Sam Margolis

Sharing her testimony

Consolee Nishimwe, a Rwanda-born author, motivational speaker and survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi, spoke from New York on April 21 to an online audience as part of the In Conversation with a Survivor series hosted by Toronto’s Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Every year, between April and July, Rwandan communities around the world commemorate the tragic events of 1994 in a period known as Kwibuka, the Kinyarwanda word for “remember.” April 7 is International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, a time set aside to remember the victims, honour the survivors and reflect on the importance of preserving truth and memory.

From April 7 to July 19, 1994, 800,000 Tutsi, moderate Hutu and Twa were murdered by Hutu militias. According to the United Nations, between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during this period of extreme violence.

photo - Consolee Nishimwe spoke to an online audience April 21 as part the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s In Conversation with a Survivor series — Consolee Nishimwe spoke to an online audience April 21 as part the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s In Conversation with a Survivor series. *(photo from Consolee Nishimwe)*

“As a survivor, it’s not very easy to talk about it because what happened to us was painful. It’s not easy for any survivor to share their personal experience of what they have endured,” Nishimwe said.

“Even though it’s been many years, it still lives within us. For me, when I share, I always think about those who are not ready yet to share their testimonies, and I carry them within me.”

The daughter of schoolteachers in the western part of Rwanda, Nishimwe described her childhood as a happy one, with a large coterie of friends and family nearby. Nonetheless, life for the Tutsi was never easy, said Nishimwe, who was 14 years old when the genocide started.

In elementary school, teachers humiliated Tutsi students by having them stand up before the class to identify themselves as Tutsi. Later, the RTLM radio station and Rwandan newspapers would broadcast and publish propaganda aimed at dehumanizing Tutsi.

On April 6, 1994, a missile shot down a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, both of whom were Hutu. The Tutsi were blamed generally for the assassinations, RTLM radio said all Tutsi must be killed, and widespread violence ensued.

“It was very scary for all of us where we lived in our villages. As Tutsi, we had to run to seek refuge mostly with the Hutu, our neighbours, the people who were around us, the people we grew up with – my parents used to teach some of their children – and the people we went to church with,” Nishimwe said. “You never knew who was going to be kind. You never knew who was going to help because everyone changed, completely changed.”

On the run, with roadblocks all around managed by Hutu with clubs and machetes ready to kill Tutsi, her family – Nishimwe, her parents, three brothers and a sister – like other Tutsi, hid in the bushes and sought refuge in what they hoped would be friendly Hutu homes, not knowing how long they would be able to stay or if their hosts might turn on them. The potential consequences for harbouring Tutsi were severe.

Eventually, Nishimwe’s father thought it best that he separate from the family. Killers would find him on April 15, 1994. Shortly afterwards, her three brothers were also murdered.

Nishimwe, her mother and sister were captured by Hutu. While in captivity, Nishimwe was brutally raped and considers it a “miracle” that she survived.

Nishimwe talks of her mother as a true hero.

“She went back to teach [after the genocide]. She was able to remind my sister and me, and all of us around her, that we should never carry hatred within us, which was not going to be easy because of the pain we carry within ourselves. I’m grateful for her,” Nishimwe said.

“Going back to school, there was a lot of trauma and nightmares. But I had friends who had lost their entire families. I have friends who don’t even have anybody in their family. I’m one of the few survivors, at least, who has a parent.”

After moving to the United States in 2001, Nishimwe went to therapy. With that help, she began writing about her experiences, which, she said, enabled her to find some means of expressing what she had endured.

“It helped me to start journaling every painful experience that I’ve gone through and allowed me also to find words. Because, sometimes, when you have gone through extreme trauma, you don’t even have words to describe the pain you carry within yourself,” she said.

In 2012, Nishimwe published Tested to the Limit: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Pain, Resilience and Hope, an account of her experiences during the 1994 events and her life afterwards.

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

Eco-Sisters mentorship

Reut Mealem, left, and Shahaf Ella Salach are coordinators and mentors for Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Eco-Sisters program. (photo from BGU)

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Eco-Sisters allows graduate students to mentor first-year female students or students considering studying STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

“Our involvement in Eco-Sisters is both as coordinators and as mentors,” Reut Mealem, a PhD student in the department of information systems engineering, told the Independent of her and Shahaf Ella Salach’s connection to the program.

As a coordinator, Mealem – whose research focuses on applying machine learning methods to biological data to uncover meaningful insights – helps shape and guide the program’s activities, works closely with the mentors and supports the development of initiatives designed to encourage more female students to pursue STEM fields.

As a mentor, she provides direct support to women at different stages of their academic journey. This includes creating accessible channels of support, offering personalized guidance and building a community where women can ask questions, share concerns and feel less alone in the process.

“We chose to join Eco-Sisters as mentors because it is important to us to be a real source of support for women at the beginning of their journey and to offer guidance at eye level,” Mealem said.

Salach added that an involved mentor can make a meaningful difference by helping reduce uncertainty, organize information, support informed decision-making and strengthen the confidence that it is possible to succeed in academia while also enjoying the process.

