Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken on Victoria Rumble Room Oct. 14. Shanken has very much been the face of the Jewish community in recent days. (screenshot)
An emergency fundraising campaign in response to the devastation in Israel raised more than $15 million in Metro Vancouver in less than two weeks.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver is spearheading the Israel Emergency Campaign. In his weekly email last Friday, Oct. 20, Federation chief executive officer Ezra Shanken announced the record total that had been raised to that point. By comparison, last year’s entire annual campaign raised $10.2 million.
Shanken told the Independent that, within the $15 million-plus total, is another new record for the local community: nine gifts of $1 million and a gift of $2 million.
Despite the great success, Shanken said the money will barely begin to approach the needs created by the human and material destruction caused by the Hamas terror attacks and the ongoing aftermath.
“As excited as I want to be,” he said, “I felt like $20 million, which is where we would like to get to, is not even going to be enough. The destruction, both in human life and in physical property, is so immense in the south, the risk is so high in the north, the mental health needs are so huge over there, that those alone are multi-, multi-million-dollar needs.… The damage is so deep that it’s going to take a lot for us to be able to make an impact.”
The Jewish Federations of North America set a goal of $500 million for the combined campaign and was already well past the two-thirds mark at the end of last week. Other Israel-based and Israel-supporting charities are also raising money and delivering support through funds and on-the-ground projects.
The speed and magnitude of the local emergency fundraising effort, Shanken said, may be a consequence of the community campaign already underway for the redevelopment of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. He calls it the “JWest effect,” referring to the name of the redevelopment project. Sensitizing philanthropists to community needs may have sowed the field for the extraordinary generosity shown when this unanticipated catastrophe occurred. The feeling that this is an unprecedented historical moment is also a factor.
For media in British Columbia and at public events, Shanken has very much been the face of the Jewish community in recent days. Speaking personally, he described the flood of contradictory emotions he has experienced.
“This time has been a mix of incredible pride and incredible pain,” he said. “They come in different waves. I have incredible moments of pride and incredible moments of resolve and strength and incredible moments of weakness and pain and depression.”
Shanken continued: “It’s a tough time for all of us, it’s a tough time for me.… But I believe more than ever that these are the moments where we are really forged in these fires and we will be a stronger community because of what we’re going through in this moment.”
The inhumanity witnessed not only in Israel but closer to home, with protests and statements effectively supporting and celebrating the mass murders, has stiffened his resolve, he said.
“I feel a need to stand up against those who are really trying to push us down in this moment,” he said. “I feel strong, I feel determined, I feel righteous in this moment in pushing back against those who are going to minimize the deaths of these folks, that are going to make us feel that we don’t have a right to grieve, we don’t have a right to defend ourselves, we don’t have a right to care for each other. I have no stomach for that anymore and we’re not going to keep our mouths shut on this.”
Funds raised will be allocated through several different projects working directly in Israel (click here for story). While most of the devastation from the Oct. 7 attacks is in the country’s south, the Vancouver Jewish community’s partnership region, Etzba HaGalil, the Galilee Panhandle, and other parts of northern Israel, have experienced attacks from the terror group Hezbollah, from their bases in southern Lebanon. Kibbutzim, villages and towns within a several-kilometre range of the Lebanon border have been largely evacuated. In all, about 200,000 Israelis from the north and south have so far been displaced by the crisis.
“The north is a major, major concern for Israel, it’s a major concern for us,” said Shanken. “So, we are trying to get them prepped up and ready, get emergency war rooms together in community centres, those kinds of things. We’re looking at some other kind of resiliency-building pieces in subsequent tranches of money that will be sent.”
Several hundred people gathered for a second night of vigils, as elected officials, diplomats and allies convened in support of Israel and Jewish community. (photo by Pat Johnson)
For the second night in a row, Jewish Vancouverites and allies came together Tuesday for a vigil to mourn those murdered in the worst terror attacks in Israeli history, and to demonstrate solidarity with survivors, families of the victims, and all the people of Israel. The grief that was inevitable at the powerfully emotional event was made additionally anguished by the news several hours earlier that Ben Mizrachi, a young Vancouver man, was confirmed dead, one of about 260 victims murdered at a concert for peace in southern Israel Saturday morning.
In moderate rain at Jack Poole Plaza on Vancouver’s Coal Harbour waterfront, several hundred people gathered to hear from friends of Mizrachi, as well as from elected officials of all government levels, rabbis, a Holocaust survivors, and others.
Ben Mizrachi remembered in friends’ emotional testimony
Maytar and Rachel, who graduated alongside Mizrachi in 2018 from King David High School, shared memories of the young man they called “the life of the party” and “a true hero,” who died helping an injured friend at the scene of the attack.
Mizrachi had served as a medic in the Israel Defence Forces, having volunteered as a lone soldier.
“We understand that, during the attack, Ben stayed back with a wounded friend, keeping himself in danger to care for another,” said Maytar. “He used the training that he learned from his time as a medic with the IDF to tend to wounded people at the festival before he died. That was who Ben was. He was a true hero.”
She spoke of Mizrachi’s contributions to the King David community, to his friends and family.
“He was adored by everyone and known to students much younger and older than he was,” she said. “Everyone knew and loved Ben Mizrachi. Ben was a role model to his three younger siblings and valued his close and loving relationship with his family.”
She shared the memories of a fellow student, Eduardo, for whom young Ben became his first friend after moving here from Mexico City.
“Ben welcomed him, befriended him and taught him how to speak English,” Maytar said. “He told us that ‘Ben was much more than a friend, he was my brother and the type of personality that will cheer you up and make you smile.’ He had such a huge heart and you knew you could always count on Ben.”
She continued: “In school, Ben was always the first one dancing at any assembly and the last one cleaning up at the end, even when he cooked — and he loved to cook.”
He could be found in the kitchen at Beth Hamidrash on Shabbat helping to prepare the kiddush, Maytar said. “His kindness extended to every part of his life from such a young age. We all remember that, if we ever had a gathering on Saturday, the party wouldn’t really start until after Shabbat, when Ben would arrive. He was always the life of the party. This past weekend, that’s what he was doing. He was at a party with his friends. He was doing nothing wrong.”
Their friend Rachel spoke of Mizrachi’s commitment to his identity.
“Ben was always extremely proud of his Jewish identity and of being an Israeli citizen,” she said. “He loved to share his love of Judaism and he often invited friends to join him and his family for Shabbat services and meals. As a teammate of Ben, we played on multiple sports teams together and he proudly wore his kippah at every game. In Grade 12, Ben was the president of our NCSY [the youth wing of the Orthodox Union] chapter. He was involved in student council, he led weekly prayer services at our school. After high school, he was proud to join the IDF as a lone soldier. He was so proud to be a soldier in the army and to continue living in Israel after his service.”
Rachel then read a message from one of Mizrachi’s teachers at King David, Irit Uzan.
“Ben always stood out from the crowd,” Uzan wrote. “His happy disposition was infectious. He lit up a room with his positive energy and amazing sense of humour. When things got hard for the students, he always found a way to lighten the mood. He encouraged his peers by sharing his own struggles, but it was what he did beyond his studies that always impressed me. He reached out and offered a helping hand wherever it was needed, be it with a peer, a teacher, a staff member or his own family. He wasn’t asked, he just always knew what to do. Ben’s visits to school to catch me up on his life events were visits I always looked forward to. On his last visit, he seemed more eager than usual and I learned this was because he wanted me to know that he had decided to study engineering in Israel. He was so proud of this.”
