King David High School Grade 8 students Noam, Judd and Joey, collecting bread from COBS. (photo from facebook.com/foodstashfoundation)
Nov. 21 saw the start of King David High School’s now-established RAC Week. Started as part of the Random Acts of Kindness program – adapted as Random Acts of Chesed – this is a five-day celebration of paying it forward. Whether it’s picking up garbage, helping the homeless or moving furniture, every activity gives the students a chance to experience the rewards of helping others.
This year, The Giving Tree formed the basis for RAC Week’s good deeds. Illustrations from Shel Silverstein’s book about unconditional love decorated the main hall and foyer. Heartwarming messages read “Kindness is Contagious,” “Spread the Love” and “Smile! It’s RAC Week!”
RAC Week takes the students outside their comfort zones. According to the director of Jewish life at KDHS, Ellia Belson, this year’s destinations were chosen based on feedback gleaned from last year’s offerings. “The Grade 12s wanted to go where there was the greatest need,” she said.
Among the destinations were the Kerrisdale police detachment, Quest Outreach and Admiral Seymour Elementary School. At the school, which is on Keefer Street, they witnessed an unfamiliar degree of tension – and fighting – among the kids. KDHS student Ethan (Grade 10) described how he “tried to get people to play together who might not do so normally.”
Under the guidance of teacher Matt Dichter, Grade 8 student Noam accompanied Food Stash Foundation on their daily rounds. Started by David Schein, a former teacher at KDHS, the foundation was created to help reduce food waste in the Vancouver area. FSF collects leftover items from grocery stores, such as Whole Foods, at the end of each work day. Food Stash then delivers the food to where it’s needed most: more than 15,000 kilograms of food since September, said Schein. On the morning of Nov. 22, deliveries were made to the Kettle Society, Mount Pleasant Neighborhood House, Tenth Church and Oasis Café.
The RAC group from KDHS rescued food from COBS Bread, Greens, Fresh is Best and a number of other sites. The numbers speak volumes. Every year, each Canadian throws away approximately 127 kilograms of food. KDHS kids rescued 135 kilograms in a single day.
“I really liked working with the kids because it is a great way to raise awareness of food waste in the younger generation,” Schein told the Independent. “Half of food waste happens at home, so they can now go home and speak to their parents, start influencing food choices.” He added, “Saving me some lifting was also nice!”
With its emphasis on community service, RAC Week is a concentrated course in educating the emotions, as well as the intellect. Noam described how “it felt good to give back.” Asked whether his work with Food Stash had had an impact on his daily life, he answered with a definite yes. His intentions were clear, as he explained, “even finishing what’s on your plate” can have an impact on food wastage.
RAC Week offers a curriculum of social responsibility best taught outside the classroom, where students develop an awareness of other kids’ lives and struggles. The conversations that take place after the outings present an opportunity to reflect on these struggles and express gratitude for their own station in life. It also allows the students to teach one another, under Belson’s guidance, about what each group learned.
While the kids spoke animatedly about their excursions, their most energetic, personal and heartfelt responses were to Belson’s simple question, “What does chesed mean to you?”
At this, it seemed that half the students raised their hands, speaking with passion and clarity about “giving and not taking” (Ella). Connell quoted from the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, with the admonition, “Be a giver, not a taker.” Ethan spoke at length about how it’s easy to “take for granted a loving home, a loving family…. It’s a week to recognize that by giving back.” Jordana agreed, talking about the importance of seeing “how others live – even so close to us. It made a difference.”
Sometimes, the greatest lessons in life can be taught in the simplest of ways. Adi talked about “being a mensch, helping people who have less, making people feel happier, making them smile.”
Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com.
Teens from Temple Sholom’s sister congregation, Tzur Hadassah, in Israel. Rabbi Stacey Blank is on the far right. (photo from Rabbi Dan Moskovitz)
Derech L’Torah is a b’nai mitzvah orientation program currently offered by Temple Sholom, which pairs a group of Vancouver b’nai mitzvah with their Israeli counterparts. The Israeli families come from Tzur Hadassah, Temple Sholom’s sister community just outside of Jerusalem in the pre-1967 territory of the Judean hills. The ongoing dialogue has illuminated both similarities and differences between Israelis and Canadians preparing for the rite of passage.
