Local – Jewish Independent

A dialogue on human rights

Zena Simces and Simon Rabkin (photos from organizers)

A first-annual event next month aims to mobilize individuals and groups to tackle issues of human rights in a comprehensive way.

The Simces and Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, on Sept. 12, will feature Kasari Govender, British Columbia’s incoming human rights commissioner. A number of invited guests will offer comments from the audience and a reception will follow for less formal interactions. The free event has already reached full capacity.

Govender is the province’s first human rights commissioner since 2002, when the government, under the B.C. Liberals, abolished the position, making this the only province in the country without a human rights commission. Currently, Govender is the executive director of West Coast LEAF (Legal Education and Action Fund), which advances gender equality through involvement in equality rights cases at all levels of court. Govender assumes her new position in September.

The dialogue event, intended to be replicated each year, is the brainchild of Vancouver couple Zena Simces and Simon Rabkin. The series is presented in partnership with Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, where the event is to take place, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The topic of this year’s forum is From Hate to Hope in a Digital Age.

“Human Rights has been an interest of mine for many years,” said Simces, a health and social service policy consultant who has worked with minority communities. She is also a former Pacific region chair of the now-defunct Canadian Jewish Congress. “Simon and I felt that there was not one overall organization in Vancouver that was devoted to human rights issues.”

When Simces lived in Fredericton, N.B., she set up a lecture series in conjunction with the Atlantic Centre for Human Rights. It has continued for 30 years and Simces travels there annually for the event.

“In the last year or so, there’s just been so much going on about hate and abuse of human rights, violence, far-right groups and antisemitism, so we both felt there was a void in Vancouver with respect to a dedicated program on human rights,” she said. “There are a lot of different interest groups – women’s groups, specific minority groups – that have different programs, but there isn’t one group really now in Vancouver that is looking at the whole area of human rights broadly for the whole community. When we approached Simon Fraser’s Wosk Centre for Dialogue, they felt the same and thought it was a great idea.”

Rabkin is a cardiologist, a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia and president of the medical staff at Vancouver Hospital. He also does investigative research in cardiology and has led numerous organizations.

“I’ve been involved for years with looking after individuals in either under-serviced areas in Canada or in Africa and have looked after disadvantaged peoples as patients and have seen the impact of problems of human rights affecting individuals’ lives, and so I wanted to see about doing something that might alter the attitudes towards minimizing or denigrating human rights, which have affected people that I’ve been involved with,” he said.

With SFU, the pair set up an advisory group that includes thought leaders in the field, including a legal expert in international human rights; a former ambassador who has dealt with peace, security and human rights issues; a representative from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights; and representatives from the Wosk Centre.

“We also brought together a multicultural group of young leaders for a one-time focus group,” Simces said. It was out of this group that the idea arose to prioritize the issue of human rights in the digital age.

In addition to opening the event up to the public, specific invitations were made to multicultural organizations, indigenous groups, police, members of the legal community, health workers, educators and representatives of different religious communities, including Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan, director of inter-religious studies at the Vancouver School of Theology, among others.

“What we wanted to do is to create a venue and an opportunity for people to start talking together … not just to complain about problems, but also to be able to start formulating approaches to solve problems and address them and solve them,” said Rabkin. “We don’t have a political mandate to change things. But we believe that by dialoguing and by having the community speak to and hear from the newly appointed commissioner and to have people such as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights involved and other groups involved … then there will be a lot of important ideas created and a lot of opportunities for exchange of information and thoughts and we believe that this will be a catalyst moving forward.”

Simces added that she expects antisemitism to come up in the discussions, as statistics indicate that the Jewish community is one of the most targeted groups for hate crimes. However, she added: “We wanted this to be broader than just the Jewish community. I think it’s educating the broader community on antisemitism and other issues, so we wanted to make sure that this was a dialogue within the broader community.”

“If we can reduce hate generally, then that impacts a reduction in antisemitism,” said Rabkin. “That’s the objective.”

“We hope people will come and participate in the dialogue and really think about how to follow-up in terms of addressing the issue of hate from a legal, social media, education and community perspective,” Simces said.

How can we be happy?

Left to right are Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University Vancouver president Stav Adler, CFHU Vancouver executive director Dina Wachtel and Hebrew U’s Prof. Yoram Yovell. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)

The happiest time in the average person’s life is when the last grown child leaves home and the dog dies. That was the tip of the iceberg in happiness advice from one of world’s foremost experts and researchers on the subject.

Prof. Yoram Yovell, a psychiatrist, brain researcher, psychoanalyst, author and media phenomenon in Israel, spoke to an overflow crowd at Beth Israel Synagogue July 25. An associate professor in the division of clinical neuroscience, Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yovell is author of two bestsellers: Brainstorm and What is Love? He hosted the award-winning primetime TV show Sihat Nefesh (Heart-to-heart Talk) for 10 years. His visit was presented by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and made possible by the Dr. Robert Rogow and Dr. Sally Rogow Memorial Endowment Fund in Support of Academic Lectures.

Yovell speculated that the audience was so large because of a sad fact about Vancouver.

“Now I understand why all of you are here,” he said. “I didn’t know this before I came here – you are considered to be the unhappiest city in Canada.”

He supposes this status might have to do with the combination of rainy days and the proportion of new Canadians, because “immigrants, for very important reasons, happen to be less happy than people who live in the same place where they were born,” he said.

But advancing happiness (or ameliorating unhappiness) requires us to define it, he said. He asked the audience to raise their hands if they were happy – most did – but then he demanded to know how they knew they were happy.

“That question sounds silly,” he said. “Because happiness is a subjective mental state. It’s something that I feel inside.… You probably did with yourself something that you would have done had I asked you, are you hungry or not hungry? Are you hot or cold? Are you tired or awake? In all the circumstances, people look inside and try to get a certain feeling and then that’s what they report. By doing so, we are treating happiness as if it’s something we feel. I’m not saying it’s bad that happiness is something we feel, but I think we have lots to gain by really questioning whether happiness is something that we feel or something that we do.”

Aristotle, who wrote a lot about happiness, differentiated hedonia, pleasure, from eudaimonia, a much more complex concept that has more to do with achieving one’s potential in every aspect of our lives.

Instead of asking, “Are you happy?” Aristotle would ask, “Are you the best doctor you can be, the best husband, the best parent?”

Yovell said, “And, if the answer is yes, or almost yes, to most of those questions, then, for Aristotle, I’m eudaimonia and he doesn’t care how I feel.”