“For us, personally, the program has highlighted the power of support and belonging. Meeting candidates and students, listening to them, guiding them and offering both practical and emotional tools has strengthened our sense of purpose. It gives us the opportunity to help other women take their first steps with greater confidence,” said Salach, a master’s student in mechanical engineering, whose research involves understanding the flow mechanism driving the cerebrospinal fluid in the brain.

Eco-Sisters was initiated in 2022 by Prof. Halleli Pinson, who served at the time as the president’s advisor for gender equity at BGU. The program was established as part of a broader national effort to promote gender equity in academia. Israel’s Council for Higher Education launched a five-year strategic plan in response to persistent gender gaps.

One of the clearest findings from the early research was the underrepresentation of women in STEM disciplines, despite these fields being both vital to the economy and offering strong professional opportunities.

“This underrepresentation is not seen as the result of innate differences, but rather as the outcome of long-standing social and educational patterns that often steer women away from STEM and toward more traditionally ‘feminine’ fields, typically associated with caregiving, interpersonal work and lower pay,” said Yael Hashiloni, a professor in the department of sociology and anthropology, who served as the president’s advisor for gender equity until October 2025.

“In response, increasing the number of women studying STEM became a national priority, and universities received dedicated funding to help advance this goal,” Hashiloni said.

Eco-Sisters was created to encourage women to take that first step into STEM fields and to support them along the way. The program does this through dedicated scholarships, mentoring and the creation of peer networks among women. These efforts are grounded in research showing that personal support, community and access to role models can play an important role in driving social change. Additionally, Eco-Sisters promotes women’s entrepreneurship through collaboration with the university’s entrepreneurship centre.

“This reflects not only a commitment to advancing women themselves, but also a broader understanding that diversity strengthens creativity, leads to more innovative solutions and helps address the needs of diverse communities in a more equitable way,” said Hashiloni.

Since its start, Eco-Sisters has supported dozens of female students, according to Hashlioni. And, this year, the program continued to grow, with the number of mentors increasing from 10 in 2025 to 13, and three additional university departments joining: computer science, software engineering and data engineering.

Last year’s program evaluation indicated strong mentor engagement and encouraging signs of increased women’s enrolment in the departments where the program has been active.

Mealem and Salach joined the program this year, so most of what they have seen by way of impact comes from their first conversations with prospective students, particularly during University Open Day, where they ran an Eco-Sisters booth and met young women considering STEM studies.

“Even in brief interactions, it was clear how much personal connection matters. Many were not only looking for information, but also for reassurance, encouragement and someone they could speak to openly,” said Mealem.

According to Salach, last year’s mentor survey reflected the program’s impact. Mentors described helping students with both practical and emotional aspects of the transition into university, from questions about registration and courses to the uncertainty that often comes with starting a degree.

“Many shared that the most meaningful part of the experience was knowing they had helped prospective students feel more confident and less alone,” Salach said of the mentors’ comments.

“From our experience so far,” she continued, “we feel that even a short conversation can make a difference. Seeing someone a little further along the same path can help prospective students imagine themselves there, too. That is part of what makes the program so meaningful: it gives women a welcoming first point of connection and helps them begin their journey with greater confidence.”

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

Education offers hope

Left to right: Minister and Solicitor General Nina Krieger, Holocaust survivor and keynote speaker Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Premier David Eby and survivor Leo Vogel at the Legislative Assembly on April 14. (photo from Province of BC)

The annual Yom Hashoah commemoration ceremony at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia took place on April 14, with political leaders, Holocaust survivors and representatives of the Vancouver and Victoria Jewish communities in attendance.

Raj Chouhan, speaker of the Assembly, started the proceedings. “Now, more than ever, it is important that we reflect on and remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and I stand in solidarity with you as we honour survivors today,” he said.

“When I think about the Holocaust, I think of the six million lives of men, women and children lost, the grief, the decimation of entire communities,” said Premier David Eby. “Beyond that, there is the extinguishment of so much potential that could have improved the world.”

Trevor Halford, interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, echoed the premier’s sentiment, calling the Holocaust a genocide unprecedented in its scale. “We lost men, women and children. We never got to see their full potential of what they could be or how they could change and impact this world,” he said. “We must call out hate every time we see it. Every time. Each one of us.”

Jeremy Valeriote, representing the BC Green Party, said that Yom Hashoah is not only a day of mourning but a call to action. “It reminds us of the dangers of hatred, antisemitism and indifference, and challenges us to confront injustice wherever we see it,” he said.

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, an author, educator and survivor, was the keynote speaker. She described a happy, ordinary childhood in Poland in the 1930s. Hers was an assimilated family that participated in Jewish life. Her father was a lawyer and her mother had a large social circle consisting of many friends, both Jewish and not Jewish. That all changed in September 1939.

“There isn’t a day that I don’t ask myself why I survived. How did I survive when six million of us perished, and 1.5 million were children? And one of them was my sister. I lost my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and the list goes on and on,” Boraks-Nemetz said.

Commemorations, such as the one in Victoria, will hopefully ensure that an “apocalyptic event” like the Holocaust never happens again, Boraks-Nemetz said. Through education, she said, we sow the seeds of truth and understanding, the lesson that racism, intolerance and prejudice must have no place in society.