“In Israel, boys are more often motivated to have bar mitzvahs by social pressure, whereas girls often desire to make a statement,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom. “They may be motivated by egalitarian, feminist ideals in a culture where the religious sphere is still more dominated by patriarchy.”
Canadian b’nai mitzvah may assume that Israelis will have a substantial leg up on bar or bat mitzvah preparation, but that is not necessarily the case. Canadians may actually have more synagogue experience than their Israeli compatriots, and Israelis find liturgical Hebrew something like Canadians find Shakespearean English.
“Whether Israeli or Canadian, both are going through the gateway of this liminal moment,” said the rabbi, “and both are being immersed in Jewish time and Jewish ritual.”
Among the parents, there are more similarities than differences, said Moskovitz.
In Israel, a bar mitzvah is not “required” for Jewish identity, whereas, in Canada, those who don’t have a bar mitzvah rarely cultivate a strong Jewish identity as they grow up.
“Both sets of parents want their children to be successful, without them feeling too pressured, and, for both, some of them are guiding their children through something they themselves may have walked away from.”
One of the main benefits of the program, said Moskovitz, is the way that it joins together parents of b’nai mitzvah into a cohort to connect with and support each other.
The program starts in the spring of Grade 6 and goes to the fall of Grade 7. Among the Temple Sholom contingent, the students tend to be about one-third from Vancouver Talmud Torah and Richmond Jewish Day School, and most of the rest have a supplementary school background.
The partnership between Temple Sholom and Tzur Hadassah aims to create a vibrant connection between Reform Jews in Canada and Israel and goes beyond the Derech L’Torah program. Visitors to Israel from Temple Sholom have attended Shabbat dinners and synagogue services at Tzur Hadassah, and Temple Sholom supported a community garden project there. Rabbi Stacey Blank of Tzur Hadassah has taught an adult education at Temple Sholom via Skype, and Moskovitz and Blank have published articles in each other’s temple bulletins.
Matthew Gindinis a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.
Ken Levitt, JSA president, with Debby Fenson, who was one of the singers at the event. (photo by Binny Goldman)
On Nov. 25, Jewish Seniors Alliance’s first Empowerment Series in partnership with the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia was held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture.
Gyda Chud, JSA vice-president and Peretz president, and Ken Levitt, president of JSA, welcomed the 65 people gathered, with Levitt thanking Chud and citing her as an example of koach, strength, in all she did.
The theme of this year’s series is Food: The Doorway to Our Culture, so the partnership with the JMABC was a natural fit, as its theme for the year is “Feeding the Community,” said Michael Schwartz, coordinator of programs and development of the JMABC, who briefly described how the museum functions and the extent of its collection.
As for its theme, Schwartz said the JMABC has created a new podcast, called Kitchen Stories. Episodes include stories about Sephardi Jews adapting to the culture of a different land, and that of a blended family from Ukraine and Rhodes. Schwartz highlighted the story of a family in Haida Gwaii, where, he explained, contact is usually made through an event; a shared feast celebrating the catching of fish, for example, the preparing of the meal and then the partaking of it, all instrumental to the success of the project itself.
Often a dilemma is faced when adapting to a new food culture and discarding the former, said Schwartz. Questions often arise, Which self am I? Does this diminish my former self? Food represents identity, acceptability and relationships, he explained, adding that a new JMABC venture planned for the coming year is a supper club at the Peretz Centre, where each get-together will focus on a different cultural theme: Persian, Israeli and Mexican.
Shanie Levin, a vice-president of JSA, then shared stories of food with those gathered. Formerly involved in amateur theatre and more recently in Yiddish reading groups at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library, Levin said she collected stories from several different perspectives. The first she read was an excerpt from Rhapsody in Schmaltz by Michael Wex, in which he lists the various blessings to be said before and after consuming foods. In the passage, Wex also notes the problem of dealing with a spoonful of milk that falls into the chicken soup. Does it render the whole soup non-kosher? Or just the pot? What if the family is poor and there is nothing else to eat? Referring to Wex’s book, Levin discussed how Ashkenazi Jews have remained close to their customs of origin while Sephardi Jews more often have adapted their food preparation according to the country in which they found themselves.
