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"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

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Byline: Zach Sagorin

Have a business idea?

Have a business idea?

Gilad Babchuk of Groundswell speaks at Shtick Tank on April 27. (photo by Lior Noyman)

The Shtick Tank is a new platform for young Jewish entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas for the community and gain funding, support and mentorship to develop a start-up. At the showcase celebration on April 27 at the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel, four finalists – chosen from a variety of pitches – presented their business ideas to the 50-plus community members who attended the event.

Of the finalists – Alice Henry, Oded and Alon Aminov, Jarred Joffe and Tamir Barzilai – the audience selected Barzilai as the winner of the prize funding and mentorship by Gilad Babchuk of Groundswell and its Social Venture Incubator Program.

Henry presented an app called Equip, which helps users obtain the equipment they need for the experiences they want, and the Aminov brothers showcased PinPointRC, which offers worldwide drone tracking from the user’s phone. Joffe presented a smartphone application that can be used for field engineers to enhance recordkeeping, while Barzilai shared the concept of his app called Honeycomb, which identifies nearby restaurants based on dietary preferences.

The crowd seemed enthusiastic about all the ideas, asking questions of each participant after their pitch, often focusing on marketability and revenue-generation. Barzilai’s Honeycomb appeared to receive the most enthusiasm because of its utility and the potential to increase its scale by getting restaurants and food and hotel chains to register to be featured on the app.

In addition to potential market value, Barzilai’s knowledge of the market and of the artificial intelligence used by his app generated interest in the crowd. Honeycomb can be followed on Twitter (@honeycombapp) and is available in the App Store.

photo - Simon Krakovsky, left, and Brent Davis
Simon Krakovsky, left, and Brent Davis. (photo by Lior Noyman)

Shtick Tank is also a networking opportunity for future business leaders and it is run with the help of a committee of young Jewish professionals. The organizing committee has been spearheaded by Stephanie Mrakovich and includes Brent Davis, Andrea Hirsch, Simon Krakovsky, Zach Sagorin, Alex Shafran and Adelle Tepper, with support from Alana Mizrahi and Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu, who serves as the director of the Kollel.

Yeshayahu said the Kollel works “to reach out to non-affiliated and disengaged adults ages 24-50 by creating and promoting exciting and meaningful social, cultural and educational programs that invite people to experience Judaism (sometimes for the first time) in an inclusive, comfortable, joyful and nonjudgmental environment.”

He described the organization’s mandate as one of “connection” and said that the Business Network and Shtick Tank are perfect opportunities “to support individuals to realize their dream, while providing a platform for all applicants, attendees, sponsors and community members to connect with each other and network effectively.”

Shtick Tank, which is sponsored by Barry and Lauri Glotman and Dax Dasilva of Lightspeed, is currently accepting applications for its next event. Interested community members must submit their business ideas within technology, urban agriculture, social justice, social entrepreneurship, education, the arts, etc., by June 30, 7:30 p.m., to thekollel.com/events/shtick-tank-application-deadline. As with the first program, four finalists will be chosen to present their ideas (at the end of the summer) and the idea with the most votes will receive mentoring with Groundswell and some seed money.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer. He is on the organizing committee of Shtick Tank.

Format ImagePosted on June 9, 2017June 7, 2017Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags business, Groundswell, high-tech, Honeycomb, Kollel, Shmulik Yeshayahu, Shtick Tank
Creating dialogue, friends

Creating dialogue, friends

The Peace Factory founders Joana Osman and Ronny Edry spoke at the University of British Columbia on Feb. 6. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

“Israel loves Iran,” “Palestine loves Israel,” “Israel loves Palestine,” “Iran loves Israel & Palestine.” The Peace Factory uses social media to connect people in the Middle East, to build relationships and see one another as human beings with visions of peace.

“People may not like the idea of inclusion, the idea of welcoming everyone, but that’s why we are here – to invite those people to learn about the various cultures and faiths that are around us,” said Shem Arce when introducing the Active Community Dialogue (ACD) event Make a Friend, Make Peace. “With some dialogue and understanding we can create a community for everyone – no matter their religion, culture or ethnic background.”

Arce, a University of British Columbia film studies student from Mexico, recently began ACD with the goal of combating discrimination through meaningful, respectful dialogue and interactions.

ACD’s Make a Friend, Make Peace event on Feb. 6 featured a presentation from the founders of the Peace Factory: Ronny Edry, an Israeli graphic designer living in Tel Aviv, and Joana Osman, a Palestinian living in Munich. The pair also spoke at King David High School.

image - Israeli graphic designer Ronny Edry sent this poster out in 2012, when Israel was considering a preemptive strike against Iran
Israeli graphic designer Ronny Edry sent this poster out in 2012, when Israel was considering a preemptive strike against Iran.

The UBC event drew dozens of people, and Edry showed the crowd a poster he uploaded to Facebook in 2012, when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “was calling for preemptive strike on Iran,” when “it was quite stressing.”

The graphic designer decided to send something else to Iran. He designed a brightly coloured poster with a photo of him holding his daughter and bold text declaring, “Iranians / we will never bomb your country / We ♥ You.” Edry told the audience that the “five first comments were ‘delete it’” but, after leaving the poster online, he was surprised to find that “Iranians were commenting on the picture” and a line of communication was created.

“If something works, do it again,” said Edry. Soon, he added, “a lot of Iranians and Israelis started having a conversation.”

Interestingly, the security guard of the ACD event, an Iranian-Canadian man, had participated in the Peace Factory movement.

“When you don’t know someone and you close your eyes and think of the enemy, you end up thinking of some kind of monster,” said Edry. In Israel, “most of the time on the TV, they won’t show you the nice people of Iran.”

But, after starting the “Israel loves Iran” campaign, Edry received pictures from Iranians wanting to join. The movement has enabled many Iranians and Israelis to connect and build friendships online. And it continues to grow, with more than 121,000 likes and more than one million unique visitors each week to the “Israel loves Iran” Facebook page and more than two million views of Edry’s Ted Talk. The movement is continuing, with “both sides sharing stories and pictures of themselves,” said Edry.

With the success of “Israel loves Iran,” Edry said people were “coming up to me and saying, ‘Why don’t you do the same campaign with the Palestinians?’”

Soon after, Osman founded the group “Palestine loves Israel” to create a platform for Palestinians and Israelis to get to know one another through social media.

Together, Edry and Osman created the Peace Factory to “try to rehumanize the [other side] and give them a face and a story.”