In tears, Rachel concluded: “Ben, we are so proud of you and we will always miss you. Please pray for Ben’s family, for all the families who have lost their loved ones, as well as those wounded. Keep believing in the state of Israel and continue to be proud of our Judaism, like Ben always was. May Ben’s memory be a blessing.”
Rabbi Shlomo Gabay, spiritual leader of Mizrachi’s shul, Beth Hamidrash, led the vigil in El Maleh Rachamim, the prayer for the soul of the departed.
Reflections from a survivor
Marie Doduck, a child survivor of the Holocaust who was born in Brussels and came to Canada as a war orphan in 1947, reflected on the terrible echoes of the past the current news brings. She and 30 other Vancouverites who survived as Jewish children during the Second World War gather and, Doduck said, speak about their pasts and the present.
“For all the years we have been sharing our stories, for all the years we’ve been teaching tolerance, we know the worst that can happen,” she said. “But it always seems to happen to us. I spend my life as an educator, I share my story and the stories of the Holocaust so that people know and so that the world will remember, so that never again will children lose their childhood to hatred and to violence. And now, this week, I see children being taken from their parents in Israel. I’m reliving what I experienced as a child and it is horrible. I’m watching the news and hearing the sounds that were so terrifying when I was young, the sirens, the bombs falling. I’m seeing warplanes and bomb shelters and I cannot sleep at night.
“I’m seeing it all happen again,” Doduck said. “I see people who do not want peace treating us as if we are not human. I see the children captured. I cannot understand how they use children, how they use women and men like we are nothing. It is unthinkable. It is impossible to believe that humans can do this to other humans. The one place where we are safe they want to destroy. They want to do what the Gestapo did to us in the Second World War.”
With emotion, Doduck posed the question, “Does the world stand for us?”
“I don’t see them standing for us,” she said. “I see it happening again. I am reliving what I went through as a child and all we want, and all we have ever wanted, was peace.”
Support from Ottawa
Harjit Sajjan, president of the privy council and minister of emergency preparedness, spoke on behalf of the federal government.
“I know that everyone’s heart is broken because of this brutal terrorist attack, a targeted attack on the Israeli people,” said Sajjan, who is member of Parliament for Vancouver South. “All of you have witnessed and have seen the news and the atrocity that has taken place. Myself and my colleagues here … stand here with you. But I don’t speak here just as a minister but [I am] also speaking to you as a Canadian, as a human being. It hurts so much when we see images from what has just taken place. Your community has gone through this far too often. When we say enough is enough, sometimes those words seem like they have no meaning. But when we come together like this, it gives me hope that we can get through this.”
Across Canada and elsewhere, rallies, public statements and social media comments have celebrated the terror attacks, some, like the president of the Ontario wing of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, lauding them as “the power of resistance around the globe.” Hours before a Jewish community vigil Monday, a rally celebrating the violence was held in the same Vancouver Art Gallery location. Along with many speakers at the Tuesday event, Sajjan condemned the expressions of support for the terror attacks.
“Anybody who glorifies what has just taken place, the atrocities that Hamas has committed, I’m here to say that we denounce you and I denounce you,” he said.
Sajjan referenced his military career, from which he retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
“Over the last two decades, whether in politics or even before, [in] my other job in the military, I’ve seen atrocities committed all over the world,” he said. “And your heart breaks every single time. And you think, what can we do? One thing that always gives me hope is that I look back and remember where I live, in Canada, that we come together, we support one another. That’s how we get through this.
“I remember visiting Entebbe [Uganda] where, you know all too well, when Israeli citizens were taken captive and they were rescued at that time, I went to go pay my respects and remember what took place then. To see the atrocities committed over and over again is something that we all feel today. One thing I’m here to tell you: that we stand by you, we call for the captives to be released, we want humanitarian aid to be flown into all those people who are caught in the middle. But one thing is for sure: our government is with you.”
Other federal officials present were Joyce Murray, member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, and Parm Bains, member of Parliament for Steveston-Richmond East.
Message from the province
Selena Robinson, British Columbia’s minister of post-secondary education and future skills, brought greetings from Premier David Eby and the provincial government. She also emphasized the presence of officials from both sides of the legislature.
“All of government and all members of the Legislative Assembly stand with me, they stand with all of you, against the horrific violence that was perpetrated by Hamas, a terrorist organization, an organization committed to indiscriminately killing and indiscriminately wiping out the Jewish people,” she said. “As a Jew, I have never in my life experienced a more frightening time. To see and bear witness to the carnage, to the babies, to the children, to young people at a concert.
“The stories that Jewish families have been telling for generations all come swarming back,” Robinson continued, her voice breaking. “The stories of pogroms in Russia and Poland at the turn of the 20th century, the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi mobile death squads, going house to house killing everyone in their sights during the Holocaust. That is what happened this weekend. This is not a path to peace and it’s not the path to freedom. The Palestinians and the Israelis deserve to raise their families without fear, to grow old with dignity, but this vicious depravity is not the answer. It is not a path for peace for anyone. These last days have been so difficult and there are more hard days to come. So, we ask all of you to please be kind, be thoughtful, be supportive and to take care of each other.”
Opposition leader stands with community
Kevin Falcon, BC United party leader and the province’s leader of the opposition, was scheduled to hold a townhall in Kamloops Tuesday night but he cancelled the event and drove to Vancouver to be present for the solidarity gathering, he said, “Because I think it is important that all public officials stand united in saying … without equivocation, without moral equivocation, to be very, very clear, that we stand with you.”
Condemning terrorist brutality is “something that ought to be really easy,” he told the crowd. “But, unfortunately, in this day and age, it doesn’t seem to be easy for some people to come together and denounce unequivocally the violence and slaughter of innocent civilians in Israel, and to remember the right of that country and those individuals to defend themselves as a fundamental right because we cannot forget.
“We stand with the community and we want you to know that,” he said.
In addition to the government cabinet minister and opposition leader, other provincial officials present were cabinet ministers Brenda Bailey, Murray Rankin, Sheila Malcolmson and George Chow, parliamentary secretaries Mable Elmore and Susie Chant and members of the Legislative Assembly Henry Yao and Michael Lee.
Mayor condemns antisemitism
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim was flanked by city councilors Sarah Kirby-Yung, Peter Meisner, Lisa Dominato, Mike Klassen and Rebecca Bligh as he expressed solidarity with the Jewish community and promised zero-tolerance for antisemitism.
“What happened this weekend in Israel was absolutely horrific,” said Sim. “Our hearts are broken, just like yours…. Vancouver is a city of love, Vancouver is a city of peace, Vancouver is a city of inclusion. This is a place where we celebrate our differences in culture and religion. So, it’s absolutely disturbing and incredibly disgusting, in the city that we live in, the city that we are so proud of, that people were actually celebrating what happened. They are celebrating Hamas. That’s not right. Israel has a right to exist. Israel has a right to protect itself. At the City of Vancouver, we stand for all communities, including the Jewish community — especially the Jewish community, during this incredibly brutal time. You are our brothers and sisters, you are our neighbours, you are our friends, you are our family. Let me be very clear — let us be very, very clear — we will not stand for any antisemitic acts or acts of hatred in the city of Vancouver. We mourn with you, we stand with you, we love you and we will always be here for you.”