A crowd favorite was The Chicken Tale by Rabbi Daniel T. Grossman, which had everyone laughing, hearing about the rabbi who, traveling with a group of Jewish choir singers, finds himself in a town that knows nothing about the customs of Jews. Hoping to impress him, his hostess does some research at the local library. When she meets the rabbi, she informs him that she knows rabbis kill chickens, therefore, there is a chicken in the yard and the townspeople are waiting to witness the kill. However, the horrified rabbi says that he is not that kind of rabbi, but a praying and teaching rabbi. So, that night, they all eat fish.
Another story, A Town Called Roosevelt by Moishe Nadir, illustrated that a preconceived notion can be changed gradually with each course of a delicious meal.
A personal favorite was Challahs in the Ark by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, written about the time the Jews were expelled from Spain, eventually to relocate to Tzfat. The shul caretaker was desperate to know if he had found favor in God’s eyes. Knowing his wife was an expert challah baker, he asked her to bake 12 loaves, which he then placed in the Torah ark, thinking that, if they were gone in the morning, then he would know God had accepted his offering. In the meantime, the shamash, who had not been paid for many weeks and had a hungry family, was pleading with God to show him a sign that his prayers were being heard. Imagine his joy upon discovering the loaves of bread at the ark, which he thought to be a definite sign. This joy was echoed by the caretaker the next morning. Seeing the challahs were gone, he felt God had accepted them.
The audience was reluctant to let Levin stop, so she read one more story, a short version of Sholem Aleichem’s Chanukah Gelt. Her delivery held listeners’ rapt; they could envision the action, as each story enfolded.
A musical program followed, featuring Debby Fenson, Deborah Stern Silver and accompanist Elliot Dainow. Fenson is ba’alat tefilah (Torah reader) at Congregation Beth Israel, where she teaches b’nai mitzvah students; Stern Silver is a trained soprano who sings with Fenson at Beth Israel; and Dainow is musical director of the Unitarian Church, as well as being an accompanist for soloists and various ensembles, including the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir, which calls the Peretz Centre home.
Introducing their program, Stern Silver said the songs being presented were of Ashkenazi sources. They included “Tayere Malkeh,” a Yiddish drinking song, performed with a drinking cup and an empty bottle of wine, and a song about having to eat potatoes every day, which had the audience eagerly joining in with the chorus of bulbes (potatoes). The third song transported everyone to the Israeli marketplace, “Shuk HaCarmel,” and “Rozhinkes mit Mandlen” (“Raisins and Almonds”), a lullaby sung to children, brought tears of recognition and nostalgia.
Several instruments were handed out and those in the audience became participants in the performance of “The Latke Song” by Debbie Friedman. For the final song, “Finjan,” the audience enthusiastically clapped along.
It is impossible to capture the warm feeling of shared chavershaft (camaraderie) prevailing in the room; a fargenign, a pleasure.
In addition to Chud, who was the convenor, the event was made possible with the help of JSA staff, and Karon and Stan Shear filmed it for JSA’s website. Here’s to continuing the singing of our songs and sharing our stories m’dor l’dor, from generation to generation, af eybik, forever.
Binny Goldman is a member of the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver board.
Three decades ago, Janette Sperber experienced the benefits of biofeedback personally. “At the time, I lived in San Francisco and worked in social services with abused children,” she recalled in an interview with the Independent. “I had severe asthma, went to the emergency in a hospital at least twice a year with my asthma attacks. In 1987, I became a research subject. One of the pioneers in biofeedback in America conducted a study in the new protocols for treating asthma, and I jumped at the opportunity. The program lasted for 13 weeks and it revolutionized my life.”
Since then, Sperber has never gone to emergency again. Although her asthma didn’t disappear, the program helped her manage her condition. It taught her the right breathing regimen, stress management and relaxation techniques. “Even my personality improved,” she said with a smile, “at least according to my friends. Maybe because the fear of asthma, of struggling for breath, was gone. My general way of relating to life changed. I felt more secure, more confident. Biofeedback led me from being a victim of asthma to being in control of my life. It empowered me.”
She became a huge proponent of biofeedback techniques. Whenever her coworkers complained of headaches or chronic pains, she taught them what she had learned in the program, and it helped them, too. After awhile, she started thinking of doing it professionally.
“I went for special training, took some additional classes and passed the licence exam in 1989,” she said. After a few years of working in physiotherapy clinics, she started her own biofeedback practice in San Francisco. Four years ago, she moved to Vancouver.
