Sam Margolis

Listening and learning

Juneteenth webinar panelists (clockwise from top left) Heather Miller, Dr. Tameika Minor, Rafi Forbush and Kendell Pinkney. (photos from internet)

The United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) held a webinar entitled Juneteenth Through the Eyes of Jews of Colour: Sharing Stories and Perspectives on June 17, the same day the United States declared Juneteenth (June 19) a federal holiday. Slaves were freed from Texas, the last Confederate state with institutionalized slavery, on June 19, 1865.

The objectives of the evening were to establish better dialogue, to create a space to honour the Jewish and Black communities, to learn about the challenges people of colour have in the Jewish community, and to find the means by which people of colour can feel welcome in the Jewish community. Marques Hollie, a theatre artist, storyteller and musician, led the evening with a rendition of the post-Civil War song “Oh Freedom.”

“Our people crossed the Red Sea. People of colour are still in Egypt. For Black people, freedom has not come fast enough and not in a straight line,” said Ruth Messinger, a former politician and head of the American Jewish World Service, in opening remarks that preceded the introduction of the panel discussion.

The four panelists were Heather Miller, Dr. Tameika Minor, Kendell Pinkney and Rafi Forbush. Rabbi Ari Lucas of Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, N.J., moderated the event. Lucas encouraged the audience to listen before asking questions.

“In a lot of ways, I feel like I came out as a Black person last year,” said Miller, president of the Jewish Centre in Brooklyn and a future rabbi. “In the Jewish spaces I have been in, people have tried not to see my colour. The stakes are different for us than the majority of people in this Zoom room. I was afraid this would just be a moment for everyone else and that the world would go back to not seeing this stuff again after the pandemic. I was afraid of being left exposed without a community.”

Minor, a professor in clinical mental health counseling and rehabilitation counseling at Rutgers University, said she would like to see Juneteenth become a day of reflection and not just celebration. “Reflection of where we have come from and how far we have to go,” she said. “It’s not a day we should sit back and not look at the wealth gap, mass incarceration and police brutality. Now it is a federal holiday, and yet so many states are banning critical race theory in schools.”

“For me, the question isn’t what does Juneteenth mean to me now but what might it mean to us moving forward,” said Pinkney, a Brooklyn-based theatre writer, Jewish-life consultant and rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary. “The Jewish people are so, so good at crafting stories, creating rituals. What rituals might be created 20 years from now around Juneteenth? Which stories and voices will we finally open our ears to?”

He added, “I like to think of it more as a promise of what might be and what we might become as a Jewish community.”

Rounding out the panel was Forbush, youth director at Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights (St. Paul) and founder of the Multiracial Jewish Association of Minnesota, which focuses on creating space for Jews of colour to connect to one another, through the community, education and advocacy.

“If you had told me that our community would be having this conversation at the beginning of the pandemic, I would have laughed at you,” said Forbush. “There is a bright light in our community starting to see outside of ourselves. If we are a people and not a race, then we owe it to each other to get to know who we are. The idea here is, extend the tent and not move it to exclude somebody else.”

Like Pinkney, Forbush spoke of the potential the holiday holds for the future and the sense of inclusion it can bring to the entire community. He pointed out that young Jews of colour often feel excluded.

Throughout the webinar, the panelists touched on various points of exclusion they feel as part of a community – of not believing they are entirely heard and of the microaggressions that occur in Jewish spaces, such as being quizzed on aspects of Jewish life or being viewed as staff and not a member of the community. Understandably, these are the sorts of issues that drive Jews of colour away from synagogues and other Jewish institutions.

The hope was expressed that Jews of colour could achieve more positions of leadership within Jewish organizations. There was also a sense that the community as a whole is not achieving its full potential without engaging more actively and openly with Jews of colour.

“This year, as we expand upon the understandings of diversity and inclusion, we have, despite COVID, actively widened the doors to our tent so to speak,” said Rabbi Susan Tendler of Richmond’s Congregation Beth Tikvah, which has been promoting the recent USCJ webinars on reaching out to interracial families and building a larger sense of inclusion for all Jews.

“We have actively listened and considered with compassion the feelings of people who may want to enter and yet find barriers to feeling authentically accepted within the larger Jewish community,” she told theIndependent. “United Synagogue’s program on Juneteenth is one example of many in which we have taken the opportunity to listen and learn.”

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Honouring women’s courage

Anne Petrie (photo from Maurice Yacowar)

The University of Calgary has organized a virtual exhibition to honour the efforts of Jewish women in the Canadian Armed Forces during the Second World War. Called She Also Served, it comprises a series of nine banners by various artists.

Originally scheduled to be displayed at the Military Museums in Calgary during Jewish Heritage Month in May, it has been made available online throughout 2021 and will be physically hung in May 2022. Of the 17,000 Jews who served in the Canadian armed services, more than 275 were women.

Among those selected to display their work is Anne Petrie of Victoria. For her banner, a digital print called “In the Tradition of Service,” Petrie chose to list all the known names of the Jewish Canadian servicewomen. She used a font that is reminiscent of the typewriters of the 1940s. Another layer of the banner has the names of 12 biblical heroines, confirming the tradition of Jewish women’s courage and dedication to serving their communities.

