Category: Local

The Kitchen is new JFS hub

JFS Vancouver staff member Golriz Boroomand, left, and chief executive officer Tanja Demajo. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Tucked into a neighbourhood of low-rise industrial buildings, warehouses and mixed-use developments west of Main Street and south of Olympic Village is the new locus of Jewish Family Services Vancouver. The Kitchen, which opened mid-April, is the people-friendly hub for many of the programs JFS delivers to hundreds of clients every month.

“The Kitchen is an integration of a number of services that address poverty issues,” said

Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer of JFS Vancouver, which operates the Kitchen. While some components of the Kitchen’s programs are still on hold pending the end of the pandemic, it is already a busy and social environment. Clients can come weekly to pick up supplies from the Jewish Food Bank. While there, if they want, clients can meet with a caseworker to discuss access to government supports, meet with social workers or housing advocates or access other services. Behind the reception area are three private offices for caseworkers to meet with community members.

JFS still maintains a head office on Clark Drive, where some administrative work takes place, and where services best delivered in a less-social environment – such as counseling programs and services to Holocaust survivors – are offered. But the Kitchen really is the beating heart of JFS now.

“For example, with the seniors, they often have complex needs in terms of health, in terms of managing the relationship with the landlord, with different service providers, and the social worker is pretty much a point person and coordinates all that care for the client,” Demajo said. With many British Columbians, including too many seniors, unable to find a permanent family doctor, JFS can help connect them with help and accompany them to appointments if requested, she added.

“People who don’t have a [general practitioner] come and they need a prescription,” said Demajo. “Often, they aren’t comfortable going to just a general walk-in clinic, but often that’s the way to start. In many situations, our caseworkers would also go with the client to see the doctor, if they don’t feel like they can go on their own. We often try to see if we can find someone who will take them as a [patient] and it’s the same thing with the dentist. That’s how we work with people. When people are struggling to pay some of the bills because, of course, there’s a lot of unexpected emergencies, then we support them with that.”

Poverty is not only an economic challenge, she said, but a social one, too.

“It’s important just to acknowledge that people living in poverty are also dealing with a lot of isolation,” she said. So the busy and welcoming space the Kitchen provides is serving more than one need.

While the food bank has been operated by JFS in partnership with Jewish Women International for 15 years, this is the first time the program has had a permanent, purpose-built warehouse. In the back of the building, in a high-ceilinged space, are food-laden shelves, refrigerators and sorting spaces.

A parallel program is meals for those who are not able to prepare healthy dishes themselves, either temporarily due to illness or more permanently. JFS has had a meal delivery program for some time, but it was supplied through a third party. With a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen, JFS is now making their own plant-based kosher meals for delivery.

This component has allowed JFS to build relationships with farmers, which allows food bank clients the opportunity to select fresh produce.

“There are vegetables, berries, whatever is available on the farm,” said Demajo. “Customers can go to this online platform, choose what they want and pick it up from here on Thursday. The nice thing is that, again, people of different backgrounds can come here and connect with each other without knowing what their needs are.”

At the Kitchen, Tuesday is Breakfast Club.

“It’s a day for families,” Demajo said. “What they receive through the program is fresh vegetables and fruit, milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, bread, peanut butter and cereals.” (There are dairy products in take-away food programs but the commercial kitchen is strictly pareve.)

Other food-related programs JFS delivers include Cooked with Chesed, through which clients can have five meals delivered every two weeks, featuring plates such as borscht, mushroom penne pasta, vegetarian Cobb salad, coconut chickpea curry and spaghetti and “meat” balls. Also available at the Kitchen are food vouchers that allow people to do their own shopping.

While pandemic restrictions have kept a damper on some of the social aspects, Demajo looks forward to a post-COVID world where the place will be hopping even more than it is now.

“This will hopefully become really a community hub,” she said. “Our hope was really to have a dedicated space for the community that JFS serves because one of the things that we recognized over the years is that JFS clients do not have space for gathering. They could come to different spaces, but they didn’t have their own dedicated space.”

This, she said, is why the Kitchen has a host of homey touches – artwork, photo displays, a play area for kids, a small library and, adjacent the kitchen itself, a café-like space where communal meals will occur when safe to do so.

The combined food programs serve more than 1,600 people. The food bank itself serves about 950 people.

