community.” 

Pasternak directed special condemnation at elected officials who exacerbate the situation by warning that Israel’s prime minister should be arrested if he came to Canada, by diplomatically recognizing Palestine, “and spreading the tropes that the war in Gaza was genocide.”

He named Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow as one who “spreads that same trope … making a bad situation worse.”

Chow has alienated the Jewish community, said Pasternak.

“She didn’t show up to the … anniversary of Oct. 7. She didn’t show up to Walk for Israel. She didn’t show up to the Israel flag-raising. Anything to do with Israel is like a no-go zone. And she’s pandering to these groups that she feels she needs to remain in office,” said Pasternak.

He said he had a conversation with the mayor in which she told him, according to Pasternak, “Any time I take a step to help the Jewish community speak up, I get clobbered.”

“So I said, ‘Oh, clobbered by the crazies?’” Pasternak recounted, “And her answer was, ‘Yeah. Yeah, clobbered by the crazies. The crazies vote for me.’”

A spokesperson for Chow told the Independent via email the mayor hosts an annual Passover reception at City Hall and attends several public menorah lightings and High Holidays receptions. They said Chow toured the Nova Exhibition, joined memorials for the Bibas family, and attended the opening of the Toronto Holocaust Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum’s recent Auschwitz Exhibit. She also visited Congregation Chasidei Bobov, a Toronto synagogue whose congregants were targeted in a hate-motivated assault.

Joining Pasternak on the panel was Aron Csaplaros, BC regional manager for B’nai Brith Canada, who referenced his organization’s most recent annual audit of antisemitic hate crimes. 

According to the 2025 audit, Canadian Jews experienced a record 6,800 reported antisemitic incidents last year – an average of 18.6 per day – representing a 9.3% increase over 2024 and a 145.6% increase since 2022. Harassment accounted for 95% of incidents, the vast majority taking place online. There were 299 reported cases of vandalism and 10 violent attacks.

“The one main theme that I keep hearing again and again and again is that Jews feel excluded. They feel unwelcome. They feel unheard,” said Csaplaros, who shared an anecdote about a unionized work environment where coworkers spoke of Zionists stealing, lying and violently killing people. When a Jewish employee reported it to human resources, they were told it was merely a political disagreement. 

“That’s just an example,” said Csaplaros, “but that’s something that we hear time and time again – or teachers not understanding what it means to collectively blame all Jews for the actions of a single government.”

He welcomed Bill C-9, which just received royal assent, creating a standalone hate crime offence, among other steps against hate. He also said Prime Minister Mark Carney’s statement that confronting antisemitism requires a “whole-of-government” approach is positive, but still may not reflect the breadth required. Csaplaros said the federal government makes the laws, the provinces oversee Crown prosecutions and municipalities run law enforcement.

“So you can see how there could very easily be a breakdown where maybe the laws exist on the federal level, but, if the province isn’t doing its job in charging these crimes, and if the city isn’t encouraging the local police to make these arrests in the first place, then we’re not going to get anywhere,” Csaplaros said.

Rabbi Philip Bregman, the third member of the panel, recounted experiencing antisemitism during childhood in rural Ontario and at university in Toronto, then, on Jan. 25, 1985, when his synagogue, Temple Sholom, here in Vancouver, was destroyed in a firebombing.

“Today, in the Lower Mainland, we are spending over $100,000 a month on security for our [Jewish] institutions,” Bregman said.

The rabbi reflected on things he’s experienced in the expansive interfaith work he has undertaken, especially since retiring from the pulpit at Temple Sholom. For example, a United Church of Canada minister told Bregman that he reviewed his notes from divinity school in Toronto.

“My God, the antisemitism was right below the surface, right there,” Bregman recalls the minister telling him.

The rabbi credited the Catholic archdiocese of Vancouver with developing very strong relations with the Jewish community, and also commended Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim.

“I may not necessarily agree with all of his policies, but Ken Sim has been there for us,” said Bregman.

Like the other panelists, Bregman did not identify a great many reasons for optimism. Jewish Canadians seeking a Plan B, a place to flee if the situation here gets intolerable, might consider Panama, which he has heard is very welcoming to Jews.

The event was co-hosted by Stan Goldman and Lonnie Belfer. 

Journalist shares fears

Itai Anghel, one of Israel’s most recognizable documentary reporters, was with his wife and toddler son in New York City, celebrating his Emmy nomination for Last Stop Before Kyiv, in which Anghel and cameraman Eddie Gerald reported from Ukraine during the early months of Russia’s invasion.

As the glitter of the celebratory excursion dissipated, Anghel began receiving news from home. Thousands of terrorists from Gaza had flooded into Israel, in a cataclysm that was only beginning to be understood.

Israeli airspace shut down on Oct. 7, 2023, but, leaving his family in the safety of the United States, Anghel managed to return, and focus his camera on the catastrophe.

photo - Itai Anghel, in Vancouver, provides bleak assessment of the future
Itai Anghel, in Vancouver, provides bleak assessment of the future. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Anghel shared his story here in a lunchtime event for business community members May 29 and that evening at Shabbat services at Congregation Schara Tzedeck.

Anghel is the recipient of the Sokolov Award, Israel’s highest award for journalism, and is a university lecturer in history and international relations. He is a correspondent for the television news program Uvda, sometimes referred to as Israel’s 60 Minutes.

On arriving back in Israel, Anghel received a call from a stranger at Kibbutz Nir Oz, in the Gaza Envelope, urging him to get to their village immediately and record the atrocities committed there.

Anghel told the caller that, as far as he understood, Israeli military officials were preventing outsiders from entering the region. The stranger insisted Anghel come, telling him that, if the military tried to prevent his visit, they would shoot the soldiers. The government, the stranger told the reporter, would seek to cover up the reality of what happened and the failure of the Israel Defence Forces to intervene, and getting the reality on video was of utmost importance.

The suspicion of a government coverup may not have been based in reality, but what Anghel saw at Nir Oz was like nothing he had witnessed in war zones in Bosnia or the killing fields of Rwanda.

The Nir Oz survivors took Anghel from home to home, where he filmed the aftermath of some of Oct. 7’s most grisly atrocities. More than 10% of the community’s residents were murdered and 76 residents, almost 20% of the population, were taken as hostages to Gaza.