“I was immediately struck by knowing that, although they would not have had to hide their Jewish identity, it was still in those days not something that you would be comfortable being completely open about,” Petrie told the Independent. “Even if it was, at best, very casual antisemitism, it was a reality when they would have signed up. So, there you are fighting (even if it’s only at a desk) for something – a religion, a people, a culture – that you can’t really be openly passionate about.”

image - Anne Petrie’s “In the Tradition of Service,” 2021. Part of the She Also Served exhibit, now online — Anne Petrie’s “In the Tradition of Service,” 2021. Part of the She Also Served exhibit, now online.

For Petrie, She Also Served is an opportunity to reveal and contextualize the “Jewishness” of that other “them, the unsung and – worse – unidentified Jewish-Canadian women soldiers.” She said she is honouring them by naming them in “their doubly suppressed identities, as women and Jews.”

Petrie’s intention was to present the full names and rank (where available) of all the Jewish women known to have served. The collection of names fills the background layer of the 75-by-165-centimetre banner. Each name is in the colour of their respective services: olive green for army, dark navy for the navy and a lighter “air force blue” for the Women’s Army Corps. Emerging from the background in a larger, translucent Hebrew script, and in a camouflage pattern, are the names of Judaism’s biblical heroines, “themselves often subordinated by patriarchal tradition to the male heroes,” said Petrie.

“In making the banner itself, I was struck by how powerful it was to actually write out all the 279 names of the Jewish servicewomen that have so far been identified. I knew none of them personally, of course, but I felt that typing each name was a kind of acknowledgement and, strange as it sounds, I did feel a kind spirit or presence as I typed each of the names. I only wish we did know more about them, but I understand that research is continuing and, hopefully, there will eventually be stories attached to each of these women’s names,” she said.

Petrie thanked Janice Shulman and Rabbi Lynn Greenhough for their assistance with the project.

Prior to beginning her work as an artist, Petrie’s career spanned more than 30 years in radio and television, where she worked as a researcher, producer, documentary-maker, columnist and commentator in news and current affairs. She is also the author of several non-fiction books: Ethnic Vancouver, Vancouver Secrets and Gone to an Aunt’s: Remembering Canada’s Homes for Unwed Mothers.

After retiring from the CBC, she returned to school and obtained a bachelor of fine arts from the Alberta College of Art and Design in 2008. Since then, she has had a number of exhibitions. Her next exhibit, said/unsaid, is a two-person show with Jane Coomb – it opens at the errant artSpace gallery in Victoria (975 Alston St.) on July 9.

The other artists whose work is featured in She Also Served are Razieh Alba, Sophia Borowska, Alysa-Beth Engel, Lily Rosenberg, Talie Shalmon, Jules Schacter, Bev Tosh and Susan Turner. The representations exploring the servicewomen’s experiences range from naturalistic to abstract. Some works use archival photographs, while others use media include oil painting and paper-cutting.

The stories of 41 Jewish servicewomen are also featured on the website. These accounts were an impetus for the call for submissions for the exhibition, which was curated by the University of Calgary’s Prof. Jennifer Eiserman and librarian emerita Saundra Lipton. They ask for help in “completing the story” from anyone who has more information about the featured servicewomen and any of those identified in the list of names collected.

To view the exhibition, visit live-ucalgary.ucalgary.ca/she-also-serves/exhibition.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Having the hard discussions

Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, above, and Noor A’wad of Roots Palestinian-Israeli Network were the featured speakers at Vancouver School of Theology’s Two Truths in One Heart; Two Peoples in One Land event May 27. (photo from friendsofroots.net)

Two Truths in One Heart; Two Peoples in One Land, a discussion on the Roots Palestinian-Israeli Network, with speakers Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Noor A’wad, took place on May 27 as part of the Religion and Thoughtful Activism conference organized by the Vancouver School of Theology (VST).

Formed in 2014 by peace activist Ali Abu Awwad and Schlesinger, Roots is a group based in the Gush Etzion settlements of the West Bank that believes the path towards peace between Palestinians and Israelis is through dialogue.

“In the West Bank, Jews and Arabs live completely separately with no connections at all,” said Schlesinger, an Orthodox rabbi, passionate Zionist settler and director of international relations for Roots. Everything, he explained – from legal systems to health systems, transportation to universities – is separate. The separation is so complete that Palestinians are forbidden from entering Israeli areas and vice versa.

“If I were to say that there is no common ground between Jews and Palestinians, I would not be exaggerating, and I would not be speaking metaphorically. There is literally no common ground as far as geography goes. If there had been a place for a crazy Israeli Jew and a Palestinian who wanted to meet for coffee, there would have been no place to do it,” he suggested.

At least, this was the case, he said, until seven years ago, when Roots was formed and when the Dignity Centre, a community centre where the two sides can meet with equality and mutual recognition, was created.

Schlesinger spoke of the great apprehension and trepidation each side has in coming together at such a place. Yet, often, at the end of an event at the centre, people come to Schlesinger, saying how wonderful the simple experience of conversing with a member of the other side is.

“People are amazed to discover that ‘the other’ is a lot like us. It’s hard to fathom after all the stereotypes and all we on both sides have been taught,” he said.

He likened the animosity each side has to a disease he called “the hubris of exclusivity,” which infects people with a “virus” that makes them believe that their people are the only legitimate people in the region.

Charting his own journey, Schlesinger recounted that, during his first encounters with Palestinians, he began learning that there were not one but two stories in the land where he lives. “For 33 years, I lived in my story and the Palestinians didn’t exist. They were part of the grey drab scenery that passes in the background of a movie but not part of the plot,” he recalled.