Dylan Kruger, a Delta city councilor was also present.
Gathered together as one
Tuesday’s vigil was organized by the Rabbinical Assembly of Vancouver, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel, and the head of the rabbinical assembly, spoke of the relentlessness of antisemitism.
“I am standing here as a neighbour of Ben Mizrachi and his family, in sadness and in grief,” said Infeld. “I am standing here today as the father of a young man who is currently in Jerusalem. I am standing here today as the child of Holocaust survivors who never met his grandparents or aunts or uncles because they were murdered as children because of antisemitism. Never would I have imagined again in my life that we would see 40 children, 40 babies in one day, discovered, who were murdered in cold blood because of antisemitism. Never would I have imagined in my life that we would see almost a thousand Jews in one day murdered because of antisemitism. Throughout the day, I’ve been asked, what is this moment about? This moment today, together, as one people, one community, Jews and non-Jews gathered together for solidarity, gathered together to mourn and gathered together to give strength to one another. We are so grateful to our politicians and to our leaders who really, truly, are leaders. All of you sitting here today, you are the leaders. You are sending the message that there is no similarity in morality, there is no equivalence in morality, between those who celebrate murder and those who are gathered together for peace.”
Federation leader sends message from Egypt
Jason Murray, vice-chair of the board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, read a message from the board’s chair, Lana Marks Pulver, who, with her husband Doug, is in Egypt, leading a group of almost 100 Canadian business leaders in a mission that was slated to travel to Israel in the coming days.
“I share this with you so you know how close I am to the situation both physically and emotionally,” wrote Marks Pulver. “There were two Israeli tourists murdered by a police officer in Alexandria [Egypt]. We continued on with our tour of Egypt much to the chagrin of family and friends. We continued because we will not allow them to win. Never again.
“As for emotion, our 21-year-old niece and 19-year-old nephew are serving in the IDF and are stationed near Gaza. We are feeling sick about what’s happening in Israel and we are feeling sick about the celebratory rallies happening in Canada, rubbing salt in our fresh wounds. How can Canadian citizens possibly justify the celebration of rape, killing and kidnapping of innocent Jews, online and in public rallies? It’s both horrifying and heartbreaking that this is happening in our own backyard. Jews throughout history have consistently proven that we are resilient. This time is no different. Israel will prevail. We as a people will not allow evil to win. Despite thousands of years of antisemitism and countless attempts to annihilate our people, we always come back stronger and more unified as a community.
“I am confident that this time is no different,” she continued. “Let us pray this all ends soon, that Israelis move forward with their lives in safety and that we as a Jewish people proudly stand in our fight against hatred and our desire to live in peace. Am Yisrael chai.”
Gratitude for allies
Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, praised the elected officials who attended and the police who provided security at the event.
“Often, we see public officials at our events and it’s special then,” he said. “But it’s even more special now. To have this incredible representation of folks behind us and around us in this moment is not something that I take for granted, not these days.”
In addition to elected officials, Shanken noted the presence of consuls general from France, Germany and Italy, as well as representation from the consulate of the United States.
Karen James, chair of the local partnership council for the Centre for Israel and Jewish affairs, Pacific region, lauded the unity of the Jewish community.
“I have always known that we are family, but I’ve never felt it so strongly as I do now,” she said. “Tonight, we are hurting. Our hearts are broken but our resolve has never been stronger.”
Severe audio problems plagued the event, which came a night after an earlier vigil, at the Vancouver Art Gallery, planned by Daphna Kedem, who is the lead organizer of UnXeptable Vancouver, though the event was not affiliated with any group. ( To read more about the Monday night vigil, click here.) At that event, a small group of provocateurs were kept apart from the main vigil by a phalanx of police. Police were also omnipresent at the Tuesday event, while protesters were nowhere to be seen.
Speakers at the event urged people to contribute to the emergency fund for victims and to access available mental health supports as needed. Federation’s website, jewishvancouver.com, is the access point for all relevant local resources.
Jewish Vancouverites and allies came together in grief and determination in a community vigil Monday night, Oct. 9, outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Several hundred Jewish Vancouverites and allies came together in grief and determination in a community vigil Monday night outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. The unprecedented terror attacks in Israel that began Saturday brought a large crowd to the public venue in light rain for an emotionally charged hour of prayers, songs and shared stories of tragedy and resolve. The uncertain fate of a young Vancouver man who had not been heard from since Saturday brought the immediacy of the tragedy home. Hours after the vigil, it was announced that the body of Ben Mizrachi had been identified.
“A piece of this community is missing,” said an audience member who addressed the crowd and identified himself as Adam. “His name is Ben Mizrachi.”
Mizrachi, who graduated from King David High School in 2018, was attending a music festival in Re’im, in southern Israel near the Gaza border. An estimated 260 people were murdered as terrorists invaded the event around 7 a.m. Saturday. Mizrachi had not been in contact with family or friends since, according to news reports and messages from Vancouver friends. Late Monday Vancouver time, it was announced that he had been murdered.
“Every one of us here is feeling grief, is feeling loss,” said Adam. “We are all individuals here, but we are one nation and our nation has one heart. We will look at these candles, we will look at the light, we will look at all the universes they stole from us and we will say, this light will drown out that darkness.”
Leslie Benisz, who spent his first 10 years in Israel, spoke of his own family’s tragedy.
“I have a cousin and her husband who, unfortunately, were killed,” he said, “and, still, at this moment, we do not know the whereabouts of her four children. They were living on a kibbutz near the Gaza area.”
Benisz said his mother, who passed away in March, had advice for times like these.
“My mother used to say, ‘We have to be better than those people who hurt us. Just because they hurt us, don’t do the same thing to them. Maybe even show a level of tolerance and compassion they failed to show us, because there is a fine line sometimes between becoming a human being and becoming an animal and we have to show that we are better than that.’”
A small group of provocateurs carrying Palestinian flags, kept away from the vigil by police, screamed and taunted attendees throughout the event, including during two moments of silence, and vehicles repeatedly circled the venue, their occupants waving Palestinian flags and honking horns. A rally – ostensibly in support of Palestinians – was held several hours earlier at the same location as the vigil.
Monday’s event was organized by Daphna Kedem, who is the lead organizer of UnXeptable Vancouver, though the event was not affiliated with any group. The ad hoc vigil was organized before the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver scheduled a community solidarity event for the following evening, Oct. 10. Coverage of Tuesday’s event, which took place after the Independent went to press, is now online at jewishindependent.ca.
Daphna Kedem, one of the organizers, told the Independent that bringing the community together as soon as possible for mutual support was their priority. While awaiting notification of an event by community leaders, Kedem said, her group decided to schedule a gathering with haste.
“We are not waiting around for the community,” she said. “This is urgent and time-sensitive.”
“We are in the west, but our hearts very much are in the east,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom. “We hold our loved ones and our families in those hearts and we come together as a community to pray and to mourn but also with resolve and resilience.”
Speaking above taunts and screaming from protesters on the sidelines, Moskovitz continued: “That’s what we want: to live in peace, to live in our native land in peace, to be together as human beings. Too often, the world ignores us. Too often, the silence is deafening. We who stand here today, we make our presence to call the world to conscience and to see us, to see how once again our people are in danger, our people are being killed and murdered and the world must not be silent again. We will not be silent. We are strong, we are a people with a nation now for the first time in 2,000 years and it will not slip from our grasp, it will not slip from our hearts or our minds or our prayers.”