Through the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Boraks-Nemetz and other survivors have spoken to thousands of schoolchildren in the province. She thanked Eby’s government for mandating Holocaust education for students in Grade 10. “Through such actions, we may find a glimmer of hope for a better future,” she said.

Boraks-Nemetz is the author of several books that reflect on her experiences as a survivor and subsequent life in Canada. Her award-winning young adult novel, The Old Brown Suitcase (1994), is used in school curricula to teach about the Holocaust and multiculturalism. Her most recent books are volumes of poetry, Out of the Dark (2020) and Hidden Vision: Poems of Transformation (2024), written under the name Jagna Boraks.

Towards the end of the commemoration, survivors Leo Vogel and Arlette Baker joined Boraks-Nemetz on stage to honour the victims of Nazi terror.

During the ceremony, Rabbi Meir Kaplan led attendees in prayer, and he reflected on how, over the last 20 years, the room had gone from being filled with survivors to having just a handful. Local community member Ari Hershberg read Boraks-Nemetz’s poem, “A Survivor Remembers the Six Million.”

Nina Krieger, minister of public safety and solicitor general, and former executive director of the VHEC, essentially led the proceedings.

“It’s by engaging with the Holocaust that we consider questions like, What is at stake to remain a bystander?” she said. “What are our obligations in times of moral crisis? We learn about the dangers of denial and distortion of history and memory.”

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

What makes us human

Michael Posner, author of Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories, was Kolot Mayim’s final speaker in this season’s Zoom lecture series. (photo from Michael Posner)

Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025/26 Zoom lecture series on Jewish music concluded April 12 with a talk by Michael Posner on Hallelujah and Beyond: Leonard Cohen’s Torah of Song.

Posner, a playwright, author and journalist living in Toronto, penned Leonard Cohen, Untold Stories, covering the musician’s life from his early years in Montreal to his death in Los Angeles in 2016. Posner drew on more than 500 interviews with Cohen’s family, friends and others to offer a complete portrait of the man and his art.

“It won’t surprise many of you to know that Leonard was a very complex character, a very complicated individual,” Posner said. “In fact, when I speak about the Jewish soul of Leonard Cohen, it’s necessary to attach what I would call an asterisk to that description. The asterisk is actually very appropriate to Leonard, and maybe essential, because he was a man of many moods and many masks, many manifestations and many contradictions.”

Cohen had a profoundly Jewish soul, according to Posner. Not only was he a kohanim (descendant of Jewish priests), but an ancestor was the unofficial chief rabbi of Montreal, his grandfather was a talmudic scholar and portraits of Cohen’s forefathers feature prominently on the walls of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal.

“From the time that he starts writing, as a teenager in the early 1950s, Jewish themes and motifs, Jewish imagery and history infuse his art – they are a very essential part of the first four books of poetry that he wrote,” Posner said.

It is through his music, however, that Cohen achieved international fame, and many of his songs “cleverly exploit Jewish ideas and scripture,” said Posner.

In “Who by Fire,” for example, which echoes the Unetaneh Tokef prayer of the High Holy Days, Cohen is not rejecting faith, so much as trying to establish, in the wake of the Holocaust, the grounds of continuing faith, argues Posner.

“The metaphor here,” he said, “is a kind of corporate secretary fielding phone calls on behalf of humanity itself, some of whom will live and some of whom will die in the next year, according to the decree of the caller. But who, exactly, is the caller? Who is at the other end of the line? Dear God, it’s me, Leonard. Are you still there? Can you please identify yourself? This is a theme that Cohen mines continually.”

In “Hallelujah,” Posner spots irony in the line, “There was a time you let me know / What’s really going on below / But now you never show it to me, do you?”

The song is often perceived as a celebration of God, but, Posner said, “I don’t think people have paid close enough attention to the lyric, because the lyric is really saying, we want to believe in you, God, but it’s not that simple.”

Posner discussed Cohen’s struggles with established Judaism and his spiritual exploration that delved into other faiths, including Christianity, I Ching and Sufism; Cohen was devoted to Rinzai Zen Buddhism and ordained as a monk in 1996. Nonetheless, there were several aspects of Judaism that Cohen honoured.

“In the 1970s, he began to study with a Chabad rabbi in Montreal and routinely traveled when he was on tour with his tallis and tefillin bags,” Posner said. “In later life, he joined a synagogue in Los Angeles, whose rabbi, Mordecai Finley, was deeply steeped in kabbalah. And, later still, he studied online with Yakov Leib HaKohain, another rabbi who was immersed in the mystical aspects of Judaism.”

Cohen, in Posner’s view, touched upon everything that is human – magnificent, brilliant, humorous and generous, yet capable of being cynical, depressed, angry and jealous.

“I think that is really what I ultimately draw from this fantastic human being – that enormous complexity, an enormous soul that tried to reach beyond our everyday lives and look at the enduring qualities that make us human,” Posner said.

Kolot Mayim’s next series starts in November, with the theme of “Lech Lecha: Journeys of the Soul.”