Osman said building these connections “changes everything because, once you make a friend on the other side, everything changes for you.”

Osman said she asked herself, “As one person what can you do?” Her answer was, “You can be part of the change and you start communicating … if you can change one person’s mind, that may be enough.”

She added, “The enemy is nothing like you have in your mind … and, when you get to see his face and you see nice people,” you realize “they are not that bad.”

The Peace Factory’s vision is of a free and democratic Middle East, and they intend to build bridges and friendships to connect people with the same vision.

“It is not that we deny there is a conflict,” Osman said. “We have to pay attention to it, but I strongly believe that the solution can’t come from politics, it comes from people, real people connecting to each other…. Once you understand the other side is a real people with real pain … you come to the conclusion we are one people, one human race, with one goal to live in peace.”

To learn more, visit thepeacefactory.org. Anyone interested in future ACD events can find out more at acdmovement.com.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on March 10, 2017March 8, 2017Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags Iran, Israel, Joana Osman, Middle East, Palestine, peace, Ronny Edry, Shem Arce, UBC
How best to treat addiction

How best to treat addiction

The Feb. 22 panel discussion at Congregation Schara Tzedeck featured, left to right, moderator Dr. Auby Axler and panelists Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, Dr. Jenny Melamed, David Berner and Rebecca Denham. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

Approximately 5,000 Jews in the local Jewish community need support around addiction, according to Jewish Addiction Community Services Vancouver.

JACS offers various support programs for those battling addiction, and their families and friends, and organizes events for community education and awareness. On the evening of Feb. 22, at Congregation Schara Tzedeck, the agency partnered with Schara Tzedeck and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver for a panel discussion on the fentanyl crisis and addiction in the Jewish community in general. Participating panelists were Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, addiction medical specialist Dr. Jenny Melamed, addiction therapist David Berner and director of services at JACS, Rebecca Denham; the moderator was Dr. Auby Axler.

“JACS Vancouver is a new agency trying to tackle a taboo and shame-filled topic that can ignite passionate responses and strong resistance,” explained Denham in an email. It is committed to supporting community needs relating to substance use, and values a diversity of perspectives on addiction treatment.

At the panel discussion, Rosenblatt spoke about some of the community concerns and the internal conflicts that some people experience when trying to determine the best approaches to addiction support.

Melamed, an addiction doctor who has been treating people with opioid addiction for 15 years, said, “People have been dying from heroin, people have been dying from all drugs…. There are many drugs out there that are as dangerous. Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs out there, 90% of the trauma seen in the [emergency room] after midnight is from alcohol. A heroin addict is a calm, sedated person who is nodding off in a corner, he’s not violent; he’s a danger to himself, and he’s not a danger to anybody else.”

She explained, “Addiction is a … disease situated in the primitive part of the brain…. The addiction goes and sits there and it says, ‘if you do not use me, you will die, you need me.’ This is where the team comes in…. We’ve got the ability to say, ‘I’m not going to listen to you anymore.’ But the power to overcome that is what is needed and it is strong and it requires meetings, it requires therapy, it requires a team, it really is a village to keep somebody sober in the long term.”

About 40 people attended the discussion and Melamed commented, “When you look at how big the Jewish community is and how small the attendance is here tonight … we live with our heads in the sand and we don’t realize how many of us have family members who are in addiction.

“We need to remove the stigma related to addiction. When we tried to get somebody in recovery to talk tonight, we couldn’t find anybody in the Jewish community who would come and stand up, because we put that big addiction sticker on people’s forehead. But we all know that it can happen to anybody. Yes, there is an enormous genetic component, a 40% genetic component when it comes to addiction, but there is trauma. Sexual abuse happens in any religion. Everything happens across the board.”

While the Downtown Eastside is often considered the centre of addiction and drug use, Melamed said this is not the reality. “The people on the DTES make up maybe one to five percent of the drug-using population. Seventy-five percent of people using drugs are what we call functional … nobody knows what is going on out there. If you can afford your heroin habit, then you’re OK until you overdose and it takes you over to the other side.”

Berner, founder and executive director of a residential treatment centre for drug addicts and alcoholics, has conducted almost 11,000 therapy groups.

“Addictions are coping mechanisms…. I’ve never met someone in addiction who hasn’t had a terrible upbringing, who hasn’t had severe trauma, serious trauma,” Berner said. “I’ve rarely met anyone who has addiction who hasn’t suffered physical or sexual abuse, or emotional-psychological abuse, or financial abuse.”

Berner posed the rhetorical question, “Can you change? No.” But, he said, “You can change the things you do, including picking up [drugs or alcohol].”

He said, “Every week I give a lecture, every Tuesday morning, and then do group therapy. One of the things I say week in and week out is, I don’t want to hear about your substance.”

Berner also commented on the government’s spending on addiction services in Vancouver.

“We’ve got harm reduction, that’s it!” he said. “And then prevention, treatment and the law are not only ignored officially … they are officially denigrated by the health department, by the ministry of health, and anyone that can make a decision.”

In response to an audience question – “How does the word recreational fit in with the level of risk that’s involved in drugs?” – Melamed responded, “I think you have to replace the word recreational now with Russian roulette because that’s the word we’re using. There is no safe use.”

“Even with marijuana?” asked another audience member.

Melamed said she knows, based on urine samples she has taken, that “some of the marijuana is laced with fentanyl.”

However, a man in the audience, identifying himself as a federal prosecutor who works with the police on narcotics, countered that assertion. “My understanding, after looking at various police files on where this has been reported, [is that] marijuana laced with fentanyl … is anecdotal. It is from people who have overdosed in a non-fatal manner and have reported it to hospital authorities, doctors, police officers, [saying] ‘all I used was marijuana,’ and this is to avoid, in my understanding, the stigma of being labeled a hard drug user…. There has been no actual seizure by police in B.C. of marijuana laced with fentanyl.”

However, the prosecutor added, “We see cocaine laced with fentanyl, we see a lot of heroin laced with fentanyl, we see methamphetamine laced with fentanyl.”

With Purim approaching, Rosenblatt noted, “Drinking on Purim happens a lot, especially in the Orthodox Jewish community, because there is a statement in the Talmud – a person is obligated to drink on Purim until they don’t know the difference between cursed be Haman, who is the villain of the story, and blessed by Mordechai, who is the hero.”

He said, “Maimonides says the way you should be happy on Purim is by spending most of your effort feeding the poor on Purim. Why? You would think that maybe Maimonides was democratic and would say something very nice like the poor deserve a holiday, too.… That’s not what Maimonides says at all. Maimonides says that there is no greater joy in the world than helping another person.”

