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Supporting Jews worldwide

Michelle Pollock, chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Israel and global engagement committee. (photo from JFGV)

For Montreal native Michelle Pollock, chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Israel and global engagement committee (IGEC), love and loyalty to world Jewry were firmly established early in life – at home, school and in the community at large.

That deep affinity was further solidified after a two-month trip to Israel with her ninth-grade class. More recently, while serving as president of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver in 2016, Pollock took a trip with her husband Neil to visit the Krakow and Moscow JCCs.

“These visits were incredibly powerful,” Pollock told the Independent. “Witnessing the young adults of these communities, discovering and exploring their Jewish heritage was beautiful. Even more inspiring was the hard work and dedication of the Polish and Russian volunteers and staff in creating welcoming spaces to facilitate this Jewish self-discovery.”

In November 2017, Pollock traveled to northern Israel as a participant on a Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs mission. “Many of the participants on the trip were IGEC members or staff and their passion for our partnership region was infectious. I joined the IGEC soon thereafter,” she said.

A visit to Federation’s partnership region, Etzba HaGalil (the Galilee Panhandle), followed, in November 2019. That experience was multifaceted. The area is known for its physical beauty and the warmth of its residents, said Pollock, but the harsh reality of security issues and the regional challenges of jobs, infrastructure and opportunity also prevail, she noted.

“Seeing this firsthand infused me with gratitude to our Federation, which has worked so closely with the region since the mid-1990s to bring desperately needed aid and programming in a continuing effort to address the challenges faced by its residents,” Pollock said. “Jewish Federation has strategically invested funds to strengthen this region through education and social welfare programs, capital projects and regional development, and building enduring relationships between members of our community and residents of Etzba HaGalil.”

Similar to efforts locally, some of the funds to Israel have been allocated to new programs addressing youth mental health issues, violence and abuse at home, educational gaps and food security – all problems that have been compounded by the pandemic.

As for the challenges in another region in need, Far East Russia, where many Jews live in remote locations, Federation partners with the Joint Distribution Committee. The JDC is a global organization that addresses critical rescue and relief needs in more than 60 countries, including in the former Soviet Union (FSU).

“Working together with the JDC, life-saving aid is provided to over 80,000 elderly Jewish people in the former Soviet Union who struggle to survive on meagre pensions of $2 per day. They are the poorest Jews in the world, most without family or government support. Their distress and vulnerability are exacerbated by the region’s remoteness and freezing winters,” Pollock explained.

Many of these elderly Jews are well-educated and trained as doctors, lawyers, scientists and educators, she said. Having spent most of their working lives under communism, however, they were unable to accumulate savings. When the Soviet Union collapsed, along with the region’s pension and social assistance infrastructure, they were left poverty-stricken.

“Vancouver is geographically the nearest Jewish community to the Jewish communities in the easternmost part of Russia, adjacent to Siberia. As a strategic priority to strengthen Jewish life around the world, Jewish Federation (as the closest Federation) plays a very active role in supporting this region,” Pollock said. “We ensure long-term economic and social stability for Jews living overseas and in Israel by funding much-needed programs that provide a safety net for our most vulnerable people.”

These specialized programs, funded in part by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver through the annual campaign, impact the lives of at-risk youth, low-income seniors and those living in economically fragile areas.

This year, Federation is funding a program directed at youth in the FSU called Active Jewish Teen (AJT). Engagement in the Jewish community, it believes, is an essential first step in making communal responsibility an inseparable part of one’s Jewish identity. Though still building momentum, AJT already has more than 3,200 members in 63 locations across seven countries.

Besides investing strategically, Federation’s IGEC has made solid connections with the groups it is serving in the FSU, said Pollock. It is also attentive to urgent needs arising in other Jewish communities around the world, helping fund operations and campaigns in South America, Ethiopia, the United States and elsewhere, she said.

Closer to home, throughout the year, Jewish Federation’s Israel and global engagement department brings opportunities for the Vancouver community to experience Israeli culture. Next year’s Yom Hazikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’atzmaut will present opportunities for the community to come together in person.

“Building off the success of last year’s virtual Israeli Independence Day celebration, we will include more local talents and have community fun projects such as the community song and more surprises,” said Pollock, adding that there is a contingency plan in place should the COVID situation change.

Further, shinshinim, teenage emissaries from Israel, will be in town in the coming year. The shinshinim engage local young people in various activities and help foster meaningful ties between Disapora Jews and Israel.

Members of the Vancouver community have a chance to travel to Israel next summer, as well. Federation is facilitating a community mission from July 24 to Aug. 5, 2022.

“I know many of us are keen to travel and get back to Israel and this is going to be an amazing experience,” said Pollock. “At this point, we are looking for people to register their interest and there are a number of information sessions coming up.”

To learn more about the trip to Israel and to donate to the annual campaign, visit jewishvancouver.com.

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

Legacy of the “Ghetto girls”

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, left, interviews author and historian Dr. Judy Batalion at this year’s Kristallnacht commemorative event on Nov. 4. (screenshot)

Jewish girls and young women in Poland were uniquely positioned to play major roles in the resistance to Nazism – and the stories of countless young heroines have been too long overlooked.

This was a key message at the Kristallnacht commemorative event Nov. 4. Held virtually for the second year in a row, it featured Canadian historian Judy Batalion. Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, program and development manager of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, introduced the author and posed questions.

