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Climate crisis a top priority

Teen activists talk with Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart at a climate-strike action on Dec. 7. (photo from Rebecca Hamilton)

“It’s going to be our future, so it’s up to us to take it into our own hands and show that, even if we can’t vote, we can still make a difference in our communities and the world,” Malka Martz-Oberlander told the Jewish Independent when she and fellow activist and friend Rebecca Hamilton met with the paper to discuss recent – and future – efforts to draw awareness to the climate crisis.

The two high school students are part of the group Sustainabiliteens, which was inspired by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Last year, Thunberg started monthly school strikes, stating that preparing for a future that won’t have a livable climate was pointless. The strikes, called “Fridays for Future,” have spread to at least 270 countries, including Canada.

Inspired by Thunberg, strike action took place at Vancouver City Hall on Jan. 16, the day that Vancouver city council unanimously passed a motion put forward by Councilor Christine Boyle (OneCity) to declare a climate emergency. Similar motions have been adopted in other cities, including London, Los Angeles and Oakland, but Vancouver is the first in Canada to do so.

“Climate change is already impacting the people of Vancouver and will continue to. We need to respond to this crisis urgently and compassionately with a path towards a more equitable society,” said Boyle in a release. “Adequately addressing the climate emergency won’t be easy, but we are a smart city, capable of doing difficult things.”

Hamilton was an organizer of the strike at City Hall, and the groups Force of Nature and Extinction Rebellion Vancouver also supported the action. There was a previous school walkout and strike for the climate on Dec. 7, said Martz-Oberlander. She and Hamilton are among a growing number of Metro Vancouver teens coming together in what Martz-Oberlander describes as a “shared passion for climate justice.”

“With some of my friends, it’s just doom and gloom,” said Martz-Oberlander. “There’s this sense of this is all going to happen and no one can do anything, so why do anything? It’s out of our hands, we’re just kids…. But there’s also a lot of people that I know who are hopeful and see the bigger picture.”

“When I ask kids about the climate crisis,” said Hamilton, “they say that they think it’s a real problem and they’re scared. But the world around us doesn’t recognize what’s happening with the same sense of urgency that we feel. We are living in a confusing and weird time. On the one hand, we understand the science, we’re being told the scientific facts that we’re in a crisis. We’re being told these very conflicting messages, and there’s this dissonance. So what am I supposed to believe? The world is just going as normal, but why are you telling me then that we’re in this crisis and everything needs to change? I think that’s really frustrating. Me, personally, every day I’m frustrated by that.”

Both Martz-Oberlander and Hamilton grew up in the Vancouver Jewish community and say their Jewish values inform their activism. Martz-Oberlander’s family has been involved with Congregation Or Shalom since before she was born, and Hamilton grew up going to Temple Sholom.

“In the Torah, it talks about needing to pass down this world better than we got it,” said Martz-Oberlander. “That’s the concept of l’dor v’dor, ‘from generation to generation.’ The Jewish teaching that really influenced me is the sense of responsibility towards future generations.”

“Camp Miriam was most important to me in cultivating my Jewish identity,” said Hamilton. “I think it played a huge role in what I’m doing and why I care about it. The focus on youth agency, being told we could create change. It’s tikkun olam – environmentalism and climate justice is the most important way to try and help other people and create a more just world.”

photo - On Jan. 16, students walked out of school to be at Vancouver City Hall to raise awareness of the climate crisis and support Councillor Christine Boyle’s motion to declare a climate emergency — On Jan. 16, students walked out of school to be at Vancouver City Hall to raise awareness of the climate crisis and support Councillor Christine Boyle’s motion to declare a climate emergency. (photo from Rebecca Hamilton)

Both teens avoid the word “climate change,” preferring instead to talk of the “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” and the need for “climate justice.”

“Climate change doesn’t sound urgent enough,” said Martz-Oberlander. “It’s an emergency.”

“I prefer climate emergency or climate crisis,” said Hamilton, who cites Jewish writer and activist Naomi Klein as an important influence on her thinking. “It’s not about preventing this catastrophe but about healing the foundation of our world. The climate crisis is a manifestation of these unjust worldly systems which exploit nature, animals and people, so fixing that manifestation will also mean fixing those systems.”

Hamilton and Martz-Oberlander were inspired to join the climate-strike movement after it came to Canada with a strike in Sudbury, Ont., led by 11-year-old Sofia Mather.

“I feel like I have been concerned about climate change my whole life,” said Hamilton, “but I began to want to do something when I realized that nothing else really matters if we live on a dead planet.”

Hamilton and Martz-Oberlander are currently preparing for a Canada-wide school strike on May 3, and have a local action planned for Feb. 15.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Many types of defiance

Rebecca Teitelbaum’s recipe book was compiled in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Germany, circa 1940s. It is from the Teitelbaum, Buckman family fonds, VHEC Collections.