“JACS was born out of a necessity and I think it is important to remind you that JACS is here to support you,” said Denham in wrapping up the event. “If a question doesn’t get answered tonight or if an issue gets triggered for you, reach out to us and we will support you just as the community has supported us. We wouldn’t be here today without the kind accepting spirit that runs deep throughout this community. From the support of the rabbinical leaders, professionals, individuals, family foundations, the support of the Federation … all of whom continue to strengthen JACS services … we are bringing this much-needed discussion away from shame and into a supportive light.”

To learn more about JACS Vancouver, Denham can be reached at [email protected].

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on March 10, 2017March 8, 2017Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags addiction, fentanyl, health, JACS, Rebecca Denham, substance abuse

Campaign continues

“Let’s make it easy, not just to be Jewish, but to feel part of the community. We have to make it easy and we have to find ways of connecting,” Alex Cristall told the Jewish Independent in a recent phone interview.

Cristall is general chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign this year. The fundraising effort has so far “been really, really good,” he said, noting “it looks like our numbers are ahead of where they were last year.”

photo - Alex Cristall, general chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign
Alex Cristall, general chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign. (photo from Jewish Federation)

At the centre of the current campaign is the community’s 2020 Strategic Priorities. “We have some key areas that over the next few years we are trying to focus on,” explained Cristall, such as “affordability, accessibility, seniors, engagement and connectivity, and security. And, this year specifically, we have set up a matching program,” so that every new donation and every donation increase is matched, with the funds being allocated to security initiatives, to “set up a good, long-term security plan for the community.”

Bernard Pinsky is the chair of the community security advisory committee, said Cristall, and “they’ve laid out a whole framework of things to get us up to date and to get us more centralized and focused, and to continue on with things we’ve done over the years and improve on them. So, this year we have set up a match[ing program] and I think we are almost at $300,000.”

In addition to the 2020 priorities and the focus on security, donations to the campaign fund social services performed by 40 partner organization, including seniors programs, Jewish education, arts and culture, community building, and youth and young adult services.

“Federation has access to so many different things that are going on in the community and, to help those institutions every year, it takes a lot of [fundraising] pressure off them,” said Cristall. “The major selling point is the reach the Federation has … your dollar touches so many different aspects” of the Jewish community.

“In terms of the number of people who benefit, it is in the thousands,” said Becky Saegert, Federation’s director of marketing and communications, in an email interview.

“We want to make being part of our community easy for our constituents and our community members,” reiterated Cristall.

The community has valuable capital infrastructure in the Oak Street area, he said, “but engagement and accessibility … for underserved areas – that is a huge part of our future. And that has to grow more and more. We have to be very creative.”

This outreach is part of the 2020 plans, he said, “for example, supporting White Rock JCC, supporting Burquest JCC.”

“With regard to the regional communities,” added Saegert, “the campaign currently provides funding to five different regional community organizations. Our Regional Communities Task Force, which is currently exploring ways to enhance Jewish community life outside of Vancouver, will be presenting their recommendations to our board in February 2017. We anticipate that the recommendations will increase funding for a number of initiatives in the regional communities. This past year, with the increase in our overall campaign result, we were able to increase our funding to all of our regional community organizations and fund some new initiatives, including a very exciting partnership between Richmond Jewish Day School and Congregation Beth Tikvah.”

While this year’s campaign is well underway, Cristall said, “We cannot have enough canvassers.… We are probably the easiest organization to get involved in. If someone wants to come on and be a canvasser, we’ll give them training. I hosted a meeting at my house to train people and to welcome people…. It’s a very welcoming environment and we welcome all comers to join.”

To participate in or contribute to the campaign, call the Federation office at 604-257-5100 or go to jewishvancouver.com. For more about Federation’s 2020 priorities, visit ourcommunity2020.jewishvancouver.com.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Posted on November 11, 2016November 11, 2016Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags campaign, Jewish Federation, security, tikkun olam
Youth mentorship program

Youth mentorship program

Kathleen Muir, youth services coordinator at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (photo from Kathleen Muir)

Chill Chat, a peer mentorship program that began a few years ago but seemed to disappear, has been reignited in Vancouver as a hub for youth programs in the community.

The program’s revitalization can partly be attributed to the new Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver youth services coordinator, Kathleen Muir, who has returned to her hometown of Vancouver after getting a degree in social work at the University of Calgary. She brings with her a wide rage of experience, including working in the areas of homelessness and addiction, and suicide prevention and intervention, as well as with disabilities organizations in Calgary and impoverished school districts in Barbados.

Chill Chat is “a peer-to-peer mentorship program” for Jewish youth aged 12 to 22, explained Muir in an interview with the Independent, “but it’s customized to needs and interests, so it really means that anyone who is interested, there is a place for them.”

She said, “You can go into it if you have a disability or if you don’t have a disability, you can go into it if you have any mental health concerns or if you don’t.”

Chill Chat is a three-tiered system, where the mentees are mainly in grades 8 and 9, but with some in grades 7 and 10, and the mentors are in Grade 10 and up.

“You have the grades 11 and 12 that are both going to give support and receive support from Hillel and [the Jewish Students Association at the University of British Columbia],” she said. “What’s really cool about that and something that I love is that it really makes it clear that you can receive help and also be able to give help and, just because you are receiving help doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability or expertise to give out help, too.”

About the role of Chill Chat in the Vancouver Jewish community, Muir said, “We are creating this huge network fabric for support that’s going to be across the board and, because Chill Chat is based on informal support of calling the person or meeting up with them, rather than [come,] sit down, workshop, go home. You have these groups of people who are able to call each other whatever time they need, who are able to provide support that a service that is 9-5 can’t provide.”

When Muir joined the JCC staff, Chill Chat was focusing more on supporting kids with disabilities, but she wanted to broaden that scope because, she said, “we’ve all been there and needed some kind of advice.”

And the program is now better supported itself. “We have so many different stakeholders who know about the program, who know how it’s run and who are highly invested in it, so it doesn’t just fall on to me,” said Muir.

Chill Chat has partnerships with a variety of organizations, such as the CIJA, CJPAC, JCC Maccabi, Festival HaRikud, the Duke of Edinburgh Award and Queerious. This allows the program to “really meet the needs that the participants want,” said Muir.

“If you have a kid that is already interested in athletics, then pairing up with a mentor and both of them working towards JCC Maccabi – they are working towards a common goals together,” she said by way of example.