Jewish girls and women were not subject to the irrefutable proof of Jewishness that Jewish men were, said Batalion.

“Women were not circumcised, so they didn’t risk being found out in a pants-drop test,” she said. “If a man on the outside [of the ghettos] was suspected of being Jewish, he would be told at gunpoint to drop his pants, and women didn’t have that physical marker of their Jewishness on their body.”

A secondary reason women could play such an important role in the resistance was that, at that time in Poland, education was mandatory to Grade 8. Many Jewish families sent their sons to Jewish schools or yeshivot. “But, to save on tuition, they sent girls to Polish public schools,” Batalion explained. “In these public schools, girls became more acculturated and … more assimilated women. They were girls and teenagers who had Catholic friends. They were aware of Christian rituals, habits, nuances, behaviour.”

Resistance fighters and underground operatives might have dyed their hair blonde or otherwise altered their outward appearance to pass as Christians. But there was more to it, the author said.

“Gesticulation was very Jewish,” she said. “So one woman had to wear a muff when she went undercover, to control her hands.”

Batalion’s book The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos is the culmination of 12 years of research, which had its beginnings in another project.

Batalion was in the British Library doing research for a performance piece she was working on about Hannah Senesh, a young female hero of the resistance whose story is perhaps among the more well known. Senesh was born in Hungary and had made aliyah to Mandate Palestine in the 1930s, but she returned from that comparatively safe haven to join the fight against the Nazis.

“She joined the Allied forces, became a paratrooper and volunteered to return to Nazi-occupied Europe,” Batalion said of Senesh, who the author first learned about in Grade 5 in Montreal. “She was caught quite early on but legend has it she looked her executioners in the eye when they shot her.

“I grew up with Hannah Senesh as a symbol of Jewish courage,” she said. There were not many books on Senesh at the renowned London library, however. “So, I simply ordered whatever they had. I picked up my stack of books and noticed that one of them was a bit unusual. It was an old book with yellowing pages bound in a worn blue fabric with gold letters and it was in Yiddish.”

Batalion speaks Yiddish, in addition to English, French and Hebrew.

“I flipped through these 200 pages looking for Hannah Senesh, but she was only in the last 10. In front of her [were] dozens of other young Jewish women who defied the Nazis, mainly from the ghettos in Poland.”

The stories featured guns, grenades, espionage. “This was a Yiddish thriller,” she said.

As Batalion soon discovered, it was young Jewish women who were disproportionately represented in some of the most daring acts of resistance of the time.

“These ghetto girls hid revolvers in teddy bears, built elaborate underground bunkers, flirted with Nazis, bought them off with wine and whiskey and shot them,” she said. “They planned uprisings, carried out intelligence missions and were bearers of the truth about what was happening to the Jews. They helped the sick and taught the children, they organized soup kitchens, underground schools and printing presses. They flung Molotov cocktails in ghetto uprisings and blew up Nazi supply trains.

“I had never read anything like this,” said Batalion. “I was astonished and equally baffled. Who were these women? What made them act as they did? Aside from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which I’d heard of, what was the story of Jewish resistance in the Holocaust?… And why had I, who grew up in a survivor family and community, who was so involved in Jewish arts and culture – I even have a PhD in women’s history – how had I never heard this story?”

Thus began a dozen years of research in Poland, Israel, England and across North America, in archives and living rooms, memorial monuments and the streets of former ghettos, she said. “I trod through testimonies, letters, photographs, obscure documentaries and the towns where these heroines were born and raised,” she said.

“Reading through all this material, I was astonished to learn of the scope of the underground,” she said. “Over 90 European ghettos had armed Jewish resistance units … 30,000 Jews enlisted in the partisans. Rescue networks supported 12,000 Jews in hiding in Warsaw alone. Uprisings occurred in ghettos, in labour camps and death camps, all this alongside daily acts of resilience – smuggling food, making art, hiding, hugging a barrack-mate to keep her warm, even telling jokes during transports to relieve fear. Women were at the helm of so many of these personal and organized efforts, women aged 16 to 25. Hundreds of them, possibly even thousands of them.”

The ability to do such things, under unimaginably dangerous conditions, was aided by a social phenomenon that predated the Nazi occupation.

The early 20th century in Poland was a time of extraordinary Jewish intellectual ferment. Making up about 10% of the country’s population, Jews had a profound social infrastructure, including 180 Yiddish newspapers in Warsaw alone. Jewish political movements proliferated – left, right, religious, secular, Zionist and non-Zionist – creating a vibrant discourse and networks of interrelated groups across the country. By the 1930s, almost all Polish Jews were wondering if this was a country where they could continue to thrive, whether they belonged to the country where their ancestors had lived for 1,000 years.

“As part of this identity struggle, 100,000 young Jews were members of Jewish youth movements – that’s a huge proportion,” said Batalion. “These were values-driven groups that were affiliated with these varying political parties and stances.”

For example, when war broke out, Frumka Plotnicka was 24 years old. Her youth movement urged their members to flee east – “That’s also how my grandparents survived,” noted Batalion – but fleeing a crisis did not suit Plotnicka.

“Stunning her comrades in her movement, she was the first to smuggle herself back into Nazi-occupied Poland,” she said. “She went to Warsaw and became a leader in the Warsaw Ghetto. She ran soup kitchens for hundreds of Jews, she organized classes, discussions and performances. She negotiated with German, Polish and Jewish councils, she helped extract Jews from forced labour.

