B’nai B’rith event, 1969. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.09488)
If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting archives@jewishmuseum.ca or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.
(photo by Olaf Herfurth)
In anticipation of the annual Shabbos Project – this year on Oct. 26-27 – where Jews from around the world, and from every level of observance, celebrate and experience Shabbos together, I decided I needed to get prepared.
On the continuum that is my journey to Yiddishkeit, I’m probably less than a third of the way there. I’ve chosen to take it one step at a time.
A few weeks ago, after a particularly inspiring Torah class, I broached the subject of Shabbos with my husband, Harvey. I asked him if he’d be on board with trying to observe it the following weekend. He tentatively agreed, knowing that, if he said no, I’d make his life a living hell. A smart man knows when to say yes.
A few days went by before I started planning in earnest for our Shabbos-ready tech shutdown. I confirmed with Harvey that we’d be powering off all our devices, taping the refrigerator and other light switches, using electric tealights to light the requisite rooms, and just generally relaxing for 24 hours. He agreed. All systems go. Or so I thought.
Shabbos candles – check. Tealights – check. Crock-Pot in which to make cholent – check. Beef, carrots, potatoes, etc., to cook the cholent – check. Challah – check. Wine – check. In my naiveté and enthusiasm to be shomer Shabbos, I hadn’t really considered everything that goes into preparing to do so. Not even close. And, of course, my lack of preparation came back to bite me in the proverbial tuchus.
Very early Friday morning, a note was slipped under our door, informing us that the water would be shut off from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. that day. I was thrown headlong in a haze of cholent-making confusion. Instead of starting my cholent at 3 p.m. to be ready for lunch the next day, I panicked and started assembling it at 7:30 a.m. So, we had cholent for dinner Friday night, for lunch on Saturday and, yes, again for dinner Saturday night. You can see where this is headed: cholent overload.
A real Shabbos queen would have made an array of cold salads, had a back-up chicken for Friday night dinner and another main dish for Saturday dinner. I could find a thousand excuses for why I hadn’t thought this through, but none of it matters now. Luckily, I have a very easygoing husband, when it comes to food. Put it in his bowl or on his plate, he’ll eat it. Don’t get me wrong, Harvey is a real connoisseur when it comes to good food and wine. But he also knows when not to complain. So, he ate cholent three meals in a row. And it didn’t kill him. As for me, I was slightly embarrassed that I hadn’t planned more thoroughly for a beautifully scrumptious Shabbos experience. Food’s a big part of all this, right?
The lack of variety in food was accompanied by several, how shall I call them, Shabbos slips. Halfway through lighting the candles, I remembered that I hadn’t changed the Crock-Pot timer to 10 hours, so I did it. “Broke” Shabbos. But I carried on, certain that G-d would forgive my little error. And confident that there is more likelihood of us trying to keep Shabbos again if we don’t approach it with an all-or-nothing attitude. Baby steps will keep us on the right path, whereas a “let’s call the whole off” right now because I messed up with the Crock-Pot will turn us off forever. There were a few other Shabbos boo-boos, like writing something down on a piece of paper. And carrying my purse to shul. Oh, and that pesky little detail of not keeping kosher.
I’ve actually studied a bit about how to keep Shabbos. I just haven’t put it all into practice quite yet. Not even close. But the intention and desire is there. I have to admit, I have a small obsession with understanding new things fully before embracing them. Reading before doing. I guess that’s a residual habit from spending 34 years as a librarian. In case you weren’t aware, librarians can’t rest until they have all (or most) of the answers. So, the journey continues.
The best part of Shabbos for me, besides lighting the candles and eating the delicious challah I made, was having my husband’s undivided attention, and he, mine. The time we spent talking on that one Friday night is probably equal to the time we usually spend talking all week. After nearly 13 years together, I learned new things about Harvey that Shabbos. In an atmosphere of love and relaxation, with no distractions of any kind, we eased back into each other’s lives calmly and sweetly. It was wonderful.