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

What is Jewish music?

On March 8, Joshua Jacobson, professor emeritus of music at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., spoke on the topic Jewish Music: What’s That?

photo - Prof. Joshua Jacobson was the latest speaker in Kolot Mayim’s Voices of Jewish Music series — Prof. Joshua Jacobson was the latest speaker in Kolot Mayim’s Voices of Jewish Music series. *(internet photo)*

The Zoom lecture was the fifth of six talks in Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025/26 Voices of Jewish Music series.

How can music even be Jewish? Jacobson asked. Does music keep kosher? Is music circumcised? Did music have a bat mitzvah? He played an excerpt of African-American clarinetist Don Byron performing the klezmer number “Der Nayer Doyne.”

“You don’t have to be Jewish to compose or perform Jewish music,” he said. “And that’s why I prefer the terminology, the music of the Jewish people. Although I will admit that, for the sake of convenience, I often do use the term Jewish music.”

But the question of what constitutes Jewishness remains. The word represents an ever-widening expanse, including an abundance of liturgical music, a vast array of music influenced by the cultures in which Jews have lived and the languages they have spoken, and the contributions of Jews who have entered the community by choice.

“There is no single Judaism, not anymore. It’s a big tent,” Jacobson said.

One school of thought Jacobson pointed to came from Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch, who said, “Racial consciousness is something that every great artist must have. A composer who says something is not only himself, he is his forefathers. He is his people.”

Leonard Bernstein wrote in his senior thesis at Harvard University in 1939: “It is easily understandable that a composer whose parents were immigrants still maintains a close contact with the old racial traditions. If their traditions are part of his childhood, they are inevitably part of his life.”

Jacobson played Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” to illustrate that any music composed by a Jew could be considered Jewish music.

The Nazis, however, defined Jewish in purely racial terms, Jacobson said. They would not allow any music written by a Jew to be heard or even studied in Germany and German-controlled countries. Nor would the Nazis allow Jewish-German conductor Bruno Walter to lead a concert of Ludwig van Beethoven’s works. Jews, the Nazis believed, would spoil the music with their “Jewish accent.”

Jacobson played excerpts of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, asking if members of the audience could distinguish between a performance led by Walter and one by conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.

“How many of you think that the first one was conducted by a Jew? How many of you think the second one was conducted by a Jew? How many of you think that it’s a ridiculous question? – which, of course, it is. Did one of these have a discernible ‘Jewish accent’? No,” Jacobson said.

image - In his March 8 talk, Prof. Joshua Jacobson gave Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as an example of how any music composed by a Jew could be considered Jewish music — In his March 8 talk, Prof. Joshua Jacobson gave Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as an example of how any music composed by a Jew could be considered Jewish music. *(internet image)*

Defining what constitutes Jewish music by what exists within borders or, as in much of Jewish history, in exile, can be an equally insurmountable task. As an example, Jacobson played part of a track from Arab-Israeli hip-hop group DAM, which is in Hebrew.

Many Israelis write music that doesn’t sound geographically constrained, he said.

Nonetheless, the professor did offer a definition of traditional Jewish music in his talk, saying it is music that has been used – whether sung, played or listened to – by Jews more than by other people, and, therefore, it has become associated with Jewish people.

Cantillation, the way the Torah and other biblical books are chanted, is the oldest form of Jewish music, Jacobson said. Demonstrating the cantillation styles of Babylonian, German and Yemenite Jews, he showed that the practice is similar, although not entirely the same, in Jewish communities throughout the world.

“Some scholars think that these are variations on an ancient theme, he said. “The variations are due to acculturation. German cantillation betrays the influence of German music. Yemenite cantillation betrays the influence of the culture in which they lived, the Yemenite culture.”

Jacobson said we find Jewish music in many styles and periods, and perhaps the problem in seeking a definition is that there are so many Jewish “musics.” He returned to Bloch, who once said that he could not say what Jewish music is, but one knows it when it is heard. According to Bloch, “It is something that both you and I can recognize and feel, even if we cannot analyze it.”

To Jacobson, the term Jewish music “is itself a wide tent in which all may not agree on a definition, but it’s something that we cherish, and something that fulfils us.”

An authority on Jewish music, Jacobson is also the founder and director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston. He has guest-conducted many ensembles, including the Boston Pops Orchestra, the Bulgarian National Symphony and Chorus, the New England Conservatory Orchestra and the Boston Lyric Opera Company. He has written articles on various aspects of choral music and has published more than 100 compositions and arrangements.

The final speaker in this year’s Voices of Jewish Music series is author Michael Posner on April 12 at 11 a.m. Posner will explore Leonard Cohen’s Jewish heritage, philosophy and musical legacy – and how Judaism influenced Cohen’s lyrics, philosophy and life. For more information, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

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

Creating entrepreneurs

Yazamut 360° co-founder and general manager Dana Gavish, left, and Gadi Bahat, an entrepreneur who heads Yazamut’s academic programs. (photos from bgu.ac.il)

Representatives from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s entrepreneurship centre, Yazamut 360°, will be coming to Vancouver in April.