Tal Ben Shahar, an Israeli who wrote the book Happier about 2,400 years after Aristotle’s ponderings on happiness, developed a simple equation: happiness equals pleasure plus meaning. This dictum is, Yovell said, the only thing that every school of philosophy and every religion agrees on. Pleasure does not equal happiness. Meaning is the additional ingredient that turns fleeting pleasure into lasting happiness.

“The contribution of pleasure to happiness is there, but it’s small,” said Yovell. “And what’s even more important is it does not last, whereas the contribution of meaning to our happiness is huge and it’s stable. That makes an enormous difference to how we should conduct our lives if we want to be happier.”

One example he discussed was a study showing that most parents say, in retrospect, that child-rearing is the thing that made them happiest. But ask them when they’re changing diapers, doing laundry or settling squabbles, and they’ll tell you their happiness level is in the basement.

“It doesn’t really matter what you felt in the meantime,” he said. “What matters is what is kept in your memories. We live in our memories.”

Having children, for most people, is the most meaningful thing they’ve ever done, said Yovell.

“Pleasure is good. Have a good dinner, have a vacation abroad, upgrade your car model – all these things are going to make you happier. But not to a great degree and not for very long,” he said. “The things that are going to make us happy long-term are the things that give our lives meaning.”

Still, the road to happiness can be arduous.

“If you take a regular couple and ask, ‘When are these two people going to be at the top of their marital happiness?’ the answer is a short time after they get married and, with every child they have, their level of happiness decreases. And when their first child hits adolescence …” at this point his words were drowned out by the laughter and applause of the audience. “You know what I’m talking about, right?” he said.

“But there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he continued. “For those of us who manage to bypass this ‘Death Valley,’ there is going to come a time in our marital life where our happiness level [improves]. The vast majority of you are going to get happier … the older you become, the happier you’re going to be.”

A study of 340,000 American men and women looked at the correlation between their well-being and their age.

“At 18, they’re pretty happy – before they’ve realized what’s going to happen,” said Yovell. “Soon, they go off to college and there goes their happiness and they keep going down and down and down and it gets worse and worse and then they hit rock bottom here, in the 40s and 50s,” he said, pointing at a slide on the projection screen. “But, it gets better as they get older, sicker, less attractive, closer to death – and happier.”

Yovell’s academic work has often focused on reducing extreme unhappiness so that, for example, suicidal people are improved enough to be brought back from that brink.

He cited Sigmund Freud, a founding board member of Hebrew University, noting that “many things that Freud hypothesized were proven wrong, but many were proven right.” One example, he said, was Freud’s observation in his first book that “Much will be gained if we succeed in transforming hysterical misery into common unhappiness.”

The science of happiness has advanced dramatically in just the past two decades, Yovell said. We now know that the parts of the brain that register physical pain overlap with those that register emotional pain.

“This is something that 20 years ago we knew absolutely nothing about and now we do. In the last two decades, we’ve gradually learned that it is true that mental suffering is encoded in our brains using the same neural pathways, the same neurotransmitters that also mediate the extremes of physical pain.”

If you ask a friend about the most painful thing they’ve experienced in their life, they are unlikely to tell you about a ski accident or an operation, he said.

“They’re going to tell you about the loss of a first-degree relative. They’re going to tell you of how they felt when a father, a mother, a sibling, a spouse or, God forbid, a child has died and has left them bereaved,” said Yovell. “That, for most of us, is going to be the most painful thing in our life.”

Similarly new research indicates that emotional pain is something we can quantify, that it is more than subjective. With this knowledge, Yovell said, the follow-up question is: “Can we make it better and, if so, how?”

First, it is important to understand what we can control and what we cannot.

In 2014, a study looked at the relationship between happiness and genetics and concluded, the professor said, “that our genetics do influence our happiness but they are responsible for about 32% of our happiness, which means that 68% of our happiness – more than two-thirds of how happy or unhappy we’re going to be – has something to do with us. Part of it is the circumstance into which you were born, but the rest is how we conduct our lives – both our real lives out in the world and our inner world, our mental lives. This is what we have to work with and that ain’t bad.”

Yovell described a study of university students, in which a control group was given a placebo and another group regular-strength Tylenol and participants were then asked to journal about how they felt with their ongoing lives on campus.

“Those who got Tylenol instead of placebo actually experienced those mental pains to a lesser degree,” he said. “That’s nice, but that ain’t going to do the job when things get more difficult when someone, God forbid, loses a spouse or when someone sinks into a big depression. Tylenol will not be the answer. But what about opioids? What about narcotics? What about those drugs that mitigate the effects of endorphins. Do they make mental suffering better? And, if so, at what price?”

Opioids were used in the treatment of depression for at least 100 years, he said, between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries.

“Drugs like morphine and codeine were the first drugs of choice in the treatment of mental depression and they actually worked,” he said. But the problems were threefold. These drugs induce tolerance, meaning a patient has to increase the dose in order to achieve the same effect. Narcotics or opioids also cause addiction and that’s a huge problem. And they are easy to overdose on.

Recently, scientists have begun investigating the use of the opioid buprenorphine.

“It’s less addictive and it’s much less dangerous in overdose because, if you give it in high doses, it actually blocks its own effect, so it’s very, very hard to overdose on,” Yovell said. “Even though it’s 40 times more potent than morphine, it’s actually a lot less dangerous to overdose and also less addictive.… We took people in Israel who are not only incredibly depressed but also suicidal. In addition to existing treatments for their depression and suicidality, the experiment added buprenorphine to their regimen.… Those who received the active drug, unbeknownst to them and to us as well, continued to improve. So there is hope, which is very nice.”

A drug-free way to marginally increase one’s happiness, he said, is simple goodness, generosity and philanthropy. Making others happy makes us happy, he said.

“People who contribute their time and money, who volunteer, will not only be happier, they will live longer,” he said. He then directed audience members to donation forms on their tables and asked them to consider contributing to scholarships for graduate students who are working with him.

“I leave it up to you,” he said, “whether you want to save your lives.”

Segal aims for Ottawa

Zach Segal will represent the Conservative party in the Oct. 21 federal election in the riding of Vancouver Granville. (photo from Zach Segal)

While Conservatives across Canada will spend the weeks leading up to the federal election reminding voters of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s excoriating of her former leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, one Tory candidate will likely be downplaying the Vancouver MP’s star turn before a parliamentary committee.

In July, Zach Segal won the nomination to represent the Conservative party in the Oct. 21 federal election in the riding of Vancouver Granville. The incumbent, Wilson-Raybould, was elected there in 2015 and immediately was appointed minister of justice and the attorney general of Canada. In January of this year, she was shuffled to minister of veterans affairs and, less than a month later, resigned from cabinet.