According to Sperber, biofeedback is a learning process, not a treatment. She teaches her clients how to manage certain physical and psychological conditions, including panic and anxiety disorders, recurring headaches, asthma, muscle-based dysfunctions and many others.
“It’s very gratifying to a counselor,” she said, “because biofeedback is a short-term process. People come to me with a complaint. I identify the problem and teach them how to deal with it, how they could help themselves. If they do their homework and practise, we both see positive results in a short time.”
One of the common problems with which she has helped her patients is chronic pain, including headaches and even cancer-related pains. “I don’t treat cancer,” she stressed, “but I can help people with the pain. When something hurts, we always want the pain to go away. We tighten our muscles to fight the pain, to resist it, but the tension often leads to the opposite results: the pain worsens. It triggers the alarm bells in our brains, and the stress level goes up, exacerbating the pain further. We need to relax instead.”
In addition to relaxation techniques, Sperber teaches her clients the right approach to breathing, which could also reduce anxiety and even prevent panic attacks. “With the optimal respiration patterns, my clients can catch a panic attack before it is fully developed, ‘nip it in the bud,’” she said.
The first stage of any treatment is to identify the source. For that, Sperber uses special sensors similar to the ones used in electrocardiogram testing. The test is painless. She applies electrodes to different parts of a client’s body to find the problem area and then teaches the client how to reduce the tension in that group of muscles. She also tests breathing and heartbeats before recommending certain techniques.
“Not everything works for everyone,” she warned, “but I try different techniques with each client to find what works best for them. The more open-minded my clients are, the better I can help them. They need to practise what I teach to get the best outcome. Those who don’t want to practise are unwilling to help themselves.”
Some of her more difficult patients include a perhaps unexpected group. “Women who are too nice are sometimes the hardest to help,” she said. “They go to their doctors with pain complaints, and the doctors recommend medications and suggest restrictions of what they should and shouldn’t do. Some doctors also recommend them to me or other biofeedback specialists. But, because these women – and it is usually women, not men – are too nice, they can’t say no. Someone asks them to do something extra at work or at home and they do it, even though it aggravates their conditions. They should learn to say no, to take better care of themselves.”
Another problem Sperber encountered recently is the gradual proliferation of fake biofeedback providers. “Biofeedback is growing in popularity,” she said. “More and more doctors recommend their patients to find a biofeedback specialist, but I’m only aware of a few other licensed biofeedback professionals besides myself in Vancouver. Lots of scams though. If you want to consult a biofeedback counselor, check the website of Biofeedback Certification International Alliance – bcia.org – for the certified practitioners in your area.”
Sperber loves what she does. “It’s wonderful to be able to help people improve the quality of their lives,” she said.
The Go Downtown app helps users find out what is happening in town right now.
Go Downtown has launched a public pilot of its real-time urban mapping mobile application in the Metro Vancouver area. The app is now free to download at the Canadian App Store and Google Play.
The new app helps users in large cities find out what is happening around town right now, and where to go to participate. The app indicates the location of live events and highlights crowd hot spots using a live foot-traffic heatmap.
The main mapping platforms like Google, Apple or Bing present mostly static data, while the information about live urban events – such as bands, parties, shows, etc. – is fragmented across the net and hard to find. Go Downtown changes the way we plan our hangouts and find out where the action is, by visualizing the live city. The social app aggregates information about events – such as festivals, shows, live music, food truck locations, happy hours and more – from user reports and other sources and displays them on the map. Users can share the details of an event they like and the app produces a walking route to take them there.
Go Downtown also features a live foot-traffic heatmap. The app aggregates the location and speed of its users to generate a real-time foot-traffic “synoptic map.” The heatmap highlights pedestrian hot spots and helps users find where the action is and where people are going. Users can even filter the map to find hot spots of specific groups of people based on their demographic and common interests.
In addition, the app offers themed walking routes – like “tourist attractions,” “shopping spree,” “pub crawl” and other things near the user – that enable the user to explore the city by walking.
“The concept of real-time urban mapping is powerful,” said Yaron Bazaz, co-founder and chief executive officer of Go Downtown. “Waze revolutionized mapping by using real-time user reports to map current traffic congestions and help drivers. Go Downtown takes real-time mapping further by utilizing user inputs to depict urban life. Where are people hanging out right now, what cultural events are taking place today? The ability to digest all this information, visualize it and analyze patterns will have enormous impact on users, businesses and local authorities.”