“She covered her Jewish features with a kerchief and makeup and left the ghetto, traveling across Poland, keeping communities connected. She brought with her information, inspiration and books,” Batalion said. “They had a secret printing press. She ran seminars across Nazi-occupied Poland.

“In late 1941, the youth movements acknowledged the truth of the Nazis’ genocidal plans and they transformed from education hubs into these underground militias. Frumka still traveled to disseminate information. Now, it was about mass executions. She was one of the first to smuggle weapons into the Warsaw Ghetto. She had two guns in a sack of potatoes.”

She was killed while firing at Nazis from a bunker in 1943.

While disguised as non-Jews, some of the woman warriors were able to exploit the prejudices of their tormentors.

“Nazi culture was classically sexist,” said Batalion. “They never suspected that a sweet-looking girl had a pocket full of ammunition. Jewish women played to this underestimation. One courier … was once carrying a valise full of contraband material and she was getting on a train and noticed they were checking bags. She was very beautiful and bashed her eyelashes and went up to the Gestapo man and said, ‘My bag is so heavy, can you carry it for me?’ He was being chivalrous, ‘Of course, I’ll carry it for you,’ and he took it on the train for her and, of course, they didn’t check the bag.”

These young Jewish fighters had lost everything and still soldiered on, the author said.

“They knew they wouldn’t topple the German army, yet risked their lives time and time again to fight for justice and liberty,” she said. “Small victories are achievable and necessary for great change. It is through these young women that I learned that not only is trauma passed through generations of Jewish women but so is courage and daring, strength and resilience, passion and compassion.”

Batalion’s book won the 2021 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the Holocaust category and has been optioned for a Steven Spielberg film, for which Batalion is working on the screenplay.

The annual Kristallnacht commemorative lecture is presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in partnership with Congregation Beth Israel, with support from the Robert and Marilyn Krell Endowment of the VHEC, and funded through the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign.

Prior to the keynote address, Holocaust survivors lit candles in their homes. Kennedy Stewart, mayor of Vancouver, offered reflections and Nina Krieger, executive director of the VHEC, read a proclamation from the city. Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld thanked the speaker.

Our obligation to remember

Isa Milman, a member of the Second Generation, lights a candle of remembrance at the Victoria Shoah Project’s Kristallnacht commemoration Nov. 9, accompanied by grandson Isaac Phelan. (screenshot)

In a Kristallnacht commemoration no less poignant because it was held virtually, speakers emphasized the responsibility to remember.

“Why do we keep remembering?” asked Isa Milman, a Victoria writer and artist who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. “Why does it matter? Isn’t it time to let go, to move on, to stop looking back and turn instead to the present and the future?

“We believe that the lessons of the Shoah, the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, are more important than ever,” she said. “We must speak out against injustice wherever we find it and as soon as we find it.”

Milman was speaking Nov. 9, the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, at the commemoration organized by the Victoria Shoah Project. It was the second annual such event held virtually in the city of Victoria, because of the pandemic.

“Every day, I am filled with grief when I think of my murdered family, shot into pits,” said Milman, “and my 2-year-old cousin Mordecai, who was buried alive because a bullet would be wasted on him.”

As she leaned in to light a candle of remembrance for family members, Isaac Phelan, Milman’s grandson, six days shy of his second birthday, ambled to his grandmother’s side.

“But here I am appearing before you, throbbing with life despite everything,” said Milman. “Tonight, we are reminded of our moral imperative to remember, to speak out and join together in the strength of community to protect everyone from harm, wherever and however it arises. That is the lesson of the Shoah we must never forget.”

Rabbi Lynn Greenhough of Victoria’s Kolot Mayim Reform Temple spoke of the precedents that allowed an event like Kristallnacht to occur.

“Kristallnacht reminds us every year that those buildings, those synagogues, those shops that burned across Germany were what was seen above ground,” she said. “Underneath that same ground were seams of hatred and fear of ‘those people,’ those ‘not Christians,’ that existed and smouldered for centuries and for generations. Hitler was not an anomaly.

“Tonight, we remember,” she went on. “And, tomorrow, we continue to do the work of bringing greater peace and greater justice into this world. We stand for our place in this world as Jews, as Israel, to ensure those underground seams of hatred never burst through the ground again.”

Congregation Emanu-El’s Rabbi Harry Brechner said he misses the power of having religious, ethnic and communal leaders stand with him on the bimah on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, something that has not been possible since the beginning of the pandemic.

“Kristallnacht is really about the entire city coming together to say: not here. I think that we are in a time now where so many injustices of our past are coming up, not just in Kamloops but all around us…. And, really, for us to really talk about reconciliation, we do need to face really difficult truths,” said Brechner.

Highlighting the theme of this year’s commemoration – “Communities standing together” – Richard Kool spoke of an encounter, when he was a young adult, with a figure who may have been the Prophet Elijah. Kool lent the man a copy of The Atlantic magazine and, when the man returned it, it included a handwritten note with a surah (chapter) from the Koran, in Arabic, and, in Hebrew, the words of Leviticus 19:33-34, which is a directive about the treatment of sojourners in your midst, because “for sojourners were you in the land of Egypt.”

Dr. Kristin Semmens, an assistant teaching professor in the department of history at the University of Victoria, noted that it was her sixth year participating in the commemoration, but the first time she shared her personal motivations.