Wilson-Raybould was thrown out of the Liberal caucus after testifying before the House of Commons justice committee about pressure she said she experienced from the prime minister’s office over an ongoing investigation into Quebec-based SNC-Lavalin, the largest construction company by revenue in Canada. The resulting scandal sent the governing Liberals tumbling in opinion polls, and they are now generally neck-and-neck with the Conservatives in most surveys. Wilson-Raybould is seeking reelection as an independent.

Segal said that a vote for the incumbent is a protest vote, but that a vote for him offers the chance to change the government.

“If you are upset with Justin Trudeau and you want to kick the Liberals out of Ottawa, the only way to do that is to vote for Andrew Scheer and, if you live in Vancouver Granville, to vote for Zach Segal,” he told the Independent.

The riding cuts a swath through the city, from the Fraser River almost to False Creek and roughly from West Boulevard to Cambie, also encompassing the area north of 41st Avenue west of Main Street and west of Ontario Street to 2nd Avenue. Almost all of the city’s Jewish communal organizations are located in the riding and many of the city’s Jewish residents live there.

Segal graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2011, with a major in political science and a minor in history. He went to Ottawa on an internship arranged through the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

“At the time, I was conservative-leaning, but I wasn’t partisan,” he said. “I was certainly conservative but I wasn’t affiliated like other young folks are at university.”

After the internship, Segal continued working with Manitoba Conservative MP James Bezan, who was parliamentary secretary to the minister of defence. He later became spokesperson for then-transport minister Lisa Raitt.

When the Conservatives lost the 2015 election, Segal opted to return to Vancouver. He got a job with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which has a mandate to help Canadians access affordable housing options.

“I was very interested in housing but still interested in the government and policy world,” Segal said. “I wanted to learn more about housing so I thought a job at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation would be a good opportunity because it was a Crown corporation – it wasn’t part of the federal public service, it was separate – so I thought that would be a good opportunity to get into the housing world and learn more.”

On leave since he announced his candidacy for the nomination in the spring, Segal is part of the CMHC marketing team, publicizing programs and opportunities for nonprofits, the private sector, developers and others, such as low-interest loans.

Faced with a splintered group of candidates in what will probably be one of the most closely watched races in the country, Segal is confident he can win.

“I really think I can actually win and I think that’s the most important thing,” he said, adding that the agenda in the city has largely been dominated by the left.

“I want to show that maybe we have some conservative solutions to some of these big problems that Vancouver is facing,” he said. “My big issues are all packaged into one. I think they all go together. I think everyone’s very interested in housing, in transportation, affordability and the economy. If we can solve transportation infrastructure, maybe it could help reduce pressure on housing because we could build further out and, if we could grow our economy and have better opportunities, people here could make more money and that would solve some of the issues around affordability. Certainly housing, I think we need to look at different ways of solving this, rather than the current proposals. Vancouver’s average wages are some of the lowest in Canada but we have some of the highest average home prices in Canada. I think that’s where one of the problems lies. We need to start looking at how we can grow our whole economy, and Vancouver subsequently, with better jobs and higher wages.”

He said his four years in Ottawa equip him to be an effective MP.

“A lot of people have this idea that, if you’re on the backbench, you can’t do anything, but the MP I worked for was so diligent and committed to issues that he was able to bring them to the floor of the House of Commons,” said Segal. “He was constantly tabling motions, private member’s bills, he was constantly getting his foot in the door of the prime minister’s office and he made sure that, even though he was a backbencher, he got all these prominent issues to the forefront of public policy. That was very inspiring. It’s a good message that you can accomplish things as a member of Parliament.”

As a Jewish candidate, Segal has been hearing from voters that they respected former prime minister Stephen Harper’s approach to Israel.

“Jews and non-Jews alike tell me that they deeply respected how Stephen Harper and the Conservative government stood up for Israel on the world stage,” he said. “They just liked seeing a politician stand on principle and not be bullied and stand up – quite frankly – stand up to the world, stand up to the UN. People really liked seeing that and I think they like leaders who show their true colours, and want to see that back in Ottawa.”

Segal, who attended Richmond Jewish Day School and graduated from Steveston High, went to Israel on a Birthright trip in 2008.

“You always know Israel is small but, until you’re there and you travel the country in a short period of time, you don’t realize how small it is,” he said. “When people talk about Israel’s security concerns, it’s not just a platitude. It’s a tiny country. When you visit Israel, you take tours of the Golan Heights. You can see Hezbollah outposts. Now, if you are there, you can see maybe even ISIS outposts in Syria. It’s this remarkable, tiny country, this outpost of vibrancy and Western democracy that somehow is bordering some of the most extreme elements of the world right there on its border and you really appreciate its security concerns being there.”

Back on local doorsteps, Segal said voters are asking whether they can trust their leaders.

“They see Justin Trudeau taking care of his friends. He had this big gift to Loblaws for retrofitting some fridges and they’re taking care of Irving and SNC, but, if you’re a small business owner, you’re left to fend for yourself,” said Segal.

In addition to Segal and Wilson-Raybould, Vancouver Granville voters will consider the Liberal candidate, tech entrepreneur and investor Teleeb Noormohamed, the NDP’s Yvonne Hanson, a climate activist, and Green candidate Louise Boutin, a realtor. The fledgling People’s Party of Canada has nominated Naomi Chocyk, who, at one point, was employed as a constituency assistant in Wilson-Raybould’s office. More candidates could enter the race before the close of the writ period.

Belong at Bayit and beyond

Shira Sachs and Dan Shmilovitch at the Bayit’s Belong launch May 12. (photo from facebook.com/thebayit)

Earlier this year, the Bayit in Richmond launched Belong. The goal of the program is “to create a community where belonging grows and isolation disappears.”

Belong was developed by a committee of six Bayit members: Mel Bauer, Matti Feigelstock, Shelley Goldberg, Shira Sachs, Dan Shmilovitch and Rabbi Levi Varnai.

“There are people that you know you should be connecting to, [or] they should be connecting to you as an organization, but, for whatever reason, they’re not. So, we started talking about how we could address that issue as the Bayit,” explained Shmilovitch, who has been active in the Jewish community for more than 30 years.

There is never just one reason why people feel isolated, he said. “People are isolated for a whole range of reasons – health issues, economic circumstances, mental health issues, maybe they are recently widowed or divorced.”

It is easy to assume that Jewish communities are inherently so strong as to make isolation impossible, but this is not the case. Shmilovitch spoke of the need for “deepening Jewish connections … because isolation is a huge problem in every community and it affects the Jewish community as well, for all age groups.”