This article is based on remarks delivered at the screening of the film Who Will Write Our History on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) was honoured to partner with the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre and the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture for the screening of Who Will Write Our History (2018, directed by Roberta Grossman) that took place on Jan. 27 at the Peretz Centre.

Jan. 27 marked the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This date was first commemorated in 2005 by the United Nations General Assembly as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Around the world, thousands of individuals observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day to honour the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah and millions of other victims who were brutally murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Many organizations worldwide take this day as an opportunity to raise awareness of the Holocaust and to offer educational programs to help prevent future genocides.

The VHEC also gathered with local survivors of the Holocaust a few days prior to the film screening to commemorate the victims of the Shoah. The survivors remembered their beloved mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and other family members who perished during the Shoah, as they lit candles and said prayers.

When students from all over the Lower Mainland visit the VHEC, they frequently ask about resistance against the Nazis during the Holocaust. We all know too well what the consequences of resistance were in the Nazi-occupied countries. But what exactly did resistance in the context of the Holocaust mean or look like? When people hear the word resistance, often, they think of physical, armed resistance, as it occurred, for instance, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, or by brave partisan fighters, who fought the Nazis and their collaborators and blew up Nazi train tracks and other infrastructure. However, there were forms of defiance that were more subtle.

Let me give you two examples of defiance that one may call cultural or spiritual resistance during the Holocaust.

Rebecca Teitelbaum (born 1909), from Belgium, was kept in Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women. In secret and at great risk, she stole small pieces of paper and a pencil from the Nazi office of the camp. She also traded food for a needle and thread. At night, together with other women from her barrack, she wrote down her favourite recipes and filled 110 pages with what reminded her of better times with her family. She then sewed together the pieces of paper into a book. Upon its completion, the women took comfort reading the recipes out loud.

Sarah Rozenberg-Warm (born 1923), from Poland, was a slave labourer at a Nazi munitions factory in Skarzysko-Kamienna, Poland. Living conditions in the camp were terrible. One day, a fellow inmate stole pieces of metal and, instead of creating munitions for the Nazis, he created a mirror, a ring and a comb for Sarah, risking his life to do so. Perhaps, he wanted to make Sarah feel like a human being again as she looked in the mirror, in times when she was treated in the most inhumane way imaginable. Perhaps, through the seemingly small gesture of creating these gifts for Sarah, the inmate succeeded in giving Sarah hope for better times, and strength to carry on.

Both Rebecca Teitelbaum’s recipe book and Sarah Rozenberg-Warm’s mirror are currently on display at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre as part of the exhibition In Focus: The Holocaust Through the VHEC Collection and serve as examples to students and the general public about cultural and spiritual defiance.

Jewish defiance was also expressed through efforts to perpetuate Jewish culture and maintain humanity in the face of attempted annihilation. Spiritual resistance in ghettos and camps included clandestine prayers and the creation of artistic works and books. In some ghettos, underground schools were formed, and secret archives were established to document the Holocaust.

The film Who Will Write Our History gives us the opportunity to learn more about an extraordinary example of Jewish defiance during the Holocaust through the attempt of preserving diaries, documents and papers in the secret Oyneg Shabes Archive created by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum and his fellow inmates. It is a film worthwhile seeing.

Dr. Ilona Shulman Spaar is the education director at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the curator of the exhibition In Focus: The Holocaust Through the VHEC Collection, on display at the VHEC until June 2019. Find out more at vhec.org.

Emerging from terrible abyss

Robbie Waisman and Dr. Uma Kumar spoke Jan. 24 at UBC’s Hillel House. (photo from Hillel BC)

History’s resonance in the present was a recurring theme at a commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day last week.

The event at Hillel House on the University of British Columbia campus, featured Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman speaking about his experiences in Buchenwald concentration camp and his life before and after the Shoah.

Thirteen survivors of the Holocaust lit yahrzeit candles, after which Hillel’s Rabbi Philip Bregman chanted the Mourners’ Kaddish.

Before Waisman’s presentation, the audience watched a 1985 video from CBC television’s national program The Journal, which followed Waisman as he traveled to Philadelphia to meet Leon Bass, the American soldier who had liberated him from the camp 40 years earlier.

Bass, an African-American, was the first black person Waisman had ever seen. At the age of 13, Waisman thought Bass and his fellow American soldiers must be angels.

“Indeed, they were,” he said.

At the event Jan. 24, which was co-sponsored by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Hillel BC, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and UBC’s department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (CENES), Waisman said the thing that kept him and his fellow survivors alive was the hope of being reunited with family.

“The enormity of the Holocaust was not yet known to us,” said Waisman. When it did become known, he said, “we had to find a way to deal and cope with the huge loss of all our loved ones.… How are we going to live with all these horrors?… Has anyone survived? If not, what is the point of my own survival?”