Yazamut – which means entrepreneurship in Hebrew – aims to provide the BGU community with the skills and mentality to excel in any career. It also promotes innovation.

Since its establishment in 2018, Yazamut 360° has seen more than 240 startups and ventures created, had more than 2,000 program participants, fostered an entrepreneurial community of 11,000+ members, and had more than $45 million invested in its companies.

“It was clear to us from the very beginning that, if we’re starting a new entrepreneurship centre at BGU, it needs to be special. We decided to touch very different audiences because entrepreneurship for us is a set of skills, and that set of skills needs to be mastered by everyone,” Dana Gavish, Yazamut’s co-founder and general manager, told the Independent.

“With these different audiences in mind, we went on to develop nine different programs that would match these different audiences and would be the correct ones for entrepreneurship. But the one thing that they all have in common is the idea that you need a learning-by-doing experience.”

Those who enrol in Yazamut are taught such skills as putting together a team, examining problems and solving them, coming up with ideas, conveying messages, presenting in front of a crowd and, on occasion, rejecting a first idea and pursuing another. Yazamut trains participants to move out of their comfort zones towards greater resilience and mental toughness.

“It’s a difficult journey but, when you graduate, you are self-empowered and better educated when you go out to the outer world,” said Gavish, who emphasized that students from across the university are coming to the centre because they see value in what it offers.

“Our graduates really aim high and reach high. We know that they’re hunted today by HR [human resources] specialists from different companies and VCs [venture capitalists]. They’re more daring, and they are employed in wonderful places.”

Among its entrepreneurial offerings, Yazamut features a leaders program that not only teaches entrepreneurship and other skills but forces students to take a fresh look at how they run things, how they manage other people, and how they manage their relationship with failure, said Gadi Bahat, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with extensive experience in Israel’s tech sector, who heads Yazamut’s academic programs.

“If you want to be a good entrepreneur, it’s not enough that you know how to build a startup. It’s not enough that you know how to measure the right pricing or how to get penetration into the right market,” he said. “You also need to be a different type of person, and that goes into your ability to talk with people. It goes to your ability to present yourself in the right way. It goes to your ability to survive this roller-coaster period. Because, as an entrepreneur, you get a lot of ‘no.’ You get a lot of problems.”

According to Bahat, participants in the program do not come solely from science, engineering and technology backgrounds. Almost half are from other fields, such as medicine and the social sciences. In total, 18 different BGU departments are represented in Yazamut, and half of the participants are women. The startups created, therefore, have sprung from many fields, including medical technology, agriculture and software development.

On April 12, Gavish and some of the entrepreneurs in Yazamut’s leaders program will be in Vancouver for Spark to Startup: Resilience Ignites Leaders. The event will feature the “RBC Lion’s Den,” which will see BGU student entrepreneurs pitching their ventures to a panel of judges and the audience, with a focus on the Negev.

“They will be presenting a potential solution, products and potential markets,” Gavish explained.“It will be a taste for the audience of how we teach entrepreneurship at BGU. The kind of experience these guys get is literally priceless. No other university teaches like it.”

The winning team will receive a monetary prize.

The keynote speaker for the Spark to Startup event will be Saul Singer, an advisor to various companies and nonprofits, who, with Dan Senor, wrote Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle and The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Troubled World. Michael Fugman, with PearTree Canada, will be honoured for his entrepreneurship and leadership, both in work and community. Martin Thibodeau, regional president of RBC British Columbia, and his wife Caroline Desrosiers, a community leader and advocate, are the event’s honorary co-chairs.

For more information, visit bengurion.ca/events/vancouver-events/spark-to-start-up.

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

Songs in war of peace

Naomi Cohn Zentner shared how music in the time of war can offer resilience and hope. (photo from Naomi Cohn Zentner)

Earlier this month, ethnomusicologist Naomi Cohn Zentner gave the lecture Music and War: An Optimistic View. Her talk was the fourth in Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025/26 Many Voices of Jewish Music Zoom series.

Speaking from Israel, Cohn Zentner, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, examined how music in the time of war can offer resilience and hope, and is not solely about tragedy and mourning. She started with a photograph of Leonard Cohen and Israeli musician Matti Caspi, who passed away on Feb. 8, the day of her talk. The pair were performing for soldiers during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Ariel Sharon at their side.

Cohn Zentner then played two songs, composed more than a century apart: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written during the American Civil War, and a 1967 performance by the Nachal Entertainment Troupe called “Hallelujah.”

Contrasting the two, Cohn Zentner argued that the former is a sacralizing, providential song in the war hymn tradition, seeing war very much within a religious way of life and values, while the Israeli song – with lines such as, “If there were no need for rifles anymore, then we would sing ‘Hallelujah’” and “If children could play by the border, then you’d hear their mothers sigh in relief, ‘Hallelujah’” – offers a hope for peace, or a prayer for peace.

“It’s an Israeli war song tradition, which shows just how important peace was in these fighting units,” Cohn Zentner said. “We can see this as two opposing examples of what war songs are about.