“They set on fire whole families, whole communities, the terrorists were in Nir Oz for seven hours and not one Israeli soldier confronted them,” Anghel said.

At a home where a mother and child were shot point blank, Anghel reflected on their final seconds.

“The last thing that this boy saw before he was shot to death was someone shooting his mother to death,” he recalled. And, if that didn’t happen, the mother saw her son murdered before she was killed.

Anghel asked for a break, maybe to have a bottle of water, but the people of Nir Oz wouldn’t let him stop witnessing and recording, insisting that he continue his documentation.

As he moved through the kibbutz, he did not process what he was seeing. He admits that his camera is a shield between him and the world. Often, he said, it is later that he begins to process what he sees. 

“It was only when I got back to Tel Aviv that I understood what I saw and began reflecting,” he said. “For the first time, I was crying.… The reflecting would come later, when I’m in the editing room.”

He has harsh words for people sitting in comfortable TV studios opining on places they have never visited or who practise, as he acidly calls it, “hotel journalism,” rather than “field journalism.”

The latter, in which Anghel embeds himself among ordinary people and even terrorist fighters, is how journalism used to be done, he said, before the 24-hour news cycle created demand for semi-qualified talking heads to discuss things of which they have only surface knowledge. 

Anghel has an American passport – his parents were students in the States when he was born – so he can go places his Israeli passport would not permit. 

“People are so focused on ‘everyone’s an enemy,’” he said, but when he interviewed people in Damascus, Syria, Israelis couldn’t believe their openness to good relations with Israel.

Being relatively fluent in Arabic opens doors for Anghel. 

“I tell them I’m from the US, but I’m not a soldier, I’m not from the army,” he said. “They are in a state of shock because they have never heard an American speak Arabic.”

He tells them he studied the language so he could communicate with people like them and, from there, he almost always finds a willingness to open up.

Anghel took special aim at the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who last month published an at least partially fictionalized account of IDF atrocities, including attack dogs allegedly trained to rape Palestinians.

“It is so radical and parts so far-fetched,” said Anghel, noting that the organization Kristof cited as the source for some of his most incendiary allegations is Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which Anghel and Israel’s diaspora affairs ministry characterize as a Hamas front organization in Europe.

“Anyone with very basic knowledge knows that Euro-Med is an affiliation of Hamas,” he said. “If you get information from there, at least be honest and say so.”

That the Kristof piece could pass the standards of the New York Times is, Anghel said, symptomatic of a decline in basic journalistic rigour, in which terms like “apartheid” and “genocide” are applied without qualification. 

“They know already, they’ve decided already and there is no openness to hear anything else,” he said.

On the other hand, Anghel admits to getting criticism from all sides. Some Israeli viewers condemn him for platforming anti-Israel terrorists. Israel’s government is no fan of Anghel or Uvda, either.

Anghel is blunt in his assessment of Israeli cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“He’s a fanatic, a criminal, in charge of law enforcement in Israel,” Anghel said.

Anghel and his TV program have also been condemnatory toward what he calls Israel’s abandonment of the Kurdish people.

“We knew that jihadists in Syria would like to crush them and we did nothing,” he said.

The relations are complicated, he admitted, but Israel prevailed upon the new Syrian regime to protect the Druze people in the south of Syria, because Israel has a special relationship with the community because of the Druze population in Israel. The Kurds, in northern Syria, who Israel has allied with at times, were left to their own devices, Anghel said.

Of all the threats to Israel’s future, Anghel said, his greatest fear is internal strife.

“Israel is divided like it has never been,” he said. “The situation is awful. You cannot make it look nicer. It is awful.”

While some Canadian Jews are thinking about leaving, he noted, in the past two or three years, 10,000 Israelis came to live in Canada. 

The schism between ultra-Orthodox, who generally do not serve in the military, and the majority of Israelis, who have been carrying the burden of service, is a particular point of division. At the same time, the birth rate among ultra-Orthodox portends a country that is demographically shifting toward that group.

Many Israelis are concluding that the current government does not care about people like them.

“You make the calculation and you realize maybe it is not the place for you to live,” said Anghel.

“I’m not afraid of Hezbollah, I’m not afraid of Syria, I’m not afraid of Iraq, I’m not afraid of Yemen’s Houthis, I’m not afraid of nuclear weapons from Iran,” Anghel said. “I’m afraid of ourselves.”

Schara Tzedeck’s Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt thanked the Diamond family for sponsoring the event in memory of the late Charles Diamond. Josh Pekarsky interviewed Anghel. 

Legal help for students

StandWithUs Canada executive director Jesse Primerano and lawyer Anita Bromberg, director of the organization’s new legal department. (photos from SWU)

StandWithUs Canada has just launched a new legal department to help students navigate the climate on Canadian campuses.

StandWithUs Canada is an educational organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, challenge misinformation and fight antisemitism within schools and communities. While the organization has always helped students navigate legal challenges, up to now, according to executive director Jesse Primerano, the organization has had to outsource cases to volunteer lawyers on a case-by-case basis. Cases have included incidents of human rights complaint violations by, for example, a university or a student union. With a staff lawyer leading a new department, StandWithUs aims to have greater reach in the legal realm.

Anita Bromberg is a lawyer with extensive practice experience in human rights and constitutional law, including religious freedom, censorship and freedom of speech cases. She has done research and teaching, worked with B’nai Brith Canada as a human rights officer and legal counsel, and served as executive director of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. She has argued before the Supreme Court of Canada.

After Oct. 7, 2023, Bromberg rededicated herself to the Jewish community and fighting antisemitism, heading the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation.

“I hope that, in my position, I will bring that expertise and connections and networking to StandWithUs,” Bromberg told the Independent. “And, most importantly, to me, is to find a way to bring our community together so that we are a lean, mean fighting machine that parallels the type of support that we’re seeing the anti-Israel crowd getting.”

Anti-Israel organizations have lawyers on call, according to Bromberg and Primerano, and Jewish students and their allies need parallel defences. 

Students are being confronted on campus, including in classrooms, with aggressive harassment not only from student activists but from professors and faculty advisors, said Bromberg. 