The commitment for participants is that they communicate once a week in some way, in any form, “from Snapchat to a telegram,” and, once a month, mentors and mentees have to meet up face-to-face.

The meet-ups can be facilitated by the JCC, which hosts a Chill Chat Chill each month, where, said Muir, “we get together, we watch a movie, have a pizza party, go ice skating. Once a month we also have a Chill Chat Ed and we bring in educators to talk about what a mentoring relationship is like and how to support each other. We have an amazing partnership coming in November with CIJA and CJPAC, who are going to bring in people in the political world to do a world café and speak one-on-one with out mentors and mentees”

To take part in Chill Chat, teens and young adults can email Muir at [email protected], call her at 604-257-5111, ext. 308, or complete the form at thecalloutjcc.com/#!get-connected/c2022. There is a meet-and-greet picnic on Sept. 25, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the JCC Teen Lounge.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on September 16, 2016September 16, 2016Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags Chill Chat, JCC, mentorship, Muir, outreach, youth
Preschool widens catchment

Preschool widens catchment

Naomi Hazon’s daughter, Maayan Cohen, with the striped sleeves, has been attending Beth Tikvah’s Shalom Preschool for a year. The youngsters have supervised access to an outdoor play area and garden. (photo by Naomi Hazon)

Watching parents pick up their kids at Beth Tikvah Congregation’s Shalom Preschool and then touring the facility with teacher Esther Karasenty once the hallways had cleared, it is hard to believe that only a year ago, the program was in danger of closing for lack of enrolment. No such problem now, however, and parents wanting to check out the school for their 2.5- to 5-year-old should visit sooner rather than later.

Karasenty has been teaching at Shalom Preschool since 2008.

“Esther has the skills and training to work with children and a very natural ability to connect with children…. She’s able to build trust and make connections,” parent and schoolteacher Naomi Hazon told the Jewish Independent about Karasenty.

Karasenty is “the next best thing to when Mommy’s not around. I don’t feel worried, ever, when I leave my daughter here,” Hazon said.

In addition to her teacher credentials and extensive experience – in early childhood education and instruction, and in teaching special needs children – Karasenty also speaks five languages: English, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish and French. Yet, even with such a capable teacher, when Hazon went to register her daughter Maayan last year, she was told that the preschool was probably going to close within a year because of low enrolment.

About that situation, Karasenty said, “The population around here changed a little bit. Young couples started selling their homes and moving away from Richmond, so we didn’t have a lot of new children that belonged to Beth Tikvah itself,” and the preschool was previously “directed toward the community of Beth Tikvah.”

When Hazon found out that the preschool she herself had attended as a child might close, Karasenty said, “She just said no.” Hazon “worked really hard to bring it back to life. It was amazing,” said the teacher. When she joined forces with Beth Tikvah to open it up beyond the synagogue community, “she reached out to everybody and that made the difference,” said Karasenty.

“In the matter of a few months, we had several open houses,” said Hazon, as well as “families through in the evenings.”

Hazon also contacted Lissa Weinberger from Congregation Beth Israel, who sent an email to the Jewish children’s book mail-out program PJ Library, to build “community connections and get the word out.”

As well, Beth Tikvah hired a new program director, Hofit Indyk, who has worked with Hazon to advertise and market the preschool.

“We have updated our website and we advertise more on social media,” said Hazon.

Preschoolers whose families are not members of Beth Tikvah “just pay a slightly different fee for being non-members,” Hazon explained, “and members’ children are obviously welcome, and we are also open to non-Jewish families that are also in our community.”

This fall, five of the eight students will be Jewish. Other cultures represented include Japanese and Indian. “So, we have really mixed families,” said Hazon.

“Even within the Jewish families,” she added, “it’s often a place where families who have mixed marriages and maybe one parent hasn’t converted, they feel welcome here.”

Hazon shared the story of a family who recently moved here from Brazil. “Their child speaks barely any English and, by word of mouth, they hear that [Karasenty] speaks Portuguese, and [their son] is able to speak his first language with her and he was able to settle in right away.”

When Hazon was signing her daughter up for Shalom Preschool last year, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver program for 2-year-olds had a lengthy waiting list. She describes Shalom Preschool as a “hidden gem” because it is providing Jewish education to her daughter “with an incredibly gifted and talented teacher in a small group setting and it’s local and, you know what, it’s affordable … and it’s inclusive.”

Karasenty explained her approach to teaching. “I see my position in the class as a facilitator. I facilitate the children’s interaction with the world around them. I facilitate their interaction with each other and I give them skills to communicate and to express their needs…. I respect children. I don’t lie to them, I always tell them the truth. I always see them as intelligent human beings. They may be short human beings, but they are human beings.”

Karasenty derives her approach from Maria Montessori who, explains Karasenty in Beth Tikvah’s December 2015 newsletter, “was an Italian physician, educator and innovator, acclaimed for her educational method that builds on the way children naturally learn. At Beth Tikvah Shalom Preschool, I follow those guidelines, creating an environment that will promote children’s development: offering them cognitive, physical and emotional experiences that will help them in becoming critical thinkers, human beings who will have the clarity of vision to direct and shape the future of our society.”

As the Jewish community becomes more dispersed – the latest figures cited by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver show that 46% of Lower Mainland Jews now live outside of Vancouver – Hazon said, “It is important that people access what’s locally available to them and that you give back to your community to keep things going.”

“Beth Tikvah is here,” said Karasenty, “to keep on the feeling of community.”

Shalom Preschool runs Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-noon, with Shabbat-themed programming every Friday. The preschool is still accepting registration for the fall. For more information, visit btikvah.ca/learn/shalom-preschool or call 604-271-6262.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on July 8, 2016July 6, 2016Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags Beth Tikvah, children, education, Hazon, Karasenty, Montessori, preschool
Measuring footprints

Measuring footprints

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s Dr. Meidad Kissinger is doing collaborative work with colleagues in British Columbia. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

Five years ago, Vancouver set the goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020. According to the 2014/15 update to the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, as well as research being conducted at the University of British Columbia in collaboration with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, there is a long way yet to go.

Nonetheless, Dr. Meidad Kissinger told the Jewish Independent, “I really like Vancouver. It’s, in a way, a second home.”

Kissinger is the head of the Negev Centre of Sustainability and a faculty member in the department of geography and environmental development at BGU. He completed his PhD in urban and regional planning at the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC and returned last summer for a research leave that continues to this coming summer.