He and his father had seen one of Waisman’s brothers murdered, and his father died later in the same camp. He would learn that his mother and his other three brothers were also murdered, as were his uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. Of the family, only Waisman and his sister survived.

“I search for answers,” he said. “I only find more questions. How could anyone remain sane and functioning as a human being when humanity was destroyed in front of our eyes? Worst of all, how do you come to terms with the tragic loss of all our loved ones, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends that we grew up with, all innocent – everything gone – how is it possible? We started questioning the existence of God. How could this happen to us?… Before the war, we all came from Orthodox homes, rich in heritage and traditions. After coming out of the terrible abyss, the darkness, we questioned angrily. But what we learned in the home, from our parents, was not lost. The sense of humanity slowly returned to us. Our faith was shaken yet, in spite of it all, we remained true to it.”

Waisman said his experience in the Holocaust, and the experience of other survivors, has taught that “evil must be recognized and that we all have a responsibility to make sure that it never happens again to anyone. And yet … what is the world doing about it now?”

He reflected on the concept of “Never again.”

“Noble, thought-provoking words, but only if we act upon them,” he said. “Today, over 70 years after my liberation, the promise of never again has become again and again. There have been a number of situations that have tested the world’s resolve, in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, in Darfur and in Syria – I could go on and on.

“When I speak at high schools, I try to convey to students the pain of my experience in order to inspire them to prevent such events from occurring again,” he said. “The world must learn from the past in order to make this a better place for now and the future. We must teach compassion, we must eradicate racism and religious persecution. We must teach ourselves, teach our children, each generation must learn.”

photo - IHRD at Hillel, right to left, Michael Lee, Rabbi Philip Bregman, Robbie Waisman, Sam Heller (Hillel BC), Joyce Murray — IHRD at Hillel, right to left, Michael Lee, Rabbi Philip Bregman, Robbie Waisman, Sam Heller (Hillel BC), Joyce Murray. (photo from Hillel BC)

Also at the Jan. 24 event, Dr. Uma Kumar, a lecturer with CENES, noted recent reports that indicate many Canadians and others are ignorant of the most basic facts of the Holocaust.

“Nearly half of Canadians cannot name a single concentration camp or ghetto that existed in Europe during the Shoah,” she said. “However, there is a positive point: 85% of the respondents of the study said that it was important to keep teaching about the Holocaust so that it does not happen again. Hence, there is a pressing need for more and better Holocaust education at schools and universities in Canada. We, as Holocaust educators, still have a lot of work to do.”

Joyce Murray, member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, brought greetings on behalf of the federal government and also reflected on her visit last year to Auschwitz.

“The Holocaust reality, for me, shifted from being a part of history that I thought I understood and regretted to a reality that I feel in my body and in my heart,” she said. “Commemorating mass atrocity and genocide in the continued sharing of the story of survivors is a vital part of prevention. These stories serve as a reminder of the dangers of hate, prejudice and discrimination, the dangers of seeing human beings as ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the dangers of excessive nationalism to the detriment of others that is stalking so many nations today.”

Murray also mentioned the Canadian government’s recent apology for refusing admission to passengers on the MS St. Louis in 1939 and reminded the audience that Canada is not immune to bigotry.

Michael Lee, member of the B.C. legislature for Vancouver-Langara, was also present.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was officially marked worldwide on Jan. 27, the date when Allied forces liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in 1945. Another ceremony and a film screening took place Sunday at the Peretz Centre.

For more about Waisman’s Holocaust experience, see the Independent story Feb. 28, 2014, at jewishindependent.ca/holocaust-survivor-robbie-waisman-receives-national-honor.

Jewish way to lend

This Shabbat (Feb. 2), in parashat Mishpatim, the Torah commands, “If you lend money to my people … do not act toward them as a creditor; you may not charge them interest.” This law, along with Maimonides’ teaching that the greatest level of tzedakah is to support a fellow Jew by endowing them with a gift or loan to strengthen their hand, are the guiding principles of the Hebrew Free Loan Association of Vancouver (HFLA).

HFLA provides interest-free loans to help Jewish individuals from British Columbia overcome financial challenges and build better lives. HFLA fosters economic stability and opportunity among low- and moderate-income members of the community by providing access to affordable credit in the form of a no-interest loan.

Over the years, the types of loans the organization has given out have evolved greatly. In the 1980s and ’90s, with a wave of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the majority of HFLA’s loans went to helping immigrants finance vocational training. While HFLA still helps many new immigrants, its focus now also includes helping people with the rising costs of living in the Lower Mainland.

“With the bulk of people’s income going towards housing costs, many people have very little left over when unexpected bills arise,” said Joanna Wasel, executive director of HFLA. “We are able to be there for people during times of financial stress. A loan from us can help cover things like emergency dental work, physical therapy and short-term home care.”