In addition to being harassed, students are being doxxed – having their personal information, like home addresses, made public – and access to public spaces like tables and room rentals on campus is being denied to Jewish students based on their political views, said Primerano. Jewish students are being silenced, he said, based on justifications that events, for example, cannot go forward for their own protection, based on security concerns.

“They need legal support to understand what they can do to defend themselves against a machine that’s trying to take them down,” said Primerano.

Launching the legal department has been a longtime goal of StandWithUs Canada, said Primerano. 

“It required not only funding, but it required us to make sure the rest of our infrastructure was immaculate,” he said. 

Legal avenues are often the only option for students who feel harmed by the actions of an institution or its representatives, he said.

“At the end of the day, very little holds universities to account outside of the law itself,” Primerano said. “That is the one thing that they say that they respect.”

The new legal department, with a single employee, is just the beginning, he maintained. The organization envisions a future with multiple lawyers and several staff members, collaborating with lawyers across the country.

“We’re not planning to solve this problem on our own,” said Primerano. “We’re looking to build a network of pro bono lawyers across Canada who are willing to support us here and there.”

The goal, ultimately, is to make sure that students have somebody they can call that is specifically focused on their issues. From there, StandWithUs might engage with community partners as appropriate, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and others.

“Our goal is to build a real network,” he said. “Our fundamental belief is that the community is stronger when we work together, but we also know that the university students need a point of contact, and all we’re trying to establish here for them is a point of contact with expertise and reliability that can then utilize the rest of the infrastructure that exists, especially with Anita being based in Toronto, to speak to lawyers in Vancouver and say, ‘You’ve already been having these conversations. Let’s work together to make sure that we can effect a change.’” 

Bromberg’s deep roots in the Jewish community and legal experience mean she can hit the ground running on complex issues.

“I think that was one reason why I got the nod for this position,” said Bromberg, “because I’ve been in the community, I’ve networked with pretty much every organization and I’ve always adopted a cooperative measure. I think that the unity in the community is probably the most important thing that we have to develop.”

Students can access a reporting tool through the StandWithUs website (standwithus.com) and social media.

“The goal is not entirely reactive,” Primerano added. “Anita will also be developing resources, workshops, webinars and ways for students and community members at large to be aware of what their rights are and how they can defend them.… We’re also trying proactively to help people get a better understanding of what they’re entitled to as Canadian citizens.” 

Expanding the healing

Elana Epstein shares her family’s narrative of recovery in Today I Will Be Fearless. (photo from Elana Epstein)

When Elana Epstein and her husband, David, confronted the reality that their son, Noah, was an addict, her life shifted on its axis.

In her emotional, practical, moving book, Today I Will Be Fearless: Rising Through My Son’s Drug Addiction, Epstein shares her family’s narrative of recovery, while digging into complex related issues like intergenerational trauma, societal silence and stigma, and finding purpose, resilience and power in the darkest moments of life. In the process of writing and sharing her story, Epstein has found new meaning and mission for her life.

“Writing the book was how I got better, deepened into my own recovery and saw the pattern of what recovery asks of us,” the Vancouver mother of three adult sons told the Independent. “And, the deeper I went into the story, the deeper I uncovered the gems of the why I was doing things. 

“This is happening for more than just my own son’s healing,” she said. “It’s my healing.”

She took her son’s recovery as an opportunity for her own self-understanding and improvement. The book, though, intends to expand the healing.

“It’s for a wider community,” Epstein said. “I was determined to be a channel for whoever needed support and a companion along this journey because people do this alone.”

Epstein, a yoga teacher, reiki master and spiritual practitioner, had long understood the language of healing. But addiction, she said, stripped her of any illusion of mastery. 

“It felt as if everything I had learned was a waste because I did not know my son was struggling with addiction,” she said. “It felt as if the tools were more of a hindrance than a help. But quickly my spirit reminded me the tools I had were the ones that would support me to get through this if only I could go deeper with them. That was the pivotal moment of my knowing I could and would get through this.”

She also realized that Noah was not the only one who needed to adapt to changing realities.

“I took the lens of recovery and turned it onto me and took the opportunity to delve into the 12 steps and see where I needed to release myself from the clutches of my ego and some of my ancestral teachings or just threads that were hanging around,” she said, adding that she began to see the impacts of intergenerational trauma. 

“I needed to peel back the layers and see that I was codependent and I was a people-pleaser and I didn’t know how to love myself well enough – all while my son is learning to do the same thing.”

Several months into Noah’s recovery, Epstein broke her leg while skiing. She took it as a sign from the universe to step back, focus inward and accept help.

“Maybe four days after surgery I was at home. I was sitting on the couch and I was feeling really sorry for myself. What has happened to my life? Isn’t it enough? How many more things … COVID and Noah and the war. And then I break my leg and I hear immediately, ‘You are going to write your book.’”

image - Today I Will Be Fearless book coverThere has always been a book in her, Epstein said. She just didn’t know what it was going to be about. Now, it became clear.

“This is my story, how I got through the journey of loving my son through his own addiction,” she said. “So, I started just journaling, and one thing led to the other and, a year later, I had a blueprint.”

As the book came together, she realized the writing process was no longer just for her own healing. “This was how I was going to show up for people,” she said.

Among the self-doubts she had to overcome was the realization that she has wisdom to share.

“I would say things like, ‘in my opinion’ and ‘in my humble experience,’” she said. “That was classic Elana. I started to accept that I actually do know what I’m talking about and there’s no reason to hold back and let’s go and let’s be authentically who we are.”

It turns out there was a demand for the wisdom of someone who has been through what Epstein’s family has.

“Although I had a desire that this would be a companion, I couldn’t have imagined it would be this well received … not just by families who are wading in the waters of addiction and recovery, but by people who are curious,” she said. “People are telling me this is a blueprint and a companion for life. One woman just said to me yesterday, ‘I keep you by my night table and, every once in awhile, I just pick it up and I read a sentence and it’s my teaching for what I’m struggling with in my own life.’”

Finding light in darkness is a recurring theme in the book.

“When bad things happen, people look for the reasons and they look for the why. And they definitely want to blame something or somebody,” Epstein said. “You don’t have to do that. You can accept what happens as a gateway to becoming and connecting to a version of yourself that is more beautiful than you can ever imagine and stronger that you can ever imagine. Stop being afraid of the potential things.”