“UBC is a great place … there is a lot of interest in issues that I am engaged with around sustainability science and ecology economics,” he said. In addition, “it was important that the family would decide where to go, and Vancouver felt comfortable.”

Not needing to teach or focus on other administrative tasks while he’s here, Kissinger said, “My time here is focusing on research. My own goals are reading a lot, thinking a lot, writing a lot.” He is working on a book while at UBC, as well as engaging in projects with colleagues here.

On one project, Kissinger is collaborating with researchers from UBC and Kwantlen University on a study of local food systems, looking at the potential of the Lower Mainland to produce its own food. It’s similar to a project in Israel, he said, which questions “what is the ability of the state … to produce its own food.”

Kissinger is also researching urban “metabolism,” which “looks at the flow of resources into a city and looks at the city as a living organism, and asks questions of what is being consumed, who is consuming it and what is being emitted,” he explained.

He is also studying interregional sustainability, which considers sustainability from a global perspective. “Any country, including a huge country like Canada, depends on resources from other [places],” he said, giving the example of Canadian food consumption (mostly vegetables and fruits) from California. “When looking at the world from an interregional level,” he said, “you understand that there are linkages between the tomato that you are eating here to the drought in California. These are kind of the interactions. It’s common sense.”

The problem is, he said, “We don’t take these things into account and we don’t measure them.” He did acknowledge, however, that there is an “increasing understanding that we need to look at interactions between the human system and the natural system.”

Using 2006 data, Kissinger and colleagues Jennie Moore and William Rees of UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning applied interregional analysis to Vancouver’s “metabolism” to see whether there was validity to Vancouver’s claim that it is the greenest city in the world. “Now, we haven’t completed research yet,” he said, “but I suspect that what we will find is that maybe there are some incremental improvements in certain parts but when you are looking overall, the metabolism of this region has just continued to increase over the years. So, there is a major gap between the political arguments and what actually the research tells us.”

“Urbanization has both positive and negative environmental implications,” write the three colleagues in the Journal of Environmental Management (2013). “On the one hand, cities are nodes of consumption that depend utterly on a constant flow of materials and energy from around the world in order to function…. On the other hand, the economies of agglomeration (lower costs due to proximity of related activities) and the economies of scale (lower costs due to higher volumes) associated with the city’s high population density and concentration of economic activity contribute to a significant ‘urban sustainability multiplier.’… Furthermore, the sheer wastefulness of many cities implies major opportunities for energy and material conservation. It follows that, in the 21st century, cities are an appropriate focus for research into ecologically necessary, socially acceptable and politically feasible ways of reducing the overall human load on the world’s ecosystems.”

In analyzing Vancouver’s “bottom-up ecological footprint,” the study examined the “energy and material consumption using locally generated data” on areas such as water, food, transportation and buildings. It found Vancouver’s total ecological footprint in 2006 to be “an area approximately 36 times larger than the region itself.”

Kissinger explained to the Independent in an email that his research largely culminates in “analyzing the socio-biophysical systems and what authorities/institutions at different scales can do” to reduce the ecological footprint. On a personal level, people need to consider their consumption in general, he said, “and particularly of food, with emphasis on minimizing animal products.”

Research collaboration such as that of Kissinger at UBC is rare. “There is hardly any Canadian-Israeli research collaboration,” he said. “Very different from what you have between Europe and Israel, between the U.S. and Israel. Even between China, India and Israel, there is more than what you have between Canada and Israel, which is … something that needs to be changed. Saying that, again, I’m working this year with Canadians, here in this part of the world, and with colleagues in Toronto, and so I do find that it is possible and I like to work with Canadians.”

The reason for the relative lack of collaboration is largely financial, said Kissinger. It has nothing to do with factors such as the boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel, for example.

“I’m aware that there are attempts to undermine Israel in the world for different reasons,” he said, but “I’m working with colleagues here, I’m working with colleagues in European universities.”

He added, “It’s one thing to put pressure on Israel to change policy, and I wish this is something that hopefully will be done. It is a different thing to do what BDS is doing…. I don’t think this is the way.”

He tried to explain how such actions are seen from the Israeli side. “I guess it happens to any society when it feels that it’s being attacked, it’s being under pressure from outside,” he said. “It [tries] to push the pressure away and at least appear unified and I think it is very natural.… So, when you are looking at Israeli media … it will try to resist [external pressure] and try to show how everyone is against us, instead of reflecting inside and looking at what is wrong with what we are doing. This is kind of the other side of this external pressure. It’s complicated.”

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on April 15, 2016April 13, 2016Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags ecology, environment, Kissinger
More work left to do

More work left to do

Call It Democracy speakers, from left to right, Mira Oreck, Margot Young and Sharon Abraham-Weiss. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

“From the Holocaust, there is a lesson we can all agree about: ‘Never again.’ There are two paths: never again to us or never again to anybody,” said Sharon Abraham-Weiss, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

Abraham-Weiss was speaking at the event Call it Democracy, held at Temple Sholom on March 14. She was joined by Mira Oreck, director of public engagement at the Broadbent Institute, and Margot Young, a University of British Columbia law professor, who served as facilitator.

About Israel, Abraham-Weiss said, “The Declaration of Independence from 1948 is the establishment for this democracy, promising equality for all its citizens. When I’m saying citizens, 20% of the citizens of Israel are Palestinian-Israelis, Arab-Israelis, people that were in Israel in 1948. Speaking about the occupied territories, it’s a different story.”

She said, in contrast to Canada, Israel “does not have a constitution … so, our toolkit, as lawyers, [is] the Basic Laws that we consider higher laws.” Additionally, she said, “We don’t have any separation between state and religion and this is something very important to understand.” For example, “the only way to get married … is in the Orthodox rabbinical system for Jews or other religious systems for non-Jews.”

Moreover, she continued, “In 1967, we occupied areas known today as ‘the occupied territories,’ Judea and Samaria, Palestine, you can name it. There are about two million people there, Palestinians. When I speak about democracy, it does not apply to the occupied territories. It’s different [there] because these people do not have the status of citizens, they are refugees.”

Oreck thanked the Coast Salish peoples, “whose territory we are gathered on tonight,” when she began her remarks. “I think it’s a relevant acknowledgement to the conversation around civil liberties, civil rights and human rights.”

Oreck described the notion of civil liberties as a political one. “These are political decisions that are made from country to country and we often think of civil liberties in a fairly narrow sense. What are the personal guarantees and freedoms that the government cannot infringe on by law?” she asked, listing freedom of conscience, religion, press, the right to security. “We don’t necessarily think about poverty and housing and other rights that we may think of more generally as human rights that don’t fall into our more narrow definition of civil liberties,” she said.