“These numbers are constantly changing because some people stay with us for a long time, some people use the supports temporarily,” said Demajo.

Funding for the programs comes from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, private donors, and some federal and provincial government funding.

“When it comes to food, we’re also trying to build more partnerships and relationships where there is more in-kind food as well,” Demajo said.

Because they have a dedicated food storage space, including plenty of refrigerated shelves, the agency can now take in more perishable items than they could have accepted in the past. That means more fresh and healthy food for clients.

JFS has relationships with four farms – in Langley, Richmond, Pemberton and Chilliwack – that provide seasonal specialties.

“There are a lot of educational opportunities,” Demajo noted. “They have some animals there and provide not just food … so the plan is that down the road we also do some different programming with them as well.”

Familiar face celebrates 100

Goldie Kassen celebrated her 100th birthday on Aug. 12. (photo from Barbara Taranto)

Goldie Kassen, who turned 100 on Aug. 12, was fêted by family and friends from across Canada and around the world.

“My entire family was here for my birthday,” she told the Independent over the weekend. That includes two sons from Vancouver, another son from Alberta and a daughter from Israel, as well as 13 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. In all, about 40 fully vaccinated guests celebrated at the home of son Dr. Barry Kassen.

“A lot of the children of my friends were there,” she added. “My friends are gone, but their children came from Calgary, Montreal.… I had a lot of out-of-town people.”

Kassen was born in D’Arcy, Sask., in 1921. While there were a number of Jewish farm colonies during that era in Saskatchewan, D’Arcy was not one of them.

“My parents were the only Jewish people there,” she said. “My father came to Canada in the early 1900s. He went to Montreal. He worked there for awhile, then he heard about this land that he could get, so he went out to the land with an axe and a hammer and made his start there. Then my mother joined him about four years later.”

The couple had met and married in the area just outside Kiev, Ukraine. “The town was destroyed during the Holocaust – and the people,” said Kassen.

While the family fled Europe well in advance of the Nazi era, they nevertheless experienced tragedy. A daughter in Ukraine died of pneumonia at three months of age. After the migration to Saskatchewan, another daughter also died of pneumonia, at age 10. That left one son, but then came another son and, finally, Goldie.

“I had wonderful parents,” she recalled. “We lived off the land. What we grew, we ate. We didn’t have money. My mother had a huge garden and we ate everything that she grew. My father, of course, eventually got cattle, so we had our own beef. We just lived off what they produced. There wasn’t any money for extras.”

Her father was handy with carpentry and built the elementary school in D’Arcy where Goldie got her primary education. The building still stands, she said, but it is now used as a church.

There was a high school in D’Arcy, too, but it was six miles from the farm, so Goldie moved to Winnipeg, where her elder brother, 13 years her senior, and his wife had set up home. She graduated from St. John’s Technical High School, then returned to the farm. She wanted to go into nursing, but her father said there was no money for a three-year program, so she enrolled in a business course in Saskatoon.

For four years, she was a stenographer for a lawyer.

“I met my husband during the war years,” she said, referring to Abraham Kassen. She and other members of her Jewish youth group would be bused to dance halls to attend events for soldiers stationed nearby. “I met him at one of these dances,” she said.

“He was working in a store called Adilman’s in Saskatoon. It was a huge department store.”

Although the store closed in 1974, the building still stands in Saskatoon and is recognized as one of the city’s finest remaining examples of Streamline Moderne architecture – think art deco rounded corners and sleek silver accents.

“He was the head of the shoe department,” said Kassen. “Eventually, he became the manager of the whole store.”

The couple had twin boys, then another boy and finally a daughter.

“My children all did well for a mother who came from …” she paused and began to laugh, “I don’t know where.”

After raising her family, Kassen was asked by the Saskatoon Jewish community to become the local representative for JIAS, Jewish Immigrant Aid Services.

“The [Jewish] Russians were coming out of Russia in 1979 and they needed someone in Saskatoon,” she recounted. “I met them at the plane and I found places for them to live, I found jobs for them, I took their children to register for school. I settled over 100 Russians in Saskatoon.”

Even though her parents were from the Russian empire, she didn’t know much of the language to ease the work of settling newcomers. “I know two words,” she said, again with her quick laugh.

“I did that from 1979 until I left Saskatoon.”