He spoke of his initial distrust of Palestinians and his profound reluctance to meet them – a distrust and reluctance shared by his Palestinian interlocutors during their first meetings. Implicit, too, in the unwillingness to meet was the fear that each side had of the other, Schlesinger said.

Noor A’wad, a licensed Palestinian tour guide based in Bethlehem, where he takes English speakers on geopolitical tours, spoke of his family’s long history in the land.

photo - Noor A’wad of Roots Palestinian-Israeli Network — Noor A’wad of Roots Palestinian-Israeli Network *(photo from friendsofroots.net)*

“I remember growing up during the Second Intifada – some of my family members were killed, others arrested – realizing that this is not a normal life and asking myself why am I living this abnormal life under occupation? The simple answer to the question is, because I am a Palestinian,” A’wad said.

He considered leaving the area, but that urge was outweighed by a sense of responsibility and a sense that there was no other option but to stay in order to best serve his people. Ultimately, he came to learn about nonviolent solutions to conflict.

A’wad described his change of heart upon getting involved with Roots: “When Rabbi Hanan spoke about his identity as a Jew and a settler, these are very loaded words and terminology that is connected to the conflict. For him, I was able to see how beautiful this terminology is because it is part of his identity.

For me, the same terminology is connected to the suffering my people have.”

For A’wad, as with Schlesinger, the acts of sitting and listening to the other were enormously challenging. Nonetheless, each persevered and, in the process, they discovered a partner in dialogue and perhaps the most effective way of understanding the humanity of the other – finding mutual empathy and thereby creating a means to achieve peace.

“What I discovered in Roots is the foundation for any peace process,” said A’wad.

The event was organized by Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan, VST’s director of inter-religious studies. “Our students – most but not all are Christian – are very interested in news about Israel and Palestine. They see Israel as their beloved Holy Land. So, we wanted to introduce them to one of the many NGOs there doing collaborative peace-building work,” she told the Independent.

“I’ve been a supporter of Roots for some years now. Rabbi Schlesinger is a colleague and friend from Clal’s Rabbis Without Borders fellowship program. Still, this event would not have happened without the help of Quebec psychotherapist Colleen MacDougall, another Roots supporter,” she added.

For more information on Roots, visit friendsofroots.net.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Issues surrounding inclusivity

On June 9, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) hosted the webinar Embracing Diversity: Wisdom from an Interfaith, Interracial Jewish Family. The event addressed the issues involved in creating an inclusive setting within a congregation and keeping an open mind about Jewish intermarriage.

Keren McGinity, the USCJ’s interfaith specialist, led the inaugural event, which took place on Zoom. Interfaith is one of four areas of diversity synagogues should hope to include, she said; the others being LBGTQ+, people of colour, and people of all neurological and physical abilities; occasionally, there is overlap.

It was mentioned that the webinar took place close to Loving Day (June 12), which marks the anniversary of the 1958 marriage – and subsequent arrest – of Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, an interracial couple in Virginia. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in its Loving v. Virginia decision.

Guest speakers for the afternoon were Shira and Derrick, an interfaith and interracial couple. Shira grew up in the northeast United States and was raised in the Conservative movement; Derrick was born to Ghanaian parents and raised in an evangelical Christian environment in the Midwest. The pair met at university and began dating in their senior year. Because of their different upbringings, neither believed at the outset that the relationship would last. To their surprise, however, it did. They fell in love, ultimately got married and are now raising a baby daughter.

“There was a lot of internal struggle for both of us,” Shira admitted, explaining that they both wondered whether they were going to go through with it. Also, from Shira’s friends and family, there was concern, not that Derrick is black but that he is Christian.

“When I came to the realization that I would be marrying the love of my life, and not a Christian, it led to a lot of changes in thinking about what relationships meant,” Derrick told the Zoom audience.

“Whenever two people come together, there are always gaps that need to be bridged. What really matters is what are the things that are important to you and what are you willing to talk about,” he said, when asked about the cultural, religious and geographic differences the couple had when entering the relationship.

Intellectually, Shira understood that getting a rabbi to officiate would be challenging, yet, emotionally and spiritually, she could not come to terms with that fact because she knew in her heart that her relationship with Derrick was “the right thing.”

After sharing aspects of their personal journey as a couple, Shira and Derrick were asked by McGinity what the Jewish community could do to be more inclusive. Derrick described the reactions he generally receives when entering a synagogue with Shira. First, people look shocked, then, when they realize they are not supposed to make that face, they come over and make some awkward small talk.

Though Derrick understands the need to maintain certain traditions to make a religious setting what it is, the problem for him “is constantly feeling like the other, despite having a desire to being a part of that space, and not being treated like others who are entering the space.”

For her part, Shira said she thinks people are overcompensating because they are uncomfortable. “We have an idea of what Jewish looks like and assume that Jews look a certain way, even though there are examples in front of us.” One of those examples is their daughter.

“I don’t expect everyone to be completely comfortable with me walking into a room, because I look a little bit different than the majority of those in the Conservative shuls I have attended. What I do recognize is that there is going to be progress,” Derrick said, referencing the Loving case. He pointed out that the Supreme Court verdict was only 54 years ago and that his own marriage would have been illegal in a different era.