Ofra Sixto, chef-owner of the Denman Street Israeli restaurant Ofra’s Kitchen, recounted her story of being harassed and of having her life threatened three years ago during a different time of conflict between Israel and Hamas. Then she made a prayer for those missing and for the survivors of those murdered.
“Please God, make them all come back home soon,” she said. “Please God, put solace in the hearts of the people who lost their loved ones.”
Another speaker recalled a year living near the Gaza Strip and hearing the endless sounds of explosions.
“We are here tonight to remind ourselves and our people back in Israel that we are all one country, we are all one family, we are all together in this, united,” said another speaker. “Despite the tough year it’s been, with different opinions, we are all sticking together, especially when it gets tough. That’s our biggest strength.”
She then led the vigil in the song “Am Yisrael Chai.”
“My sister was sitting 13 hours in a shelter room and the terrorists roaming her kibbutz didn’t touch their home,” another speaker from the audience recounted. “It was a miracle.”
He added: “The one thing that our enemies cannot do is put a divider between the Jewish people and eretz Israel. Please remember that. There is no Jewish people without Israel and there is no Israel without the Jewish people.”
“This horrific attack was an attack on Israel,” said another member of the audience who spoke. “Moreover, it was an attack on all of those who value human life. I know that some people are of the belief that you are left to fight this battle alone. I’m neither Jewish nor Israeli and I’d like to tell you that there are millions of people around the world standing together with you. This includes me and many, many, many others.”
“We have a very simple message to the world today,” said Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu of the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel. “When we see those guys on the other side, and we see our crowd tonight, state proudly … we are human beings. We treat people fairly. We love Israel, we love humanity, we love the civil world.… We will never let terrorism take over. This is the message of Canada and all the Western world today.”
Yeshayahu lamented the hostages taken.
“We are talking about over 100 people, many of them little kids who were kidnapped, old people who survived the Holocaust and came to the holy land of Israel to live in a free country,” he said. “We are here for them.… No human being can stand by and see those bastards take little kids and kidnap 3-year-old kids and put them in a cage. This is not acceptable in 2023 and we are not going to be quiet about it. The eternal nation is not afraid of a long journey. We will defeat them.”
Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi at Temple Sholom, said the prayer for Israeli soldiers in Hebrew, while a lone soldier who had served in the Israel Defence Forces a decade ago, shared the prayer in English. Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel led El Maleh Rachamim, the prayer for the souls of the departed.
After the main vigil, the Independent spoke with a number of attendees.
“With the horrors that happened in Israel, and all the innocents killed, bodies desecrated, kids getting kidnapped, I just had to come and show support,” said Adar Bronstein, who moved to Canada from Israel a decade ago. “I think local Jews and Israelis don’t really protest much. We’re actually quite a quiet society overall, so, when something as big as this happens, we have to make some sort of a stand. All my friends over there have been drafted and my Facebook page is full of my friends posting about their killed loved ones. My family is there and they are terrified. It’s been very, very difficult.”
“What brought me out tonight was seeing things that I didn’t think I would ever see in my life,” said Alex Greenberg. “This is my family, this is my people. I came just to show that people in Israel have support.”
Jillian Marks was huddled in a group of young women, some hugging and wiping away tears. The alumna of Vancouver Talmud Torah and King David is now a University of British Columbia student and president of the Israel on Campus club.
“We need to show that we are together, that we support each other in these times,” said Marks. “Just being here is a mitzvah and a blessing. I think it’s quite surreal. I have people fighting on the front lines. I have people missing. I have friends missing and friends hiding in bomb shelters. I’m just sad. But I’m grateful for the community here in Canada. I’m grateful we are all together tonight.”
A small group of Iranian Canadians waved the national flag of Iran – not the flag of the Islamic revolutionary government.
Dr. Masood Masjoody, a mathematician and activist against the Iranian regime, said he came “to show support for Israel and the Israeli people.”
He said he was surprised that anyone would be surprised to see him there.
“We’ve been dealing with the regime that has been behind these heinous attacks for more than 40 years – 44 years – so we know this regime more than any other nation in the world,” he said, referring to the Iranian regime’s support for anti-Israel terrorism.
There are many organizations through which people can donate to help Israel, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Israel Emergency Campaign, at jewishvancouver.com/israel-fund.
Zanna Linskaia and Rudy Rozanski were key in making the video Burquest Jewish Community: Past, Present, Future, which is available on YouTube. (screenshots)
Burquest Jewish Community, which serves people in the eastern suburbs of Vancouver, turns 50 next year. Whether that milestone is marked by a major celebration or not, a recently released video provides a permanent commemoration of the impact the group has had on individuals and Jewish life in the area. The film premièred at an event June 25.
Zanna Linskaia, a former Burquest board member and longtime force of nature in the community, had the idea of making a permanent, easily viewable history of the community and she got the support of the organization’s board. She recruited Rudy Rozanski, Burquest’s then-president, to work with her to get the project done.
They collected archival materials, old photos, newspaper clippings and historical artifacts, and identified people to interview on camera to help tell the story. A valuable find was video footage of Burquest members taken two decades ago by Jelena Fuks and longtime member and past president Dov Lank. They also hired filmmaker Lior Noyman.
Linskaia and Rozanski have several lifetimes of creative achievement between them.
“I was always a huge fan of Zanna,” Rozanski told the Independent. “I had the great honour to arrange a few of her songs and do some performances with her and so I knew she’s a composer, a writer, a poet … probably the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.”
In addition to all that, Linskaia, a journalist by background (she once wrote the Russian-language page in the Jewish Independent’s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin) and a Coquitlam resident for two decades, retired in 2020 as a seniors outreach counselor for Jewish Family Services. Rozanski is a classical pianist and teacher, with a PhD in musicology. He has lived in Coquitlam for 30 years.
Through interviews with a host of longtime members – including two founding originals, Bill Gruenthal and Max Jacobson (who, sadly, died Aug. 18) – the video sets the stage by indicating how remote many suburban Jews felt from the geographic heart of the community half a century ago.
Gruenthal recalled reading the Jerusalem Post on the bus headed for Kootenay Loop those many decades ago and a fellow passenger leaned over to ask if he was “a member of the tribe.” It was Jacobson.
“Max and I have been friends ever since,” Gruenthal says in the film.
A few intrepid people plodded through the old Jewish phone book and called anyone who lived in Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam and surrounding areas. A living room meeting was held in 1974, with a few more than a dozen attendees. A lawyer volunteered to shepherd the nascent group into legal existence and Jacobson became founding president.
A year later, they formed a supplementary school for kids in the community, and Burquest became a gathering place for holidays and simchas. But they were meeting mostly in private homes. They raised some money, with the support of the late Morris J. Wosk, the Diamond Foundation and other philanthropists, and hired an architect to design a purpose-built shul and community centre. But the plan wasn’t feasible and it was decided to buy an existing building instead. Gruenthal’s son-in-law was in the mortgage sector and helped the society purchase a Jehovah’s Witnesses building in Coquitlam that has served ever since as Burquest’s locus for Shabbat and holiday celebrations, classes, kids programs, seniors lunches and a raft of other activities. Visiting rabbis, including Rabbi Yosef Wosk, have led holiday services over the years. Cantor Steve Levin has been Burquest’s spiritual leader for more than two decades.