There are challenges in combating isolation. “As a Jewish organization, as a synagogue, you’re always looking to invite people in,” he said. “But, when you have people who are isolated and really disconnected, your approach has to be different to get that connection because that’s not their mindset. At that moment in time, that’s not where they’re at.”

photo - Left to right: Mike Sachs, Dan Shmilovitch and Rabbi Levi Varnai at the Bayit’s Belong launch May 12 — Left to right: Mike Sachs, Dan Shmilovitch and Rabbi Levi Varnai at the Bayit’s Belong launch May 12. *(photo from facebook.com/thebayit)*

The Belong committee started their planning by examining the obstacles that prevent people from making contact. There is more to being a community member than simply going to shul, explained Sachs, who is a teacher at Vancouver Talmud Torah.

She noted that people can still feel “uncomfortable or isolated” attending social gatherings outside regular services. She talked about how loneliness has a profound effect on a person’s health and can lead to depression. Using her own childhood story as an example, she described arriving in Canada when her mother, now deceased, was pregnant with twins; Sachs is the oldest of four.

“Community became so important to us,” she said. “We didn’t have the language and, within a couple of months, we went from a family of four to a family of six. My mom was a new mother in a new country, with twins.”

Going to shul helped the family make connections, learn about which schools the family wanted for the children. As a parent herself now, Sachs described how this ethos has shaped her own approach to family life. “When we came back from L.A., it was the number one thing to do – find a community and slowly grow with it. Now, how do we do that for others?”

The Belong committee determined multiple strategies for community development, the first of which was through Friday night dinners. The Belong team sought Bayit members who were willing to invite people to meals at home. They also reached out to Jewish Family Services for help locating people in Richmond who needed help.

“If you have a lady who is a single parent, you match them with another single parent,” said Sachs. “If you have a person who is passionate about literature, you sit them with someone who has the same passion. It was all assigned seating.” She added, “It’s comforting to know, ‘I don’t have to worry about that.’ Maybe that anxiety is why people haven’t come to a dinner.”

Belong is also working to offer food deliveries to families in need. “Food security is an issue in the Jewish community,” said Shmilovitch. The program has been running for awhile now but he hopes that deliveries will become more frequent in future.

“There are vulnerable people in the Jewish community – whether they don’t have enough food, feel isolated for a short time or in the longer term. Regardless, it’s hard to come out at the other end. That’s what drives us.”

In addition, Belong has created a support structure for new mothers. Inspired by and in partnership with Mamatefet, a support organization for Hebrew speakers in Vancouver, Mama Belong will work to diminish the feelings of isolation that often follow the birth of a baby. (See jewishindependent.ca/mothers-embrace-mamatefet.) Mama Belong started delivering baskets to Jewish mothers this summer.

The future of Belong came into focus at the May 12 launch. Current members of the Bayit were invited to learn about the new program. Guests were given a card with tear-off tabs that suggested a wide range of ways in which people could contribute, including hosting Friday night dinners, Russian language conversation groups and cash donations, among other ideas. Between 90 and 95% of the attendees folded over a tab.

From Mama Belong to food bank deliveries and Shabbat dinners, the program is striving to create a warm sense of community for those in need. “You never know what’s going to happen at what point in your life,” said Shmilovitch, but “something’s going to happen to connect you.”

Shula Klinger is an author and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at shulaklinger.com.

Enter focaccia, stage right

Focaccia straight from the oven. (photo by Shelley Civkin)

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines, please. Or, in this case, your yeast. From zero to focaccia in one hour.

My unpremeditated transformation from water-burner to bread-baker is shocking even to me. Or especially to me. When hubby Harvey came home one day with a cast-iron pan, I got über excited, thinking I could now fry like my father used to. Though, when frying became a dirty word in the 1990s, he called it sautéeing. But, somehow, sautéeing seemed too prosaic for the mighty cast iron, so I started investigating what else I could do with the skillet.

Thanks to Google and Pinterest’s cookies, they now know that I like baking bread. I automatically get links to recipes for cast-iron bread-baking. Every. Five. Minutes. Enter focaccia, stage right. Or, if you’re Italian … entra nella scena della focaccia a destra.

I perused the myriad recipes and took a few of them on a test drive. Or test bake, as it were. The following recipe overtook the others by a mile, and won in the finest focaccia category. Here’s a link to the winning One-hour Rosemary Focaccia Bread I’ve come to love: flavorthemoments.com/one-hour-rosemary-focaccia-bread. (It actually takes an hour-and-a-half, if you include the time it takes to preheat your oven.)

It’s my go-to quick bread recipe. It’s truly no-fail. Feel free to ditch the garlic and Parmesan, or add more rosemary. You can’t screw up this bread. After my first try, I was hooked. I let the gorgeously golden focaccia cool, sliced it into small rectangles, like they do in Italian restaurants, and dipped it in EVOO (shorthand for extra virgin olive oil). Which made me wonder what an “extra virgin” is? Something to ponder another time. Never mind. Not relevant. Anyway, I’ve made this focaccia several times. Needless to say, I am not getting thinner. But my Italian is improving.

Now that I’ve pretty much nailed down challah and focaccia, I decided to branch out and try making a no-knead round crusty bread. You know, like sourdough. Minus the sour. The kind that requires you to have a Dutch oven. Google and Pinterest are way ahead of me, so they’ve been sending me nonstop recipes and pix of Dutch oven bread. All I had to do was think about crusty bread and they were on it.

I recently learned that not all Dutch ovens are created equal. They’re mostly made from cast iron covered in enamel, but not all of them can withstand the high heat you need to use. Thing is, for crusty bread, you have to heat the Dutch oven to about 450 degrees – empty. Then you put the dough in it. You don’t want to ruin a fancy shmancy Dutch oven over a loaf of bread. Even though my Dutch oven isn’t one of those $400 Le Creuset ones – it’s a $65 one from Costco, which works perfectly for pot roast, chicken and everything in between – I’m loathe to risk ruining it over bread. Sure, I could go buy one of the fancy Dutch ovens but, seriously, $400 for a crusty loaf? Not in this lifetime. I worked too hard to fritter my money away like that. And, like I always say, just because you can afford to buy something, doesn’t mean you should.

So, I improvised and used an ancient Magnalite aluminum-magnesium alloy Dutch oven that belonged to my friend’s late mother. I’m hoping I don’t get Alzheimer’s, what with the aluminum connection, but it’s not like I’m going to be making every single meal in it. Anyway, the bread was a marginal success. The outside looked gorgeously crusty but, once I cut into it, parts were doughy and uncooked. Bake and learn. I’ll try it a few more times, tweaking the temperature, increasing the rising time, etc., and hope for the best. If at first you don’t succeed, well, suck it up and try again.