“To expect that not everyone in a Conservative shul is going to be comfortable is reasonable,” he stressed. “What I do expect is an openness and recognition that change is coming, and the recognition that there are going to be some awkward conversations. I expect that. What I don’t want is to be the warrior to help explain that to everyone.”

“If someone is in a Jewish space, they’re there to do Jewish things,” Shira said. “And that’s what matters.”

Richmond’s Congregation Beth Tikvah is one of the participating synagogues in the USCJ’s Embracing Diversity program.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Six Jewish musical journeys

Amber Woods and Gary Cohen are the musical duo Kouskous. They were among the speakers in the six-part Journeys in Jewish Music series. (photo from Kouskous)

In ordinary times, the Victoria Jewish Community Choir meets in person at the synagogue building of Congregation Emanu-El. Unable to do so during the pandemic, the choir has instead been offering Zoom presentations on a diverse array of Jewish music.

Throughout the spring, the six-part Journeys in Jewish Music series, funded by the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island, has brought in an audience from around the world. It has featured talks on biblical cantillation by Vancouver’s Moshe Denburg; the songs of Sefarad, with Prof. Judith Cohen of the University of Toronto; Chassidic meditative melodies (niggunim) with Emanu-El’s Rabbi Matt Ponak; and Sing a New Song to G-d: New Prayer Compositions, with Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, who lives on Hornby Island. The last event in the series, which takes place June 20, will see Denburg return, to speak on the topic The Way of the Klezmer: Klezmer and Yiddish Song.

The Jewish Independent attended the May 23 musical voyage, which was guided by Gary Cohen and Amber Woods, who form the Victoria-based duo Kouskous. It explored Mizrahi music and how it differs from other Jewish musical styles. To demonstrate this, Cohen and Woods took the liturgical song “Lecha Dodi” and sang it with Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi interpretations.

“In general, we see the Mizrahi world being divided into three major geographical blocks: North Africa, Turkey and the Middle Eastern (Arabic) countries,” said Cohen.

Following their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews migrated to many countries in Europe, as well as going to North Africa, Greece, Turkey and Middle Eastern/Arabic countries. “Wherever Jews went, they blended their own musical traditions with those of the countries to which they moved. For example, the Sephardim combined their own musical style with Moroccan rhythms, Arabic instrumentation and Middle Eastern vocal expressions,” he explained.

“The Sephardim in Turkey and Greece often incorporate odd-metered rhythms such as 7/8, 9/8 in their music. In addition to traditional Arabic instruments, Greek instruments like the bouzouki were commonly used,” Cohen said.

Sephardi musicians who moved to Middle Eastern/Arabic countries were heavily influenced by Arabic musical styles, including “a wide melodic range, as well as vocal and instrumental embellishments,” he said. “Lyrics were often in Arabic, Hebrew or Judeo-Arabic.”

Throughout the presentation, Cohen and Woods performed some musical selections – including a few hot and spicy numbers – from the aforementioned genres for the assembled Zoom audience.

Carol Sokoloff, who co-directs the Victoria Jewish Community Choir with Kenny Seidman, is the person who came up with the idea for the lecture series.

“It has been so well-received it seems natural to repeat it and I hope to do that in the fall, going deeper into many of the subjects, as well as exploring new territory, such as Jewish composers of popular songs, Jewish women’s music, the music of the hidden Jews of Spain and Portugal, cantorial traditions and more,” Sokoloff told the Independent.

“Jewish music has so many flavours and is so rich and varied we have only begun to scratch the surface. Through our conversations, we are learning about other people with knowledge to share and, so far, everyone has been very generous in their enthusiasm for this series,” she said.

The shift from live venues to Zoom since the start of the pandemic has allowed the choir to expand its audience outside of Victoria.

“The series has been wonderful in that people who never knew about the Victoria Jewish Community Choir are now aware of us,” said Sokoloff, “and I believe that, when we finally can meet again to sing together, we shall likely attract many new members or new audiences for our performances and concerts. So, the series has allowed the choir to weather this challenging period and likely emerge stronger than ever! I think it has also generally increased interest in Jewish music in our region as well – all very happy outcomes.”

In non-pandemic times, the choir sings a variety of Jewish music: Psalms and prayers in Hebrew and Aramaic, niggunim, Yiddish songs, Sephardi music in Judeo-Spanish, Israeli songs, Broadway tunes, Yemenite music and contemporary compositions. For more information or to support the choir, send an email to [email protected] or visit their Facebook page, where you can also learn how to receive the link for the June 20, 7:30 p.m., talk.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Herzog joined Mosaic

Israeli President-elect Isaac “Bougie” Herzog outside the Knesset. (PR photo)

There was a palpable sense of community, both on a local and an international level, at Schara Tzedeck’s Mosaic 2021: Building a Stronger Jewish Future virtual event May 27.

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt and synagogue president Jonathon Leipsic led the festivities through a pre-recorded video in which they drove around town, spoke about the current state of affairs and introduced such guests as the singer Shulem, Rabbi Naftali Schiff and Prof. Lara Aknin of Simon Fraser University.

Israeli President-elect Isaac “Bougie” Herzog was the featured guest. He was voted the 11th president of Israel on June 2, less than a week after addressing the Schara Tzedeck audience. He is the son of former Israeli president Chaim Herzog and the grandson of Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, the first chief rabbi of Ireland and Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel from 1936 to 1959.