On Saturday, in the late afternoon before Shabbos ended, I walked into the living room and sat down. Harvey looked at me with a touch of fear in his eyes and asked: “Does this mean we have to talk again?” I guess the feeling about the beauty of it all was slightly inequitable. But I’ll keep trying. There’s always next Shabbos.
Shelley Civkin is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review, and currently writes a bi-weekly column about retirement for the Richmond News.
(image by ZLC Financial)
One of the few things in life that we can absolutely count on is change. Therefore, no matter what age or stage in life, just about everyone has a need for insurance. It is especially important to have a review-revise-repeat approach when it comes to planning for you, your family and your ever-changing lifestyle and situation.
Do you have assets that you don’t plan on spending in your lifetime? Do you want to leave an inheritance but are worried about leaving your family with a large tax burden? A cascading life insurance strategy is a simple way to preserve your wealth for the generations to come.
Cascading life insurance is an intergenerational transfer of wealth, allowing grandparents to provide a significant legacy to their grandchildren without giving up control during their lifetime. It is an efficient tax-advantaged way to preserve your wealth for those you love by taking advantage of the tax-sheltered features of permanent life insurance.
The best way to be prepared is with a well-thought-out plan. Let’s take a closer look at how to use cascading life insurance. Here’s how it works.
Purchase a permanent life insurance policy with your grandchild as the life insured. If your grandchild is not the age of majority, their parent (your son or daughter) can be the contingent owner. When a contingent owner is named, the policy ownership will automatically transfer to the contingent owner without tax.
You or your son or daughter can be named as the beneficiary. Similar to the ownership structure noted above, you can be the beneficiary and your son or daughter can be the successor beneficiary.
Some of your non-registered assets will be used to fund the policy, thus reducing your future annual tax burden. The funds invested in a life insurance policy will allow for accumulation of cash value inside the policy, and you don’t have to pay income tax on its growth. Upon your death, the ownership of the policy is transferred to your adult child as contingent owner (or your grandchild, if the age of majority) without your estate paying any tax on the cash value growth. The transfer is free of probate, executor and legal fees.
The cash value in the policy remains completely accessible and in your control while you’re alive in the event that you do require additional income.
Brian is 66. He has $300,000 invested that he doesn’t need to meet his own costs of living. Brian wants to minimize the amount of tax he pays on his non-registered portfolio. In addition, he wants to shelter those assets from tax and probate fees when the assets are transferred to his grandson James, Janet’s son, who is a minor today.
Brian purchases a permanent life insurance policy and deposits the $300,000 into the policy over a 10-year period. Brian is the owner of the policy, and he names Janet as the contingent owner. The insurance is placed on his grandson James’s life and his daughter Janet is the beneficiary of the policy.
When Brian dies, Janet will become the owner of the policy, since she was named as the contingent owner. Janet can continue to own the policy indefinitely or transfer the policy to James when she thinks he is fit to be the owner.
The cash value will continue to accumulate in the policy and will be eventually owned by James.
Now, here’s the important part: the policy, when transferred from Brian to Janet and eventually from Janet to James, will pass along with its cash value, free of tax and probate fees.
James will have a few options:
Insurance is a valuable and creative tool that can help provide peace of mind for you, your family and their financial future. The cascading life insurance policy provides several benefits:
The cascading life insurance strategy is designed for individuals who have annual tax obligations from non-registered investments, who would like to reduce the tax burden upon their death and are interested in legacy planning (family and charity).
Philip Levinson, CPA, CA, is an associate at ZLC Financial, a boutique financial services firm that has served the Vancouver community for more than 70 years. Each individual’s needs are unique and warrant a customized solution. Should you have any questions about the information in this article, he can be reached at 604-688-7208 or plevinson@zlc.net.
(photo from pxhere.com)
One of the last problems you’d expect in creating a power of attorney is to find your company losing a bunch of tax advantages because the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) decides you and the person you appointed in the power of attorney have related companies.
If your company is small and Canadian-controlled, it gets certain tax advantages; however, CRA doesn’t want you to break a large company into a bunch of small pieces to multiply those tax advantages. If you give each of those pieces to a different person, but maintain control through powers of attorney, CRA will still consider all those pieces to be one company.