Abraham died in 1986 and the two sons who live in Vancouver (both doctors) convinced her to move to the coast.

Any regrets about the move? “Never.”

Kassen didn’t know much about Vancouver or the Jewish community here when she arrived. But she did know a number of people from Saskatoon who had retired to the Louis Brier Home and Hospital. So, she walked in and volunteered shortly after arriving in town in 1988.

“I have to have something to occupy my time,” she said. “I worked there for over 25 years. Thirteen of those years I was the manager, the buyer and the bookkeeper of the gift shop.”

Her imprint on the gift shop was very personal. In addition to serving as a sort of tuck shop where residents can buy a chocolate bar or odds and ends, Kassen stocked it with collectibles she assembled from around Metro Vancouver and much further afield. Her frequent trips to Israel resulted in suitcases filled with kippot, tallitot, seder plates, mezuzot and other Judaica and tchotchkes that she thought shoppers might like.

Her time at the gift shop came to an abrupt end on Feb. 4 last year. With the emergence of the COVID pandemic, and on the advice of her MD son, she decided to close up shop. “I didn’t realize at the time that it would be the end,” she said.

The energy she devoted to the gift shop has not dissipated. “I still bake my own bread,” she said. “I gave away about eight challah on Rosh Hashanah. I’m always baking and cooking. I’m happy.”

The Independent spoke to her Sunday, just before she put a leg of lamb in the oven for family guests.

Phyllis and Michael Moscovich have been friends with Goldie since she arrived on the coast. Michael went to B’nai B’rith camp in Alberta with the Kassen boys.

“Her outlook on life is just always positive,” said Phyllis. “She just seems to take everything as it comes and to be cheerful all the time and positive all the time. I think that is who she is. She makes everyone around her feel good. Every time she comes to me for a meal, she brings something homemade with her. She cooks and bakes more than I will do in my lifetime, with ease. She just does it. That’s just who she is.”

Asked the inevitable question about the secret to longevity, the centenarian credits a healthy start and a refusal to settle down.

“I think the fact that I grew up eating from the earth, no toxins, everything was pure, I think that  gave me a good start,” she said. “I’ve always kept myself busy volunteering. I have to be busy. I can’t just sit and sleep. I have to be doing something or making something. I have a determination to keep going and I’m going to work on the next hundred now.”

Election amid chaggim

Much has been made of the challenges facing Canadians as the country engages in its 44th federal general election while still in the grips of a pandemic. For Jewish voters, the succession of holidays in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 20 election makes scheduling events like community forums with candidates extra confounding.

Nevertheless, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), along with partner agencies, will present a number of events across the country. Here in Metro Vancouver, there will be a virtual town hall on Sept. 14, 4 p.m., co-presented, as is tradition, with SUCCESS, the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society. Topics addressed will include racism and hate crimes; seniors’ care; post-pandemic economic recovery; immigrants and refugees; safe and healthy communities; and the sustainability of charitable and nonprofit organizations.

Two days earlier, on Sept. 12, a Richmond-focused virtual town hall will take place at 5 p.m., co-presented by CIJA and the Kehila Society of Richmond.

Tucked in between, on Sept. 13, is a national town hall, presented virtually from Toronto, again hosted by CIJA, this time in partnership with The CJN. All events are accessible from the website cija.ca/election.

Locally on Sept. 13, there is an all-candidates meeting on seniors issues for the ridings of Vancouver Granville and Vancouver South, co-hosted by Jewish Seniors Alliance. To register for it, visit jsalliance.org.

CIJA also has released a federal issues guide, outlining what it considers to be priorities on matters of domestic and foreign policy.

Among the recommendations is a request to supplement the Security Infrastructure Program, which provides funds to enhance security at institutions such as synagogues and community centres, with a program modeled after the Community Security Trust in the United Kingdom, which trains volunteers to provide patrols, situational awareness and threat prevention.

The guide urges amending the criminal code to make Holocaust denial an indictable offence and developing a standardized national social studies curriculum on antisemitism and the Holocaust.

The document, which is downloadable from the CIJA website, calls on the next government to address online hate through education and enforcement, including a social literacy campaign to “sensitize Canadians to the potent role social media plays in bullying, harassment, intimidation, dissemination of hate, and threats.” It calls for reestablishing provisions in the Canadian Human Rights Act to combat hate speech and strengthening Canadian tax laws to prohibit charities from promoting or inciting antisemitism or violent extremism.