“I have a huge respect for the Jewish community in Vancouver and for your congregation. It is a thriving, successful and beautiful community. Community is at the heart of Jewish life,” said Herzog, who is also chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI). During the pandemic, JAFI has come to the aid, through interest-free loans, of more than 75 Jewish communities around the world that were on the verge of collapsing.

Herzog highlighted the role of religious organizations and spiritual leaders as crucial to post-pandemic life. Also central to community life, he said, is the financial ability to sustain institutions, such as community centres, as well as to involve younger people in leadership positions.

The most important role of JIFA is to create a sense of “connecting” within the Jewish world, said Herzog. Since the creation of Israel, it has welcomed more than four million olim, immigrants. Even during COVID-19, 21,000 olim from 45 countries arrived in Israel.

“Connecting” also involves bringing around 100,000 young people to Israel every year on various programs, sending emissaries to Jewish communities abroad and partnering with Diaspora communities.

“The whole idea is to get to know each other, to respect each other, to understand the pluralistic nature of Jewish life abroad, to understand what it is to be a Jew abroad and the questions of identity that are faced by young people outside Israel,” said Herzog.

He stressed the importance of having young people visit Israel. It is also imperative, he said, to “bring the truth”; that is, to counter false information about Israel.

Herzog, who has ties to Canada, once visited the University of British Columbia to meet with its leadership. In such meetings, his objective is to make sure “the true picture of Israel is told. You can criticize Israeli policy just like you criticize Canadian policy – that has nothing to do with the inherent right to the Jewish people for their own self-determination.” In general, he noted, “Once people know the facts, they have a stronger affinity with one another.”

He concluded, “I believe there is something metaphysical in being Jewish. That is, we feel an affinity – a Jew from Vancouver and myself could land together anywhere and bond immediately, because we feel like brothers and sisters.”

Herzog has family in Toronto. His uncle, Yaacov Herzog, was the Israeli ambassador to Canada from 1960 to 1963 and, while here, participated in a well-known debate with British historian Arnold J. Toynbee.

Shulem Lemmer, better known as Shulem, was the first guest to appear during the Mosaic evening, and he led the audience from his home in New Jersey through a couple of Jewish standards. Shulem was the first Charedi Jew to sign a contract with a leading music label, Universal Music Group, under its Decca Gold imprint, in 2018.

London-based Schiff, the founder and chief executive officer of Jewish Futures, spoke about the GIFT (Give It Forward Today) initiative, which he started in 2004. It was designed to spark a culture of giving between individuals and communal organizations, and it provides volunteering opportunities for young people.

Aknin, whose research interests include prosocial behaviour, happiness, social relationships, altruism, money, social mobility and inequality, rounded out the event.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

CHW’s Brunch with Bakan

Joel Bakan spoke at a CHW Vancouver Book Club event May 30. (photo from thecorporation.com)

The Canadian Hadassah-WIZO (CHW) Vancouver Book Club hosted a far-reaching 90-minute discussion with author, filmmaker, musician and University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan on May 30. Moderating the event, entitled Brunch with Bakan, was Toronto-based writer (and former Vancouverite) Adam Elliot Segal.

Bakan’s widely acclaimed 2004 book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power explored the formation and behaviours of modern-day industrial behemoths. It was later turned into an award-winning film. His new book, The New Corporation: How “Good” Corporations are Bad for Democracy, released in 2020, also has a film attached to it – The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, which Bakan co-directed with Jennifer Abbott.

In the CHW event, Bakan shared tidbits about his upbringing, first in East Lansing, Mich., then moving to Vancouver at age 11. “I was a very young draft dodger,” he recalled, as his parents decided to move north at the height of the Vietnam War.

“Family and Judaism have been two of the pillars of my life,” he said, recounting how much of his current activism could be traced to his immigrant grandparents.

“Jewish people, by virtue of their history, understand persecution, they understand injustice. They haven’t had a choice but to understand injustice. Injustice has always been in their face. It’s no coincidence that Jewish people were leaders in the civil rights, labour and other movements,” said Bakan.

“Jewish people have always had an activist sensibility and I think it’s rooted, not only in that history, but in the ethics of the religion – chief among them is tikkun olam, that we have a duty to repair the world, which is very much a duty I take seriously,” he added.

In his recent book, which moderator Segal called a “tour de force” and “meticulously researched,” Bakan tackles such subjects as deregulation, the aviation industry and what he describes as the destructive dependence on technology. In it, he interviews not only influential legal and economic scholars but also references pop culture to explain more difficult concepts.

“I wanted the book to be readable,” he said. “I am an academic by trade, but I am a writer. I want the reader to feel pulled into a story. In all my writing for a popular audience, I try to get away from the academic notion of laying out the facts and instead lull the reader in by telling some good stories. And, once I have the reader, I try to engage them with some more analytical or informational kinds of things.”

Segal asked about Bakan’s Trump-era trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for the recent Corporation documentary project. It turned out to be a coup of sorts for a film crew to be allowed access to the normally secretive meetings of the world’s political and corporate elites in the Swiss Alps.

In this work, Bakan discusses the concept of corporate social responsibility, which, he contends, cannot do nearly enough to combat rising global social and environmental threats. He distinguishes between individuals at the top of corporations and the corporations themselves.

An example of this approach is Lord John Browne, the former chief executive officer of British Petroleum, whom Bakan portrays as a very cultured man and one of the “good guys,” who tried to get his firm to be at the forefront of corporate responsibility. However, the problem is that even the most benign, well-intentioned CEOs are hamstrung by their fiduciary and legal responsibilities to their shareholders, according to Bakan.