Current and past members speak in the video about the impact Burquest has had on them and their families.
“Some of the most emotional and connected experiences we had with Judaism were when we were at Burquest,” recalls Shelley Rivkin. Stewart Levitt talks about the number of intermarried families or families with converted members and how they were welcomed.
The film, Burquest Jewish Community: Past, Present, Future, is available on YouTube. The musical score is an original creation by Rozanski.
“I ended up improvising some of [the music] on the spot as we were editing and we went through the entire film and edited it scene by scene,” he said.
At the wine-and-cheese reception before the première screening, Rozanski performed the entire score, accompanied by Arnold Kobiliansky on violin.
“The music [in the film] gets cut up and only specific parts are used,” said Rozanski, “so we wanted to present the film music almost as a score, so they could hear the entire music as it unfolds … and then they would be able to recognize it in the film.”
The film project, a labour of love, was a major undertaking.
“We are not going to do a second film,” Linskaia said with a laugh.
“We both felt this was really important,” said Rozanski. “I realized immediately what an important gift this was to Burquest and to future generations. It really is our gift and we put our heart into this. We understand nothing is perfect, of course, but we really did our best with it.”
For Linskaia, the film is a tribute to the centrality of the community in her life.
A recently retired rabbi who was born and raised in Vancouver is offering an insider’s look at life as a congregational leader.
Rabbi Allan Tuffs, who now lives part-time in south Florida and in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, has published A Rabbi’s Journey: Roads Traveled Lessons Learned – Stories from an Unconventional Rabbi’s Career. The 54 bite-sized chapters (coincidentally, he notes, the same number as parshas in the Torah) range from touching and hilarious to insightful and tragic.
Tuffs was born in Vancouver – he’s 10 days older than the state of Israel – and his home life was tough. His mom had a mental illness and his largely absent father had alcoholism. He and his sister would end up in the foster system.
The bookish, thoughtful Allan devoured everything he could read about Israel (among other topics) and, when he was invited to join the Labour-Zionist youth group Habonim, his life changed and everything else is as result of that connection.
“Habonim was kind of like a family to me, it really was,” he told the Independent in a telephone interview from North Carolina. “The people were warm and inviting and I was looking for my place in the Jewish community.”
Being the product of an intermarriage – “My father was not Jewish, my mother was,” he said – made the young Allan feel like an outsider.
“Intermarriage was still somewhat rare in those days,” he said. “I did not have a real religious background. I guess I was spiritual. I was very proud of my Jewish heritage and Habonim was very Jewish, very Israel-oriented, and it had a deep sense of purpose. It was kibbutz-oriented and there was this idea that the Jewish people had a role in the world, to repair the world, so to speak. That appealed to my youthful idealism.
“We had meetings almost weekly,” he added. “Here we were, these young kids.… I don’t really know if we understood what we were talking about, but we studied some of the great early socialist Zionist thinkers.”
In addition to their interest in Israel, social justice causes closer to home also drove the Habonimniks’ activism.
“We were pretty uniformly against the war in Vietnam,” he said. “We were quite disturbed by the racial injustices happening in the United States and also we were involved in fighting for Indigenous peoples’ rights in Canada. There was this sense that we are going to make the world a better place because we are Jews, because we have this ideology, because we are cognizant of the whole history of being a minority, being persecuted.”
In 1969, Tuffs headed to Israel and lived for two years at Kibbutz Menara, almost flush against the Lebanese border (and, coincidentally, now part of Vancouver’s partnership region in Israel). It was during the War of Attrition and the reality of the conflict was intense. Concentric rows of barbed wire were interspersed with landmines and German shepherd dogs patrolled the perimeter of the kibbutz.
While socialism, not Judaism, was the religion of the kibbutzniks, Tuffs notes in his book that a fortuitous meeting in Jerusalem changed the young man’s path again. Working in the holy city to earn a plane ticket home, he encountered an Orthodox rabbi from Seattle, with whom he began studying Budokan karate and Talmud. Among other things, the mix of eastern and western influences would follow Tuffs through his life. He integrates contemplative and meditative practices into his Judaism and practises yoga.
Returning to North America – and Habonim – Tuffs worked as a counselor at the movement’s camps in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.-adjacent Maryland. While in the D.C. suburbs, he started teaching Hebrew at a Conservative synagogue. He was hired for his language skills but the gaping holes in his Jewish knowledge – he never had a bar mitzvah – led his employer to suggest taking a few courses at Baltimore Hebrew College. This was the beginning of “a lifelong love of Jewish learning,” he writes.
Now in his mid-20s, he still wasn’t sure what to do.
“I was scholarly, but I would never be a scholar – too solitary,” he writes. “I was interested in psychology, but the thought of listening to people’s problems five days a week gave me a headache. I’m something of a ‘ham’ but would never be an actor. I’m a do-gooder – hardly a way to make a living.… What profession would allow me to do a little of all these things?”
Turns out the rabbinate fit quite nicely for 40 years. While a child of intermarriage with no early Jewish education might not seem a top candidate for the clergy, fate intervened again. Tuffs’ Hebrew language skills got him a job running a Conservative synagogue youth group in Maryland on the understanding that he would become shomer Shabbat and keep kosher. The job, in fact, put him under the wing of the rabbi and gave him more experience.
“This opportunity amounted to a rabbinic internship,” he writes.
Tuffs spent two years learning the ropes of the rabbinate. He began leading Shabbat services at a local nursing home. In 1977, he entered Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, spending the first year on the Jerusalem campus and four more at the institute’s New York centre.
He experienced “imposter syndrome,” partly because he had only one Jewish parent. But, he concluded, “with such a high frequency of intermarriage these days, who better than a rabbi of mixed parentage to welcome others like himself or herself into the Jewish fold? Suddenly, my rabbinate had renewed significance and purpose.”
In his book, Tuffs reflects the tumultuous and historic times he has lived through. After receiving his ordination, his first convention of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, in 1983, saw the historic decision to recognize patrilineal descent.
Over the next 40 years, as he shares, he navigated synagogue politics – some comedic, some sad, including a corrupt sisterhood president and an authoritarian, bullying board president. He discusses his decision to officiate at same-sex weddings, his activism on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, and his congregation’s support of orphans in Haiti.
The tragic collapse of a condominium building in Surfside, Fla., in 2021, hit Tuffs close to home. A young couple whose marriage he had presided at just weeks earlier were killed in the disaster.
The hurricane that devastated parts of Florida and other states in 2005 ravaged his temple. The silver lining was that Tuffs was able to be part of a rebuilding project that made the sanctuary more welcoming, removing the elevated bimah that instilled “an air of un-approachability” for the rabbi and cantor.
Perhaps because he came to the Reform rabbinate with some Conservative movement experience, Tuffs considers himself on the traditional side of Reform. He wears a kippa and dons a tallit when praying, something that was unusual in some American Reform congregations when he started out.
“I embraced the growing trend in the movement toward reintegrating older, discarded ritual practices into religious life,” he writes. “At the same time, I was sold on the Reform idea of personal autonomy in matters of ritual practice.”
He would serve at congregations in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania before spending 25 years at Temple Beth El, in Hollywood, Fla., from which he retired a year ago.
Fate almost brought Tuffs back to Canada before he ever made it to Florida. Desperate to escape the Wisconsin winters, he was invited to consider a position at a synagogue in Ottawa. His mind was made up for him when a congregant enthusiastically offered: “Rabbi, you’ll be able to skate to work on the Rideau Canal four months a year.”