“The religious hymn of the Civil War is ‘Glory, Hallelujah.’ The conflict itself is very religious and violence, while terrifying, is also cleansing and purifying, and death and martyrdom make men free,” she said. In the Israeli song, war is de-romanticized, death is not glorified but used as a reason to end wars, life itself is considered holy, peace is the desired goal, and the music is more national and secular in outlook.

Last year, on the Israeli reality show, Hakokhav Haba (Rising Star), during which a contestant is chosen to represent the country at Eurovision, Daniel Weiss, from Kibbutz Be’eri, selected Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as one of his songs. Weiss, who lost both of his parents during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, performed a duet with Arab singer Valerie Hamaty in both Hebrew and Arabic.

“Of course, this image was so powerful and iconic – of them singing this song together in Hebrew and Arabic after everything that had happened. It was a very emotional moment,” Cohn Zentner said.

Another song Weiss performed, in honour of his parents, was “Ani Guitar” (“I Am a Guitar”) by Naomi Shemer, which contains the lyric “I remember all those who played on me before, and I say thank you.”

“This symbolic issue of a guitar, which used to be a tree, but still has in it the ability to thank all those who [have] played on him … is very, very emotional,” she said.

Weiss lost out to Yuval Raphael in the contest to represent Israel. Raphael, a survivor of the Nova music festival, performed ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” as her final song in the show. She dedicated it to those who died at Nova.

“I sing about the angels who weren’t fortunate enough to be here now. It hurts because I had this chance not only to come back [from the festival] and to live, but to fulfil my dream. There are those who stayed there, and the shadow behind me is the only thing left of them,” said Raphael, who went on to place second in the 2025 Eurovision with the song “New Day Will Rise.”

At the end of her talk, Cohn Zentner played “Not Alone,” a song penned by Doror Talmon of the band Jane Bordeaux in the weeks following Oct. 7. The song speaks to the feelings of being in the close-knit community of a kibbutz in which everyone has a role and nobody is dispensable; if one person is lost, it affects the entire community.

“The song starts by telling us about all the sad and tragic things that happened, and asks who is going to bring the kibbutz back to what it was,” Cohn Zentner said.

Then, she pointed out, there is a shift in the song to where it answers, “We’ll all extend a hand, we are not alone, and we are partners in fate, in pain and in love, as one people. We will cry and we will overcome, we’re not going to break, we’re going to come together, we have each other, the roots of the trees will go into the earth, and we’re going to be rebuilding.”

The next speaker in Kolot Mayim’s series is Joshua Jacobson, an author, composer and choral director. Jacobson, professor emeritus of music at Northeastern University in Boston, will delve into the history and ongoing evolution of Jewish music in his April 5 talk, Jewish Music: What’s That? For more information, go to kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

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

Victoria club’s many benefits

Since August 2025, a group of enterprising individuals from the Greater Victoria community has been gathering at various venues to discuss prospects, offer guidance and bounce ideas off one another as part of the area’s Jewish Business Club.

photo. -The Jewish Business Club in Victoria offers business owners the chance to create networks and get to know one another. The next gathering takes place Feb. 26 — The Jewish Business Club in Victoria offers business owners the chance to create networks and get to know one another. The next gathering takes place Feb. 26. *(photo by Joe Mabel / flickr)*

The group was guided into its current form by Elvira Molochkovetski, who took on the role of community connector in Victoria last summer. The role is a joint position of the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island (JFVVI) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. Other community connectors can be found in the Okanagan, Salt Spring Island, the Comox Valley, South Delta and Squamish.

According to Molochkovetski, some local businesspeople, who had established friendships through their ventures, had been meeting informally and sporadically over coffee for a couple of years.

“We just created something more structured, giving them a space, a reason and a schedule to meet and invite more people,” she said. “The goal was the same goal they always had: create networks, support each other and get to know each other. And many new connections were created through those meetings already.”

Attendees, who come from different backgrounds and places, and represent a range of business sectors, participate in the club, which, Molochkovetski stressed, is open to all. Some, like Molochkovetski, have come to Victoria from Winnipeg, where a similar club was formed at the Rady Jewish Community Centre.

Young entrepreneurs, she said, have also joined because they have ideas for businesses and want to see what other business owners think, or to find out what is happening in a particular market. In some cases, more experienced entrepreneurs have served in a mentor-like capacity.

“When you are business-oriented, you love spending time with other business-oriented people,” Molochkovetski said. “We had a few young people who just … bought a condo and want to rent it out. So, they joined and received some advice from people who had experience in this kind of business before.”

The club’s meetings often start with an introductory circle. Participants can bring promotional materials, share information about their business and ask questions. Meetings can include playing business-oriented games, solving problems or suggesting what one might like to do or invest in within the community.

At one of the Jewish Business Club’s meetings, a member welcomed everyone to his house to sample some of his culinary creations, as his business centres around the food industry.

Molochkovetski added that the meetings have brought in people who have not maintained ties to Jewish organizations yet feel connected to the community through the club.

One regular attendee who has found the gatherings beneficial is Felix Gelman, who runs Alpha Victoria HVAC Ltd., a company that installs residential heat pumps in Victoria and surrounding communities.