“A CEO can go a certain distance in trying to do a better job in terms of social or environmental responsibility, but you can’t go further in that direction in terms of what will be profitable,” said Bakan. “It’s great if corporations try to be a little better, but let us not be deluded into believing that they can go far enough to get us out of the mess we are in, be it the social mess or the environmental mess.”

The conversation turned to sports and the recent failed attempt by Europe’s top soccer clubs to form the Super League. The common thread with other societal issue is the goal of corporations or capitalism to commoditize everything, whether it be water, utilities, education or entertainment. In the case of the Super League, the vested corporate interests behind the initiative were trying to increase profits by “taking the local out of sports.”

“If you put the Toronto Maple Leafs in Dubai, they would make more money,” said Bakan. “The Super League stopped because the people and governments rose up.”

The discussion ended on an uplifting note for the future. Bakan advocated extolling the virtues that our societies value, such as democracy, freedom and equality, to create a world “in which people can flourish, where they can thrive, where they can be free, not just of government restrictions but ill health, hunger and poverty, where they can live lives of meaning and purpose in which their material needs are met.”

The past 40 years have seen corporations as drivers of policy rather than as tools, argues Bakan. “We need to understand that our democracy is what matters and its capacity to serve human flourishing and planetary survival. When we think about our policies, they need to be aimed at how we can use markets and corporations towards those ends – not how they can use us to serve markets and corporations.”

The film version of The New Corporation is available on several streaming services in Canada. As well, the CHW talk is available for anyone who donates $18 to CHW, for which a full tax receipt also will be provided. Visit chw.ca/thenewcorporation to register, or call the CHW Vancouver office at 604-257-5160. CHW supports programs and services for children and women, in healthcare and education, in Israel and Canada.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Crackin’ Out online exhibit

A still from the documentary Crackin’ Out: The Ronnie Tessler Rodeo Collection, showing photographer Ronnie Tessler. The documentary was directed by Sarah Genge and produced by the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia.

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia is currently hosting Crackin’ Out, an online exhibit of photographs of rural Western Canadian rodeo from 1976 to 1980 by Ronnie Tessler, along with a short documentary by director Sarah Genge. In rodeo, the term “crackin’ out” means “the beginning of the new season, breaking out of the chute, or even breaking out new chaps.”

“These explosive words epitomize for me the spirit of rodeo and the cowboy way of life,” Tessler explained.

The idea to shoot the images began as a “fun photo expedition” to Williams Lake Rodeo in 1976 by four friends who were members of a photography group, the Vancouver Image Exhibition Workshop, which is known for bringing in acclaimed guest artists.

The group worked together for a year and, with the permission of the Canadian Cowboys Association, produced an exhibit at the Finals Rodeo in Edmonton in 1977. Tessler worked independently for the next two years, documenting life at rodeos throughout the west, from British Columbia to Manitoba and into the northwest corner of the United States. Aspiring for objectivity, she realized it was not attainable.

“I wanted to know more about the cowboys, what went on behind the chutes and on the road and what motivated them to take on the challenges they did unsupported by a team or steady income,” Tessler said.

The exhibit takes the viewer not only to the action, the cowboys riding – and falling – but also to the personal and the life surrounding the event: the preparations, the traditions, the camaraderie and the love. The photos evoke an emblematic sense of a particular era in Western Canadian life.

Grouped into three chapters – “Before the Rodeo,” “The Rodeo” and “After the Rodeo” – each photograph is accompanied by stories, observations and explanations from Tessler that encapsulate the feeling that existed the moment each image was taken.

photo - A novice rider at the John Quintana Bull-riding School in Oregon, 1978. Photo taken by Ronnie Tessler. Part of the Crackin’ Out online exhibit — A novice rider at the John Quintana Bull-riding School in Oregon, 1978. Photo taken by Ronnie Tessler. Part of the Crackin’ Out online exhibit.

These images are what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is referred to in the exhibit, called “the decisive moment.” Or, as scholar John Suler, also quoted in the exhibit, described as “the moment when the visual and psychological elements of people in a real-life scene spontaneously and briefly come together in perfect resonance to express the essence of that situation.”

Rodeo was the first large, thematic body of work that Tessler did. Every project she undertook, she said, began when she “noticed themes coming out on my contact sheets and felt there was something I wanted to pursue. Each took about three years.”

Tessler’s Crackin’ Out was followed by her next major work, Israeli Suite, which was photographed over several visits to Israel. There was no similarity between these bodies of work and her last large project was different still – Jewish life in the West Kootenays.

As for the Jewish connections to the rodeo exhibit, Tessler observed, “I didn’t meet another Jew the entire time and did not encounter or make use of any specific Jewish values while doing the work. Many cowboys knew I was Jewish, and one asked what I was doing photographing a bull-riding school instead of watching Shoah on TV every night. I did enjoy the uniqueness of being an urban, Jewish woman with a family ‘goin’ down the road,’ putting myself on the line to record another way of life.”

Genge’s documentary Crackin’ Out: The Ronnie Tessler Rodeo Collection is part of the exhibit. It expands on the legacy of Tessler’s photography by exploring a multitude of perspectives on rodeo from such people as a stock contractor, a curator, a child of rodeo, a cowboy, an artist and a professor, as well as the archives intern who processed the collection.