“The Nazis sent my maternal grandfather, a 17-year-old Ukrainian boy, to be a forced labourer on a farm in Austria during the war,” she said. “He never saw his family again. My maternal grandmother was an ethnic German growing up in the former Yugoslavia. She fled the advancing Red Army to end up on that same farm. She also never saw her village again.”

Semmens’ mother was born in 1949, in a refugee camp for displaced Germans.

“My family’s experiences were, of course, nothing like the suffering of the Jews of Europe during the Shoah,” she said. “I mention them now only to tell you why I became an historian. I wanted to know more about that time. And I did learn more. As an historian of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, I know more than I ever wanted to about how awful human beings can be to one another. Every year, I stand before you and recount the events that are themselves horrific, but which only preceded far worse horrors to come. This year, given our world’s current challenges, I want to do something different. I want to highlight those who stood up to the Nazis at each stage, no matter in how small a way. I must stress at the outset they were exceedingly few. One of the most upsetting outcomes of my research is endless evidence about how ordinary Germans not only passively accepted but also often enthusiastically supported Hitler’s persecution of other Germans.”

In response to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, there was precious little opposition. A rare exception, she said, was Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the mayor of Leipzig, who expressed outright criticism of the laws. In 1944, he would be executed for his part in the plot to kill Hitler.

She also cited Otto Wels, chairman of the Social Democratic Party, who spoke out in parliament, but who soon had to flee the country as the Nazis cracked down on their opponents.

“The regime imposed a boycott on Jewish-owned stores, businesses and practices. Brown-shirted Stormtroopers and Hitler Youth stood outside, refusing customers entry. Many ordinary Germans obliged and even openly jeered the humiliated shop owners,” Semmens said. “Others, though, bypassed the … sentries and went shopping. They apologized to Jewish business owners. They brought flowers to their Jewish doctors to express compassion. That they rejected injustices directed at individual Jews was encouraging, yet it must be said that they almost never openly criticized the Third Reich’s newly realized systemic racism.”

While the murder of almost 100 Jews, the arrest of 30,000 more and the destruction of hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses over that one night is widely known, she said, extensive damage to private residences is less well remembered. Semmens spoke of survivor testimonies of the night.

“They recalled spilled ink on paintings, rugs and tablecloths, and that blankets were cut with glass shards. Many dwellings were now uninhabitable,” she said. “Though such wanton damage and public violence upset many Germans, there were almost no cases of open opposition to Kristallnacht – but some defied the Nazis’ intentions in other ways. They denounced assailants, vandals and thieves to the police – not surprisingly, to no avail. Others assisted Jewish Germans directly by providing food, shelter and loans of household objects to replace those destroyed or stolen. They warned Jewish neighbours about impending arrests and even, albeit infrequently, hid them from the Gestapo. Some brave police officers and firefighters protected synagogues and doused their flames against the Nazis’ orders to refrain.”

Despite these anecdotes, important and uplifting as they may be, Semmens said, “Far, far too many merely stood by.”

She said, “It is easier to turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to discrimination and defamation – yet we must find courage to challenge the wrongs of our society.”

OJC welcomes rabbi

Rabbi Tom Samuels is Beth Shalom’s first full-time spiritual leader. (photo from OJC)

Okanagan Jewish Community’s Beth Shalom Synagogue recently welcomed Rabbi Tom Samuels to be the organization’s first full-time spiritual leader.

Established in 1980, the OJC has flourished in recent years. While the community has benefited from the leadership of semi-retired, student and visiting rabbis over the years, the membership felt that the time was ripe to bring a permanent presence to their bimah.

As a pluralistic congregation, Beth Shalom welcomes Samuels, a non-denominational rabbi with experience across the spectrum of Jewish movements. Originally from Ontario, Samuels most recently has served several roles in the Chicago area – as rabbi at the McHenry County Jewish Congregation and as rabbi-in-residence at a K-12 interfaith school in Chicago.

Samuels joins Chabad’s Rabbi Shmueli Hecht as a leader of the Jewish presence in the region. The Okanagan Valley is home to roughly 2,000 Jews.

“I’m excited to help this incredibly eclectic, diverse and spiritual community go deeper into their Jewish voices,” said Samuels.

The rabbi prefers to connect with people where they’re most comfortable, and is ready to share his comprehensive spiritual insights at the shul, the corner coffee shop or on a lakeside hiking trail. He incorporates a rich musicality and a thoughtful approach to tradition into his teaching.

The OJC’s rabbi search committee spent the better part of three years looking for the best candidate.

“It’s exciting to finally have our very own full-time rabbi who lives in Kelowna,” reflected committee chair Adam Tizel. “Even with the challenges that come with pandemic times, he really inspires and helps keep us be cohesive. We look forward to seeing more people join our increased offering of events.”

Abbey Westbury is a member of Beth Shalom Synagogue.

At the top of his game

Shay Keil with daughter Tali, a student at King David High School. (photo from Shay Keil)

A Vancouver-area wealth manager and philanthropist is celebrating a trifecta of milestones.

Shay Keil (pronounced “Shy Kyle”) has just been named one of Canada’s 150 top wealth advisors by the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business magazine. The accolade comes just as Keil marks 30 years in the finance industry. To top it off, he set out to mark the 30-year milestone by raising and donating $30,000 to B.C. Children’s Hospital – instead, he recently handed over a cheque for $51,000.

photo - Shay Keil has been named one of Canada’s 150 top wealth advisors by the Globe and Mail — Shay Keil has been named one of Canada’s 150 top wealth advisors by the *Globe and Mail. (photo from Shay Keil)*

In addition to his work anniversary, the fundraiser was inspired by the son of Keil’s former assistant, who was in Children’s Hospital for an extended period last summer.