Her family’s Jewishness infuses the book.

“My message to the Jewish reader is this book is filled with mystical wisdom that can guide you to a more peaceful existence one day at a time with what is coursing through our blood and bones,” said Epstein. “I had the vision early on that I was going to be a part of bringing more awareness into the Jewish community because we have lost too many. Many children and too many people suffer in silence.”

When Rabbi Josh Corber took over the Jewish Addiction Community Service and Jewish Family Services took the group under their umbrella, Epstein discussed how she might contribute to the work.

She took the lead on running a group for families navigating a member’s addiction or recovery. She said she hopes that the book might land in the right place, just when an individual or family needs to hear her message.

“If that person can pick up my book, then we’re living that old adage that the Talmud teaches: if you save one life, it is as if you are saving an entire world,” she said, “And I truly believe that.” 

Fall fight takes leap forward

For many people, dizziness is not a fleeting sensation but a persistent and debilitating condition. Vertigo, imbalance and concussion-related symptoms affect an estimated 30% of the population and they increase with age.

For decades, patients have been given generalized exercises that may or may not help. For high-performance athletes, the consequences can be career-ending. For older adults, the costs can be even more serious, as falls remain a leading cause of injury and mortality.

The science of diagnosing inner-ear-related balance issues has progressed, but treatment has not similarly advanced. It is this unaddressed space – between diagnosis and meaningful treatment – that Dr. Eytan David encountered repeatedly over 25 years in practice.

Some young people collect stamps, others are into video games. For David, dizziness, vertigo and imbalance were early interests.

“The whole idea of what we call in science ‘sensory transduction’; that is, how physical phenomena in the outside world interact with our brain,” he explained.

photo - As Dr. Eytan David looks on, writer Pat Johnson tries out Bertec, a force-sensing platform and virtual reality system that measures how well a patient’s brain integrates signals from three sensory systems
As Dr. Eytan David looks on, writer Pat Johnson tries out Bertec, a force-sensing platform and virtual reality system that measures how well a patient’s brain integrates signals from three sensory systems – vision, the inner ear, and the body’s joint and pressure receptors – to maintain balance. (photo by Audrey Chan)

Senses conjure memories and emotions, he said, “like a smell will bring you back to your grandparents baking in the kitchen.”

“What is the chemical interaction that happens in the smell nerve, then interacts with the brain, that revives these memories?” David asked. “Similar things happen with vision and similar things happen with hearing. Properties of sound waves and that mechanical transduction into chemical and then nerve impulses was an interest of mine. On a very, very basic level, the inner ear is the ultimate original gyroscope. It is the reason why we’re able to stand upright and evolve out of the primordial slime. The idea of a gravity sensor and how that was so basic to brain function and out of which came hearing function was evolutionarily interesting to me.”

David came to Vancouver as a young child, when his American-Israeli parents moved here after studies in Oregon, where he was born. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah and Eric Hamber Secondary School, then McGill University, before graduating from the University of British Columbia’s medical school, where he is now a clinical instructor.

His early interest in balance issues would eventually collide with a growing professional frustration. Over decades of practice, David saw patient after patient arrive with similar complaints – dizziness, vertigo, imbalance – and leave with limited options.

Even as diagnostic tools improved dramatically over the past two decades, allowing physicians to identify specific inner-ear dysfunctions with increasing precision, treatment methods lagged. Put plainly, medicine had advanced in its ability to identify the problem, but not to fix it.

Traditional rehabilitation for balance disorders has long relied on exercises such as standing on one leg or tracking a visual point while moving the head. These techniques, developed decades ago, can be effective in some cases, but are rarely tailored to the specific underlying cause of a patient’s symptoms. As a result, outcomes vary widely.

There had to be a better way, the doctor believed. During the COVID pandemic, while many people were withdrawing, David was beginning a research marathon that eventually led to StabilityLAB, his storefront clinic on West Broadway in Vancouver. StabilityLAB has already become one of Canada’s most advanced facilities for addressing vertigo, dizziness, concussions and balance disorders.

Every patient begins with a comprehensive baseline assessment – using virtual reality and advanced balance platforms to identify the underlying cause of symptoms. David’s diagnoses are grounded in objective, measurable science, which is a shift from the more subjective way things used to be done.

Using a force-sensing platform and virtual reality, the system, called Bertec, measures how well a patient’s brain integrates signals from three sensory systems – vision, the inner ear, and the body’s joint and pressure receptors – to maintain balance. By systematically removing or distorting each sensory input across six conditions, David can pinpoint which system is failing, rather than relying on a patient’s description of symptoms. A second test then maps how far and how confidently a patient can shift their body weight in eight directions, revealing asymmetries and neuromuscular weaknesses that may never show up on an MRI or standard physical exam. Together, the two assessments produce hard data where there was previously only guesswork, giving clinicians a precise, reproducible baseline to guide treatment and track recovery.

Originally developed for diagnostic purposes, the system allows clinicians to control both the physical and visual stimuli experienced by the patient.

Where others saw a diagnostic tool, David saw potential for solutions to what he and his colleagues were seeing in patients.

To prove his hypothesis, he began a five-year process of experimentation, iteration and validation – a research project layered onto an already demanding clinical practice. David effectively built a new therapeutic protocol from the ground up, using decades of clinical experience and his understanding of vestibular biology, the sensory network in the inner ear and brain that controls balance, spatial orientation and eye movement. The outcome was a new type of treatment: computerized vestibular retraining therapy. In a typical session, a patient stands on a platform that subtly – or, as I discovered, not so subtly – shifts or tilts while visual environments change around them.

In my firsthand experience with the process, the doctor harnessed me into the enormous half-egg device, then tracked my motion as I was surrounded by sometimes funhouse-like undulating lines projected on the inner wall. Then the floor moved beneath me. Then I was navigating an outdoor obstacle course. Then I was engaged in video game-like challenges.

It was fun, perplexing and fascinating. The science behind it, though, is absolutely serious.