In addition, the real-time foot-traffic data and live urban events information generated serves a wide range of markets: from leading retail chains and car-sharing ventures that would like to understand foot-traffic patterns, to universities and cities that can use it for better planning. Go Downtown predicts that live foot-traffic data pattern analysis and forecast will play a key role in many Smart City initiatives and will be widely used by urban planners to plan more pedestrian-friendly cities.
Earlier this year, the startup ran a successful pilot at the University of British Columbia with the support of the faculty and the student organization. During the pilot, the app aggregated the foot traffic of hundreds of participants and mapped the main walking routes students were using throughout the campus.
Following the public pilot in Vancouver, the company plans to expand the service to more cities in Canada and the United States. To participate in the Vancouver pilot, visit godowntown.mobi to download the iOS version from the App Store or the Android version from Google Play.
From left to right: Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver; Jason Z. Murray, chair, Local Partner Council, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs; Penny Gurstein, volunteer leader, JFGV; Candace Kwinter, member of the CIJA LPC; Stephen Gaerber, chair of the board, JFGV; John Horgan, MLA, leader of the Official Opposition; Yael Levin, manager of partnerships, CIJA Pacific Region; David Berson, member of the CIJA LPC; Shelley Rivkin, vice-president, allocations and community relations, JFGV; and Nico Slobinsky, director. (photo CIJA Pacific Region)
On Nov. 28, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver (JFGV) hosted discussions with Jewish community leaders and British Columbia Leader of the Official Opposition John Horgan and Selina Robinson, member of the Legislative Assembly for Coquitlam-Maillardville.
The discussion underscored the Jewish community’s relationship with the provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) and provided Horgan with details regarding issues faced by the approximately 30,000 members of British Columbia’s Jewish community.
Lay leaders and professional staff representing a wide range of perspectives discussed such priorities as antisemitism, community security, affordable housing, elder care, Jewish education, ethno-cultural cooperation and the centrality of the state of Israel to the Jewish community.
Horgan expressed his appreciation for the Jewish community and recognized the importance of working with them to confront hatred and intolerance wherever it exists.
“British Columbia’s Jewish community cherishes the historic, enduring and constructive relationships existing with both the B.C. NDP and B.C. Liberal parties,” said Nico Slobinsky, CIJA’s Pacific Region director. “CIJA is committed to strengthening our relationship with all provincial parties to affirm our shared values and work together on the challenges facing B.C.’s Jewish community and other ethnic and religious minorities.”
Left to right: In Jerusalem, during British Columbia’s trade mission to Israel, are B.C. MLA Dr. Moira Stillwell, Hadassah Medical Centre’s Dr. Guy Rosenthal, Rick Hansen Institute chief executive officer Bill Barrable, B.C. Finance Minister Michael de Jong; and Hadassah Medical Centre’s Prof. Eyal Itshayek and Prof. Yoram Weiss. (photo from RHI)
The medical interventions and outcomes of Israelis with spinal cord injury (SCI) can now be captured in the Rick Hansen SCI Registry (RHSCIR), a prospective observational study of individuals sustaining a traumatic SCI, thanks to the teams at the Rick Hansen Institute (RHI) and Hadassah Medical Centre.
Spinal cord injuries have a devastating impact on the health and well-being of the individuals affected. SCI health-care services are highly specialized and complex and place a significant burden on health-care systems. By connecting clinicians, researchers and health-care administrators, the goal of the registry is to advance research, improve clinical practice and reduce health-care costs.
The registry has sites at 31 major acute care and rehabilitation hospitals across Canada. In the last year, registry sites have been established in China, New Zealand and, now, Israel, marking its turn as a truly global study that connects the international SCI research and clinical care communities. There are currently more than 6,000 individuals with SCI enrolled in the registry.
At Hadassah Medical Centre, the registry pilot study is led by Dr. Eyal Itshayek and a team of researchers who will collect details about study participants’ SCI, including the extent of their injury, level of paralysis, recovery, success of various treatments and impact on quality of life and physical function.
RHI and Hadassah celebrated their established partnership with an official launch of the RHSCIR pilot study on Nov. 16. RHI’s chief executive officer, Bill Barrable, and manager of commercialization and industry relations, Jonathan Miodowski, visited the hospital as part of British Columbia’s trade mission to Israel, led by B.C. Minister of Finance Michael de Jong.