Unfortunately, CRA doesn’t recognize the difference between a general power of attorney used to control a company and an enduring power of attorney used to help someone when they’re incapacitated. Here’s an example of the trap that can happen if you’re not careful with a power of attorney.
(Disclaimer: this is not tax advice; it is a simplified illustration of the small business tax rules and how they’re applied with respect to control and powers of attorney.)
I’ll give you two scenarios. The first one illustrates what CRA is trying to avoid, and the second one illustrates what it catches by accident.
Patricia Hindenburg has three adult children: Roberta, Paulina and Bradley. She runs a clothing company, Whole Lotta Cashmere Fashions Inc., with stores in the Kitsilano, Yaletown, Commercial Drive and Marpole neighbourhoods.
Whole Lotta Cashmere Fashions is doing very well. Last year, it earned $2.4 million before tax. The company is a Canadian-controlled private corporation and is eligible for the small business deduction. The deduction means that, instead of paying about 35% income tax on $2.4 million, Whole Lotta Cashmere Fashions only pays that on $1.9 million. The first $500,000 is taxed at about 10%. (Again, these are not the real tax rates and I’m simplifying the calculations.)
Patricia realizes that, if she split the company into four companies, each owned by a different person, the companies would together pay 10% on $2 million and only $400,000 would be caught by the higher tax rate. So, she splits the company into four, giving one to each of her children and keeping one for herself. This way, each of the four companies will be eligible for the small business deduction – each will only pay 10% on its first $500,000 of earnings.
To make sure that the companies remain successful and operating just the way she likes, Patricia asks her kids each to grant her power of attorney over their voting shares in their companies.
She now has control over all four companies. Their combined income is still around $2.4 million, but she believes the collection of companies has a small business deduction of $2 million instead of $500,000. She expects to pay 10% on $2 million and 35% on $400,000.
CRA does not allow this, however. Because of the powers of attorney that give Patricia control over all of the companies, CRA taxes them as one big company the same way it did before the split.
This seems fair. If the companies are truly independent, they should each get the small business deduction but, if you split a big company into a bunch of smaller ones and you maintain control over them, you don’t get a bunch of small business deductions.
Stephanie Edwards has a metalworks shop, Icarus Metalworks Inc., that is doing very well. She has apprenticed each of her five children, Adriana, Murray, Nicole, Dickens and Jan, in the art and trade of blacksmithing.
A few years ago, Adriana and Dickens decided they prefer ceramics, and they opened their own company, Can I Play With Porcelain Ltd.
Last year, Icarus earned $700,000. Can I Play With Porcelain did pretty well too; it earned about $450,000.
Icarus should pay 10% on the first $500,000 and 35% on the remaining $200,000. Can I Play With Porcelain is under the limit for the small business deduction, and should only pay 10% on all $450,000 of its earnings.
Unfortunately, after all these years of literally bending iron and steel to her will, Stephanie has serious joint problems. She is finding it hard to write. This has her thinking about making sure her kids can take care of things for her if (and when) she’s unable.
Stephanie thinks carefully about her kids, and who would be in the best position to help her. She decides to grant an enduring power of attorney to her eldest, Adriana. The power of attorney is, as is the case with most enduring powers of attorney, unrestricted and it is effective from the moment it is signed. Stephanie wants to make sure that Adriana can help her even while she is still capable, because she doesn’t know for how much longer she’ll be able to sign cheques, etc., given her joint problems.
Here’s the trap: the CRA determines that the power of attorney allows Adriana to use Stephanie’s shares to control Icarus. This is true – Adriana can do anything on behalf of Stephanie that has to do with finances (including business, real estate and legal matters). Therefore, Icarus Metalworks Inc. and Can I Play With Porcelain Ltd. are now considered related companies. Can I Play With Porcelain Ltd. loses its small business deduction. Between the two companies, the first $500,000 is taxed at 10% and the remaining $650,000 is taxed at 35%.
Is there a way around this? Yes.
Two powers of attorney are prepared, both enduring, both restricted – in exactly opposite ways – and one is made “springing.”