In addition to all else, Tuffs obtained a doctorate in ministry, for which he wrote a dissertation about masculine spirituality, which was published as a book. He was a rabbinic fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem for five years and studied at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.
Reflecting back on his life, Tuffs can’t recall precisely where or how he first connected with Habonim. Everything that came after, though, can be traced back to that early Vancouver connection.
Tuffs’ book is available in ebook format on Amazon, though it is currently not available to order in Canada as a hardcopy.
Shay Keil, this year’s Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign chair, will share his story at the opening event on Sept. 10. (photo from Jewish Federation)
Gifts to the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign inspire stories with direct human impacts, says Shay Keil, this year’s campaign chair. He’s knows – because he is one of those stories.
“There are real people behind those gifts and I am one of those people,” he told the Independent. “I was a beneficiary of generosity from this community in my earlier days, when my family required financial assistance in order for me to participate in Jewish life in Vancouver – that means being on subsidies to go to the Jewish day school and Jewish day camps. I will share my story of how their Federation gifts decades ago inspired my Jewish journey that would never have happened without their financial support.”
Keil will bring his personal experience to hundreds of community members at the annual campaign opening event Sept. 10. Keynote speaker for the evening will be Eric Fingerhut, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federations of North America. Prior to this role, Fingerhut was the head of Hillel International. He is also a former U.S. congressman.
The event’s musical centrepiece will feature vocal trio Citizen West, made up of Marc Devigne, Cody Karey and Omer Shaish. The trio is known for their multilingual repertoire and three-part harmony, which spreads the message that “we are all global citizens, and through music, we can connect with individuals of all cultures and backgrounds,” according to the group’s website.
Keil, who is a senior wealth advisor at ScotiaMcLeod, said the opening event will emphasize the importance of every individual’s contribution to the greater whole.
“The campaign only has success when we all come together,” he said. “Little gifts matter just as much as big gifts, and increases of all sizes really have impact.”
While he hesitates to put a number to his fundraising goal, Keil said he aims to meet or exceed last year’s campaign achievement of $10 million.
While the pandemic is largely behind us, challenges remain for major undertakings like the annual campaign, he acknowledged.
“The main one is the high cost of living [and] the financial challenges that come with higher interest rate costs,” said Keil. “Although that will affect some, it will affect others less so and our objective will be to continue to ask for increases among those who have the ability to do so.”
As someone who knows personally the impact of the annual campaign on its many beneficiaries, Keil is deeply devoted to the community in general and to the Federation campaign in particular.
“I remain committed to community and this is just yet another example of how I express that,” he said.
The campaign opening event takes place at 7 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 10, at Congregation Schara Tzedeck. Tickets ($18) are at jewishvancouver.com.
The Lando family donated to the federal government the islet that is now West Grebe Islet Marine Park. The park will be held in perpetuity for wildlife conservation and is off limits to people. (photo from Barbara Schloss)
Barbara Schloss remembers the day in the 1970s when her father came home and announced, “Guess what I did? I just bought an island.”
Her father, Esmond Lando, was a familiar face in Vancouver’s Jewish community, known to everyone as Bud. Snapping up an island may have been a little out of the ordinary for most dads, but Bud Lando had a finger in all sorts of pies, his daughter recalls.
Neither the father nor, until recently, the rest of the family, though, had any idea of the value of the island – “islet,” to use the precise terminology – he had bought. And, while the tiny West Grebe Islet is located just off West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park – and, therefore, a short kayak ride from some of the world’s priciest real estate – the value isn’t so much in dollars as in ecological biodiversity. So rich in bird and animal species is the one-third-hectare (about 0.8 acres) island that the federal government was delighted to accept the rocky outcrop from the Lando family through Canada’s Ecological Gifts Program.
The islet is known to some West Van locals as “Seal Rock,” due to the prevalence of the sea mammals hanging about on or around the place. But, according to North Shore News reporter Brent Richter, who wrote about it last year, birders have identified 89 different bird species that either inhabit West Grebe or drop in during migration, including black oyster catchers, turnstones, marbled murrelets and one of the highest densities of surf scoters in the region. A pair of eagles are routinely spotted on the Coast Guard light beacon.
Schloss, who is a longtime resident of Montreal, says she didn’t know the ecological richness of the place when she contacted the feds on behalf of her siblings and the family to offer it to the federal government. Now that she knows, she likes to think her late father had an inkling of the gem he rescued and preserved from development. The family will celebrate their father’s foresight this weekend at a dedication ceremony where a plaque will be unveiled acknowledging Esmond Lando’s contribution to preserving West Grebe.
But, there is a larger story.
The Landos lived in Shaughnessy – Schloss’s sister, Roberta Beiser, still lives in the family home – but Bud had a special connection with West Vancouver. That connection is a tale of discrimination and civil rights in British Columbia.
Jews were not welcome on golf courses anywhere in Metro Vancouver when the nine-hole Gleneagles Golf Course came on the market in 1951. It had been developed two decades earlier and named after the legendary links in Scotland.
Bud Lando and pal Dave Sears snapped up the golf course – and opened it to Jewish players. Golf courses would become a sideline for Lando, but only one of many.
“He really was like a Renaissance man,” said Schloss. “He loved creating, he was very creative. He painted, he sculpted – this was all on the side. At home, we had a kiln. He decided he was going to make wine, so he got a whole bunch of grapes somewhere and went to a distillery somewhere and made sure that that wine had ‘Esmond Lando’ on it. It was just another passion of his.”
Lando was a successful practising lawyer, and he partnered with friends in a vast range of entrepreneurial pursuits.
“If anyone would suggest something, he would look it over and, if it looked like a possibility, he was in it,” Schloss said of her father.
With a couple of friends, he launched Queen Charlotte Airlines, she recalled, as well as a box company, a lumber mill in Chilliwack and a trucking company. “He was into everything he could possibly find,” she said.
The golf sideline was important – not just because Lando loved to play, but because the discrimination rankled him. Sears and he soon sold Gleneagles so they could construct the full 18-hole course that is now the Richmond Country Club. Lando then developed courses in Delta and Surrey.
“Gleneagles was a very important purchase for my father, who was very plugged into the Jewish community,” said Schloss. “He was part of Canadian Jewish Congress and was very active in the Jewish community. Plus, he was on a council for Christians and Jews. He was very ecumenical, but Jews were very important for him. That’s why he got involved with Gleneagles.”
Bud Lando came by his entrepreneurial spirit and sense of adventure naturally. Bud was born in England and his parents, Lou and Sara Lando, trundled the family of six off to Prince Rupert, B.C., in 1911, when Bud was a tyke.
“That was supposed to be the metropolis,” Schloss said of the northern B.C. port town. “That was going to be where everything was happening.” She added with a laugh: “Didn’t happen.”
The family moved to Vancouver and got into the fur trade. They opened Lando’s Furs, opposite the Canadian Pacific Railways station (now Waterfront station, where Seabus and Skytrain meet).
Bud Lando graduated from law school at the University of Alberta and practised for decades, becoming Queen’s Counsel. He and his wife, Edith Mitchell Lando, originally from Winnipeg, raised four children. In addition to Schloss and Beiser, daughter Juli Hall now lives in Houston, Tex., and son Barry Lando lives in Paris. Barry was a producer for the American TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes. (Mike Wallace, the late longtime cohost of the program, said that, without Lando, “there would have been no 60 Minutes.”)