According to data from David’s clinic, most patients experience reductions in dizziness and measurable improvements in balance function. Most importantly, there are significant decreases in fall risk among patients after the regimen of a dozen or so sessions.

More than 85% of patients show measurable improvement in balance and dizziness. Patients experienced a 47% reduction in fall risk. Dementia risk for patients with vestibular dizziness declined 8%. Studies found a 27% reduction in dementia risk and mortality from all causes when vertigo is treated using David’s system.

While the outcomes are dramatic, the remaining question is whether these improvements reflect compensation – relying more on vision or muscle awareness – or something deeper.

David’s research suggests the latter, that there is neuroplasticity in the vestibular system and it can be manipulated to heal. If confirmed through broader research, this would challenge a longstanding assumption that the inner ear has limited capacity for recovery once damaged.

General practitioners, ear, nose and throat specialists, and sports medicine doctors across Canada see these cases every day. What has been missing, David believes, is a reliable, evidence-based pathway to rehabilitation.

StabilityLAB, which opened in April 2025, represents an attempt to fill that gap – bringing technology used in advanced research environments into a clinical setting accessible to the public.

The system is currently unique in Canada, and the protocols developed by David and his colleagues are supported by peer-reviewed research. Expansion plans are already underway, beginning with Toronto.

Falls are a leading cause of injury worldwide, particularly among older adults. Dizziness is also associated with increased risk of dementia and early mortality. Even modest improvements in balance can translate into meaningful gains in independence, safety and quality of life. Measuring progress allows both doctor and patient to identify successes and challenges.

“For the first time, we’re able to drill down … and show people how they’ve done over time and whether they’re at risk or if they’re improving,” said David.

As complicated as the science may be, the goal is simple.

“We’re aiming to decrease fall risk and get people more active and back to their day-to-day goals,” he said. 

Together in mourning

Geoffrey Druker, who leads the community’s annual memorial ceremony, consoles a young speaker on Yom Hazikaron. (photo from Geoffrey Druker)

Emotions were close to the surface April 20 at Vancouver’s annual Yom Hazikaron commemoration. The Jewish community gathered at Temple Sholom to mark Israel’s day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism – an evening that bridged decades of loss with the raw immediacy of the present.

Geoffrey Druker, who has led the annual ceremony for many years, shared multiple stories spanning decades, reflecting the losses in Israel’s many wars and incessant terror attacks.

A photograph from 2005 showed four young commanders from the Golani Brigade. Within a year, two of them – Benji Hillman and Roi Klein – would be killed in the Second Lebanon War. Hillman died in battle and, six days later, Klein was killed after throwing himself on a grenade to save his soldiers.

Nearly two decades later, the tragedy continued.

On Oct. 7, 2023, the two surviving commanders in the photo – Roi Levy and Yizhack Ben Bassat – rushed from their homes to defend Israeli communities under attack. Levy was killed that day at Kibbutz Re’im. Two months later, Ben Bassat was killed during the war in Gaza.

Col. Yizhack Ben Bassat’s sister, Hamutal, is a member of the Vancouver community and lit a candle in his memory.

In the 40 days of Operation Roaring Lion, the initial war with Iran, Druker said more than 20 civilians and 13 soldiers were killed. Among the civilians killed was Ofer Moskovitz. 

“He was better known in the region and throughout Israel as ‘Pushko,’” said Druker. He was a farmer in charge of the avocado orchard of Kibbutz Misgav Am, which is located right on the border with Lebanon, in Vancouver’s partnership region of the Upper Galilee. 

“Veteran members of our Federation partnership committee met with him numerous times during visits to the region,” said Druker. “He was 60 years old.

“Tonight we remember them all,” Druker said, as the congregation rose for a moment of silence.

The ceremony moved between individual stories and collective grief, underscoring the scale of loss while emphasizing its personal nature.

The evening became intensely personal with the remembrance of Ben Mizrachi, the young Vancouver man killed at the Nova music festival.

“Ben did not run away to save himself when he had the chance,” his mother had said in a previous address that was recounted. “He showed tremendous courage … as he tried to save others.”

This year, the graduate of King David High School was remembered by his uncle, Mooshon Mizrachi.

Many other stories were read aloud and relatives and community members read Yizkor and lit candles, transforming the ceremony into a living bridge between Vancouver and Israel. 

“These past years, Israel has been engaged in wars on five fronts,” Druker noted, referencing the sustained conflict that has affected every part of the country.

The story of brothers Amit and Yigal Vax, killed defending their community during the Oct. 7 attacks, was told as a recollection of that morning – sirens, explosions and the sudden realization that terrorists had entered their village. The account described fear giving way to terror, as residents hid in safe rooms as gunfire echoed outside.

“Amit … heard gunfire … grabbed his weapon … and was killed,” Druker recounted. His brother Yigal, armed only with a machete, was also killed trying to defend their home.

Sivan Keidar, a member of the extended Vax family, lit a candle in their memory.

Throughout the ceremony, music and ritual provided a framework for mourning. Songs such as “Ad Machar” (“Until Tomorrow”) and “Makom L’de’aga” (“A Place to Worry”) reflected the emotional landscape of grief.

Shinshinim, Israeli teenagers participating in a year-of-service program in Vancouver, spoke about the legacy they have inherited – one shaped by wars they did not experience directly, but which continue to define their lives.

Eliyahu Kaminsky of Congregation Schara Tzedeck synagogue recited the memorial prayer El Maleh Rachamim. 

Downhill after Trump?

Left to right: Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken, Temple Sholom Senior Rabbi Dan Moskovitz and commentator and author Yossi Klein Halevi. (photo by Pat Johnson)

The special relationship between the United States and Israel is at its greatest peak, according to American-Israeli thinker and commentator Yossi Klein Halevi. The bad news is, he predicts, it’s all downhill from here. 

In conversation with Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Klein Halevi warned that, whoever succeeds US President Donald Trump, it is almost inevitable that the next American leader will be less supportive of Israel.

“After Trump, the deluge,” said Klein Halevi. “There really is this sense of this moment as bittersweet. We have never been in a closer alignment with the United States than now.… This is really the culminating moment of the special relationship, that it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Were Vice-President J.D. Vance, a Republican, to become president, Klein Halevi warned, the US-Israeli relationship would almost certainly deteriorate.