HFLA is also here to help members of the community when they need support to start a Jewish family through fertility treatments or adoption, host a bar or bat mitzvah, finance university or start a new business. The goal of these loan programs is to help community members build better lives and avoid falling into high-interest debt.

HFLA recently unveiled a new webpage, hfla.ca. The new site is clear, concise and includes a step-by-step guide to applying for an HFLA loan. Potential borrowers can complete and submit an application online.

“We really want to make the process as easy as possible for our borrowers. Every step has been designed with great care to ensure that people’s dignity and confidentiality are respected and protected,” said Wasel.

In the past 40 years, HFLA Vancouver has made more than 1,900 loans. There is no other organization like it in the community and those in need, or with friends in need, are encouraged to seek more information about HFLA’s services by visiting its website or calling 604-428-2832.

Events around town this month – Sisterhood Choir, community artists & Netta

photo - Temple Sholom Sisterhood Choir under the direction of Joyce Cherry with pianist Kathy Bjorseth — *(photo from Gordon Cherry)*

Temple Sholom Sisterhood Choir under the direction of Joyce Cherry with pianist Kathy Bjorseth performed an afternoon concert of Jewish music at the Weinberg Residence on Jan. 13. Featured were three works by Joan Beckow, a resident of the Louis Brier Hospital and a Temple Sholom member. Beckow was an active composer and music director in Los Angeles and, for a time, was Carol Burnett’s music director. The 23-voice Sisterhood Choir has sung for the annual Sisterhood Service for a number of years, but the recent concert at the Weinberg was a first for them outside of Temple Sholom.

photo - Some of the artists on opening night of the group show Community Longing and Belonging, Jan. 15 at the Zack Gallery — *(photo by Jocelyne Hallé)*

Some of the artists on opening night of the group show Community Longing and Belonging, Jan. 15 at the Zack Gallery. The exhibit marked Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month and ran until Jan. 27.

photo - Eurovision 2018 winner Netta Barzilai, right, with Carmel Tanaka, emcee of the night with IQ 2000 Trivia — *(photo by Corin Neuman)*

Eurovision 2018 winner Netta Barzilai, right, performed at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on Jan. 26 to help celebrate the 18th anniversary of Birthright Israel. Here, she is pictured with Carmel Tanaka, emcee of the night with IQ 2000 Trivia. The dance party was presented by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver in partnership with Axis Vancouver, Hillel BC and the JCCGV.

Let’s talk mental health

Michael Landsberg will deliver the talk Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sport and Me on Feb. 13, as part of Jewish Family Services’ Family Life Education Series. (photo from JFS)

Michael Landsberg is a Canadian sports journalist and former host of Off the Record for TSN. He is also a passionate advocate for removing the stigma around mental illness, and will be coming to Vancouver next month to deliver the talk Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sport and Me. A Jewish Family Services (JFS) Family Life Education event, the talk will be held at Congregation Beth Israel on Feb. 13, with all proceeds going to support JFS mental health initiatives in the community.

Landsberg, who suffers from depression and generalized anxiety disorder, has in recent years been an ambassador for Bell Let’s Talk, an initiative that raises awareness and encourages dialogue about mental health. In 2013, his documentary, Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports and Me, was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best history or biography documentary program or series. The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health has named Landsberg one of its Champions of Mental Health. Landsberg is known for his Twitter hashtag #sicknotweak, which encourages discussion around mental health and creates a forum for those needing help.

“We’re thrilled and delighted to have Michael Landsberg come and do a talk at Beth Israel,” said Alan Stamp, clinical counseling director at JFS. “He has become an ambassador and a pioneer for mental health. He took a risk coming out about his struggles, [and] for him to come out and share his experiences is quite captivating. What he does best of all is he addresses stigma and, when someone in his role can speak out, it helps to lessen the suffering of the one in five Canadians – which is a conservative estimate in my opinion – who experiences a mental health concern over their lifetime.”

In Vancouver, Landsberg will be doing a one-hour talk with a question-and-answer period afterwards. He spoke to the Jewish Independent about helping people struggling with mental health issues.

“In general, sports mimics life,” he said. “When I speak about life and the stigma around mental health, I know we’re not as far ahead as we think we are. I don’t think we’re nearly as far ahead as we would want to believe. We’ve been working hard and it’s way better, yet I hear from people in the sports world all the time who are still in the closet, or they’re feeling shame.”

A major focus of Landsberg’s work is combating the idea that mental illness is a sign of weakness or is something “self-inflicted.”

“That is the arrogance of mental health,” he said. “Mentally healthy people sometimes believe that they would have been able to overcome the illness – they don’t understand the reality that people with mental health issues face, and how unchosen and beyond their control it can actually be. I try to educate the non-sufferer to better understand what mental illness is, and that it is like any other illness, no different from a physical ailment.”

There are a number of reasons why both Stamp and Landsberg feel sport is a good entry point for this discussion.