I can hear some readers wondering why I would want to waste half a day baking bread from scratch, when I could just go out and buy a loaf. Well, there’s something indescribable about the smell of fresh baked bread wafting through my home. It’s a little like a comestible aphrodisiac. It makes me weak at the knees, thinking about the butter melting slowly over the hot bread, as I sniff it lovingly with anticipation. Wait, this is becoming a little X-rated. I need to get a grip. Sorry. Suffice to say that my husband and I adore fresh bread and appreciate the effort it takes to make it. And, since I’m a notorious multi-tasker, I busy myself with other things while the dough is rising, so there’s no wasted time. Like now, for instance. I’m writing this article while waiting for my rosemary and Kalamata olive bread dough to double in size.

Never having been one to let grass grow under my feet, my next culinary foray will be gravlax. Ever since tasting my friend Roxanne’s heavenly gravlax last Pesach, I’ve been itching to give it a go. Since salmon season is upon us, there’s no time like the present. Harvey’s on board too, but not as a cook as much as a taste-tester. From what I can tell, it’s a ridiculously easy thing to make, as long as you have truckloads of salt, sugar, dill and time. No, not thyme. Once I perfect the recipe, I’ll share it with you. But not until then.

You can try till you’re blue in the face to convince me that store-bought food is just as good as homemade, but I’m not buying it. Literally or figuratively. There’s just something about the laying on of hands, the investment of love and effort, and the satisfaction at the end of it all, that makes homemade food so very worth it.

I suspect I might have made a very dedicated homesteader. As long as I had an electric stove and oven, and a good refrigerator. Oh, and maybe somewhere close by where I could get a good decaf, low-foam, lactose-free latte while I was growing my own food, baking bread and churning butter. Am I country girl at heart? Hell, no! I am about as cityfied as they come. To wit, my idea of camping is a Motel 8. And outhouses? They should be outlawed.

Enough said.

Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, 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.

Jessies, Order of Canada, Korczak, Rockowers, Federation & VHEC

Warren Kimmel won a Jessie Award for his portrayal of the title character in the Snapshots Collective’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. (photo from Snapshots Collective)

The 37th annual Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards were held on July 15 at Bard on the Beach’s BMO Mainstage in Vanier Park. Fifty theatrical productions were nominated from last year’s theatre season.

In the small theatre category, the Snapshots Collective’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which included several Jewish community members in its creative team, garnered eight nominations: director Chris Adams and costume designer Emily Fraser were acknowledged, along with the outstanding performances by Jewish community member Warren Kimmel, Colleen Winton, Oliver Castillo and Jonathan Winsby, and the production as a whole for its quality and innovation. In the end, the show won four Jessies, for the performances of Kimmel, Winton and Castillo, as well as nabbing the award for outstanding musical production.

Jewish community member Itai Erdal won the award for outstanding lighting design category for his work in Arts Club Theatre Company’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Erdal was also nominated for his lighting in Théâtre la Seizième’s Le Soulier.

At the July 15 ceremony, community member David Diamond received the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance Career Achievement Award.

For more information, visit jessieawards.com.

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On June 27, 2019, Governor General of Canada Julie Payette announced this year’s appointments to the Order of Canada, including, as officers, two local Jewish community members: Gordon Diamond, for “his steadfast leadership in business and for his philanthropic support for causes related to health care, education and social services,” and Dr. Peter Suedfeld, for “his groundbreaking research on the psychological impacts of extreme environments and stressors on human behaviour.”

* * *

On June 18, 2019, at Government House in Victoria, B.C., the Janusz Korczak Medal was awarded to Ted Hughes, OC, and Helen Hughes, OC, while the Janusz Korczak Statuette was awarded to Irwin Elman, the past advocate for children and youth of Ontario. The awards were bestowed in recognition of caring for children in the spirit of Dr. Janusz Korczak.

The ceremony started with welcoming remarks by the event’s host, Lieutenant Governor Janet Austin, and Holocaust survivor and writer Lillian Boraks-Nemetz spoke about Korczak, with a personal touch. The awards were presented jointly by Jennifer Charlesworth, B.C. representative for children and youth, and Jerry Nussbaum, president of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada. And the event was emceed by Jerymy Brownridge, private secretary to the lieutenant governor and executive director of Government House.

* * *

The Jewish Independent won two American Jewish Press Association Simon Rockower Awards for excellence in Jewish journalism this year (for work published in 2018). The awards were presented at the 38th annual AJPA banquet, held in conjunction with the association’s annual conference in St. Louis, Mo., June 23-26.

Bruce Brown’s “The draft: a dad reflects” – in which he shares his experience of sending his son off to serve in the Israeli Air Force – placed first in the personal essay category for its circulation class.

The JI’s editorial board – Pat Johnson, Basya Laye and Cynthia Ramsay – took second place in the editorial writing category for its circulation group. The submission, which included the editorials “Holocaust education needed,” “Impacts of nation-state” and “What is anti-Zionism?” elicited the following comment from the Rockower judges: “Riveting and well-explained editorials on anti-Zionism, the identity of Israel as a nation-state, and a local controversy involving Holocaust education.”

* * *

photo - Ambassador Nimrod Barkan at Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual general meeting on June 18 — Ambassador Nimrod Barkan at Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual general meeting on June 18. *(photo from facebook.com/pg/jewishvancouver)*

At Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual general meeting on June 18 at King David High School, Federation elected two new directors – Karen Levitt and Melanie Samuels – and the board appointed a new executive. While Karen James has completed her term as board chair, she remains on the board as immediate past chair. Alex Cristall takes over as chair, Penny Gurstein is vice-chair, Bruce Cohen is secretary and Jim Crooks is treasurer.

At the AGM, several honours were bestowed: Stephen Gaerber was the recipient of the Arthur Fouks Award, Megan Laskin the Elaine Charkow Award and Sam Heller the Young Leadership Award. Tribute was also paid to James; as well as Jason Murray, outgoing chair of CIJA’s local partnership council; Richard Fruchter, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services; Rabbi Noam Abramchik and Rabbi Aaron Kamin, rosh yeshivah of Pacific Torah Institute; and Cathy Lowenstein, head of school at Vancouver Talmud Torah. Ambassador Nimrod Barkan attended the AGM as part of his last visit to Vancouver before he completes his term as Israel’s ambassador to Canada.

Federation thanks the directors who came off the board – Eric Bulmash, Bryan Hack, Rozanne Kipnes and Laskin – for their dedication to community and that they chose to share their time and talents with Federation. In Bulmash’s case, he will continue to contribute, but in a different capacity, as he is Federation’s new vice-president, operations.