The delegation and invited guests attended a presentation from Hadasit Technology and took a tour of the trauma unit of the medical centre, which was followed by the RHSCIR pilot launch event. Elad Strohmayer from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ralph Jansen, deputy head of mission from the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service, had the opportunity to say a few congratulatory words, along with de Jong, hospital representatives and Barrable. De Jong spoke highly of the partnership between Hadassah Medical Centre and RHI, and of how the launch of RHSCIR “forges another link in the chain of research that will make life better for so many people.”
Cambie Street, looking south from 41st Avenue, 1952. (photo from City of Vancouver Archives via jewishmuseum.ca/oakridge)
On Nov. 23, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia had both its annual general meeting and launched its newest online exhibit, Oakridge.
JMABC board president Perry Seidelman called the AGM to order and noted a major absence.
“Forty-five years ago,” he said, “Cyril Leonoff became our founding president and was at our side throughout all of those years. However, sadly, this ongoing support ended this year with Cyril’s passing. There is so much that can be said about Cyril but tonight I will only say that he has been and will continue to be missed. It goes without saying that we would probably not be here tonight if it was not for Cyril Leonoff.”
Seidelman then went on to list some of the year’s accomplishments, including ongoing speaking engagements and historical tours, as well as the recording of 35 new oral history interviews and the digitization of “various family fonds, the Mountain View Cemetery Restoration Committee fonds and the Temple Sholom fonds.”
He noted that the digitization of “the oldest books from Congregation Emanu-El (1861 through 1901 approximately)” was complete and they will be online soon, that several online exhibits had been mounted during the year, and that the museum’s “largest collection by far, the Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, fonds, has begun to be processed, with immense research potential.”
The museum handled hundreds of research requests, he said, and “received donations ranging from fiction manuscripts to synagogue records to WWII records.”
Seidelman noted that longstanding JMABC member (and a past president) Bill Gruenthal was recognized by “Jewish Seniors Alliance for years of extraordinary volunteer work” and that archivist Alysa Routtenberg had “recently completed her first year as archivist as Jennifer Yuhasz’s successor. It has proven to be a nearly seamless transition with a continuing and increasing inflow of documents and interviews and regular transmission of the vast history of which we are guardians.”
He thanked JMABC administrator Marcy Babins, JMABC coordinator of programs and development Michael Schwartz, Shirley Barnett for her leadership in the restoration of the Jewish section of Mountain View Cemetery, Cynthia Ramsay for editing the JMABC’s annual journal, The Scribe, and donors and funders, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. He bid farewell to three members of the board – Barnett, Chris Friedrichs and Barbara Pelman – and welcomed four new members: David Bogoch, Alan Farber, Alex Farber and Carol Herbert.
After the AGM was the Oakridge launch.
“With this exhibit,” said Schwartz, “we set out to document an important period in our community history; a moment when a population boom coincided with financial stability and postwar optimism to cause our community to grow both in size and stability in a way rarely seen before or since. This era set a new foundation for our community that we have built upon and relied upon ever since.
“This exhibit places this period in context with events happening both before and since. It asks why and how many Jewish families and institutions chose to establish themselves in Oakridge.”
Compiled over two years, the Oakridge research team was Erika Balcombe, Junie Chow, Elana Freedman and Josh Friedman, with Schwartz. A large portion of the exhibit comprises oral history interview excerpts from community members Harry Caine, Vivian Claman, Irene and Mort Dodek, Gail Dodek Wenner, Wendy Fouks, Debby Freiman, Sarah Jarvis, Ed Lewin, Sandy Rogen, Ken Sanders, and Seidelman.
“Irene deserves double thanks,” said Schwartz, “as we have included an excerpt of an interview that she carried out with Bea Goldberg and Marjorie Groberman in 1996. Naturally, I thank Bea and would certainly thank Marjorie were she still with us.”
Schwartz also gave thanks to JMABC colleagues Babins and Routtenberg, as well as Yuhasz, “each of whom devoted much time and energy to this project,” and the board of directors.