The foreign affairs section calls on the government to ensure that Canadian humanitarian aid to Palestinians “goes where it is intended” and to oppose one-sided United Nations resolutions singling out Israel. It also calls on the government to demand that the Palestinian Authority stop the “paid to slay” program that rewards terrorism. It also calls for putting pressure on Iran until it “demonstrates meaningful improvements in comes into full compliance with its international obligations.”

Other CIJA recommendations include:

  • Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples “as an important step toward truth and reconciliation.”
  • Putting pressure on Eastern European countries “that have evaded their responsibility to pass meaningful restitution laws” for Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
  • Strengthening immigration and refugee policies particularly to support those targeted for their identity, such as Christians and Yazidis in Iraq, LGBTQ2+ people in Chechnya and Iran, and Rohingyas in Myanmar.
  • Reintroducing the question about religion in the census “to prevent continued underreporting of Jewish Canadians.”
  • Ending the three-month celibacy requirement for LGBTQ2+ blood donors.

The full document is downloadable at cija.ca/election.

The Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) is also busy during the campaign.

CJPAC engages “Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians in the democratic process” and helps community members build relationships within the Canadian political arena. Their website, cjpac.ca, has links to all major political parties, as well as links to volunteering and getting involved in campaigns. There is a final volunteer training webinar available at noon Pacific time on Sept. 13.

For information on your riding, where to vote and a list of candidates, go to the Elections Canada website at elections.ca.

Two Jews are on ballot

Jewish community members Tamara Kronis (Conservative party) and Avi Lewis (NDP) are running in the upcoming federal election. (photos from candidates)

British Columbia’s comparatively small Jewish community has produced a number of senior political figures, including the province’s first Jewish premier, Dave Barrett, and the current minister of finance, Selina Robinson, and minister of environment and climate change strategy, George Heyman. In this federal election, there appear to be just two candidates in British Columbia who are Jewish.

Tamara Kronis is the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for Nanaimo-Ladysmith. The riding is being closely watched by national observers as it is home to one of only two Green party MPs. Paul Manly, the incumbent, once sought an NDP nomination but was rejected by the party, apparently due to controversy over his positions on Israel and Palestine. While the other Green MP, former leader Elizabeth May, is seen as safe in her riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, Manly appears to be in (at least) a three-way race with Kronis and New Democrat Lisa Marie Barron. Michelle Corfield is the Liberal candidate.

Kronis is a lawyer and heads a jewelry manufacturing and retail business. Until last month, she was associate chair of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and an independent director of Toronto Hydro. Earlier in her career, she served as director of advocacy for EGALE Canada, the national LGBTQ+ organization. She was a trial assistant at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Across the water and across the spectrum, Avi Lewis is the New Democratic Party candidate in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea-to-Sky Country. A scion of Canada’s left-wing dynasty, Lewis is the son of journalist Michele Landsberg and Stephen Lewis, a former Ontario NDP leader and Canadian ambassador to the United Nations. His grandfather, David Lewis, was the leader of Canada’s NDP, from 1971 to 1975.

Avi Lewis is a journalist and activist who recently produced and co-wrote the Emmy-nominated animated short film about the Green New Deal, Message from the Future, with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Lewis co-authored “The Leap Manifesto,” which was “a call to action on climate and inequality that was launched by an historic coalition of Indigenous leaders, unions and environmentalists, and signed by more than 50,000 Canadians,” according to Lewis’s website.

Lewis has an uphill climb. The riding, which straddles some of Canada’s wealthiest voters and the disparate communities along Howe Sound, has back-and-forthed between the Liberals and Conservatives in recent years. It is held by two-term Liberal MP Patrick Weiler, who is beating back a challenge from former Conservative MP John Weston. In 2019, the NDP candidate came fourth, well behind the Green party.

Environment a Jewish issue

Or Shalom members Lorne Malliin and Marianne Rev organized a demonstration at the office of Harjit Sajjan, federal minister of national defence and MP for Vancouver South. (photo from Lorne Mallin)

The heat dome that sent much of British Columbia into an unprecedented spell of sweltering weather, followed by wildfires that have destroyed vast swaths of western North America, including the B.C. town of Lytton, and extreme weather events like Hurricane Ida have put climate and the environment at the top of many people’s priorities. With the federal election now days away, all federal parties have honed their pitches to voters on issues of the environment.