Young shifted the conversation to the balance between security and liberty.

“Can security reasons be justified by everything we are doing? Abraham-Weiss asked. “The answer from my perspective is no, not at all, it has to be balanced. Can we completely dismiss the idea of security reasons? And the answer is no.” She spoke about profiling at airports as an example. “It’s hard, for on one hand, we don’t want any terror attacks; on the other hand, 20% of our population belongs to the Arab minority. Can we generalize … that they are all suspects?” She said, “How do you bring your citizens to be part of the society when you always blame them? How do you bring your citizens to be part of the society when their schools, per capita, are less than the schools I am going to in west Jerusalem and other places?

“In 2010, the government of Israel joined the [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] and the OECD said that, if you want to be a member of the developed countries, you must show us better numbers of Arabs in the job market and better participation of ultra-Orthodox in the job market. [With] this incentive, we showed better numbers … and this, in a way, is balancing the security risks.”

In the Canadian context, Oreck referred to the passing of anti-terrorism Bill C-51, noting that the NDP was the only party that voted against it. “There are real conversations around how we address very real security threats and what the tension is,” she said. “But, also, what are we willing to trade away?… Frankly, who would be in violation of that security based on C-51?… Would people that are protesting pipelines, for example, be a threat to national security? And, if so, who are those people? Who is being threatened? Who is being protected?”

Another prominent Canadian security discussion has been about the Syrian refugees, said Oreck. “When the new government talked about bringing in Syrian refugees, well, what is the threat?… There are still many questions around what the screening process was, should men be able to come in, or should families be prioritized?”

In Canada, there is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Young noted in changing the topic from security to equality. “We do have a lot of these questions being decided by our Supreme Court of Canada in an authoritative way,” she said.

In Israel, explained Abraham-Weiss, “Our main tool is the Basic Law of Human Dignity [and Liberty] and, when we take things to the Supreme Court … although it is about freedoms, the word that is not [there] is the word equality and the reason equality is not there, it is because … the Orthodox were against the word equality because of women’s rights.”

She explained how equality was written “into dignity” in the 1990s. “Humiliation and discrimination harms your dignity and that is how it was justified. It is a very famous case,” she said, referring to that of Alice Miller, who wanted to be a pilot in the Israel Defence Forces. “She was rejected because she was a woman. Now, the interesting story about her … is that she was a pilot already, she just made aliyah. She moved from South Africa and she was holding a civil pilot license and they told her she can’t be a pilot, and she said, I am.” Miller became Israel’s first female pilot.

In Canada, said Oreck, “we are probably also dealing with an outdated version of gender and needing to really reevaluate the way that we look at gender rights, what does that mean.” She pointed to some advances, commending “the work the Vancouver School Board has done around gender-neutral bathrooms.” She said, “What is once at the margins, eventually, becomes mainstream.”

“Our job as a human rights organization is to find out what is … marginalized, outlined, and bring it to the heart of the consensus,” agreed Abraham-Weiss. “I think especially as minorities, it’s important to be consistent and put question marks on things that can be taken for granted.”

Abraham-Weiss used the example of administrative detention. She said it “was used, traditionally, against Palestinians and, whenever we brought it up, they would say [for] security reasons. Now, recently, it is used against right-wing settlers, Israeli-Jewish settlers. Now we are consistent about it … we are consistent about the procedure and part of the reason we have success is that we are not partisan … we work in the parliament of Israel with various members of the political spectrum. So, on children’s rights, our best ally is from [Avigdor] Lieberman’s party, which is right-wing. On International Human Rights Day, we held a conference in the Knesset held by … two members of the Knesset, one was from the joint Arab-Jewish party … and the other was Likud.”

Abraham-Weiss said, “In terms of human rights, within Judaism, we are more tolerant, [but] we are still not doing good enough, with Ethiopian Jews for example.… It takes time, but I think we are moving to it.”

Young asked Abraham-Weiss and Oreck to discuss the “elephants in each of the country’s rooms, really, really tough issues that that people dance around on, but don’t always talk about.”

Abraham-Weiss said, “The elephant in the room is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, so, while we have tolerance and multiculturalism within Judaism, we are less tolerant to multiculturalism with the Palestinian-Israelis and their culture and I have to admit … the last couple of years, we have been dealing with what we call the shrinking democratic space in Israel due to the conflict.”

During Protective Edge, the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Abraham-Weiss said, “We saw that there were voices against the war and, the voices, people were calling to marginalize them. So, they were opening Facebook pages calling to fire these people from their workplaces. Now, these are private places.… Look at the government. There were ministers saying: ‘Hey, don’t let anyone do demonstrations against the war, it is not a good time for demonstrations.’ When is a good time if this is the idea? Now that bothers me in a democratic country. In a pluralism of ideas, we have many voices. If you do have only one voice, you don’t call it a democracy anymore.… [Recently], there was an idea, a draft bill, to impeach the elected minority. So, the elected majority, the Jews, can impeach the elected minority, the Arabs?… I think this is a problem in a democracy.”

Oreck said, “Canada views itself and prides itself on being a multicultural country and yet … multiculturalism is, of course, from the ’70s … was about immigrants and was about new Canadians and it never dealt with First Peoples of this country and it never addressed the historical inequalities that we are dealing with now through reconciliation…. I think that, as a Jew anyway, that makes a challenge in some ways.

“For many of us,” she said, “Canada was a refuge and our families came here for safety and security and yet, at that exact time, of course, kids were being taken from their homes and sent to residential schools. So, how do you reconcile, how do you pride yourself on multiculturalism when, for many people that time was a very dark history.… We are still really addressing those challenges. I would argue that not having clean water on reserves is a failing of multiculturalism and I would argue that the Cindy Blackstock case on the underfunding of First Nations education is a failing of multiculturalism.… There is clearly still enormous work to do.”

Similarly, Abraham-Weiss said, “I can criticize Israel because I care about Israel. I want a better Israel and I think we all deserve a better Israel.”