“He was diagnosed with a very severe form of epilepsy and he suffered from dozens of seizures in the month of July,” Keil said. “He is recovering well and the treatment program at Children’s Hospital seems to have resolved all of his seizure problems and he’s been seizure-free August, September, October. It’s quite a testament to the amazing work they did.”

Keil initially wasn’t certain his $30,000 goal was realistic.

“I was worried I wouldn’t even raise $30,000 but lots of people have rallied,” he said. “It was really amazing, so I was very proud.”

That achievement was still fresh when Report on Business rolled off the presses, placing Keil among the foremost Canadians in his field.

“I don’t often toot my own horn,” he said, “but, frankly, having 30 years, raising $51,000 and then being voted in by the Globe and Mail to be in the top list of wealth advisors is an enormously proud moment in my career. It’s validating all the hard work I’ve done all these years at delivering top-quality financial guidance to my clients and building a large client base of people who trust me.”

Keil’s work focuses on tax, income and charitable strategies. A confirmed “numbers guy,” he thrives on helping clients realize their goals, he said.

“I’m giving people comfort and peace of mind in dealing with their financial future,” he said.

Keil was born in Tel Aviv and moved to Vancouver as a child. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah and graduated from Eric Hamber Secondary School. His entire three-decade career has been with Scotiabank, where he started as a bank teller and moved up through the ranks to become a wealth advisor with ScotiaMcLeod.

“Honoured, overwhelmed, proud,” are the words he uses to describe his feelings at the confluence of accolades.

“I’m very committed to giving back to my community and to educating young people on how to understand their financial pictures and objectives,” he said.

photo - nOne of Shay Keil’s passions is driving racecars — One of Shay Keil’s passions is driving racecars. *(photo from Shay Keil)*

Keil has been involved in a panoply of Jewish community institutions as a volunteer and financial supporter. He is a past president of Richmond Jewish Day School and is currently on the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, as well as co-chair of major donor gifts for Federation’s annual campaign. His other significant commitments include Jewish Family Services, Chabad of Richmond, Beth Tikvah and Beth Israel synagogues, the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, King David High School and the Louis Brier Home and Hospital.

When not working or volunteering, Keil spends time with his family – wife Mickey, son Trevin (a third-year university student) and daughter Tali (Grade 11 at King David). He also loves camping and golf and has a thrill-seeking side, which he feeds driving racecars.

“I’m having so much fun I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing,” he said. “I’m having the time of my life.”

Fox retires from VHEC

Rome Fox has been associated with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre for 25 years. (photo from vhec.org)

Rome Fox has retired as assistant director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. She was recognized at the VHEC annual general meeting Oct. 20 by being named a Life Fellow of the organization.

Fox has been associated with the VHEC for a quarter-century, first as a volunteer, as a member of the board of directors and the executive committee and as co-chair of the annual Yom Hashoah commemorative event. Joining the centre’s staff as a part-time volunteer coordinator, Fox went on to serve as program coordinator, interim education coordinator and acting executive director, while also taking the lead on annual commemorative events.

In her remarks at the AGM, Fox reflected on the people she has met and worked with, emphasizing the Holocaust survivors.

“It has been life-changing and very fulfilling to participate in the growth of such an important and dynamic museum dedicated to Holocaust education and remembrance,” she said. “I’m truly honoured, fortunate and privileged to work with you, our remarkable and resilient Holocaust survivor community, and I cherish the lessons I’ve learned from you. You made a difference not only in my life but in the lives of thousands and thousands of B.C. students, teachers, citizens and government officials.”

Fox also expressed pride at the changes in the organization and the innovative projects, campaigns and commemorative events with which she has been involved.

She said she treasures her relationships with the three executive directors with whom she has served – Nina Krieger, Frieda Miller and Roberta Kremer – and the meaningful work they have done.

“Every day, when you’re working there, you know you’re making a difference somehow, someway,” she told the Independent. “Somebody’s life is being touched. When you hear the remarks of students of the impact of survivors or when they take a workshop, the questions that they ask, you know that kids are starting to get this stuff.”

Both of Fox’s late parents, Sarah and Al Rozenberg, were Holocaust survivors from Poland. Her mother was in the Warsaw Ghetto and worked in a munitions factory. Ultimately, Sarah was sent to Majdanek, while her entire family was sent to Treblinka and murdered. Many of Sarah Rozenberg’s artifacts are in the VHEC’s permanent collections.

Fox knows less about her father’s story, but he was mostly on the run and helping people as they tried to escape Nazi-occupied Poland.

The couple met in a displaced persons camp and moved to Edmonton, where Rome was born.

In a moving testimonial video shared at the annual general meeting, staff, volunteers and survivors paid tribute to Fox.

Robert Krell, founding president of the VHEC, spoke of “the strength you bring to the centre and the comfort and compassion to our survivors through your own personal understanding of our nature and our struggles.”

Frieda Miller, past executive director, said: “If an organization can be said to have a heart, you were that heart. As daughters of survivor parents, we shared that unique bond, one that I think also uniquely equipped us for our work at the centre. But, Rome, what I want you to know is that your contributions were not just valuable but truly fundamental to the VHEC’s remarkable achievements of over a quarter of a century.”