“I’m a huge believer that the best way to break people of the stigma is to find really strong people, like Clara Hughes, who have struggled with this, to talk about it,” said Landsberg.

Hughes, a Canadian cyclist and speed skater who has won multiple Olympic medals in both sports, has struggled with depression. “If [Hughes] was close at the end of the race, she would win. If you find that even a person of that strength and accomplishment can suffer from depression, it changes your perspective,” said Landsberg. “Everyone with depression feels that they are not understood, [but] when you hear someone else talk about it, then you know we all feel some things in common, and … that is incredibly empowering. Real-life examples are great.”

Landsberg has also partnered with firefighters who suffer from mental health issues, encouraging them to share their stories.

Landsberg and Stamp believe that reaching youth is key to changing the future, and sports can be key in doing that.

“We have to help younger people to understand that mental health concerns are a natural part of being alive,” said Stamp. “We have to do that much younger, like 6 or 7 years old. They need to know that when you feel distress, there is a way out.

“We have to start with language,” he said. “How do we describe somebody who is struggling? Children can be injured by the labels we use … we should be teaching youth and adults how to be listeners, how to approach someone and see if they need help. Having some education around a mental health problem is tremendously impactful. We need to be kinder, gentler and more empathic in our dealings with people.”

Tickets to hear Landsberg speak are $10 and are available from jfsvancouver.ca or 604-257-5151.

Mary Kitagawa’s civil courage

Mary Kitagawa was honoured with the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award on Jan. 20. (photo by Pat Johnson)

At a convocation ceremony at the University of British Columbia in 2012, a group of graduates stood out from the rest. Twenty-one elderly Japanese-Canadians, ranging in age from 89 to 96, were awarded honorary degrees in recognition of an historic injustice that had taken place 70 years earlier.

In the winter of early 1942, right after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour, the Government of Canada ordered all Japanese-Canadians to be relocated from the coast. This included students at UBC. For the next seven decades, the injustice went unrectified and largely unrecognized by the university until Mary Kitagawa, a community leader whose own family history was ruptured by the events of the war years, took up the cause. It was her tenacity that led the university to acknowledge and make some amends for its complicity in the injustice. It awarded honorary degrees to 96 students – most of them posthumously.

For this achievement, and others, Kitagawa was honoured with the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Award on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 20. This was the 14th annual Vancouver commemoration of Raoul Wallenberg Day, which, since 2015, has coincided with the presentation of the Civil Courage Award.

In her remarks upon receiving the award, Kitagawa reflected on the social conditions that permitted the internment of Canadians of Japanese descent.

“This happened because those in power in Canada at that time forgot that this was a democratic country, sending her men and women to war to preserve our freedom,” she told a packed auditorium at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre. “The excuse they used for incarcerating us was that we were a security risk. However, if you read all the newspaper headlines of the 1930s and ’40s, you will find that the B.C. politicians’ hatred of Japanese-Canadians was deep and abiding. They wanted to ethnically cleanse this one small group of people from the province.”

Kitagawa said that, at a January 1942 meeting in Ottawa to address “the Japanese problem,” a B.C. representative declared, “The bombing of Pearl Harbour was a heaven-sent gift to the people of British Columbia to rid B.C. of Japanese economic menace forevermore.”

“My family was swept away from our home in this storm of hatred,” Kitagawa said. From their home on Salt Spring Island, the family was transported to Hastings Park, in East Vancouver, which served as an assembly point for dispersal to the interior of the province.

“Our journey through incarceration was brutal and dehumanizing,” she said. The family was separated from her father for six months and they feared the very worst. Eventually, the family was reunited, but they were moved from place to place around the interior of British Columbia and in Alberta a dozen times during seven years of incarceration.

When the War Measures Act, under which the internment was justified, ceased its effect at the end of the war, Parliament passed successive “emergency” laws to permit the continued incarceration through 1947, and it was April 1949 before Japanese-Canadians were granted freedom of movement and permitted to return to the coast. Her father and mother, aged 55 and 50 respectively, took the family back to Salt Spring and began all over again.

“It wasn’t just the material things that they lost,” Kitagawa reflected. “They lost the dream for the future they had planned, their community, their opportunities, education for their children, their friends, their youth, their culture, language and heirlooms. But never – they never lost their pride nor their dignity.… My parents believed in forgiveness. Like Nelson Mandela, they believed that forgiveness liberates the soul. They refused to look back in anger. Instead, they chose to continue to move forward with the same resolve that helped them to survive their terrible experience.”

In 2006, Kitagawa read in the Vancouver Sun that a federal building on Burrard Street in Vancouver was being named to honour Howard Charles Green, a longtime Conservative member of Parliament from Vancouver and a leading advocate of Japanese-Canadian internment. “Immediately, I knew that I had to have that name erased from that building. To me, no person who helped destroy my parents’ dream and made them suffer so grievously was going to be so honoured.”