Call it Democracy was co-sponsored by the New Israel Fund of Canada and Temple Sholom with Beth Tikvah Congregation, Ameinu, Hillel BC Society and Or Shalom. NIFC president Joan Garson concluded the event.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on April 1, 2016March 31, 2016Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags Abraham-Weiss, Canada, civil rights, democracy, Israel, Margot Young, Mira Oreck
First Israel on Campus event

First Israel on Campus event

Yael Steinberg, left, and Zina Rakhamilova at Israel on Campus’ first event of the year at the University of British Columbia. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

“Often Jewish students on university campuses struggle to express any kind of pro-Israel sentiment. They are intimidated to do so and they don’t have the tools to articulate or engage in productive conversations,” said Ariella Karmel, president of Israel on Campus (IOC) at the University of British Columbia.

Karmel spoke to the Independent after the closing of the IOC’s first event of the year, called Israel Unlimited: Exploring Israel at UBC. Held on Oct. 29, its purpose was to teach effective communication skills and ways to address anti-Israel bias. It was led at Hillel BC by Zina Rakhamilova, StandWithUs Canadian campus coordinator, and Yael Steinberg, Hasbara Fellowships’ West Coast director.

“IOC is a student-run group … relating to Israeli culture, media, food, and we are also a pro-Israel group,” explained Karmel to the approximately 25 attendees. She said the club gives “a platform to engage with Israel” and is a resource for students who want to learn more about Israel.

With the exception of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) last year, Steinberg said anti-Israel propaganda on campus is minimal. However, she said, “When situations go down in Israel it becomes a lot more stressful on campus for those Jewish students, who somehow are held accountable for every action the state of Israel might possibly have ever done.… By virtue of Israel being the Jewish state, being a Jewish student means that you are the representative for that.”

Screened at the event was the film Crossing the Line, which, Steinberg explained, “is about when anti-Israel propaganda gets out of hand and crosses into the realm of antisemitism, which even though you may not see huge amounts of it at UBC … this can spring up in a moment’s notice.”

The short film emphasized hasbara (public relations), efforts to spread positive information about Israel, to stand up for Judaism and Israel: “A Jewish person not secure enough in their Jewish identity and [who] doesn’t know enough about Judaism, about Zionism, about Israel is going to be much more exposed, much more vulnerable.”

Rakhamilova warned, “Just because your campus climate is quiet for the most part, apathetic, doesn’t mean necessarily you shouldn’t do any sort of Israel engagement or Israel education because universities … across the country are dealing with BDS and are dealing with anti-Israel activity…. You are not immune to that kind of stuff…. It means you need to find a way to showcase a positive association with Israel.”

Rakhamilova suggested holding events on topics such as Magen David Adom or Israeli humanitarian aid, as a means of “nipping” anti-Israel activity “in the bud before it hits campus,” and “not only being reactive.”

“There are situations when people are allowed to be legitimately critical about Israel,” she stressed, “but there is a distinction between being fair about Israel and when it becomes antisemitic.”

The line between the two can be measured, she said, by the three Ds: demonization, delegitimization and double standard. “That’s how you can pinpoint when this is no longer legitimate criticism of Israel.”

As an example, Rakhamilova offered a chant from the Students for Justice in Palestine: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – this is delegitimization, she explained, as it is “indicating from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, so that entire land is Palestine and not Israel.

So, claiming [that] the Jewish people, unique among all national or ethnic groups, have no claim to sovereignty.”

Rakhamilova described the BDS movement as encompassing all three Ds, noting particularly its emphasis only on Israel, and ignoring any other body bringing harm to the Palestinians, as well as ignoring all of the contextual information. “And a lot of the imagery can be looked at to be demonizing towards Israel,” she said.

“What are the real issues? Occupation, excessive force, racism?” Steinberg asked. In addressing any of these issues, she said, “Each anti-Israel message has a corollary pro-Israel message.” Regarding excessive force, for example, “the Israeli government sent the IDF in with foot soldiers to Gaza to eradicate different terrorist cells when they could have sent the air force and turned Gaza into a parking lot because Israel values human life so much and they were trying to protect civilian casualties.”

Rakhamilova gave another example: the assertion that Israel is an apartheid state. “Apartheid is a system of racial subjugation to benefit one race over the other,” she said. “Does that happen in Israel? Do Arab Israelis have the same human rights as Jews in Israel? … Arab Israelis have equal rights in Israel.” She recommended including the message: “Until the Palestinians can accept the right for a Jewish state to exist, peace will be elusive. Peace can only come through mutual recognition and respect.”

In response to a question about how pro-Israel students should handle Jewish students who support BDS in the name of social justice and human rights, Rakhamilova said, “Just because you are Jewish doesn’t mean what you are saying is any less antisemitic,” and whether the criticisms are antisemitic or not can be gauged using the three Ds.

A member of the Jewish Defence League (JDL) asked how to respond to an event such as the one held by the Progressive Jewish Alliance, who hosted Israeli conscientious objector Yonatan Shapira on campus on Nov. 3. Some 125 people attended that event, including about eight protesters.

Rakhamilova began to respond, “When you come in and you look like you are demonstrating against someone’s right to speak….”

“We are demonstrating against their spreading antisemitism and anti-Israel propaganda on campus,” interrupted the JDL member, adding, “We are just giving a positive message.”

Steinberg suggested “not giving the event more publicity,” to which the JDL member countered, “We need to address it.”

Steinberg responded, “When we spoke about going rogue against the Jewish community….” The JDL member interrupted again, saying, “Ignoring it will not make it go away.”

Steinberg said, “By virtue of being a minority, one represents the whole and that’s unfortunate, and it sucks, and that’s racist, and it’s awful, but that’s the way this works. We have no choice but to work together … to figure out the best way to handle anti-Israel activity on campus.”

When asked for alternatives to demonstration, Steinberg suggested writing an op-ed after the fact, “so you can control the messaging,” working with the administration, or sending students to take notes of what has been said to use in the future.

Rakhamilova noted that Hillel or the IOC could take action. “They never do,” contended the JDL member.

The event wrapped up soon afterward. Karmel described it as having been “really productive” and “helpful in improving” the ability of students to effectively communicate pro-Israel sentiments.

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on November 20, 2015November 17, 2015Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags Ariella Karmel, Hasbara Fellowships, IOC, Israel on Campus, StandWithUs, Yael Steinberg, Zina Rakhamilova
Panelists talk about BDS movement

Panelists talk about BDS movement

Left to right, panelists Gabor Maté, Michael Barkusky and Yonatan Shapira. (photo by Zach Sagorin)

Independent Jewish Voices-Vancouver hosted A Conversation About BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) on Nov. 8. IJV’s Martha Roth, moderator of the event, told the Jewish Independent, “The Israeli government propaganda has been so strongly anti-BDS and people are terrified of it.… We wanted to make a safe space for discussion.”