At the turn of the last century, explained Schwartz, “there were essentially two interconnected Jewish communities: the affluent Reform Jews in the West End and the Orthodox, working-class Jews in the East End, what today we call Strathcona…. Over time, the Jews of the East End grew more financially stable and began to relocate to the new neighborhood of Fairview in the 1920s and ’30s.”
He noted, “If the Great Depression hadn’t hit, it seems likely that Oak and 12th Avenue would have been the heart of the Vancouver Jewish community. Instead, campaigns to build Beth Israel, Talmud Torah and a new Schara Tzedeck were put on hold until after the war. All three projects were completed in 1948. By that time, the city had continued to expand southward, so these three facilities were built closer to King Edward Avenue.
“This southward shift was further encouraged by another important event,” he continued. “In 1950, the CPR, the Canadian Pacific Railway, released a parcel of land stretching from 41st Avenue and Granville Street to 57th Avenue and Main Street. The city identified the middle third of this land for residential development and worked with Woodward’s and other developers to construct Oakridge Mall as an anchor for the new neighborhood.
“This neighborhood didn’t attract exclusively Jews, but it arrived at a perfect moment for our community.”
There was a lot of material from which the researchers had to choose. “The work was to pare it down to a manageable size, a representative cross-section of the community,” said Schwartz. “As you can imagine, everyone we spoke to had a very different experience. For instance, Vivian Claman and Ed Lewin shared with us the experience of survivor families.”
In the exhibit, said Schwartz, Lewin comments, “The survivors and their children were almost like a sub-community of the Jewish community. We kind of did everything together, we were like an extended family.”
“In general, the Baby Boomers we spoke to had happy memories of their childhoods,” said Schwartz, giving the example of Claman.
“We played in the street – we would be gone all day,” she says in the exhibit. “We played kick the can! I mean, those were the days that you would go outside and you would just play till it was dark or till your parents yelled and said come in for dinner. There was a lot of hanging out.”
That’s not to say everything was perfect. Schwartz noted Mort Dodek’s comments in the exhibit.
“One other thing that you have to understand is that there was a lot of antisemitism at that time,” says Dodek. “There were people who were uncomfortable living in Shaughnessy, a lot of Jewish people were not comfortable there. The Shaughnessy Golf Course was there, and it was restricted, no Jews were allowed to join that club.”
And Irene Dodek notes, “When we first moved to Vancouver in 1947, my parents went out with a real estate man to look at a house at 25th between Oak and Granville, and the real estate agent told my father, ‘This is a good neighborhood because no Jews or Chinese are allowed.’”
Schwartz also pointed out that there were divisions within the Jewish community, citing Seidelman and Mort Dodek’s comments from the exhibit.
“The rabbi of Schara Tzedeck would not go to Beth Israel, would not be seen to enter, whereas today they have the Rabbinical Association, all the rabbis get on really well together and they seem to respect each other’s different levels of observance, whereas in those days they didn’t,” says Seidelman.
“If you want to talk about splits in the community,” says Dodek, “there was a terrific split between the people who were involved with the Peretz shul and people who were involved with, say, Talmud Torah…. It was not religious and believed that the main language to speak for a Jewish person was Yiddish. And, of course, the people at the Talmud Torah, the language to speak, of course, with the establishment of the state of Israel, was Hebrew.”
“Another theme that emerged through our interviews,” said Schwartz, “was the way gender roles were changing and have changed since the 1960s. Men always worked outside the home, but women rarely did. This was beginning to change, but very slowly. Without full-time jobs, women had the time to dedicate to volunteer organizations like Hadassah and National Council of Jewish Women. Both organizations accomplished a great deal in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, but have struggled in the years since, as fewer young women have the time to devote to this type of work.”
For anyone wanting to know more about the role of women in the community, Schwartz recommended the museum’s 2013 exhibit More Than Just Mrs., which can be found online.
“Oakridge, like each of our exhibits, serves three functions,” said Schwartz, listing those functions: a chance to grow the museum’s archives, to increase awareness of the JMABC and of Jewish life in the province, and to reflect on how the community has changed over time.
For the Oakridge exhibit, he noted, the majority of the oral history interviews “were undertaken by volunteer and student interns, giving them valuable experience in the art and science of oral history interviews. Thanks to projects like this, including other exhibits and our annual journal, The Scribe, our oral history collection has grown substantially in recent years, bringing our current total to 762 interviews.