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, a Holocaust survivor, said: “I read somewhere that the sturdiest pillars of human morality are compassion and a sense of justice. In all my interactions with you, I have experienced both. In your work at VHEC, you have been supportive and encouraging, you understood what it means to be a survivor of the Holocaust and have helped to guide us in many ways.”

Wendy Bross Stuart and Ron Stuart, who worked with Fox on the musical components of countless commemorative events, thanked her for years of achievements.

“She’s approachable, kind, competent, committed – she’s got the whole package,” Ron Stuart said. “I think you can get some of those qualities in other individuals but to get the whole package is quite unique.”

Krieger, the current executive director of the VHEC, spoke of the absence Fox’s retirement will leave.

“Although it is nearly impossible for us to imagine the centre without Rome as an integral part of our team, I know that we will continue to ask ourselves: What would Rome do?”

Community milestones … Goldschmidt, Mines, BGU & Weizmann Institute

A German translation of the Talmud, and the first translation of the book ever completed by a single person, is now available on Sefaria, a free nonprofit online library of Jewish texts. The translation by scholar Lazarus Goldschmidt was the first German translation of the Talmud and was released in 1935. While it is used in German Jewish studies departments and universities, it had not been widely accessible to the general public until now.

screenshot - Penny Goldsmith — *(screenshot)*

A celebration of the release took place virtually on Oct. 24. One of the speakers was Penny Goldsmith, Goldschmidt’s eldest granddaughter. Goldsmith is a longtime anti-poverty community worker in Vancouver, and owns a small independent publishing company, Lazarus Press, named after her grandfather, who died a few months before she was born. She spoke of her grandfather’s books, “beautiful typographical masterpieces.”

“Grandfather was a type and book designer,” she said. Among his books were literature and poetry, including a collection of poetry he wrote in his early 20s, in Hebrew, “a very unusual choice,” Goldsmith noted, “as Hebrew at that time was reserved for religious study only.”

Goldschmidt was a scholar of Near Eastern languages and, in addition to the Talmud, he translated other religious texts, including a Hebrew translation of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch and a German translation of the Koran. Born in Lithuania, he learned German at the age of 18. His translation of the Talmud took 39 years to complete and he continued to make revisions after publication. He was also a collector of rare books and his extensive collection is now part of the Royal Library in Copenhagen.

After the Goldschmidt Talmud translation became public domain in January 2021, a team of four led by Igor Itkin, a rabbinical student at Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin, integrated its 9,434 pages of text into Sefaria’s free online library. The team’s work included manually linking sections of the translation to corresponding Talmud texts in English and Hebrew/Aramaic already in the Sefaria library. The connections allow scholars, educators and others to navigate between the translations and connect them to the larger library of Jewish scholarship. The team’s work was supported by a grant from the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe.

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The Rivals and Other Stories by Jonah Rosenfeld, translated from the Yiddish by Vancouver’s Rachel Mines – who recently retired from Langara College’s English department – has been selected by the Yiddish Book Centre as one of its picks for the 2022 Great Jewish Books Club. The book is available through the Yiddish Book Centre’s store and other online booksellers, including its publisher, Syracuse University Press, which is offering The Rivals at a 50% discount until Dec 1, 2021 (press.syr.edu).

Rosenfeld was a prolific and popular writer from the early 1900s until his death in 1944. Although his writing received critical praise, very little was translated into English until the publication of The Rivals. His stories foreground social anxiety, cultural dislocation, family dysfunction and the search for meaningful relationships – themes just as relevant today as they were to their original audiences. (See jewishindependent.ca/stories-that-explore-the-mind.)

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photo - The National Autism Research Centre of Israel — The National Autism Research Centre of Israel *(photo from Canadian Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)*

The Azrieli Foundation recently donated $15.6 million Cdn to the National Autism Research Centre of Israel, a collaboration between scientists from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and clinicians from Soroka University Medical Centre (SUMC), both in the city of Be’er Sheva, Israel. The centre, originally established by the Ministry of Science and Technology, is dedicated to translational research that aims to revolutionize diagnosis techniques and interventions for autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions. In honour of the donation, the centre has been renamed the Azrieli National Centre for Autism and Neurodevelopment Research.

A dedicated facility inside SUMC will be constructed that will double the space for working with children with autism spectrum disorder and performing research. It will house genetics/bioinformatics, biomarker-detection and neuroimaging labs. Existing data collection will be expanded to many autism clinics throughout Israel, where multiple types of clinical and behavioural data, biological samples (e.g., DNA and blood samples) and neuroimaging data will be collected. This data collection will enable the rapid expansion of the National Autism Database, which will triple in size within five years. New faculty members, post-docs and graduate students, as well as scientific, clinical, technical and administrative support staff will be recruited to manage the data collection and sharing effort.

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photo - Naomi Azrieli, chief executive officer, Azrieli Foundation Canada, and co-chair, Azrieli Foundation Israel, at the Nov. 7 announcement in Montreal, which took place concurrently with the announcement in Israel — Naomi Azrieli, chief executive officer, Azrieli Foundation Canada, and co-chair, Azrieli Foundation Israel, at the Nov. 7 announcement in Montreal, which took place concurrently with the announcement in Israel. *(photo by PBL Photography)*

The Weizmann Institute of Science and Weizmann Canada recently received a donation of $50 million US from the Azrieli Foundation, to enable catalytic brain research with the establishment of the Azrieli Institute for Brain and Neural Sciences. A longstanding supporter of the institute, this latest donation adds to past philanthropic investments of nearly $30 million US by the foundation towards Weizmann research facilities and fellowships.