Jewish activists have been vocal on these issues recently, reflecting the growing realization that impacts of climate change are not a remote future potential but an immediate and measurable phenomenon.

Marianne Rev, a member of the tikkun olam committee at Or Shalom synagogue, was one of many Jewish people who participated in a series of demonstrations at the offices of scores of members of Parliament on July 29. With her friend and fellow Or Shalom member Lorne Mallin, Rev organized an event at the office of Harjit Sajjan, federal minister of national defence and MP for Vancouver South. Other local demonstrations took place at the offices of Vancouver Quadra MP Joyce Murray and North Vancouver MP Jonathan Wilkinson, who is also the federal minister of environment and climate change.

“It was part of an action organized by 350.org,” Rev told the Independent. The organization 350.org was founded in 2008 to build a global climate movement and was so named because 350 parts per million is the safe concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Concentrations are now 414.6 parts per million.)

“I’ve been increasingly involved in climate action, political action, climate justice,” said Rev, a retired physician.

While she was told in advance that Sajjan would not be available to meet on July 29, Rev was disappointed that, when her group of about 25 activists arrived at the office, it was closed. Nevertheless, she and a small group of others met with the minister on Aug. 9.

“We had an excellent meeting,” she said. “There were two very specific asks.”

Her group, as well as those participating across the country, asked MPs for a moratorium on all new or expanded production and transporting of fossil fuels, including the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. Second, they demanded a “just transition” away from fossil fuels to allow workers in those industries to shift to other sectors.

Rev said the response her group got from Sajjan was voiced by Wilkinson in the media.

“He blurted out the party line, which, shockingly, Wilkinson repeated many times over on the morning of the ninth, when the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] put out their report saying that we are code red for humanity,” she said. “[The government says] that we need the TMX to fund the transition to renewables. As such, it’s completely false.… It’s totally fallacious political B.S. that has been put out on the population for decades. Renewable energy is free. It’s not free to get there, but wind and sun is free.”

Rev gives credit to Adam v’Adamah, one of British Columbia’s pioneering Jewish environmental groups, and said that the environment and climate are logical concerns for Jews.

“Jews have always been very interested and driven regarding social justice, and the environment and climate are very much climate justice issues,” she said.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, concurs.

“I’ve been involved with [environmental issues] informally for my entire life, but formally, as a congregation, three years ago we launched an initiative to make clear that the climate and the environment is a Jewish issue,” he said. “I see it in very religious terms in the sense that we are commanded to be guardians of the earth, stewards of the earth. So, it’s a mitzvah, a religious obligation, to be good stewards of the earth. I challenged my congregation to join me in that effort and I challenged our Jewish community and they’ve responded, to put this on our community agenda, to see this as a pressing concern for the Jewish community and for the Jewish people. The Jewish Federation has an environmental task force now. We have been talking with CIJA [the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs] to get it on their list of priorities and to get the politics out of it and to see it for what it is, which is an existential threat to this world that we are commanded to be caretakers and stewards of.”

As Jewish voters ponder their ballot choices, Moskovitz has some thoughts.

“Rhetoric is lovely and nice and, for the most part, all the campaigns, as I hear them, say basically the right things about the environment,” he said. “But who is doing something or who is in a position to do something? The time for talking is over.… If you don’t do what you’re preaching or praying for, then it’s just noise and we can’t afford more noise because, if we’ve seen anything over this past summer, with the fires here and in the States, and, as we saw the impact of what staying home during the early part of COVID did for our environment in allowing it to rest and to have its own sabbatical year … we can see that we can’t keep using and abusing this God-given gift, which is the world we live in. We are just renters here. We don’t own it.”

Parties back JCC plan

The leading federal political parties have pledged their support to the redevelopment of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Kailin Che, the Conservative Candidate for Vancouver Granville, issued a release Sept. 1, saying that a Conservative government would commit to the redevelopment of the facility. The Conservative campaign did not commit to a dollar amount.

The federal Liberals also made a commitment. Taleeb Noormohamad, the Liberal candidate in Vancouver Granville, announced the next day that a reelected Liberal government would contribute $25 million to the project – the same contribution that the province has committed to and the amount JCC officials requested.