“Just this month,” he added, “we held two interviewer training sessions as the first phase of our Southern African Diaspora Oral History Project…. Through this project, we intend to interview hundreds of community members who arrived here from South Africa and the neighboring countries in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.”
With respect to increasing awareness, Schwartz said, “Many of you will remember the launch of our modern architecture exhibit New Ways of Living back in January of this year. This event had an attendance of over 150 people, many of whom were not Jewish and found out about the event through our partners, Inform Interiors and the UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Similarly, our 2015 exhibit, Fred Schiffer: Lives in Photos, attracted more than 800 people over its two-week run, again with much thanks to our partners, Make Gallery and Capture Photography Festival…. Each new exhibit has a specific thematic focus which draws in a new audience.”
As for reflection on the Oakridge years, Schwartz pointed to the expansion of the Jewish community. “Families,” he said, “have settled into neighborhoods throughout the city and the region in general.”
Referring to the Oakridge area, he concluded, “[I]f fewer and fewer Jews live in this neighborhood, does it make sense for the Oak Street corridor to remain the hub of much Jewish activity? This remains to be seen.”
The Centre for Judaism of the Lower Fraser Valley is looking for nominations for its annual Lamplighter Award, which honors a child who has performed an outstanding act of community service.
Candidates must be between the ages of 6 and 18 and nominations of potential recipients must include two references describing the child’s community service. The chosen lamplighter will receive the award Dec. 29 at the Semiahmoo Shopping Centre at a 7 p.m. ceremony attended by Rabbi Falik and Simie Schtroks, directors of the Centre for Judaism, White Rock Mayor Wayne Baldwin and representatives of the cities of Surrey, White Rock, Langley and Delta.
Last year, Richmond twins Sarah and Amy Aginsky received the award for their work hosting a street store for the homeless and impoverished. The project, a one-day pop-up store, gave “shoppers” the opportunity to select apparel and shoes without the exchange of money.
“Chanukah celebrates the victory of light over darkness and goodness over evil,” said Simie Schtroks. “This is a most appropriate opportunity to motivate and inspire young people to make this world a brighter and better place. By filling the world with goodness and kindness, that light can dispel all sorts of darkness.”
To nominate a candidate for the award, contact Simie Schtroks as soon as possible at [email protected].
This fall, a select number of Langara College students embarked on a project to write the memoirs of local Holocaust survivors, capturing personal stories from the Second World War. The project is called Writing Lives: the Holocaust Survivor Memoir Project.
Writing Lives is an eight-month collaboration between Langara’s English and history departments, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Azrieli Foundation. In the first half, students learn about the history and impact of the Holocaust. In the second half, students are paired with local Holocaust survivors associated with the VHEC.
“Writing Lives provides an opportunity for students to immerse themselves in the history of the Holocaust beyond physical textbooks,” said Rachel Mines, Langara English instructor, and project coordinator. For example, on Nov. 9, students commemorated Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) by lighting candles in memory of the violent anti-Jewish events that took place on Nov. 9 and 10, 1938. The course also regularly features a series of guest speakers from different organizations giving their perspective on the events surrounding the Holocaust.
“I feel grateful for the opportunity to investigate the events and prejudices that served as a catalyst for the Holocaust. With the help of survivors, professors, librarians and fellow students, I am learning that individuals, communities and organizations all have agency when it comes to fighting racism, and how we can work together to prevent such tragedies in the future,” said Lucille Welburn, a peace and conflict studies student who is taking the course.
Robin Macqueen, a Langara instructor and chair of the health sciences division, is auditing the course out of personal interest. He said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to engage with and honor people who survived a time of unimaginable prejudice. I’m getting a lot out of the course, and enjoy being a student again.”
For the VHEC, survivor testimonies are seen as a useful and powerful method for teaching about the Holocaust.
“Holocaust testimony provides a connection with people, culture, persecution and survival,” said Ilona Shulman Sparr, education director for the VHEC. “Eyewitness testimonies have proven to be a powerful and effective teaching tool, which affords a personal connection to the events of the Holocaust as we hear survivors’ accounts of their experiences. Testimonies provide a way for students to connect with survivors’ stories and gain an understanding of events that other sources can’t give them.”
This spring, students will be matched with Holocaust survivors to write their memoirs. The memoirs will be archived at the Azrieli Foundation and the VHEC, with a possibility of being published for public awareness.