With help from a quickly mobilized group of activists and sympathetic media coverage, Kitagawa successfully had Green’s name stripped from the building, which was renamed in honour of Douglas Jung, another Conservative MP, but the first MP of Chinese-Canadian heritage.

Kitagawa also led an initiative that saw Hastings Park declared an historic site related to the internment.

In her talk on Sunday, Kitagawa emotionally credited an “unsung hero,” her husband Tosh, who, among other efforts he played in supporting Kitagawa’s activism, spearheaded the reprinting of the 1942 UBC yearbook to include information about the internment and biographies of the students affected. It was also through his persistence that they were able to track down the 23 living students and the families of those who had passed away.

The Civil Courage Award is presented by the Wallenberg-Sugihara Civil Courage Society, which was formed by members of the Swedish and Jewish communities in Vancouver.

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian who became Sweden’s special envoy to Hungary in the summer of 1944, several months after the Nazi deportation of Hungarian Jews had begun. He issued protective passports and sheltered people in buildings that were declared to be Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of Jews. He was taken into Soviet captivity on Jan. 17, 1945, and was never seen again.

Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as the vice-consul in Lithuania during the Second World War. Acting in direct violation of his orders at great risk to himself and his family, he issued transit visas that allowed approximately 6,000 Jewish people from Poland and from Lithuania to escape probable death.

The award presentation was followed by a screening of the 1995 film The War Between Us, which dramatizes the events of the Japanese-Canadian experience through the lives of a single family.

Councilor Pete Fry, Vancouver’s deputy mayor, read a proclamation from the city. Consular officials from Sweden and Japan were in attendance.

Seeing with the brain

Prof. Amir Amedi of the Hebrew University answers questions from attendees at a Jan. 16 presentation. (photo by Pat Johnson)

A white cane has been used for generations to help guide the mobility of people who are blind. Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem created the EyeCane, which added technology that indicates to the user the distance to obstructions. From there, other technological advances were added to identify the types of items in the area – a couch, chairs, table, lamp – and convey the information to the user’s ear. Still not satisfied, the scientists combined the invention with artificial intelligence and complex auditory accompaniments so that the user could identify the size, shape, colour, brightness and other attributes of the space around them to get a full “picture” of their surroundings.

Presented by the Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Prof. Amir Amedi spoke at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue Jan. 16. Amedi is a professor in Hebrew University’s department of medical neurobiology and an adjoint research professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. He is currently a visiting professor at McGill University in Montreal.

The interdisciplinary marriage of computer science, neurology, philosophy, rehabilitation, physics and other fields is leading to unprecedented advances in aids for people with disabilities. Some of the foremost innovation is taking place at Hebrew University, where Amedi works with a large team across many faculties.

The EyeCane is just one example of the sorts of tools being developed in Amedi’s lab, items that are known as sensory-substitution devices (SSDs). The most common SSD is the written word, Amedi explained. For millennia, humans communicated only verbally. Written language is a device that substitutes two senses – speaking and hearing – into a different form: writing and reading.

Amedi discussed the development of agriculture, then cities, then written language, then printing, each of which took tens of thousands of years to evolve, allowing the human brain plenty of time to accommodate the changes. Today, though, new technologies come flying at us daily and the question this raises, according to Amedi, is how our brains are able to adapt so readily to such sudden changes – an issue Amedi refers to as a “real estate problem” in the brain.

“How can the brain, in the slow evolutionary process, adapt to more and more information, more and more technologies?” he asked.

One theory posits that parts of the brain get recycled to deal with cognitive tasks it has not previously confronted.

A parallel invention of Amedi’s lab is an auditory process that allows blind people to “see” with their brain. Sight is really a function of the brain, not the eyes, he said. The eyes are the conduit, but the brain does the cognitive work of seeing. Bypassing the non-functional eyes and going through the ears directly to the part of the brain where sight is computed, Amedi and his team have been able to create a complex musical language that allows blind people to absorb immense amounts of information about the environment around them.

In a demonstration, Amedi walked the audience through the first lesson users of the technology are taught. Simple sounds – similar to Morse code – represent lines. A musical scale going up or down represents stairs. A smile is depicted by a falling then rising tone. Pitch is added to determine height. Timbre is introduced to depict different colours. In a remarkably short time, blind people are able to ascertain immense awareness of their visual environments.

Significantly, Amedi added, brain imaging indicates that the part of the brain processing the information is identical, whether a sighted person is looking at something with their eyes or a blind person is “looking” at something using the auditory sensory-substitution process.

More information about Amedi’s work is online at brain.huji.ac.il.

Community milestones … new parents program and new CIJA co-chairs

Supporting new parents

The birth of a baby is a milestone and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver acknowledges that this life-changing event requires validation and support for new parents. Judaism offers profound teachings about becoming a parent and raising a family.