The entire project is budgeted at $427 million, including $155 for a new community centre, childcare spaces and seniors care and $272 million to construct 500 to 600 units of mixed-use rental housing. The new centre is estimated for completion in late 2024 and the housing component is anticipated in 2027-28.

Controversy over instructor

A proposed fall semester course at the University of Victoria has raised concerns that it will become what B’nai Brith Canada described as “a forum for antisemitism.” The concerns were sparked by inflammatory comments the course’s instructor, Dr. Shamma Boyarin, wrote on social media earlier in the year.

In a May 26 Twitter post, for example, Boyarin used an obscene verb before labeling Abraham Foxman, former president of the Anti-Defamation League, a “Zionist pig.” On June 3, he ridiculed an individual who had been the recipient of a torrent of antisemitic abuse online. This was followed the next day by a post in which Boyarin remarked, “[It’s] hard for North American Jews to admit the truth: What is happening in Israel is ethnic cleansing and slow genocide.”

An online description of the UVic course, entitled Introduction to Antisemitism, has been modified since it was first posted. At an earlier stage, the description began, “What is antisemitism? As soon as one attempts definitions, it becomes clear that even the most fundamental aspects of antisemitism are controversial.” The course’s current title is also different from the original, which was Towards an Understanding of Antisemitism. Gone, too, is a study of present-day antisemitism.

photo - Prof. Shamma Boyarin
Prof. Shamma Boyarin (photo from uvic.ca)

The changes occurred in early August after B’nai Brith, among others, raised objections to UVic about Boyarin teaching a class on modern antisemitism. The course’s subtitle on the UVic website now reads, “A Historical Survey of Key Texts and Moments from Augustine to Luther.” Its description: “What is antisemitism? The term itself was coined in the late 19th century, but when does the phenomenon begin? Is it the same or different from ‘anti-Judaism’? Should we spell it ‘anti-Semitism’ or ‘antisemitism’? Beginning with these basic questions, we will focus on the particular role Christianity has played in developing and sustaining antisemitism in Europe.”

“Moving this course away from modern antisemitism is an important first step,” said Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “However, we are still concerned that, instead of educating students on the scourge of Jew-hatred, there is a risk, albeit a reduced one, that hostility toward Jews will instead be promoted.

“UVic must provide assurances to the Jewish community that academic freedom will not be used as cover to falsely accuse Jews, as a whole, of contributing to genocide, among other antisemitic canards,” he added.

When contacted by the Independent, UVic expressed the position that it “does not condone antisemitism” and “that it is highly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and to social justice in its many forms.”

“We are aware that a faculty member has expressed personal views in public communications which are disturbing to people. Those views are personal. They have not been made on behalf of the university or in the context of their work,” said Karen Johnston, a spokesperson for the university.

“Canadians have a constitutional right to free speech, subject to limits under the law,” she said. “And so it cannot be the role of the university to judge or censor its employees’ exercise of free speech in their private lives. While all faculty enjoy the privilege of academic freedom, there are also limitations to this right. In this specific instance, there is no evidence at this time that the faculty member has or will exceed those limitations in teaching this course.”

The university also said it “will act on any allegation that there has been a violation of university policies against discrimination or harassment, which apply to all members of our community.”

Rob Philipp, executive director at Hillel BC, has been monitoring the situation and has spoken with Dr. Kevin Hall, the president of UVic. Philipp said, “If the course does run, we will check to see what the reading material is and what is being taught.” However, he added, while the organization is keeping on top of things, there is not much that can be done to stop the course from going ahead.

Jeff Kushner, president of the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island (JFVVI), said they, too, will be following the UVic course and will remain in contact with senior administration staff.

“The JFVVI does not have any serious concerns about the course material, such as we know it,” said Kushner. “Our concerns are more about the academic and emotional safety of the students enrolled in the course. In this particular case, a professor at UVic made some very objectionable comments on his private Twitter feed. We wish that he had not made such incorrect and inflammatory statements, both in his role as an academic and as a Jew.

“He has not made these comments in any official capacity, and the university has been very clear that these objectionable views are not the views of the university. Our concern is that an individual having these views, and expressing them as he has, may find it difficult to leave them at the classroom door and, through explicit statements or implicit actions, may create an unsafe learning environment for Jewish students holding views contrary to his own.”