In the first instance, Stephanie grants an enduring power of attorney to Adriana, effective immediately and without any limits or restrictions except that Adriana may not use it to vote or in any other way act on Stephanie’s shares of her company, Icarus Metalworks Inc.
This will probably cover about 95% of what Stephanie needs Adriana to do.
Eventually, Stephanie may lose capacity and need Adriana to take control of her company. At that point, the benefit of Adriana controlling Stephanie’s shares will outweigh the tax consequences. There’s also the slim hope that by then, the Income Tax Act will be amended so as not to catch enduring powers of attorney anymore.
Stephanie grants a second enduring power of attorney to Adriana, but this one has two limitations in it. It only applies to Stephanie’s shares of her company, to avoid any confusion regarding which power of attorney applies in any given situation. Also, it is not effective until Stephanie loses capacity – this is called a “springing” power of attorney. It springs into effect only when Stephanie is no longer capable of managing her affairs. This prevents CRA from considering the companies to be related until it’s absolutely necessary, and this is a recognized technique among lawyers who practise regularly in the areas of estate and incapacity planning.
Jeremy R. Costin, JD, is a business, estates and ecommerce lawyer at Costin Law. He can be reached at 604-742-0717 or jeremy@costinlaw.ca.
Aretha Franklin sings “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” at the U.S. Capitol during the 56th presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2009. Franklin is one of many celebrities who died without a will. (photo by Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Force)
The passing of Aretha Franklin in August sparked a lot of response, once it became known that she did not make a will. It is, in some sense, shocking that, with an estate estimated to this point as valued at $80 million – and, of course, her estate will continue making money, from record sales, merchandising and so forth – somehow she could not find time to make a will.
And she is hardly alone in that conundrum. Many celebrities have died intestate (without a will), as you will see. The real question is why.
Franklin was a brilliant, very hardworking person. She had a gifted voice and she was raised in a musical family – her father apparently sang in church and was a good singer in his own right. Without a doubt, she overcame numerous obstacles, not the least of which was that, at the start of her career, the United States was still a segregated society. The late great singer-songwriter, Otis Redding wrote the song “Respect” in 1965. Franklin turned the well-written song into an earth-shaking song, which was released in 1967. In the Rolling Stone magazine compilation of the top 500 songs of all time, “Respect” was No. 5.
Ironically, perhaps, a relevant portion of the lyrics for this column goes as follows: “I’m about to give you all of my money / And all I’m askin’ in return, honey / Is to give me my propers / When you get home (just a, just a, just a) / Yeah, baby (re, re, re, re) / Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit) / When you get home, now (just a little bit) / Ooh, your kisses / Sweeter than honey / And guess what? / So is my money….”
Excellent lyrics, to be sure, and groundbreaking for the times. Perhaps it was a battle cry for millions of women in the day. And it was hardly her only big hit. As most readers will know, Franklin had many major hits.
With such success and obviously a high level of income over many years – how else do you accumulate an estate worth $80 million? – it is not easily understood why Franklin never made a will. As she grew up poor, perhaps nobody could convince her that a will was needed. Perhaps she was busy enough that she felt she could always “do it later” (a common sentiment in North American society), though, given she had pancreatic cancer, she would surely have had time to do some planning.
What we do not yet know is the status of her relationships with her family members. Perhaps she did not want to make a will and was not overly concerned with the distribution of her estate. Perhaps she wanted to bequeath assets to charities, which might have angered her family. Certainly that won’t happen now, given the nature of intestacy law. The law of Michigan, Franklin’s home state, is that, without a will, an estate is distributed among children. Franklin had four children. But it is presumably possible that the nature of her relationship with her children had a lot to do with her apparent decision to do little or no estate planning.
Some of the other celebrities who did not have wills when they died include:
Sonny Bono, former partner of Cher, died in a ski accident in 1998, without a will. His estate was valued at $4 million. His surviving wife, Mary Bono, had to launch proceedings in probate court to be named executrix.