“One photograph does not illustrate one idea. By speaking with eight different people, my aim was to bring their collection of voices together to elucidate an ever-shifting narrative of an image,” Genge said. “This film offers a brief glance at some of the distinct and disparate angles that create a multifaceted and, at times, conflicted understanding of Western Canadian rodeo.

“I endeavoured with this film to present aspects of rodeo frequently left untold, specifically its importance to Indigenous people, women and LGBTQ+ communities. It should be noted that, much like Tessler’s inherent presence in capturing these photographs, my subjectivity in curating them is unavoidable,” she added. “I am an unreliable witness who, six months ago, had never set foot at a rodeo, so my bias as an outsider is present throughout.”

The exhibit, which can be found at jewishmuseum.ca/exhibit/crackin-out, also features an hour-long video of its April 21 launch, which includes discussions with Tessler and Genge.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Pushing for more oversight

Members of the Jewish community, as well as members of various professional organizations, are calling on the government of British Columbia to do more to regulate practising therapists and counselors in the province.

According to the Federation of Associations of Counseling Therapists in British Columbia (FACTBC), which is at the forefront of the campaign for this change, there is currently no regulatory body for counseling therapists in the province and, therefore, there are no regulatory standards for the work that counseling therapists do.

As it stands, they claim, someone can call themselves a mental health professional in British Columbia without having the checks that exist elsewhere in Canada. This, FACTBC points out, differs significantly from Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, which have all established regulatory bodies to oversee who can become a mental health professional. And, they add, the remaining provinces have done more than British Columbia when it comes to the consideration of implementing regulation.

A member of the Jewish community recently came to the Independent with her story. In her attempts to remove a social worker from her mother’s life, she encountered what she believes were numerous inadequacies within the present system regarding the protection of the public’s interest and confidence.

“When we seek the help of doctors and nurses, there is a protected title that tells us the person is qualified and safe and that there is a professional regulator to back up this promise,” she said. “Regulation protects people from harm. I cannot change the events of the past, but I can take from that experience and do what I can to ensure that all our citizens are protected, moving forward.

“I knew,” she added, “and had confirmed by other counselors and social workers that what this registrant was doing was in violation of their professional code. I saw my mother become further isolated from friends and family, while her health continued to decline both mentally and physically, while in this registrant’s care.”

The community member filed a complaint with the B.C. College of Social Workers (BCCSW). “Through this experience, I saw firsthand the lack of transparency in the complaint and discipline process that gives social workers the ability to enter negotiated complaint resolution agreements (CRAs) in exchange for keeping matters confidential. How can the public have confidence in regulators if the public is not aware of actions taken by regulators to protect them?” she wondered.

The community member then did what many who lack the financial means could not: she filed a civil claim against the social worker. She was not looking for money, she told the Independent; rather, she was looking for accountability and safety.

In the end, the woman and her family received an apology from the registrant and a promise to not repeat the following conduct: failing to differentiate between professional and personal boundaries; creating a situation of dependence with clients; and failing to limit their practice within the parameters of their competence.

“The college, in their inquiry decision, acknowledged that the time the registrant spent with my mother and the amount the registrant billed were not reasonable. I am not sure I will ever be able to fully reconcile with the events that occurred over a three-year span at the hands of a social worker, who was a friend at the time, and [that] I helped facilitate the introduction to my vulnerable, senior mother,” the woman said.

“To help with my own personal healing,” she added, “I elected to join FACTBC’s stakeholder table. I hope to lend my voice to ensure social workers, counseling therapists and emergency medical assistants who deal with our most vulnerable citizens are recognized as health professionals and regulated under the Health Professions Act.”

For Shelley Karrel of Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS) Vancouver, the importance of regulation for counselors in British Columbia cannot be overstated. “For counselors working in the area of addiction and recovery, it is critical to know the importance of assessment, understanding the various stages of addiction, being able to identify the options available for treatment and recovery,” she said.

Karrel explained that understanding co-morbidity – i.e., the presence of one or more additional conditions – of mental health issues with addiction requires psychotherapists and counselors to have the proper training and education to know how to help clients deal with their various challenges.

“Having counseling fall under a regulated body will give clients the assurance they are dealing with qualified professionals who have to meet professional standards of practice, ongoing continuing education and clinical supervision,” she stated.

According to Glen Grigg, a Vancouver clinical counselor and the chair of FACTBC, “proper regulation will prevent consumers from harm. A consumer should not have to guess whether the therapist is equipped to deliver the services they promise. Moreover, when harm is done, it is important to know that a registrant’s college has the power to bring restoration and remediation when harm has occurred.”

FACTBC, which is comprised of 14 professional organizations that represent 6,000 mental health professionals in the province, is asking for safety and accountability. On professional title, it recommends one legislative authority and one coherent and fair process that prevents harm and has the power to act accordingly when harm has been done.

The B.C. government has said that it will first implement modernization of the health professions regulatory system – a step that FACTBC enthusiastically supports – and then give attention to the mental health system.

To Grigg, “this response comes down to saying, in effect, ‘despite the opioid crisis and mental health fallout from the pandemic, we can defer this issue.’ When pressed for what is intended after a new regulatory process is put into place, timeline unknown, the response is that government will ‘recommend’ that professions, such as counseling therapy and social work, become a ‘priority.’ A recommendation to a yet-to-be created bureaucracy falls far short of commitment and action.”