“If it is just about any Democrat, it’s not going to be good,” he said. “In some cases, it would be extremely negative. So, there’s a sense that this is sort of the final play.”

Change is inevitable in Israeli politics, as well, he argued. Klein Halevi emphatically believes Netanyahu will not be reelected. The only question, he said, is whether someone else can cobble together a workable majority.

Klein Halevi is scholar-in-residence at Temple Sholom and the event April 23 was presented in cooperation with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and one of Israel’s most influential and widely read public intellectuals, exploring Israeli identity, Jewish peoplehood, faith and the moral complexities of power. His books, including Letters to My Palestinian Neighbour and Like Dreamers, have shaped critical conversations across the Jewish world, according to Karen Kollins, the institute’s director of Canada, who introduced him. 

Kollins described her organization as a leading Jewish think tank and educational centre working in Israel and across North America to “help the Jewish people engage thoughtfully and courageously with the most complex moral, religious and political challenges of our time.”

Klein Halevi co-hosts, with the institute’s president, Donniel Hartman, the think tank’s award-winning weekly podcast For Heaven’s Sake, which focuses on the moral aspects of issues affecting Israel, world Jewry and Zionism.

The stresses of living in Israel, always intense, have been unprecedentedly exacerbated in recent years, said Klein Halevi in his conversation with Moskovitz.

“This has been Israel’s longest war,” he said, noting that reservists have been called up for very long tours, upending families, businesses and society at large. “I think that we’re going to start seeing the cracks in the next generation.”

Even as new olim (immigrants) are arriving from France and elsewhere, he said, more and more Israelis are questioning whether they and their children have a future in the country. 

“At what point do Israelis start to say, I – we – can’t do this anymore?” Klein Halevi asked. 

Disenchantment is further aggravated by widespread dissatisfaction with the government.

“We’ve never had a government in wartime that more than half the country doesn’t trust,” he said. “When you combine that with the endless pressure, there’s this sense that I think many young Israelis have of, What’s the future here right now?”

In contrast, the post-Oct. 7 societal unity, while fraying over time, remains a uniquely enveloping Israeli phenomenon. 

Moskovitz asked if the war with Iran has been successful.

“I think the question is, What were the realistic expectations going into this war?” Klein Halevi replied. 

He accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of prioritizing his own political interests ahead of those of the country, as well as raising expectations of not only eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat but deposing the Islamic regime.

“So, he was plugging this idea of total victory,” said Klein Halevi. “There’s not going to be a total victory.”

Setting back Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been successful, but regime change in Iran will come only from internal forces, he said.

From that perspective, he believes that, in the near to medium term, the Iranian regime is finished.

“When you lose the legitimacy of your people or, to put it more strongly, when you massacre tens of thousands of your own citizens, there’s no recovery from that,” he said. “You’ve decisively lost your legitimacy.”

Klein Halevi said that Israel, for decades, has fallen into Iran’s trap, engaging with Iran’s proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis – instead of confronting the source of the conflict, which is Iran. 

“This war will be resolved not in Lebanon, and not in Gaza,” he said. “It will be resolved in Tehran.”

Responding to critics of Israel, Klein Halevi said he has high standards for Israeli morality, but all things have context.

“[Israel] was never an exemplar of democracy in an absolute sense,” he said, “but it was very much an exemplar of a democracy in conditions of extremity. No democracy anywhere has experienced the kind of sustained opposition – war, terrorism, siege, diplomatic boycott – that Israel has known since literally the day of its birth. The fact that we have managed to sustain an imperfect democracy is extraordinary.… And then when you bring in wave after wave of traumatized refugees who themselves come from countries with no democratic [traditions] – 90% of Israelis do not come from the West; they come from the Middle East or Eastern Europe, and yet we have managed to sustain a credible democracy. That, to me, is really the glory of Israeli democracy.

“If you strip away the context, which is what the critics of Israel do … they just leave the fact that, well, Arab Israelis don’t have full rights – and that’s true. And, for me, that’s a scandal,” he said. “But it’s also a scandal that I understand, because I can’t think of another more complicated minority/majority dynamic than having as your main minority people who are culturally and even to some extent politically aligned with the enemy you’re fighting.”

Moskovitz asked how Israeli media covers antisemitism in the diaspora and whether Israelis are conscious of the extent of the crisis.

“It is reported the way the Israeli media would cover an Israeli crisis,” said Klein Halevi. “It’s very much seen as a major Israeli story. That’s good news and bad news. It’s good news that the Israeli public really cares about the diaspora more so than in the past.”

Conversely, he said, the traditional Zionist mindset toward the diaspora tends to assume that, if Jews around the world are not making aliyah en masse, the situation they are facing worldwide can’t be that bad.

Since Oct. 7, Klein Halevi said, there has been an upsurge of spirituality and Jewish observance, as well as a resurgence of creativity in music and art. He also noted a shift within some components of the ultra-Orthodox, with “a whole new ideological stream called Israeli Haredi,” that is, ultra-Orthodox who want to be more integrated into society while maintaining the differences that matter most to them. 

Amy Frankel, Temple Sholom president, welcomed the packed sanctuary and said that the program and others like it would not be possible without the generosity of the late Jack Lutsky, whose wife, Susan Mendelson, and brother, Peter Lutsky, recently established Temple Sholom’s scholar-in-residence endowment fund as a perpetual benefit to the congregation and the broader community.

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, thanked Klein Halevi.  

Birth control even easier now

A new vasectomy method is faster to perform, does not require cauterization, may make future reversals easier, and could expand availability to vasectomies in places where cost and accessibility are barriers.

The Pollock Technique™ has garnered Vancouver’s Dr. Neil Pollock kudos in a major medical journal.

Earlier this year, The Journal of Urology featured a study by Pollock and colleagues Jack Chang, Eliana Onishi, Arthur Chatton and Michel Labrecque. 

The paper explained how the new approach differs from traditional vasectomies by leaving both ends of the vas deferens – the tube that carries sperm – open while using a layer of tissue as a barrier. This is different from traditional methods, where the tube is sealed or partially removed. This “double open-ended” approach reduces pressure buildup, tissue damage and inflammation – key causes of post-vasectomy pain – while maintaining effectiveness, according to the study.