* * *

At its annual general meeting on June 19, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre announced the two winners of the Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education. The VHEC also inducted two new recipients of the Life Fellows designation.

The designation of Life Fellow recognizes outstanding dedication and engagement with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre Society through long-term involvement and significant contributions to the organization’s programs and mandate. This year, VHEC is delighted to have two recipients, Wendy and Ron Stuart, in recognition of their longstanding contributions as artistic directors of the VHEC’s community-wide Yom Hashoah commemoration.

Each year, the VHEC presents the Meyer and Gita Kron and Ruth Kron Sigal Award to a B.C. elementary or secondary teacher who has shown a remarkable commitment to teaching students about the Holocaust and its important lessons. This year’s recipients are Nicola Colhoun and Dr. Christine Paget from West Vancouver Secondary School.

In their remarks, Colhoun and Paget shared, “As social studies teachers … we are tasked with the lofty goal of having students care about what has come before them to shape the world they live in now…. Through the testimonies of survivors, the past becomes tangible, it becomes human, and it becomes relevant to students…. So many of our students come away from the Holocaust Symposium saying things like, ‘I get it now.’ ‘I didn’t realize, but now I understand.’ They understand why the history of the Holocaust matters. And they also understand why they need to speak up for inclusion, and stand against racism and persecution of any kind, from the school hallways to the hallways of power.”

The VHEC’s executive is Philip Levinson, president; Corinne Zimmerman, vice-president; Marcus Brandt, second vice-president; Joshua Sorin, treasurer; Al Szajman, secretary; and Ed Lewin, past president.

Goldene Medina comes here

The Goldene Medina exhibit is designed to have the feel of a scrapbook album, to have come from any Jewish South African’s family memoir. (photo from South African Jewish Museum)

The Goldene Medina exhibit arrives in Vancouver July 29 for two weeks. A celebration of 175 years of Jewish life in South Africa, the exhibit was displayed in South Africa, Australia and Israel prior to arriving here, where it is making its North America debut at Congregation Beth Israel. Local Jewish community member Stephen Rom, who is from South Africa, saw it for the first time in Sydney and was instrumental in bringing it to the city.

“You need to remember your past to engage in the present,” reflected Rom. “I was struck by the level of professionalism of this exhibit, which was produced by the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town. What’s different about it is the way the stories have been written. Nobody is named or personally identified. This is the story of all Jews in South Africa, the community as a whole.”

The Goldene Medina was the Jews’ name for Johannesburg when they arrived during the gold rush in 1886. “This exhibition has soul – it’s not a dry exhibition of facts and figures,” noted Wendy Kahn, national director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies. “It’s one that tells real stories of families that have been living in South Africa for 175 years.”

“This is a social history,” agreed Gavin Morris, director of the museum, “the story of families and people and their experiences as South Africans and as Jews for 175 years, from our forefathers arriving to contemporary Jewish South Africa. Everything is taken from unpublished memoirs, articles and out-of-print books, to give the exhibit a sense of a scrapbook album, of any Jewish South African’s family memoirs. Our goal was for people to find their own stories in similar stories.”

The stories are excerpts written in the first person and accompanied by photographs old and new. One excerpt, titled “My Mother’s Table,” reads, “At my mother’s table, ‘being full’ was never a reason to stop eating. Some of the many reasons to have some more included: ‘I cooked this especially for you because I know you like it,’ ‘you can’t put so little leftovers back into the fridge,’ ‘it’s freshly made,’ and ‘you don’t like my cooking.’ Refusing more was to snub the generosity and abundance that was on offer. Eating was proof that you were loved and that you knew how to love back.”

Another, titled “Cubs,” reads: “After my mom realized that I only knew Jewish kids, she sent me off to Cubs – not exactly your standard Jewish activity. I came home with my first friend and said, ‘Mom, isn’t it wonderful? Here’s my first friend from Cubs and guess what – we’ve got the same Hebrew teacher!’ He was the only other Jewish kid there and we found each other. My mother gave up after that.”

A third is titled “A Surprise Guest”: “What is the epitome of Jewish chutzpah? Inviting the president of the country to attend your bar mitzvah. And what is Jewish mazel? When the president actually accepts. The bar mitzvah boy delivered his handwritten note to a security guard outside [Nelson] Mandela’s Houghton estate. He hoped to get a card from Mandela in return. Instead, his parents received an official call to say the president will attend. On the day, President Mandela arrived and sat at the main table, between the bar mitzvah boy and his father.”

The excerpts are thought-provoking, poignant, entertaining, informative and never boring. And the photographs are deeply intriguing, telling a story of their own – a timeless Jewish story that has relevance to all Jews whose ancestors have known immigration and resettlement.

Accompanying the Goldene Medina in Vancouver will be the exhibit Shalom Uganda: A European Jewish Community on the Ugandan Equator 1949-1961, curated by Janice Masur.

photo - The Kampala Jewish community gathers for visit of Chief Justice Joseph Herbstein from South Africa, 1958. Gifted by Ilsa Dokelman, in 2005 — The Kampala Jewish community gathers for visit of Chief Justice Joseph Herbstein from South Africa, 1958. Gifted by Ilsa Dokelman, in 2005. *(photo from Janice Masur)*

“As a child, I lived in this remote European Jewish community on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kampala, Uganda, under British Imperial rule, with no rabbi or Jewish infrastructure. Yet, this tiny community of 23 families and 20 children (15 of whom were born in Kampala) identified as Jews and formed a cohesive group that celebrated all the Jewish festivals together,” explained Masur. “Now that most references to Jews in Uganda pertain to … Abayudaya Jews, I want this history – my story about my Ashkenazi Jewish community in Kampala – to be remembered in the Jewish Diaspora.”

The photos and stories that comprise the Ugandan display are, said Masur, “a testament to a determined but isolated group of Jews who were secular in a [remote] place but upheld their Jewish identity and traditions as best as was possible,” given the lack of religious, educational or cultural Jewish institutions. (For more about the Ugandan Jewish community in which Masur grew up, click here.)

The July 29 opening night of the Goldene Medina starts at 7:30 p.m. at Beth Israel, where the display will be up until Aug. 14.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Local woman inspires chesed

Members of Vancouver Talmud Torah’s Grade 7 chesed club with Gia Tran, a local woman who raises money for cancer research by taking refundable containers to a bottle depot. (photo from VTT)

Since 2014, Vancouver Talmud Torah has offered a chesed (kindness) program to students in grades 3 and 6. Following requests from parents, the school introduced a mandatory chesed program for Grade 7s this year, which nurtures a commitment to volunteering and social justice.