In order of presentation, the four panelists were columnist Dr. Mira Sucharov, an associate professor of political science at Carleton University, who joined the discussion via FaceTime; Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli rescue helicopter pilot who has become a Palestinian solidarity activist; Michael Barkusky of the Pacific Institute for Ecological Economics, who was born in South Africa and was an anti-apartheid activist during university; and author and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, a former Zionist youth leader.

The BDS movement (bdsmovement.net) calls for Israel to end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantl[e] the [security] wall”; recognize “the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality”; and support “the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.”

Shapira told the crowd: “The BDS movement is a human rights-based initiative calling for equality … end of occupation, end of apartheid situation and to promote the right of return. It is not saying that Israel is the most devilish thing in the world. It doesn’t say what is happening in Syria is better.… It is just a nonviolent practical tool to change the power balance in the situation.”

Maté based his view on the actions carried out in 1947/48, which, he said, “involved massacres … expulsions of large numbers of people from their homeland … demolition of hundreds of villages, the bulldozing of gravestones. Going to Palestine-Israel today is like going to Europe today and looking for a trace of Jewish life.”

He continued, “On top of that now, you have this occupation, this totally illegal occupation… Even if you assume Israel has a right to conquer those lands in 1967…. They never had the right under international law to enter these demographic changes, that’s against the law. To build businesses and economy, that’s against the law. It’s not even controversial.”

The only panelist against BDS, Sucharov said, “I have spoken out, mostly through writing, against BDS … for the reason, I think the end-game is confused.”

While portions of Sucharov’s arguments were inaudible due to technical difficulties, she did make her main points heard. She referenced Prof. Rex Brynen of McGill University, in saying, about the right of return, “repatriation in that case would refer to Palestinians who are still stateless being able and encouraged to return to a Palestinian state, but, in order for that to happen, a Palestinian state needs to come about. So the question is, How to change this tired and bloody status quo that we see right now in order to see a Palestinian state?”

She added, “Instead of boycott, I call for wrestling, grappling and engagement. Instead of shunning, I call for dialogue. Both sides want, if you want to use the binary construct of sides, to play their own game of boycott and shunning and narrowing of the discourse…. The most egregious expression of that has been the academic boycott that has been used to cut off the kind of debate and dialogue we are having today.”

She said, for example, that philosopher and law professor Moshe Halbertal was blocked from speaking at the University of Minnesota on Nov. 3 for 30 minutes by BDS supporters, and that she has witnessed the same shunning of dialogue “within the mainstream Jewish community.”

Shapira later responded to the notion of academic boycott: “Only if the professor is connected and representing an official institution in Israel, then it’s a target for the boycott.… All Israeli universities are connected to the occupation … therefore, if someone is representing them, it’s a target for the boycott.”

About the debate over SodaStream, which was located in the West Bank and employed 500 Palestinians, Sucharov said, “One could certainly view that as a way of propping up the settler project, and we know the settlements are illegal under international law. What was key and what the boycott movement got wrong [is], the owner had stated that if and when there would be a Palestinian state, tomorrow he would seek to keep the plant there and simply pay taxes to the new Palestinian state.” She later added, “This is an example of direct investment that will be essential to help the Palestinian economy in its sovereign incarnation.”

Maté countered, “When you are taking people’s lands, when you build a wall that separates them from their fields, when you make life impossible, when you destroy their economy, when you practise environmental degradation on their whole country, guess what, they are going to be desperate for jobs.” He said SodaStream’s “giving 500 jobs to the Palestinians” was “not an argument against boycott, not an argument against economic pressure.”

Sucharov argued that BDS works against a two-state solution: “Scores of Palestinian, Israeli and joint Palestinian-Israeli NGOs are doing work in the West Bank and Israel. There are many groups seeking to engage the situation. With boycott, one has cut off one’s ability to connect with those activists who seek to engage, to visit Israel, visit the West Bank and try to change status quo.”

Shapira said, “Wake up from this old dream of a two-state solution…. We are intertwined together with the Palestinians whether we want it or not. We have to move on from a conflict between two sides … an occupier force and an occupied, an oppressor and oppressed, a colonizer and native. This is the context and we have to change the mindset.

“It is not, let’s go for a dialogue meeting with Israeli and Palestinian kids. I am not saying I am against dialogue,” but dialogue “will not be what brings the solution … the solution will come when we change the power dynamic.” He said, looking at the audience, that they “were probably a part of struggle to end apartheid…. If you supported boycott back then, you should support boycott now.”

About the use of BDS to end apartheid, Barkusky said, “About 25% of South African civil society wanted the end of apartheid … and my worry is that I don’t think that 25% of Jewish Israelis today are ready for a two-state solution, or certainly not a one-state solution.” Barkusky warned that “any BDS strategy, to be effective, needs to avoid sweeping the centrist majority in Israel into the hands of the right-wing.”

Barkusky was “ambiguous” about BDS. “There are certain, obviously attractive features of BDS. It is accessible when other strategies seem futile and it appears to be nonviolent,” he said. However, he added, BDS “is a collective punishment strategy,” akin to an aerial bombing: “hard to target and collateral damage.” BDS can be “damaging and [destroy] people’s livelihoods,” he said, and it “is not exactly nonviolent: it can crush peoples’ hopes, it can lead to suicide, it can lead to domestic violence.”

Maté said it is a “pipedream to shift Israeli policy by being really nice about it.” When it came to boycott specificities, he said, “If you are only willing to boycott stuff from the occupied territories, boycott stuff from the occupied territories. If you want to boycott everything, boycott everything…. If you want to boycott academia as well, go ahead, I don’t care. Because it doesn’t matter what small, little arguments or details we want to engage in because the overall reality for everybody who has been there … is so horrible and is getting daily more horrible that the insanity is out of control now and only external pressure will do anything about it.”

Shapira said, “You cannot live in peace and security if you are superior over other people in that country. You cannot have the oxymoron of a Jewish democracy. We have to give up this idea, it is not possible.”

Around 80 people attended the event, which was held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, including professor Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan Kaplan, interim director of Iona Pacific Inter-Religious Centre at the Vancouver School of Theology. She told the Independent, “There was a significant amount of agreement in the audience and so the questions were not as provocative as they would have been if … most people weren’t left-leaning.”

Zach Sagorin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on November 20, 2015November 17, 2015Author Zach SagorinCategories LocalTags BDS, boycott, Gabor Maté, IJV, Independent Jewish Voices, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Michael Barkusky, Mira Sucharov, Yonatan Shapira

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