The doctor, whose Vancouver-based Pollock Clinics has performed an estimated 75,000 procedures, is now offering the new approach, which can take as little as five minutes. 

“My mindset has always been to try to improve on the status quo and reserve mind space to try to continually innovate,” Pollock told the Independent. “For the last 30 years, every time I’m in surgery, I ask myself: ‘How can I take this to the next level? Further reduce complications and improve outcomes?’ I woke up one morning at 3 a.m. with the idea for this technique.”

photo - Dr. Neil Pollock
Dr. Neil Pollock (photo from Pollock Clinics)

When Pollock ran the idea by a colleague who is head of urology at a leading hospital in New York, he was told it wouldn’t work. 

“But I saw it differently, and wasn’t discouraged,” said Pollock. “Our publication in The Journal of Urology outlines our retrospective clinical study of almost 6,000 procedures performed between 2021 and 2024. The data proved we can achieve gold standard results and effectiveness, while eliminating what was once thought a critical step: significantly damaging and blocking the inside of the vas deferens through thermal cautery [burning of the tissue] or suture obstruction.”

The Pollock Technique™ minimizes inflammation and the fact that it is faster is not just a matter of speed – it reduces infection risks often correlated with length of operating time. Because the tube itself is interrupted without damaging it, successful vasectomy reversal is more likely. 

“The Journal of Urology is the American Urological Association’s premier publication,” Pollock said. “Having our work peer-reviewed and published there elevates this technique as an evidence-based innovation in vasectomy surgery that provides the medical community with a simpler, safe and faster pathway to deliver gold-standard vasectomy care.”

This is not the first innovation Pollock has introduced. Pollock Clinics was among the first in Canada to adopt the no-scalpel vasectomy.

“The no-needle, no-scalpel approach focuses on maximizing comfort and minimizing trauma,” said Pollock. “During a no-needle, no-scalpel vasectomy, we locate the vas tubes under the skin and hold them in place. Instead of making a traditional incision with a scalpel, we use a specialized tool to make a tiny entry point, through which we can carry out the surgery. The no-scalpel technique, because it’s minimally invasive, has a lower risk of bleeding and infection, faster healing and a smoother recovery. No stitches are required to close the wound because it’s so tiny. Instead of using a needle to deliver the anesthetic into the scrotum, we use an air-pressure applicator to pass the freezing solution through the skin without an injection.”

Pollock compares the latest innovation as similar to folding one sleeve over your hand.

“Think of the vas deferens, the tube that carries sperm, as a hose,” he said. “In a traditional vasectomy, physicians plug the hose using cautery or tying a knot around both ends of the cut tube. This can create back-pressure leading to congestive pain in the testicle, like tying a knot in a hose while the tap is still on. Our technique leaves both ends of the hose unblocked, but physically separated. We take a thin layer of natural tissue that already surrounds the tube – the fascia, or sleeve – and pull it and secure it over the exit end. It is exactly like pulling a sleeve over your hand. The sperm cannot reach the other side because there is a physical wall of tissue in the way. This allows pressure to dissipate naturally from the testicular end while maintaining the effectiveness of the vasectomy.”

It’s a significant development.

“One of my colleagues called me when he read about it saying it’s a game-changer,” Pollock said. “The vasectomy is considered the ultimate form of male birth control, and we’ve created a faster, less invasive way to do it without compromising effectiveness. This is huge for men and their loved ones who are looking to complete their families, especially because birth control options for women are less safe.”

That’s a big deal for men, said Pollock.

“We like to tell men that the vasectomy is a loving way to step up in the family and alleviate the burden of birth control for their partner,” he said. 

It is also significant for doctors. 

“It’s safer for them because they don’t have to inhale the cautery smoke, and possibly for their patients, who avoid thermal damage and subsequent inflammation to their vas tube,” he said. 

It’s also significant, he said, because this technique can be used in resource-limited settings around the world, expanding access to safe contraception for millions of men. 

There are, however, barriers to adoption of the Pollock Technique™.

“The biggest barrier for other doctors to adopt this is getting meticulous training,” he said. “Our technique requires precision in execution and significant practice under supervision to master and then execute safely.”

A change in mindset among medical practitioners is also necessary, he warned.

“Surgeons have been taught for decades that the more damage they do to the vas deferens – by cutting out large segments, burning it or tying it – the more likely the procedure is to succeed,” Pollock said. “We’ve demonstrated that isn’t accurate. Our data supports that fascial interposition [the sleeve analogy] is likely the most critical element for a successful vasectomy, eliminating the need for a more invasive, damaging approach.”

Now, more than ever, Pollock insists, a vasectomy is not something to be feared. 

“Techniques are available that are no-scalpel, no-needle and, now, no thermal damage,” he said. “This is a new era of gentle men’s health, where procedures are faster, recovery is easier, and more and more research is constantly coming out documenting the evolution and improvements in vasectomy, as well as other areas of medicine.”

BGU fosters startup culture

Left to right, at Ben-Gurion University’s Spark to Start-Up gala in Vancouver April 12: David Berson, Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, Michael Fugman, Martin Thibodeau, Caroline Desrosiers, Andrea Freedman and Adam Korbin. (photo from BGU Canada)

Israel is set to catapult into an unparalleled era of economic and creative growth, according to Saul Singer.

Singer is co-author, with Dan Senor, of the bestselling book, Startup Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, and their most recent book, the The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World.

Singer made an analogy to a workout regimen in which people run with weights attached to them.

“The idea is, if you’re running with weights and you take those weights off, it’s really easy to run,” he said. “That’s what’s going to happen with Israel.”

Singer foresees something no less than “an opportunity to re-found the country.” 

The generation that has fought in Gaza and in Lebanon are going to return to civilian life and feel like weights have been lifted from their shoulders, he said. “You’re going to see tremendous growth,” Singer said. “A tremendous force of building and optimism.”

Singer was in conversation with Niels Veldhuis, president of the Fraser Institute, at a gala event April 12 for Ben-Gurion University (BGU) Canada. Spark to Start-Up: Resilience Ignites Leaders took place at Beth Israel Synagogue and honoured community leader Michael Fugman. Revenue from the event supports Yazamut 360° Entrepreneurship Centre at Ben-Gurion University (jewishindependent.ca/creating-entrepreneurs). 