And, this year, the initiative was pursued with a particular dedication, as students mourned the recent passing of Rose Dupaya, who worked as a custodian at VTT. She took ill last fall with cancer and died suddenly, which was a tremendous shock to the school community. In response, the students – who would often greet Rose with hugs – turned their grief into action.

When the Chesed Leadership Club heard about local woman Gia Tran, who takes refundable containers to a bottle depot every day to raise money for cancer research – more than $15,000 in 22 years – they were inspired. Following in Tran’s footsteps, the kids raised $2,000 from a bottle drive for cancer research.

VTT student Julia Andison expressed her gratitude to Tran for teaching her about personal agency. “Gia taught me that even a small act like collecting cans can make a big impact on others. And, as a chesed leader, I was able to communicate this to the younger students in our school, that every little bit counts.”

Students in the chesed club do not follow a curriculum. Unlike with subjects like math or language arts, the club was founded for students to explore their values and lead a program on their own initiative. As a consequence, the program’s success lies in the development of student ideas, teamwork and leadership.

“The minute you offer something optional and student-driven, it takes on a life of its own,” said Shoshana Burton, director of Hebrew (grades 5-7) and chesed programming at VTT.

Students are not admitted automatically to the chesed club. Instead, they submit applications and sign contracts. If they do not follow up on their commitment to leadership, they can be dropped from the program, which is both an opportunity and a challenge to the students’ organizational skills and a way to exercise their moral and management muscles.

All of the students volunteer as part of the program. Some do so once a week while others volunteer their help every day. Many organizations and communities have benefitted from the support of VTT students, including the Muslim Food Bank and residents of the Downtown Eastside.

According to their teacher, the success of the club is in its spontaneous, natural development. “You can’t know the end result when you start. You can’t plan in advance,” said Burton. “The students learn how to work as part of a team, learning to commit to a project.”

Student Celia Joffe spoke of the club’s impact on her. “Helping others gives us a sense of pride and responsibility,” she said. “The project with Gia was amazing because we ended up not only helping the cancer foundation and the environment, but we also made Gia feel special and acknowledged.”

Shula Klinger is an author and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at shulaklinger.com.

Court’s segregation decision

Halifax-based lawyer Hanna Garson. (photo from Hanna Garson)

In 2015, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society launched a legal challenge to the federal government’s laws that allow administrative segregation – a form of solitary confinement – in prisons, calling it a cruel and inhumane punishment that can lead isolated prisoners to harm and even kill themselves. They won their case in the B.C. Supreme Court in January 2018, a decision that was appealed by the government the next month. Last week, the B.C. Court of Appeal affirmed the unconstitutionality of provisions that allow indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners.

In the January 2018 decision, the B.C. Supreme Court gave the federal government 12 months to pass new laws. In January 2019, the court gave the government an extension to April, but said certain stipulations had to come into effect immediately. Correctional Service Canada was ordered to take several steps, including giving prisoners in segregation more time outside, requiring daily visits from healthcare professionals, allowing inmates legal counsel in hearings related to solitary confinement, and changing the authorization system regarding the placement of an inmate in segregation for more than 15 days.

The federal government was given another extension after the April deadline, to the end of June. Then, on June 24, the B.C. Court of Appeal came out with its decision on the matter – rejecting the government’s appeal.

“This particular case is very interesting, as there are no actual individual complainants,” said Jewish community member Hanna Garson, a lawyer based in Halifax whose focus is ensuring that everyone is treated fairly by the justice system. “So, the court [was] being asked to decide whether or not the written laws themselves breach provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada.”

According to Garson, sections of the Charter are indeed being breached when it comes to administrative segregation, especially as it comes with no time limit. “People are being put into segregation not knowing when, if ever, they’re going to get out,” she told the Independent. “That really plays on the mind.”

Noting that many people have mental illness or struggle with mental health before they are incarcerated, which “may have led to their negative interaction with the law,” she said, “That population, in particular, is very damaged by periods of segregation.”

The appeal court’s reasons for judgment, written by Justice Gregory Fitch, stated that the Corrections and Conditional Release Act violated Section 7 of the Charter, which protects an individual’s right to life, liberty and security of the person. The court “found that the harm caused by prolonged confinement in administrative segregation undermines the maintenance of institutional security, as well as the ultimate goal of achieving public protection by fostering the rehabilitation of offenders and their successful reintegration into the community.” It also “found that prolonged confinement in administrative segregation is not necessary to achieve the safety or security objectives that trigger its use.”

The judgment noted “that administrative segregation has a small, but significant, disproportionate effect on indigenous men and an even more significant effect on indigenous women” and that the “impugned laws” violated Section 15 of the Charter “to the extent that they authorize and effect a procedure that results in discrimination against aboriginal inmates.”

Section 15 states that, “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

Another issue, said Garson – who, in addition to being part of the firm Planetta Hughes LLP, is chair of the East Coast Prison Justice Society and is on the board of the Elizabeth Fry Society Mainland Nova Scotia – is that, while prisoners being placed in segregation have access to review boards, administrative segregation review boards consist of the same prison administration that placed them there. “So, it’s not an independent review and so, basically, the people who initially made the decision then question their own decision, which doesn’t necessarily secure a fair assessment of whether or not a person really needs to be segregated,” she said.

While legal counsel is permitted at these reviews, it is not provided in many provinces and few prisoners can afford representation or are not in a mental state of being able to request it, she said. “If you’re running a facility with hundreds of people who may be violent, I can understand a time-out for a moment to see what else needs to be done,” said Garson. “But, there needs to be a time limit and other solutions.

“Long-term, serious mental health treatments take far more expensive staff and thorough training. Are these better solutions though? Without a doubt, yes. Unfortunately, a lot of the constraints are budgetary and this is something that, oftentimes, courts are hesitant to rule on. But, for example, the court did say that, as it says in Section 15 [of the Charter], everyone has a right to be equal before the law and receive equal treatment of the law. So, the court does an assessment of whether or not people are being discriminated against by these laws.”

After hearing testimony and expert opinions, Garson said, “the court decided that both aboriginal people and people suffering from mental illness are segregated far more often … and that the impact on them is far more negative. But, it went further, ordering incarceration facilities to put in place better solutions – better programming that does not involve segregation.

“Usually, the court is hesitant to make decisions that would force the government to put more funding into something. But, it did in this decision, which is, in my opinion, really wonderful and a great precedent. This case is really groundbreaking and, to a certain extent, it was a wonderful thing that it was appealed.”

The B.C. Supreme Court said, “basically, we had to come up with new laws. But then, they suspended it for a year, as the government needs time to pass new bills and stuff like that. In the meantime, the attorney general appealed, because they don’t think it’s fair,” she said.