“The Jewish Business Club in Victoria is a strong opportunity to connect with fellow Jewish business owners, exchange referrals and build real local relationships,” Gelman told the Independent. “It’s also an effective way for people to learn what you do, while gaining insight from others’ experiences in the Victoria business community.”

Gelman opened Alpha Victoria HVAC in 2022 after relocating from Winnipeg, where he still operates an active HVAC business specializing in furnaces, air conditioners, heat pumps, ventilation and indoor air quality systems.

Originally from Israel, Gelman, a Red Seal refrigeration mechanic with 30 years of experience in residential HVAC systems, immigrated to Canada in 2005. He is also a licensed general contractor. On Vancouver Island, he helps homeowners build garden suites and lane houses, either to generate rental income or accommodate family members.

In total, roughly 35 people have attended Jewish Business Club meetings in the past six months, with 12 to 15 generally showing up each time. Meetings alternate between mornings and evenings to fit the different schedules of those in the community.

The next get-together is planned for Feb. 26, 7:30 p.m., at a restaurant in the Westshore region of Greater Victoria. The location will be provided upon registration to those who wish to attend.

Billed as the “Jewish Business Club Night Out,” the event will offer opportunities to share and introduce businesses, chat with fellow entrepreneurs and enjoy a light snack and soft drinks.

“Whether you’re just starting out or growing an established business, this is a chance to connect, collaborate and support one another’s success,” said the organizers.

To register for the upcoming event, visit jewishvancouver.com/jewish-business-club.

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

Avodah dedicated to helping

Members of Congregation Emanu-El’s Avodah at last year’s Coldest Night of the Year event. (photo by Penny Tennenhouse)

A 12-member team from Avodah, the social-action arm of Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El, will be participating for the ninth time in the Coldest Night of the Year, a fundraising walk to support various charities that help people experiencing poverty and homelessness, on Feb. 28.

Funds raised by Avodah will go to Our Place Society, which provides more than 1,400 meals a day, as well as shelter, supportive housing, hot showers, paramedic services and other assistance. It is Vancouver Island’s only long-term therapeutic recovery community.

Penny Tennenhouse, a central figure in Avodah since its inception, said the name of the fundraising event, the Coldest Night of the Year, is misleading – and not because of the temperature reading on a thermometer.

“I call it the warmest night of the year. It’s festive, actually. It’s love in motion because it’s enjoyable to come together, especially after the pandemic. And it’s enjoyable because we feel good about what we’re doing and we know it’s important,” she said.

This year, Avodah’s participation will be in honour of Annette Wigod’s 99th birthday. Wigod has been a regular presence in Avodah’s efforts. Her daughter, Eve Abrams, will be walking with the Avodah team.

“Annette has been involved with Avodah for many years. She used to come every month with me to Our Place to serve ice cream and cake. She’s a very caring and dedicated person,” Tennenhouse said.

photo - Avodah at last year’s Coldest Night of the Year event — Avodah at last year’s Coldest Night of the Year event. *(photo by Penny Tennenhouse)*

There are 47 groups and 224 walkers taking part in the 2026 Victoria event, which is divided into two- and five-kilometre routes.

As of press time, Avodah’s team had raised $6,702, which placed them second in terms of fundraising among the groups participating.

Over the last three years, Avodah has raised more than $21,000 for Our Place. Collectively, after this most recent walk, it hopes to exceed $50,000 in funds raised since the group first started participating.

“There’s one woman I have to mention, Debbie Yaffe, who I consider my partner in originating this involvement. She’s been amazing,” said Tennenhouse.

As of earlier this week, Yaffe had raised $2,221, with 30 people donating to her walk, placing her second on the Coldest Night of the Year scoreboard. Tennenhouse, who had raised $1,425 with 18 donors, was in sixth place.

Across Canada, there will be fundraising walks in 222 locations for the Coldest Night of the Year. Nationally, the walks are organized by the Blue Sea Foundation, which is based in Kitchener, Ont.

Avodah was inspired by Rabbi Harry Brechner, who wrote in the synagogue’s newsletter in 2003 that the core beliefs of Judaism – care for one’s neighbour, acts of loving kindness, repairing the world – should be put into practice. Avodah can be translated from Hebrew as work or service.

“Within about a nanosecond of the rabbi’s post, a few other people and I responded that we wanted to be involved in such an initiative,” said Tennenhouse. “Because we were starting from scratch, we thought we would support those groups that are already in existence that are devoted and dedicated to serving people in dire need, vulnerable people in our community.”

Brechner, who retired in 2025 after serving the congregation for 24 years, remains active in the community and holds the title of rabbi emeritus.

Avodah’s outreach over the years has included offering shelter at the synagogue to youth experiencing homelessness, giving away thousands of pairs of socks to people living on the street and serving up annual lunches during Hanukkah at Our Place, located a block away from the shul.

“We’ve had a long history in supporting these groups, and it’s been made possible largely through the support of our congregation, because, if we didn’t get the support of our congregation, we wouldn’t be able to do these things,” Tennenhouse said. “We provide financial resources, but we also think it’s important to volunteer our actual time and energy to be connected to people that way as well.”