In a letter to the university, B’nai Brith urged UVic to publish the syllabus of the revised course online, to cancel the course if it is used to attack the Jewish community in any way and to follow other universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, in adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism to “avoid future confusion.”

Boyarin has taught at the University of Victoria since 2008 in religious studies and medieval studies, and in the English department since 2009. According to his profile at UVic, his current research and teaching interests include medieval literature (particularly the literature of Spain and the Near East), comparative literature (particularly Hebrew and Arabic), literature and religion, Jewish studies, and the religious roots of antisemitism. He has additional expertise, his profile continues, in the connections between medieval and contemporary culture, especially as they manifest in heavy metal music and white supremacist ideologies.

The Independent tried to reach Boyarin for comment, but had not heard back from him at the time of publication.

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

Brian Jessel BMW turns 35

Brian Jessel has loved cars since he was a kid. (photo by Alfonso Arnold)

Brian Jessel chose one of the most consequential years in Vancouver’s history, 1986, to embark on his self-named BMW dealership. Since Expo 86, both the city and Brian Jessel BMW have changed, but, according to Jessel, one thing remains constant.

“We take a personal approach to the car business. We cherish our relationships with our clients and like to spoil them and treat them as VIPs. This is how I want to be treated, so this is how I grow my business relationships,” Jessel said in a recent interview.

And he also works to grow community. Among the organizations that have benefited from his philanthropy are Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Jewish Family Services, Congregation Schara Tzedeck, Lubavitch BC, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia and the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library.

In the general community, Jessel’s Cabriolet Charity Galas, started in 2004, are among the premier philanthropic events of the year in Vancouver. The annual galas, which raise money for pancreatic cancer research, have brought in more than $2 million and have seen the likes of talk show host Jay Leno and blues singer Colin James perform in the past.

Enthusiasm for the automobile runs in Jessel’s family. His father, Bernie, a leading figure the Toronto car market, instilled a fascination with the industry – an excitement that has carried through to future generations.

“I loved cars from the time I was a toddler; it’s probably in my DNA. I now have a 4-year-old grandson who is exactly the same; he sleeps with cars in his bed and won’t let go of the steering wheel if he gets into the driver’s seat. I bought him and his 6-year-old brother cars – yes, real cars. I just need to wait 12 years to give them to them,” he related.

The desire to be in the car business maintained such a strong pull for Jessel that other career possibilities did not stand much of a chance.

“I went to university (in Michigan) but never graduated – I wanted to get to work. I interviewed at a prestigious Bay Street stock firm and was accepted for the position, but I never started. A couple of weeks later, I was selling cars at a classy GM dealership on the west side of Toronto,” he recalled.

Eventually, in 1972, he made it out west, opening his first used car lot with six automobiles on a leased space at Burrard and 1st Avenue. Jessel sensed the appeal of foreign cars, even back in the 1970s, and turned that first car lot into a Fiat dealership – along with selling pre-owned vehicles, specializing in imports.

“These were days when, if a Jag went down the road, people stopped and looked,” said Jessel, who also attributes his success to having the gumption to take a chance when opportunity comes calling.

Before establishing itself at its current location in Vancouver in 2004, Brian Jessel BMW operated out of locations in Langley and Coquitlam. Today, it occupies a 66,000-square-foot new-car facility on Boundary Road, with an additional 36,000 square-foot pre-owned-car space nearby. Brian Jessel BMW sells more than 5,000 cars a year.

Jessel gives much of the credit to his staff for his thriving business. “Our people are knowledgeable but also warm and engaging,” he said. “And we are laser focused on all things BMW. We aren’t using a cookie-cutter format that works for selling everything from Bentley to Hyundai, like large dealership groups need to be. Yet we are the size of five dealerships, so we still have all the economies of scale of the multi-brand.”

When asked about the differences in running a dealership now as opposed to 35 years ago, he said, “As with everything in the world, the computer has changed how cars operate. Twenty years ago, I went to Europe and drove the upcoming BMW 7 Series. It had a dial in the centre console that controlled many of the car’s functions. Auto journalists hated the iDrive System when they first saw it. Now, almost every manufacturer has followed BMW’s lead and has a similar operating system.”

And there is the move to electric vehicles as well.