The JCCGV’s new Shalom Baby group is a free program for parents and infants 0-18 months. The group provides a place to learn and grow, connect with other parents, share experiences and hear professional speakers address relevant subjects, such as feeding, sleeping, play, development, transition to motherhood and more. Becoming a parent can be overwhelming, and this program provides respite in a warm environment in which parents are nurtured, so they can nurture their babies, and help build strong and healthy family units in our community.

All of the meetings feature guest speakers. Speakers are community professionals, such as nurses, researchers, doulas, psychologists and speech and language specialists. And the group is always looking for accredited experts to contribute.

Shalom Baby meets twice a month on Mondays at 11:30 a.m. at the community centre in Room 102. The group is led and organized by a Shirly Berelowitz, JCCGV director of children, youth and camps, who welcomes the participants, books the speakers and sends weekly emails on upcoming programs.

The goals of the program are to strengthen emotional bonds between parents and children; inspire a shared learning experience to support growth and development during the early childhood years; provide support services and activities for families to raise healthy and happy children; and connect unaffiliated Jewish families with young children to the Jewish community through different programs.

For more information and to register, visit jccgv.com/early-childhood.

Appointments

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has appointed new members to its board of directors, including board co-chairs Joel Reitman and Jeffrey Rosenthal, succeeding David J. Cape.

Nominations to the CIJA board are guided by an independent nominating process, which examines the background, skills, experience and other relevant qualifications of prospective directors. A list of candidates is produced through consultations with federations and other stakeholders across the country. The independent nominations committee – comprised of federation representatives and ad personam members – consider all of the candidates and recommend a slate of directors to the CIJA membership (the “shareholders” of the organization). Special attention is given to achieving balance with respect to regional, gender and demographic attributes, as well as the qualities that candidates can leverage to advance the mission of the organization.

Reitman is the founder and president of Jillcy Capital ULC, a global investment firm, and is an active volunteer in the Jewish community and beyond, serving various organizations over the years in different capacities. Rosenthal is a managing partner of Imperial Capital Group, which he co-founded in 1989, and has a long history of volunteering and experience on boards of other organizations.

Transcribing Vancouver history

Left to right are Sam Sullivan, Glen Hodges, Cynthia Ramsay, Margaret Sutherland and Shirley Barnett with one of the Mountain View Cemetery ledgers. (photo by Lynn Zanatta)

“When we were restoring the Jewish cemetery at Mountain View, we spent two years going through City of Vancouver material trying to determine if the city actually had something in writing to prove the legitimacy of this Jewish section since 1892,” Shirley Barnett, who led the Jewish cemetery restoration project, told the Jewish Independent in an email. The committee couldn’t find anything in the city records.

While this lack of documented history lengthened the restoration agreement process significantly, it did not halt it. Barnett, as chair, opened the first meeting of the restoration advisory committee on Feb. 13, 2013, and the Jewish cemetery at Mountain View was officially rededicated on May 3, 2015. However, if the committee were to have started its work today, the information it sought would have been found, and the process would have moved much more quickly.

Sam Sullivan, member of the Legislative Assembly (Vancouver-False Creek) and former mayor of Vancouver, founded the Global Civic Society in 2010. As part of its mission to encourage “a knowledgeable and cosmopolitan citizenry to make strong connections to their community,” the society leads several initiatives, including Transcribimus, “a network of volunteers that is transcribing early city council minutes and other handwritten documents from early Vancouver, and making them freely available to students, researchers and the general public.”

Transcribimus project coordinator Margaret Sutherland has transcribed at least 155 sets of Vancouver City Council minutes. It was she who found what Barnett and her committee were looking for – in the council minutes of June 6, 1892. On page 32 of the minute book, it is recorded that correspondence had been received, “From D. Goldberg asking the council to set aside a portion of the public cemetery for the Jewish congregation,” and was “Referred to the Board of Health.”

Two weeks later, the minutes of June 20, 1892, note that the health committee had resolved, among other items, “[t]hat the piece of land selected by the Jewish people in the public cemetery be set aside for their purposes.”

photo - In addition to the transcribed council minutes, transcribimus.ca includes photos of the minute book pages. This image is of the June 20, 1892, minutes, which note that the health committee had resolved, among other items, “[t]hat the piece of land selected by the Jewish people in the public cemetery be set aside for their purposes.” — In addition to the transcribed council minutes, transcribimus.ca includes photos of the minute book pages. This image is of the June 20, 1892, minutes, which note that the health committee had resolved, among other items, “[t]hat the piece of land selected by the Jewish people in the public cemetery be set aside for their purposes.”

The cemetery first appears to have come up a few years earlier. In the July 29, 1889, council minutes, there is reference to a letter: “From L. Davies on behalf of the Jewish congregation of the city of Vancouver requesting council to set apart about one acre and a half in the public cemetery for members of the Hebrew confession. Referred to the Board of Works.”