In addition to Our Place, Avodah gives financial and volunteer support to organizations such as the Burnside Gorge Community Centre, the Quadra Village Community Centre, 1Up Victoria Single Parent Resource Centre, St. John the Divine’s Food Bank and SOLID Outreach, a group that provides harm reduction for those on the street.

Every Thursday, several Avodah volunteers serve meals, clean tables and engage with visitors at a free lunch sponsored by the James Bay United Church. Monthly, Avodah provides “good food boxes,” fresh fruit and vegetables, to families of students at an inner-city school.

In addition to donations from Emanu-El members, Avodah receives support from Vancouver’s Betty Averbach Foundation.

For more information about Victoria’s Coldest Night of the Year, visit en.cnoy.org/location/victoriapandora. To find a walk near you, go to cnoy.org/locations.

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

Broadway’s Jewish storylines

David Benkof, the Broadway Maven, spoke on Jan. 11 as part of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025-26 Voices of Jewish Music series. (photo from David Benkof)

David Benkof, the Broadway Maven, visited Victoria recently, to give a talk titled Spotlight on Jewish Broadway, on Jan. 11. He began with a clip from the musical Spamalot, which, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, asserts that a potential show may have the finest sets, the loveliest costumes and the best shoes, yet it “won’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jews.”

“The joke is that Jews wrote Broadway, Jews perform Broadway, Jews produce Broadway – and that’s true. It’s historically true, it’s statistically true, and it’s been said so many times that it barely counts as an insight anymore,” Benkof said.

Although seemingly innumerable Jews – Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Barbra Streisand, to name a mere few – may be associated with Broadway, Benkof encouraged the audience to consider the meaning of “Jewish Broadway” as something beyond the names of those who created and performed in well-known shows. Rather, he asked those attending in person and on Zoom to think in terms of Jewish-related themes: assimilation, reinvention, insecurity, exile, visibility and ambivalence.

“I want to go a step further,” he said, “and argue that Broadway isn’t primarily Jewish because of the people involved, but because of the very sensibility of the art form. Broadway is Jewish because its plots, themes and character arcs reflect the Jewish experience in North America.”

With clips from Hairspray, Hello, Dolly, A Chorus Line and Chicago, Benkof demonstrated that, while characters and plots were not overtly Jewish, or Jewish at all, there are invariably elements – such as restlessness, striving and defensiveness – that make them feel deeply Jewish.

“It grows out of histories of conditional welcome, where excellence becomes a survival strategy and visibility is both opportunity and danger,” said Benkof. “Broadway characters don’t assume that the room loves them. They hustle to make the room need them. That’s why Broadway feels Jewish even when Jews are nowhere in sight.”

Hairspray, for example, makes no claim that the characters are Jewish. It is method, not identity, according to Benkof, that makes it Jewish. The lead character does not want to tear down the system; she seeks to join it, he pointed out.

“The belief that assimilation is both a strategy and an ethical good is deeply Jewish in a North American context,” Benkof said.

“The combination of idealism, anxiety, and faith that the system can be nudged towards justice if you appeal to its conscience is not universal,” he argued. “It’s a Jewish sensibility operating inside a story that never needs to say the word Jewish out loud, which makes Hairspray slightly subversive, like quite a bit of postwar Jewish art.”

By the end of his Victoria lecture, audience members were able to find Jewish themes in musicals that, on the surface, seem far removed from the Jewish experience: The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera, The Sound of Music, even The Book of Mormon (think reinvention).

In the example of The Sound of Music, audience members found that its themes of escape, persecution and fear were elements that could be perceived as related to the Jewish experience.

Congratulating the audience, Benkof said, “We could have said, Richard Rodgers was Jewish and, therefore, The Sound of Music is Jewish. That is true and boring. What we have been able to do here today is think about how you won’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jewishness, as opposed to just Jews.”

Benkof also discussed a Canadian connection to Jewish Broadway, Come from Away, a musical about the care of thousands of travelers, who, after Sept. 11, 2001, had their flights diverted to Gander, Nfld.

In 2024, Benkof made a trip to Gander to see a performance of the show, written by Canadians David Hein and Irene Sankoff.

“I got to go and meet some of the people who had done it,” he said. “They welcomed people into their home and their community, and that, I think, is a very Jewish theme.”

Benkof’s website, broadwaymaven.com, offers five to 15 classes every month. In January, for example, the online educational community had classes on the musicals of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, on Pal Joey, and a 50th anniversary roundtable on Pacific Overtures by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman. Upcoming events include classes on Sweeney Todd, Evita, Kiss Me, Kate and Cats, among others. Benkof also posts weekly about Broadway on Substack: substack.com/@thebroadwaymaven.

Benkof’s talk was the third lecture in Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025-26 Voices of Jewish Music series, part of the Vancouver Island shul’s annual Building Bridges program. The next in the series will be from Naomi Cohn Zentner, an ethno-musicologist at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, on Feb. 8. Her talk – Music and War: An Optimistic View – will examine how Israeli musicians have responded to recent historic events and explore music’s role in processing grief, inspiring resilience and connecting community in times of crisis. Visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

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