The four siblings, their children and grandchildren will gather this weekend at Gleneagles Golf Course to dedicate two plaques – one at the course itself and another a short walk away, from where the islet can be viewed.
“When my father passed away, we each took on part of the heritage of my father, whatever he left behind we divvied up and decided who would be in charge of what,” said Schloss. “I got Grebe. That was one of the things that I was involved with.”
It was Barry Lando who told her about the federal program and that the government might be interested in the property. Indeed, they were. The island was formally transferred to the federal government last year, but under an agreement with the District of West Vancouver, it will be cared for by the municipality and was officially designated as West Grebe Islet Marine Park earlier this year.
The islet will be held in perpetuity for wildlife conservation and is now off limits to bipeds in order to conserve its ecological value. Barry Lando and some of his family members are, therefore, among the few people to have set foot on the place. They once approached by boat and then swam up to the islet but its geography meant it was never a welcoming spot for casual visitors.
“My father would be so pleased and proud to know that he had the foresight to recognize a treasure and to save it from development,” said Schloss, adding that he would be happy knowing that his legacy and the island is preserved forever. “I think it would mean a lot to him to know this.”
On Sept. 1, burial plot costs and funeral prices are set to increase. (photo from Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board)
After Lorna Krangle’s husband, Larry, passed away last year, she determined to put her own final plans in place and not to leave funeral arrangements for her family.
“After burying him, I just thought, I’ve got to do something,” she told the Independent. “I’m not going to have all the kids being worried and putting money together or whatever. They’ve got their own families.”
Krangle, 87, has deep roots in Vancouver. She was born here, and grew up around the city, first on Main Street, near the Ivanhoe Hotel, and, later, at 19th and Cambie. She and Larry raised their six kids on the North Shore.
Larry and his brother, Jack, ran Regent Tailors, adjacent Victory Square at the heart of Vancouver’s downtown. Lorna was a ceiling-busting female saleswoman, taking orders from retailers and outfitting the Canadian Pacific Airlines female flight crews with their uniforms.
It was only recently, though, that she turned her attentions to a different kind of business: making final arrangements. Now, she is urging everyone to take the step. Krangle is a bit of an evangelist for pre-arranging.
Howard Jampolsky, executive director of the Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board, agrees wholeheartedly. He is also urging people to consider taking the step before Sept. 1, when prices for both cemetery plots and funeral services go up significantly.
The cemetery board is the not-for-profit charity that operates Jewish burial facilities in New Westminster, Surrey and at the historic Jewish cemetery located in Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery.
Planning ahead can bring peace of mind to families, Jampolsky said, and it also presents the opportunity to spread the not-insignificant costs over an extended period. Without prepayment, costs of the burial plot and funeral services are due at the time of burial. Prepaying allows the fees to be spread out over months or years, with no interest or service fees. All funds, by law, are held in trust, he said.
The cemetery board now sells plots and funeral services as a package, which is a fairly new approach. It used to be common for people to prepay for the plot, but not the funeral.
“The fact of the matter is, if you pay for the plot and not the funeral, the funeral price is still going to continue to go up,” he said.
The term “pre-planning” is a common term in the funeral sector. However, it doesn’t really apply in this case, Jampolsky said. In other cities, Jewish funeral providers may be for-profit entities and offer a diversity of services. The Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board’s philosophy is that the type or quality of a funeral should not be determined by the wealth of the deceased.
“There is really no planning for a Jewish funeral,” he said. “A Jewish funeral, as we provide one, is pretty much the same for everybody.” Unlike in other traditions or places, there is no music to choose, no flowers to select. The caskets Schara Tzedeck offers are simple pine boxes intended for speedy decomposition per Jewish tradition.
“We believe that everybody comes into the world equal, they should go out of the world equal and, to the best of our ability, that’s what we try to do,” he said.
There is another fundamental tenet of the nonprofit funeral provider, Jampolsky said: “Every Jewish person has the right to a full and proper Jewish burial.”
“If you do have financial constraints and you would like to discuss options available, certainly we can work something out,” he said. “That’s when I sit down and talk to people one-on-one and find something that works for them and works for us.”
The financial situation of a household is also a factor in considering prepayment. Preparing in advance is a good plan, he said – but not if it causes financial hardship.
“If people are struggling, if they are on a fixed income, I don’t want people to prepay their funeral and have to sit in the dark or not have their television or have to give up a vacation,” he said. “You have to live. Living is most important. But, for those who just want to get it out of the way and taken care of, it’s a great set-up.”
On Sept. 1, the cost for a plot at the New Westminster cemetery will rise to $14,000 from the current $12,500. Plots at Schara Tzedeck’s Surrey cemetery will go up to $7,500 from $6,500. There are still several dozen plots available at the old Jewish cemetery at Mountain View – Jampolsky acknowledges that some people may be under the impression the cemetery is full – and those prices are rising to $27,000 from $23,500, keeping in line with prices in the non-Jewish section of Mountain View.
Funeral services at all locations are increasing to $13,000 from $12,000.
Getting affairs in order ahead of time can make a sad and stressful time a little easier, said Jampolsky.
“I’ve seen this so many times when we are dealing with a family,” he said. “We’re talking about picking up their loved one and we’re talking about doing a burial tomorrow, because it’s so quick, and then we have to talk about the money and what it’s going to cost and they have to figure that out.”
Pre-arranging can take that element out of the mix for the survivors.
“It’s a very significant gift to give to your loved ones,” Jampolsky said. “You can remove that burden from the ones you love.”
Monica Lewinsky may have been the first person in history to experience international cyberbullying. Lewinsky was an intern in the White House during President Bill Clinton’s administration and her relationship with the U.S. president led to worldwide notoriety – contributing to the impeachment of the chief executive.
Lewinsky’s experiences took place before the dawn of social media, but her experience of being publicly judged and condemned was exacerbated by the then-new technology of the internet. Today, with almost every young person now on some form of social media platform, the potential for victimization or harassment exists everywhere.
The lessons of how decisions in early life can have long-lasting impacts – as well as considering how the #MeToo movement might invite a reconsideration of Lewinsky’s role in those events – are among the reasons Congregation Beth Israel will welcome Lewinsky to Vancouver for an evening that includes Selichot services Sept. 9.
“We were trying to think about someone who would be appropriate for Selichot, which is really the kickoff to the High Holiday season,” said Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld. “We wanted someone who would be addressing key High Holiday concepts, such as personal renewal, dealing with personal choices made throughout one’s life, but especially at a young age, the effect of those choices on one’s life. Also, very à propos to today, someone who is still dealing with body image and life image, dealing with online harassment and dealing especially, again in the modern period, with gender power-related issues.”
Lewinsky has been speaking on these topics for several years. And this will not be her first time speaking about them to Vancouver audiences, as she did a TED Talk here in 2015, where she told the audience she was subjected to “global humiliation” by “mobs of virtual stone throwers.”
“In 1998, I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost almost everything,” she said at the time. “I almost lost my life.”
Lewinsky’s presentation here is presented by RBC Global Assets Management PH&N Institutional in addition to Beth Israel, King David High School and Hillel.
Beth Israel invited King David and Hillel to participate because of the relevance to younger audiences of the issue of cyberbullying and how decisions and actions at a young age can change one’s life, said the rabbi. He noted that some younger people might not know of Lewinsky’s experience, while people his age recall it vividly.