Like Canada, Israel is a nation of immigrants, Singer pointed out. “Immigrants are natural entrepreneurs,” he said, noting that moving from one place to another takes drive and involves risks. 

In their books, Singer and Senor credit mandatory military experience with instilling entrepreneurial skills in young Israelis. Singer has three daughters in the army right now, and one was put in charge of liaising with suppliers around complex weaponries, a subject in which she had no background. 

“She said, ‘How am I going to do that? I can’t do it, any of this,’” Singer recounted. “And, sure enough, a year later, she was doing it. Israelis go through this experience time and time again, and it really helps make them entrepreneurs.”

Israeli society also benefits from being a unique hybrid of individualism and collectivity, he said. Most Western societies are becoming more polarized, with citizens dealing with mental health problems, depression and other consequences, which Singer puts down to, in part, “the unbridled march of individualism.”

“What is unique about the Jews is that they’re able to balance these two things: to be individual and yet have community,” he said. “That’s kind of our superpower. I think it’s a big chunk of why we survived for 2,000 years … and I think Israel has doubled down on it.

“You understand that you’re part of something larger than yourself,” he said, something that is emphasized by national service. “Service, by definition, is not just about you.”

The evening’s emphasis on entrepreneurship was underscored by Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, president of BGU. Under his leadership, the university launched a 10-year, $1 billion US global development campaign to double BGU’s physical footprint in Beersheva and expand its research capabilities.

Chamovitz described BGU’s venture capital initiative Cactus Capital, which provides funding to undergraduate students. “What’s unique about it,” he said, “is the advisory committee, which is dealing out the money, are also undergraduate students. We take our undergraduate students … train them as analysts and then give them the venture funds for them to fund different undergraduate ventures.”

Last year, three graduates of BGU’s women entrepreneur program addressed the problem that women in religious, traditional communities, whether Muslim or Jewish, tend not to get routine mammograms. The students developed a wearable app that monitors breast density and uses an algorithm to alert a doctor to call the woman in for a mammogram. The company received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, and garnered seed funding of $26 million. 

Chamovitz summarized the ethos of David Ben-Gurion and of his eponymous university: “The possible we can do. The impossible takes a little bit longer.”

Given the closure of Israeli airspace due to ongoing conflict, organizers had a backup plan if Singer could not make it to Vancouver. In the end, attendees got a double bill, with Nuseir Yassin joining the evening’s lineup.

Known online as Nas Daily, Yassin is a social media influencer with 68 million followers. He promotes peace and understanding with one-minute videos that focus on stories that highlight humanity and transcend political conflict.

Yassin was the first Arab Israeli to attend Harvard University.

“After 19 years of being alive,” he said, his arrival at Harvard was an awakening. “I made my first Jewish friend, my first Israeli friend, my first female friend, my first gay friend, my first Black friend and my first Canadian friend. And, to be clear, these are not the same person.”

Attending Harvard in the shadow of Mark Zuckerberg, entrepreneurship was in the zeitgeist, Yassin said.

After an unsatisfying time as a software engineer in New York, Yassin quit the 9-to-5 and started pumping out videos. He made a splash posting 1,000 videos in 1,000 days.

“I made a video and I put it on the internet,” he said. “It failed. Nobody saw it. I made another video, it failed. I made another 270 videos in 270 days, and they all failed until video 271 – and that became the beginning of what we know today as Nas Daily.”

In the past 10 years, Yassin has visited 100 countries, but, when he is looking for fascinating story subjects, he realizes, he keeps coming back to Israel.

“Every time I was looking for people who think different to make videos about, I found them in Israel,” he said. “A vegan steak company: Israel. A technology to make cars drive: Israel. A security startup to hack your phone: Israel. Even my Singaporean team asked me, ‘What’s in the water in Israel?’ And I told them, ‘Nothing. It’s not the water, you fool, it’s the air.’ The air in Israel is really different. If everyone around you is thinking of a startup idea, you think of a startup idea, too. If everyone is into tech, you are into tech. Humans are memetic animals. We mimic the people around us. It’s as simple as that. And, clearly, the startup culture is super-contagious.”

Yassin is now moving away from video creation and has launched a new venture. “It’s an AI business platform,” he said. “It helps anybody start a business just by taking a picture of what they want to sell. AI creates the store, it creates the marketing contents, the videos and the pictures and finds the customer.”

Entrepreneurship – and Israeli entrepreneurship in particular – is an antidote to the negativity evoked by world news, he said.

“Open your phone and it’s all depressing,” said Yassin. “But, in these moments, I remember Canada’s greatest contribution to the world: hockey. And, in hockey, you don’t skate to where the puck is. You skate to where the puck is going. That’s what we’re doing today – we’re skating to where the puck is going. Even if today is super-depressing, the puck is going towards more peace, more collaborations, more entrepreneurship, less death, more prosperity…. So, the only option we have is to pick the damn puck up and push it forward together – and that, we can do.” 

The Spark event honoured Michael Fugman, a community leader who has served on the boards of many organizations, including the United Way, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Richmond Country Club and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. A former president of his family’s apparel business, Fugman managed more than 100 staff and oversaw $100 million in annual sales. He is now in business development with PearTree Canada, a financial firm that created a system to help people donate to charities in a tax-efficient way. PearTree and RBC Royal Bank were the event’s presenting sponsors.

Honorary co-chairs of the event, Caroline Desrosiers and husband Martin Thibodeau, who is regional president of RBC in British Columbia, presented Fugman with the BGU Canada Award for Outstanding Leadership. They were joined for the presentation by Chamovitz, BGU Canada chief executive officer Andrea Freedman, BGU Canada regional president Adam Korbin and BGU Canada regional director David Berson.

Fugman credited his family – going back to his immigrant grandparents – for instilling in him Jewish values, devotion to family and commitment to Israel. He noted his cousin Mordechai, who died, at age 17, in Israel’s War of Independence. Fugman acknowledged his family in the audience, including wife Kathi.

Simon Margolis, who has known Fugman since Grade 1 at Vancouver Talmud Torah, was emcee.