Weizmann’s Azrieli Institute for Brain and Neural Sciences, which will be located at the Weizmann Institute campus in Rehovot, Israel, will promote the full spectrum of neuroscience research, from basic, curiosity-driven studies to translational work of high clinical relevance, with global impact. The donation will enable the construction of a new building that will serve as a hub for neuroscience activities, facilities and technologies.

The Azrieli Institute will focus on research in the development of neural networks; perception and action; mental and emotional health, positive neuroscience; learning, memory and cognition; the aging brain; neurodegeneration; injury and regeneration; theoretical and computational neuroscience; development of innovative neurotechnologies; and integrative brain disorders.

Unflaggingly supportive

Lana Marks Pulver, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign chair. (photo from JFGV)

The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign is entering the homestretch with an ambitious set of goals. This year, the theme is “strengthened by where we have been, inspired by where we can go.”

“The goal for this year’s campaign is both quantitative and qualitative,” campaign chair Lana Marks Pulver told the Independent. “We aim to raise a minimum of $9.5 million, and we want to strengthen the culture of gratitude within the Federation organization, that affects all constituents, including donors, volunteers and staff.”

As has often been said in the past 21 months, these are times like no other in recent memory. The pandemic has touched us all, yet, for some, the campaign points out, it has “caused a cascading effect of challenges.”

“The goals haven’t shifted due to the pandemic, but the needs have certainly increased because of it. Therefore, we hope to raise more than our financial target to ensure all our partner agencies survive the current uncertainty in which everyone is operating and all community needs are being met,” Marks Pulver said.

“The past year-and-a-half was extremely tough on our community and our partner agencies. However, with the incredible show of support from donors and volunteers, our community proved to be resilient. Our partner agencies were able to survive the uncertainty and continue to provide their much-needed services because of the support from Jewish Federation and our donors.”

Groups within the community that were already vulnerable have faced more challenges. Among the groups Federation is helping are low-income individuals, the elderly and youth struggling with mental health concerns.

Well before COVID-19 hit, the region was one of the most expensive places in the world in which to live and it has become increasingly unaffordable; many, as a result, are left with hard choices regarding paying for rent, bills and food. Meanwhile, most seniors in the community are eager to reconnect socially and spiritually after extended separations from their families and communities.

Increasing numbers of youth, too, are contending with anxiety and depression as they encounter isolation from their peers and continued disruptions to their routines. At one local Jewish school this past year, the demand for counseling services doubled. In light of such statistics, Federation has formed a committee of local professionals and volunteers to develop a comprehensive approach to assist both youth and their families.

The basic plan involves employing a community mental health professional to offer counseling at community locations; collaborating with other mental health organizations in supplying professional development to those working directly with children and youth; and encouraging youth to take leadership roles in raising awareness among their peers about the importance of accessing appropriate support.

The pandemic has had a negative impact on youth mental health globally, including in Federation’s partnership region in Israel. The Mervo’ot HaHermon Regional Council has witnessed a rise in troubling behaviour among youth, especially those whose routines and social opportunities have been disrupted and who may not have supportive adults in their lives. Demand for services in the Israeli municipality has grown by 35%, according to Federation. Because of the need, and based on a successful pilot program in the spring of 2021, Federation is helping efforts to enhance counseling services and create new educational and social programming, in the hope that early intervention will lead the youth in this region along a healthier path.

Marks Pulver concedes that, while there are hurdles to overcome in organizing a campaign in the midst of a pandemic, the community response has been unflaggingly supportive.

“Typically, the campaign goes hand-in-hand with community gatherings,” she said. “A big part of campaign is the opportunity to connect with other community members at events. The pandemic has prevented us from having these gatherings in person and, instead, we have resorted to virtual ones. However, people are ‘Zoomed out’ and tired of the online events; therefore, making it more challenging to get people together.

“Recent experiences, however, have demonstrated the strength of our community and how we come together to help others in a time of need,” she stressed. “This show of support, both financially and with volunteerism, is beyond inspiring and I, personally, am incredibly grateful to be part of this community, that steps up and makes a difference.”

Marks Pulver, who has served as women’s philanthropy chair at Federation and was major donors chair for the past few years, sees her role as campaign chair as a natural progression and feels honoured to lead this year’s effort.

“I am proud to be serving alongside women chairs of both Federation and the Jewish Community Foundation. I believe you get out of life what you put in, and it is this belief that inspires me to volunteer. I also thoroughly enjoy working with others in the pursuit of helping others, and feel grateful for the opportunity to be able to make a difference.”

To donate to the campaign, go to jewishvancouver.com.

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

Museum releases new book

Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia releases its new publication Looking Back, Moving Forward after its AGM on Nov. 16.

The Nov. 16 annual general meeting of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia (JMABC) is the culmination of the museum’s 50th anniversary year of celebrations. The special occasion will not only feature Dr. Morton Weinfeld, Chair in Ethnic Canadian Studies at McGill University and author of numerous books on Canadian Jewry, but also the release of the new JMABC publication Looking Back, Moving Forward: 160 Years of Jewish Life in BC.