In an email to Barnett, Sutherland wrote, “There doesn’t seem to be any indication from city council minutes that the Board of Works ever followed up on the above request. Although [Jewish community member and then-mayor] David Oppenheimer was on the Board of Works for that year, so was his opponent, Samuel Brighouse.”

On Dec. 7, 2018, the Jewish Independent met with Barnett, Sullivan, Sutherland, Lynn Zanatta (Global Civic Policy Society program manager) and Glen Hodges (Mountain View Cemetery manager) at Mountain View. In documents she brought to that meeting, Sutherland explains that Oppenheimer “declined to serve as mayor again at the end of 1891, citing poor health as his reason for retiring. Fred Cope was elected mayor in 1892 and served till the end of 1893.” So it was Cope who was mayor when the Jewish cemetery was established; Oppenheimer was Vancouver’s second mayor (1888-1891) and Malcolm Maclean its first (1886-1887).

The first interment at Mountain View Cemetery was Caradoc Evans, who died at nine months, 24 days, on Feb. 26, 1887. The first Jew interred in the cemetery is thought to be Simon Hirschberg, who “died of his own hand” on Jan. 29, 1887, and was, according the plaque erected by the cemetery in 2011 (the cemetery’s 125th year), “intended to be the first interment,” however, “rain, a broken carriage wheel on a bad road and his large size all contributed to him being buried just outside the cemetery property,” where he was “long thought to have been left near the intersection of 33rd and Fraser” until his body was moved into a grave on cemetery property. Oddly enough, the first Jew to be buried in the Jewish section was Otto Bond (Dec. 19, 1892), who also took his own life.

scan - This page from a Mountain View Cemetery ledger shows the entry for Otto Bond, the first Jew to be buried in the cemetery’s Jewish section — This page from a Mountain View Cemetery ledger shows the entry for Otto Bond, the first Jew to be buried in the cemetery’s Jewish section.

So far, since its inception in 2012, Transcribimus has seen more than 300 transcripts produced by almost 40 volunteers, although a handful of them are responsible for the lion’s share to date. Many people have donated their time, technical advice and, of course, funds to the project. Barnett sponsored the transcribing of the city council minutes for 1891, and fellow Jewish community member Arnold Silber sponsored the transcription of the 1890 minutes. A few other years have also been sponsored, including 1888, by the Oppenheimer Group.

About nine years’ worth of minutes have been transcribed (1886-1893 and 1900), leaving much more work to be done, as the city kept handwritten minutes until mid-1911. After that, minutes were typewritten and these documents can be scanned and read with OCR (optical character recognition), said Sutherland.

The Transcribimus website (transcribimus.ca) is one of the best-designed sites the Independent has come across. It is both visually appealing and incredibly easy to use. In addition to the transcribed council minutes, it includes photos of the minute book pages. As well, it features letters from Vancouver’s early years, historical photographs and a few videos, including a film by William Harbeck of a trolley ride through Victoria and Vancouver in 1907, which has had speed corrections and sound added by YouTuber Guy Jones. (Astute viewers will see that the trolley is driving on the lefthand side of the road. British Columbia didn’t switch to the right until 1921-22.)

In the material Sutherland brought to the December meeting at the cemetery office, she included the transcription of the short letter that city clerk Thomas McGuigan wrote on June 23, 1892, in response to Goldberg’s letter that was mentioned in the council minutes. In it, McGuigan confirms “the grant made by council to the people of the Jewish faith of a piece of land in the public cemetery,” but adds that “they will be unable to give you title for the same, as the land was set apart by an Order in Council of the provincial government for burial purposes and they refuse to give any other title.”

Sutherland hadn’t come across Goldberg’s letter, that of Davies or any response to Davies. It’s likely that these letters have been lost or destroyed, but they might turn up in another file, she said.

However, Sutherland did find a brief letter to the editor of the Vancouver Daily World newspaper, dated Nov. 1, 1898, from L. Rubinowitz, which she emailed to the Independent. Rubinowitz wanted the application for the Jewish cemetery by “a certain number of Jews of this city” to be refused. In his view, “all the Hebrews of this city are not combined as one body” and “To avoid trouble between them and for the sake of peace, as one party will claim that they have the sole right to it, the other party will claim that they have the sole right to it, therefore, as it is now under the control of the city, we are well satisfied to let it remain so, as in my opinion the city will have no objections for us to make any improvements if necessary.”

The old joke comes to mind of the Jewish man who, when stranded on a deserted island by himself, builds two synagogues – the one he’ll attend and the one he won’t set foot in. Community cohesiveness is a heady task; always has been, and definitely not just for the Jewish community.

As more council minutes, letters, photographs and other documents are found, transcribed and shared, the holes in our understanding of the past and how it has formed the present will be filled. To support or participate in Transcribimus or other Global Civic Society projects, visit globalcivic.org.