Grigg added, “FACTBC has been advocating for public protection where counseling therapy is concerned for more than 20 years and have heard, over and over, variations on the theme, ‘Yes, of course, we are going to protect the public, but later, at a time we’re not prepared to specify.’”

FACTBC does give the province credit for creating a Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions – a huge step forward, in their view, as was the $5 million the province put towards increasing mental health services. What the government needs to do to follow up on this momentum is to regulate counseling therapy, they assert.

At present there is no way of accurately ascertaining how many practising counselors there are in British Columbia. However, Grigg cites what Ontario discovered. In that province, in the time since they implemented statutory regulation on counseling therapists, they found that half the people providing services did not have any form of registration or certification.

“That’s dangerous,” said Grigg. “And we suspect that the situation in B.C. is similar but, because there is no central authority, even the scale of the problem is guesswork.”

He stressed, “It’s easy to see why this is so crucial. Suppose you were sick or injured and went to your local clinic or emergency department and discovered that it was up to you to figure out whether the people working there really were nurses and doctors, and whether they were qualified to provide care? That’s what people looking for counseling services are up against every day in B.C. There is no single title, like doctor or nurse or dentist or pharmacist, that identifies qualified and accountable counseling therapists.”

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Gala raises more than $350K

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Leonard Brody spoke with King David head of school Russ Klein about soccer, history, business, education and the pandemic at the Golden Threads Gala on May 13. (PR photo)

Entrepreneur Leonard Brody was the featured speaker at King David High School’s Golden Threads Gala on May 13, which attracted 600-plus viewers. The event raised more than $350,000 for the school from community donors in both live (via video stream) and silent auctions.

Hailed in the financial media for his innovative approach to thinking about management, Brody, who helped found the news site NowPublic, is an award-winning entrepreneur, venture capitalist and two-time Emmy Award nominee. He has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in start-up capital, taken a company to a $6 billion market capitalization at its initial public offering, and been involved in several other companies. Brody is also the co-author of two bestselling books, Innovation Nation: Canadian Leadership from Jurassic Park to Java and Everything I Needed to Know About Business … I Learned from a Canadian.

Before introducing Brody, King David head of school Russ Klein read through the speaker’s extensive curriculum vitae, calling it “one of the most impressive bios I have ever read.” The first question of the wide-ranging interview, though, had to do with Brody’s forays into owning professional sports teams.

“It sounds more glamorous than it is,” said Brody, who has been involved with European soccer clubs for almost 20 years and co-owner of the Coventry City Football Club for 10. “Coventry has arguably been one of the most challenging turnarounds in English football and we got promoted last season into the Championship League, and it looks like we will stay there next season. This is a big accomplishment for us. It’s been fun.”

Upon hearing of this success, Klein suggested Brody consider assisting the Vancouver Canucks, but then turned to more serious matters, asking about what Brody calls “pushing the reset button.”

Brody discussed historical cycles, beginning at the start of the Industrial Revolution, in about 1760. During several periods since then, something has triggered a reset, whether it be disease or war. Each of these cycles, said Brody, including our present circumstance, creates a “forced reality” and the question becomes “what is the behaviour that is going to stick?” It is a question “everyone on the planet is thinking about.”

The conversation then veered to the concept of “successful failure” in terms of what companies promise to the market and what they deliver. In Brody’s view, many sectors are “grossly over-promising” and “half-delivering” on their products. If a company can only attain half of its promise, it is, in Brody’s view, ahead of the market as a whole. Using the example of Tesla, he cited the company’s history of “overshooting a mark, creating a vision and taking customers with it” towards a higher-end goal.

On Klein’s question of whether post-secondary education is still necessary, Brody responded, “If you want to create a generation of profit-centric, money-hungry idiots, then, yes, you can avoid university.” However, he added, if you want to create a society of good citizens with critical thinking skills and the ability to be independent adults, then university education is still essential.

Brody himself holds a bachelor of arts (honours) from Queen’s University and a law degree from Osgoode Hall at York University; he is a graduate of the Private Equity Program at the Harvard Business School.

The last discussion point was the pandemic, which Brody deemed “one of the most well-managed human traumas ever.” While not discounting the tragedy inflicted on those who have fallen victim to the disease, Brody stated that we should emerge from this stage with “an unprecedented economic growth pattern.”

Currently, Brody is writing a new book in partnership with Forbes magazine, entitled The Great Re:Write, based on the successful documentary series he and Forbes produced – which has had an audience of more than seven million in the past year.

The Golden Thread Gala: Connecting Generations celebrated the community that nurtures King David High School, inspires the next generation of leaders, and was rooted in the appreciation of Jewish values and traditions. The inaugural gala highlighted a story of success told through generations, with education as the “golden thread weaving our past to our Jewish future.”

Live auction items included a “be head of the school day” for one lucky student, a set of Forevermark Black Label earrings, dinner with Russ and Deborah Klein, and a Nuevo Vallarta vacation package. Meanwhile, dozens of items, from paintings to cosmetics, weekend getaways to vintage B.C. wines, were available in the silent auction.

Emceeing the event was comedian Ivan Decker, a frequent guest on TV talk shows around North America, on Netflix and on CBC’s The Debaters. Media executive Howard Blank, past president and chair of Variety British Columbia and vice-president of the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame, was the auctioneer.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.