Taking place at Congregation Beth Israel, the 6 p.m. AGM will be followed by a reception at 7 p.m. and the keynote address. Weinfeld’s most recent publication is a revised and updated version of his book Like Everybody Else but Different: The Paradoxical Success of Canadian Jewry. His virtual presentation will highlight the unveiling of the JMABC’s Looking Back, Moving Forward.

Local historian Cyril Leonoff, who passed away in 2016, established what has become the JMABC with a group of volunteers in 1970. In his research on the B.C. Jewish community, he combed ship manifests and discovered that the first Jews to arrive in the province came to participate in the Gold Rush, in 1858.

The museum’s new book is a testament to the variety and tenacity of Jewish life all over British Columbia. The publication comprises interviews, archival research and community contributions from more than 200 B.C. Jewish community members and it includes more than 400 photos.

Organized into four sections, the book begins with a collection of essays on the history of Jewish life in various regions of the province. This section is followed by short descriptions of historic, modern and new Jewish agencies and organizations that serve(d) the social, cultural, political and religious interests of the Jewish community. Short biographies of notable B.C. Jewish figures from all areas of public and communal life make up the third part of the book. And, finally, a family-sponsored section gives some personal descriptions of a variety of families within the community.

A central mission of the JMABC is to raise awareness of the importance of everyday artifacts to the overall picture of Jewish history in British Columbia. Photos of a family barbecue or a trip to the beach, flyers, letters and other such memorabilia personalize history. Over the years, the museum has created exhibits, films, books and other research material, making its archives as accessible to the public as possible.

The JMABC is hoping to ride the wave of enthusiasm and support from the past year of 50th anniversary activities, as it continues its role as both keepers and disseminators of history within the community and as ambassadors of the Jewish community to broader B.C. society.

Copies of Looking Back, Moving Forward: 160 Years of Jewish Life in BC are now on sale through the JMABC website at a 10% discounted price up until Nov. 16. After the AGM, the price will increase to $50 in general and to $100 for the limited edition hardcover version.

To attend the Nov. 16 event in-person or online, buy your $18 ticket via jewishmuseum.ca/fiftiethbooklaunch.

– Courtesy Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia

Diverse learning series

Rabbi Gila Caine (photo from Kolot Mayim)

Kolot Mayim Reform Temple in Victoria welcomes back Rabbi Gila Caine, spiritual leader of Temple Beth Ora in Edmonton, to speak on the topic Toratah/Her Torah: Women Rabbis Revealing the Goddess in Torah.

The Nov. 7, 11 a.m., lecture on Zoom kicks off a six-part series of talks called Building Bridges: Celebrating Diversity in Jewish Life. The community is invited to listen and learn from Indigenous, Black, Asian, feminist and differently-gendered and differently-abled advocates who are working to make our world a better place.

As a people who have experienced the devastating impact of antisemitism and hatred, Judaism commits us to the responsibility of tikkun olam (repairing our world). In that spirit, Kolot Mayim’s series of speakers will lead attendees on a journey to deepen their understanding of these contemporary issues and how they can support those who do not feel included.

Kolot Mayim’s Rabbi Lynn Greenough describes the series as “an opportunity to build bridges – bridges that enable us to link to what is and what can be, to step beyond our own particular experiences.” The Hebrew word for bridge is gesher, she explained, pointing to the song, “Kol Ha’Olam Kulo,” “the whole world is a very narrow bridge; the important thing is not to be afraid.”

In the series opener, Caine will explore how, throughout the millennia, rabbinic tradition, and especially written tradition, was composed from within a man-focused and -experienced perspective. Now, after around half a century of ordaining women, there is a growing corpus of documented writing flowing from within woman’s experiences and interpretations of Torah and life. In her talk, Caine will read a few Torah commentaries written by (women) rabbis from North America and Israel, as examples of weaving together rabbinic and women’s experience into something new.

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Caine graduated Hebrew University with a master’s in contemporary Judaism and received her rabbinic ordination at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Israeli program in 2011. Her rabbinic thesis explored liturgical, spiritual and ceremonial aspects of birth in Jewish tradition and contemporary practice.

Stemming from that, as well as her years as a volunteer at a rape crisis centre, Caine is one of the founders of the Israeli rabbinic women’s group B’not Dinah, creating a female and feminist rabbinic tradition of healing after sexual trauma. She now serves as rabbi at Temple Beth Ora and her Building Bridges talk is co-sponsored with her shul.

Other speakers in the 2021/22 series are:

Carmel Tanaka, founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver (Jewish Queer and Trans Vancouver) on A Day in the Life of a Queer, Neurodivergent, Jewpanese Millennial (Dec. 5);
Rivka Campbell, executive director of Jews of Colour Canada, on Harmony in a Divided Identity: A Minority Within a Minority (Jan. 9);
Joy Ladin, poet, author and first openly transgender professor at a Jewish institution, on Jonah, God and Other Strangers: Reading the Torah from a Trans Perspective (Feb. 6);
Reverend Hazan Daniel Benlolo, director of the Shira Choir, Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue, Montreal, on The Power of Music: In Honour of Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month (Feb. 13); and
Patricia June Vickers, Indigenous artist and independent consultant, and Rabbi Adam Cutler, senior rabbi of Adath Israel Congregation in Toronto, on An Indigenous and Jewish Dialogue on Truth and Reconciliation (March 20).

Kolot Mayim has been active for 20 years and this is the fourth year that the synagogue is offering this speaker series. Talks are free and held on the scheduled Sundays from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. PST. To register, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

– Courtesy Kolot Mayim