“The new frontier is the electric car. There is a mystique I like about electric cars,” he said. “They are so quiet and have amazing low-end power. I still love the feeling of an internal combustion engine, however, it is inevitable that electric vehicles will dominate by the end of this decade.”

Brian Jessel BMW has started taking orders for the new BMW iX, as well as the four-door sedan version, the BMW i4 – both of which are fully electric.

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

Virtual reality as a therapy?

Philip Be’er (photo from Philip Be’er)

Philip Be’er, a counselor based in Sidney, B.C., 27 kilometres north of Victoria, has recently introduced virtual reality therapy consultations to anyone, anywhere, “as long as they have a good internet connection.” Sessions are held both in person, using a VR headset, and, if done remotely, a computer or smartphone.

VR therapy attempts to address a number of phobias, anxieties, addictive disorders and other mental health conditions. If someone were to have a fear of heights, for example, VR therapy, using the headset and software, could simulate a scene in which one enters a glass elevator in a skyscraper. As the elevator goes up – 10 floors, 25 floors, 100 floors – a therapist can help the client work with the various sensations and emotions that the simulation evokes in the client.

Be’er said that, when he first heard about VR therapy, he recognized its potential upon reflecting on how the human brain does not always accurately distinguish between real experience and visualized or imaginary experiences. If one goes through something that feels realistic, as it can with VR, the brain sometimes believes that the experience has happened, and this belief, Be’er claims, can be used for healing.

“The power of VR is that it inserts a person into something that feels quite realistic. We take them to a place that triggers the feeling that I am not safe without ever putting the person into danger,” he explained. “It feels unsafe but I am not unsafe, and all I have to do if I am feeling this lack of safety is take off the goggles, and I realize that I am sitting in a place where there is no actual danger.”

image - VR in useAdvocates of VR therapy think it can provide a person the ability to remove themselves from the perception of danger and into safety. Further, that it can help address deleterious emotions as they arise.

“Using virtual reality, I can take people through situations and allow them to calm their nervous systems when they feel unsafe and yet are not really unsafe,” said Be’er. “This could be going into a subway and not feeling safe around the people there or, for a person with OCD [obsessive-compulsive disorder], feeling like they are going to die because there are germs and infections around, and they are constantly washing their hands. In these situations, virtual reality can help differentiate between what is really dangerous and what my nervous system is telling me is dangerous.”

According to Be’er, it is a matter of the nervous system recalibrating. Instead of being overwhelmed by danger signals, it eventually selects only those where there really is imminent danger.

Be’er shared an example of what he considered a successful virtual reality therapy case. It involved a client who had been struggling with severe issues around social anxiety and who coped by using alcohol to self-medicate. The person was so uncomfortable with others that they rarely left their room. Yet, there was one place they were able interact with others: virtual reality chat rooms.

“The thing that made it safer for my client was that they presented as a carrot, banana, dragon or whatever avatar they chose and nobody could really see who they were,” he said. “They could go and interact with people, and the worst thing that could happen was that avatar would be rejected if they made some kind of faux pas, if they did something that was socially unacceptable or in some way antagonized or turned the other person off. There was not that much to lose because, if something went wrong for them with this particular avatar, they would simply change their user name and avatar and then they could practise again.”

Be’er coached the client to develop some of their social skills using this visualized virtual world and that person was able to reduce their dependence on alcohol. Within a few weeks, the client was interacting in a sales position with people on an ongoing basis.

To be sure, because VR therapy is still in its early stages, there are unanswered questions about its future. In a 2018 Scientific American article, Albert “Skip” Rizzo, director of medical virtual reality at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, commented, “The next biggest controversy [in] psychology is going to be: How far can we go with AI [artificial intelligence] and virtual therapists?”

And lest one think that machines will supplant real-life counselors any time soon, the BBC’s Science Focusmagazine notes, “VR therapy won’t replace human therapists, but it’s a powerful adjunct and access to it is going to grow.”

Local therapists to whom the Independent spoke also noted that VR could be a useful tool in treatment, but were cautious about its use as therapy in and of itself.

Be’er said he has been on a lifelong quest to understand the roots of family (and societal) dysfunction and to identify the most effective ways to bring about individual and collective healing. He works with individuals, families, businesses and organizations, offering regular workshops, seminars and an online course.

For more information on Be’er’s use of virtual reality therapy, visit b-loops.com/vr.

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