Infeld dismissed the idea that Lewinsky’s visit might be controversial.
“Our goal is not to deal with the political issues,” he said. “Our goal is to deal with the personal growth and harassment and mental health issues. Obviously, everyone has their own view of the political issues involved, but the intention here is really not to deal with Democrats versus Republicans or anything like that but really to deal with how one’s experiences as a 20-something-year-old, and the decisions that a person makes at that point, can affect one’s life…. She speaks openly about suicide ideation at one point and how did she overcome that, how is she alive today, to be able to speak, and how does this affect our young people today, who are also making challenging decisions that affect their lives potentially forever, like we all did.”
Infeld also wonders how Lewinsky would have been portrayed, and how different the perceptions might have been, had the events taken place today, when the #MeToo movement and other social changes have given us a different perspective on workplace and gender power dynamics.
“Had this played out in the 2020s and not in the 1990s, what would the storyline look like?” he asked. “I think that may have changed in a very significant way – what the gender and power dynamic looks like in terms of how people would perceive who has responsibility for what took place.”
Tickets to the event were made available first to Beth Israel members, King David families and Hillel students. Tickets were opened to general audiences on Aug. 15. The 8:30 p.m. fireside chat between Infeld and Lewinsky is free and will be followed by musical Selichot services, led by Debby Fenson and Harley Rothstein. People who donate or pledge $90 or more to Beth Israel’s High Holidays campaign are invited to a 7 p.m. seudah shlishit dinner with Lewinsky. Selichot services will be livestreamed but Lewinsky’s presentation will not be. Information and tickets are available at bethisraelvan.ca.
Participation in Jewish supplementary education in North America has decreased by nearly half in 15 years, according to a new study from a New York-based organization. But a brief survey of Vancouver after-school and weekend education programs suggests local kids are bucking the trend.
The report from the Jewish Education Project, formerly the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, is the first comprehensive continent-wide assessment of supplementary Jewish education since a 2008 report by the AVI CHAI Foundation.
Supplementary education – that is, after-school and weekend options offered mostly by congregations – is how most Jewish children get their formal Jewish learning. Despite this, little research has been done on the strengths and weaknesses of the sector, according to the report, titled From Census to Possibilities: Designing New Pathways for Jewish Learners, which was conducted with Rosov Consulting.
According to the study, total enrolment in supplementary schools has decreased at least 45% since 2006-2007. “While not so different than in 2006, only 16% (less than 2,000 students annually) of those ever enrolled in a supplemental program remain in a formal educational environment by senior year in high school,” notes the report. The number of schools has decreased at least 27% since 2006-2007.
Although the report surveyed Canadians, the American numbers overwhelmingly swamp nuances in the Canadian Jewish experience. An informal whip-round of a few local supplementary education providers by the Independent produced a far rosier picture. Most who responded to the paper’s inquiries have not only bounced back from the pandemic’s challenges but are doing better than ever.
Congregation Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld said all post-pandemic programming is attracting more people than ever before, including growth in Hebrew school numbers.
“Despite the fact that 85% of our children attend Talmud Torah, our Hebrew school is thriving and growing,” he said. “A lot of that I believe has to do with the hard work and efforts of Rabbi [David] Bluman and the teachers, as well as solid Hebrew and Jewish education. It is well known that children leave the BI Hebrew school having learned real knowledge and with a strong and positive Jewish identity.”
Engaging young people in unique and hands-on ways is among the reasons for the success, Infeld suggested, noting the congregation’s involvement with the new Jewish Community Garden.
“At Beth Israel, we provide Jewish education in motion, where Jewish children are able to learn while literally getting their hands dirty in the garden,” he said. “This is an exciting addition to the scene of supplementary Jewish education in Vancouver that has already begun to teach Jewish children important Jewish values of protecting our environment, food security, gratitude for the food we eat and the land of Israel.”
Jen Jaffe, school principal at Temple Sholom, also reports great post-pandemic engagement. Over the last 10 years, she said, Temple Sholom School has more than doubled enrolment, reaching almost 200 students. More than 30 teenage madrichim are set to help in the classrooms this year.
Temple Sholom successfully navigated the pandemic, she said, through online learning. The convenience of that mode has not been abandoned just because it’s safe to gather again.
“Now, although back in person, we also offer midweek Zoom Hebrew classes for our Grade 4 to 7 students who find the convenience appealing,” said Jaffe.
The school’s continued growth has led to a second session of Sunday classes.
Schara Tzedeck has not resumed supplementary education since the pandemic and the congregation’s formal youth education has traditionally been limited so as not to detract from Jewish day school opportunities like Vancouver Hebrew Academy, said Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt.
“Hating on Hebrew school has been fashionable at least since Philip Roth published his short story ‘The Conversion of the Jews’ in 1958,” the Jewish Education Project report notes. Despite this cultural trope, a recent survey found that 87% of kids surveyed like or love their experience with Jewish education.
While part-time Jewish schooling has been seen as an easier, more affordable form of Jewish education, the report notes that it is not cheap, requiring, as it often does, synagogue memberships in addition to possible other expenses.
Broader trends toward secularization that are affecting most religious communities in North America are reflected among Jews.
“Overall, about a quarter of U.S. adults who identify as being Jewish (27%) do not identify with the Jewish religion,” says the report. “They consider themselves to be Jewish ethnically, culturally or by family background and have a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish, but they answer a question about their current religion by describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’ rather than as Jewish.”
Many families tend to be looking for a cultural approach to Jewish identity, which emphasizes history, language and peoplehood over prayer and worship. Another aspect to note is the ethnic diversity of Jewish communities, with that diversity increasing among younger age cohorts.
“Successful educational programs welcome Jews of Colour, all family members from homes where more than one religion is practised, and all who wish to be part of the community regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, class or ability,” write the authors.
According to the report, effective teachers have “transitioned from ‘a sage on the stage’ to a ‘guide at your side.’”
Maggie Karpilovski, executive director of the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, is bullish on Jewish education but said institutions need to heed the warnings of this report. Her organization is trying new things both in terms of content and delivery, with one of their popular offerings a province-wide online program. They are also explicitly reflecting the diversity of families who may be intermarried, LGBTQ+ or otherwise seeking something that reflects their values.
“We are also adding an additional program that’s focused on Israeli culture because we are seeing that segment of the population growing quite a bit and they don’t fit the mold of the traditional synagogue,” she said of young Israeli-Canadians and Canadian-born kids of Israeli parents.
If anyone needed a reminder, the report should convince them that rote language learning and proscriptive religious training are out.
“The traditional brick-and-mortar Hebrew school is no longer working for a lot of families and families are looking for alternatives,” said Karpilovski. “Young people are so worldly nowadays. They are concerned about climate change, they are concerned about racism and discrimination. They are concerned about what’s happening in their world and Jewish education that takes that into consideration, that contextualizes
Judaism and Jewish life within the context of the world, has more success and holds more interest to modern families and kids.”
The Jewish Education Project report may carry bad news, but Karpilovski sees it as a chance for renewal.
“We need to be engaging young people in the design and delivery of educational programs because they are the ones who are going to tell us what is relevant and they are the future of this,” she said. “So, I really hope that this report opens the door for us to pay attention, to ask more insightful questions and to invite young people and their families to participate in the development of what Jewish education is going to evolve into over the next decades.”