Prince died in 2016 without a will and with an estate valued at $200 million. Numerous persons claimed to be a former wife, sibling, child or other relative. Though a judge last year ruled in favour of Prince’s surviving sister and five half-siblings (to get the estate), others have filed appeals, so the estate will not likely be resolved for years.
Bob Marley died in 1981, leaving no will. Under Jamaican law, his estate was to be given to his wife and 11 children. However, more than 30 years later, the estate remains in litigation.
Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, also without a will. The estate was fully settled 45 years later, with a resolution regarding the commercial use of Hendrix’s likeness.
Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994 without a will, left a $450 million estate. The estate was apparently resolved in 2010.
Pablo Picasso died in 1973, leaving an estate that cost $30 million to resolve (in a six-year battle). The incredible artist died without a will … he could have at least painted one!
So, do you really need a will? The short answer is yes, and here are some reasons.
Even if you are a young family with no major assets except for a heavily mortgaged residence, once you have children, you should make a will. A will is the best – and perhaps least expensive – document in which to appoint a guardian for minor children. Without it, grandparents will battle the province for custody of your children.
Another reason to make a will is that an executor is appointed under a will. This means that somebody is there to manage your estate and deal with Canada Revenue Agency, all the beneficiaries, the province, and so forth. Without a will, somebody has to step forward and apply to become administrator. That takes time and, before the Supreme Court of British Columbia grants letters of administration, the would-be administrator has no legal authority, so it ends up taking a lot more time to deal with the estate, and it will probably cost more as well. The beneficiaries will not be pleased.
Yet another reason to make a will is to have control over where, to whom and how much to whom your assets will go. Without a will, chances are that some person you may not have intended will receive something from the estate.
As well, if you own a residence in the Lower Mainland, you have a large estate now. With a will, you can control when a child receives her or his portion of the estate. Without a will, a child will receive their portion when they reach age 19. That may not turn out well because not all 19-year-olds can manage a large inheritance. It may be overwhelming for such a person, having just lost her or his parents.
Having a will brings order to an estate and a family at a time when they need it. And it is a statement of the will-maker’s wishes. A person who owns the assets should be able to decide who gets what, and when. That can really help a family.
Whether celebrities have a sense of invincibility, are not getting good advice, or are just like the rest of us – surveys say that half of all Canadians don’t make wills – too many of them are not making a will. Their agents should be more firm with them, making sure they see a lawyer and get the advice they need. People do not do their families any favours by not making a will. Those who die intestate may be bestowing attorneys with the major portions of their estates.
Jack Micner is a barrister and solicitor at Spry Hawkins Micner. He can be reached at 604-233-7001 or jack@willpowerlaw.ca.
A Canadian delegation was among some 6,000 participants in the International Christian Embassy’s annual Sukkot march through the centre of Jerusalem last week. (photo from Ashernet)
Congregation Beth Israel, circa 1955. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.09737)
If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting archives@jewishmuseum.ca or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.
Judaism is an aspirational religion that, while accepting the reality of failure, believes in the human capacity to transcend and achieve levels of excellence in our everyday lives.
“You shall be holy, for I the Lord God am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2) “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6) These are but two of the more potent examples of the aspirational quality of our tradition and its immense respect for the capacity inherent within the human being. As beings created in the image of God, there is nothing that we cannot do, a factor which created a tradition defined by commandment and expectation.
A significant manifestation of this future is the commandment of teshuvah. We expect people to honestly assess the content and the quality of their lives, regret and admit their failures, and commit to embarking on a new direction. This expectation is brought to a climax during Yom Kippur, where the Vidui (Confession), which lies at the nucleus of the Yom Kippur liturgy, places before us the realities of our sins and challenges us to honestly confront what we have done with our lives.
It is, therefore, deeply troubling to recognize the profound failure of Yom Kippur as a force for change. The passion, seriousness and devotion that accompany many of us throughout Yom Kippur peters out into a form of amnesia during the break-fast meal, as we return to our behaviour of yesterday.
Yom Kippur is a synagogue success story. More people show up than on any other day, pounding their hearts with great devotion as they cry out, “Ashamnu.” (“We have sinned.”) However, Yom Kippur’s impact on Jewish life seems to be marginal.