The Constitution of Canada, which includes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is the supreme law in Canada, she explained. Section 52 (1) of the Constitution Act 1982 mandates that any law inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect. The decision by the appeals court will become a binding precedent in all provinces, not only in British Columbia.

Garson emphasized that she is especially happy with the decision because it is one that has really considered the damage segregation does on the mental health of those being isolated and notes that, “if we really care about rehabilitation, then [segregation] makes no sense as a strategy, especially for those with mental illness.”

Because the court looked at the experiences of those who have been segregated and the decision will affect them, the system and society as a whole in the long-term, Garson said, “It’s more like a living document in that way, and it’s a very exciting case for this reason.”

As for where Jewish law falls on this matter, the organization T’ruah has been leading a campaign to abolish solitary confinement in the United States. In a 2014 report on the compliance of the United States with the United Nations Convention Against Torture, T’ruah notes, “The very first two chapters of our Torah teach us that every human being is created in the image of God, and that no human being should be alone. The practice of solitary confinement violates these principles and diminishes the divine image. It also violates one of the Torah’s central moral teachings, expressed in Leviticus 19:18, that one should ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ The rabbis explain that this is taught, so that no one can justify degrading treatment of a member of their community…. If you do thus, know that the person you have dishonoured was created in the image of God.”

The report argues that “Jewish tradition understands instinctively that humans are social creatures. In a story about a character who outlives his family, friends and study partners, the Talmud teaches, ‘Either companionship or death.’ Life alone is unbearable. Jewish law warns against excessive punishment, ‘lest your brother be degraded before your eyes.’ (Deuteronomy 25:3) Even a person who has committed a horrific crime must be regarded as a member of one’s own family and, therefore, deserving of dignity.”

T’ruah contends that Jewish criminal law seeks to inspire teshuvah (repentance) and that there are several principles that should hold in prisons:

“1. No matter his or her crime, the prisoner should be seen as our ‘brother or sister’ and treated with dignity.

“2. No human being should be alone for extended periods of time. Isolation diminishes the human being and can even be deadly.

“3. Prisons should seek to rehabilitate the prisoner and not simply to degrade him or her.

“4. A prisoner should have a fair trial before being placed in solitary confinement. Therefore, solitary confinement cannot be used for those in pre-trial detention.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Refugees 40 years on

Sui Khuu and her husband Dar, with their two children. (photo from Shirley Barnett)

In the last couple of years, Jewish congregations and groups in Vancouver have sponsored refugees from Syria, acts of humanitarianism that are inspired in part from ancient and recent history in which Jewish people were strangers in a new land. But this generosity is not new. Forty years ago, in 1979, a similar phenomenon occurred with Vietnamese refugees fleeing conflict in Southeast Asia.

The so-called “boat people” – about two million Vietnamese – fled their homeland in the years following the war there, which ended in 1975. Across Canada, churches, synagogues, service clubs and other groups came together to sponsor refugees. Among these were several B.C. Jewish groups.

Forty years later, one of the refugees sponsored by a group of Jewish friends reflected on the experience.

Sui Khuu was 5 years old when she arrived in Vancouver with her 4-year-old sister Ngoc Lien (informally called Ileen), her father Vinh and grandparents Namson Khuu and Kim Thi Kiu.

“My mom passed away in [a refugee camp in] Thailand,” Khuu told the Independent recently. “She was five months pregnant. She had malaria and she passed away.”

Khuu has no recollections of her life before Canada, but deeply embedded in her memory is the warm welcome she and her family received from the Jewish sponsors as soon as they arrived here.

Four couples joined together to guarantee to the government of Canada that they would ensure the sponsored family got a secure start in their new country: Peter and Shirley Barnett, Abe and Esther Nobleman, Buddy and Cherie Smith and Paul and Edwina Heller.

With the support of Canadian Jewish Congress and Jean Gerber, who worked there at the time, numerous groups banded together to sponsor Vietnamese immigrants, including Beth Israel, Temple Sholom, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and Emanu-El in Victoria, among others.

“Each group had a name and our group chose the name ‘Hope,’” Shirley Barnett recalled. She has kept in close touch with the family across the decades and remembers how Sui was just 7 or 8 years old when she served as translator for her father and grandparents at government meetings and with doctors, teachers and such.

“By the time she was 9, she was the head of the family, because the grandparents never learned to speak English,” Barnett said. The father worked for the Barnetts at their Elephant and Castle restaurant for years. He is now semi-retired. The grandparents have both passed away.

“They were incredibly resourceful, successful,” said Barnett about the family. The girls finished high school and Ileen became an accountant, while Sui is coming up on 29 years as a pharmacy assistant at London Drugs.

“How did they get the strength to turn out so great?” Barnett asked. “The answer came from their grandmother. I remember one day, as a little one, Sui forgot to take her lunch to school and Grandma packed her lunch and found her way to school without speaking English and Sui told me later she found her grandmother wandering in the hallway just trying to find out what classroom she was in to bring her lunch.”

image - An article in the Jewish Independent’s predecessor about Sui Khuu and her family’s citizenship ceremony in 1984 — An article in the Jewish Independent’s predecessor about Sui Khuu and her family’s citizenship ceremony in 1984.

While the grandparents never learned English, they found ways to communicate.

“In those years, my ex-husband, Peter, was still fluent in French and he was able to talk to Grandpa a bit in French,” said Barnett.

Khuu recalls something beyond verbal between her grandmother and Shirley Barnett.

“I can’t imagine how she and Shirley communicated at that time but they totally understood each other,” the daughter said. “That was a great memory. My grandmother was trying to tell Shirley [something] and Shirley totally understood what she wanted her to do.”

She also remembers the Barnetts and Nobelmans picking the family up to take them to dinner, delivering Christmas gifts and taking family members to doctors’ and dentists’ appointments.

“Cherie Smith was in charge of finding them clothes,” Barnett said. “I was in charge of getting them enrolled in a preschool.”

“Shirley got a house for us on East 12th Avenue in Vancouver,” Khuu said. Both girls, now in their 40s, are married and each has a son and a daughter of their own.

Seeing Syrians coming to Canada now evokes memories for Khuu.

“It’s hard when they have young families like what my grandparents and my dad went through,” she said. She is saddened when she hears comments that are unwelcoming toward new Canadians and sees the circle of life in the next generation of refugees finding a home here.

Barnett is effusive about how Sui and Ileen have turned out: “By luck or determination or resilience or whatever they had, they turned out really well. They are just lovely, responsible, charming, caring people.”