This is not a new phenomenon. It may be the meaning behind Isaiah’s critique of the Jewish people and their fast days: the people indeed fast, “starve their bodies” and “lie in sackcloth and ashes,” however, this is not the fast day that God desires, but rather a day in which we “unlock fetters of wickedness and untie the cords of the yoke and let the oppressed go free.” (Chapter 58) To paraphrase Isaiah, the quality of repentance is not judged by what one does on Yom Kippur, but by what one does afterwards.
The problem with Yom Kippur in the synagogue is that it is too complete and comprehensive. It creates the myth of putting all of one’s life and behaviour up for judgment, where we confront every one of our failings and repent for them all. The list of sins in the Vidui is too extensive to have any impact on the life of a real person. For a prayer, and within the isolated environment of the synagogue, it is fine. As a force for facilitating change in real life, the comprehensive nature of our service makes it impossible to be a significant factor in everyday life.
Change, growth and improvement are rarely radical epiphanies, but are rather slow and gradual processes. As Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed teaches us, radical transformation away from that to which one is accustomed is impossible. (3:32) According to Maimonides, God and the Jewish tradition had immense patience with the idolatrous, slave mentality of the people who came out of Egypt and did not require them to accept or adopt either beliefs or practices that were radically different from that to which they had grown accustomed. We must do the same both with ourselves and with others.
If Yom Kippur is to be the force our tradition aspires it to be, it must cease to be the culmination of the process, and instead serve as its beginning. The purpose of the all-inclusive lists cannot be to ask an individual to review all of his life, but to create a menu from within which every individual can find one dimension, one quality that they can commit to working on.
Yom Kippur must cease to be a forum for New Year’s declarations and instead become a catalyst for a new culture among the Jewish community, a culture that fosters individual responsibility, reflection and a commitment to being a teshuvah person. As a teshuvah person, one commits to the ongoing and difficult path of constantly aspiring more from oneself. As a teshuvah person, one neither views oneself as an ideal, nor fools oneself into believing in overnight conversions.
Our tradition teaches us, “It is not for you to complete the task, neither are you free to desist from it.” Nowhere is this saying from The Ethics of the Fathers more relevant than in the task of building a life of value. This year, let us take teshuvah out of the synagogue, disconnect Yom Kippur from its myriad rituals and place it at the foundation of our everyday lives.
Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute and author of the 2016 book Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself. Articles by Hartman and other institute scholars can be found at shalomhartman.org.
The print edition’s cover photo of the salmon run on Adams River by Leah Ramsay was taken in 2010 at Tsútswecw Provincial Park, near Kamloops, B.C. Formerly named after conservationist and author Roderick Haig-Brown, the park was renamed Tsútswecw this past June.
Tsútswecw (pronounced choo-chwek) translates to “many rivers” and the park, established in 1977, encompasses the spawning beds of the sockeye, chinook, coho and pink salmon. Every fourth year is a “dominant” run, with millions of salmon returning – 2010, when this photo was taken, was a dominant year, as is 2018. In honour of the occasion, there is a festival held at the park, called Salute to the Sockeye, which runs this year from Sept. 28 to Oct. 21.
One of the symbols of Rosh Hashanah is the fish head – “we should be the head and not the tail.” There are the themes of creation, rebirth and renewal, as well. In the run, the salmon return from the ocean to their natal stream to spawn, after which most die, their bodies providing nutrients to the vegetation and animals, and the lifecycle begins anew. This all happens in British Columbia from September through November.
“Seeing one of the peak years of the Adams River sockeye run had been a desire for many years and it didn’t disappoint,” said Ramsay. “Even non-hardcore nature nerds are impressed – it is such a huge mass of life all moving to the same goal.”
The Spectacle Shoppe’s display window. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
Once again, Leo Franken has made the Spectacle Shoppe’s display window on West Boulevard in Vancouver eye-catching for the holidays. Passersby on Sunday afternoon, when these photos were taken, voiced their appreciation of his efforts and the Rosh Hashanah message – “Happy New Year!”
