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A time to socialize and lunch

Most of the volunteers have been with the JFSA Seniors Lunch program for up to 15 years. (photo from Jewish Family Service Agency)

The Jewish Family Service Agency Seniors Lunch program held its annual volunteer appreciation event on Aug. 8. The volunteers were treated to lunch catered by Omnitsky and had the chance to share why they are involved in the program.

Most of the volunteers have been with this weekly event for up to 15 years. A close bond has formed among the volunteers and the warmth and camaraderie is what contributes to the success all around. They spoke movingly about how important it is for them to be involved in it, to give their time to it, week in and week out. They said they believe so strongly in what JFSA does and, therefore, want to be involved in some way.

When asked why they are so committed to this program in particular, the volunteers said they loved the seniors, that it felt so good being with them and that their own week went better when they were giving to others. Their longtime involvement is a testament to the importance of the lunch program – they want to help make sure that it continues to flourish.

The JFSA Seniors Lunch is completely volunteer-driven. It is a full-course, sit-down kosher lunch held every Tuesday at noon. It is held twice a month at Temple Sholom, once a month at Beth Israel and, the last Tuesday of the month, a movie is shown in cooperation with the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre at the Peretz Centre.

Seniors enjoy being with old and new friends from the Jewish community. Socialization and good nutrition are two primary determinants in healthy aging and the lunch program addresses both of these issues. For more information and reservations, please call JFSA at 604-558- 5709.

Sumekh swipes out hunger

Rachel Sumekh is one of five speakers who will participate in FEDtalks Sept. 13. (photo from Rachel Sumekh)

University students with meal plans often end a semester or term with a surplus on their cafeteria swipe card. Whether because they skip a few breakfasts, go on vacation or eat in a restaurant the occasional night, some of the meals they pay for go unpurchased. In most instances, students are not reimbursed for uneaten meals.

When Rachel Sumekh was studying history at the University of California Los Angeles in 2010, she and some friends went to the cafeteria, stocked up on to-go food using the amounts remaining on their swipe cards and handed it out to hungry people on the streets of the city.

The dining provider didn’t like the gesture of goodwill, as it created an unanticipated run on to-go food. Sumekh talked it out with the administrators and created the pilot project for Swipe Out Hunger, an initiative that is now on 32 American college campuses, helping feed hungry people across the country. Sumekh will talk about the project here on Sept.13 at FEDtalks, the opening event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign.

The original idea, she admits, came from her friend Bryan Pezeshki, but he was busy continuing his studies – he’s now a doctor – and so Sumekh and a few friends carried it on as a side gig, meeting on Sundays and creating Swipe Out Hunger. In 2013, they decided to see what would happen if a full-time staff person were devoted to the project and Sumekh took on the job.

In such a venture, the humanitarian impulses of dining providers compete with their bottom line – unused amounts on meal cards means lower operating costs for them. So, in getting suppliers on board, Swipe Out Hunger organizers emphasize doing the right thing, while also implying there might be bad publicity if campus media discover food providers’ reluctance to participate in a program that fights hunger. Nonetheless, it is a challenge. Sumekh said students from about 300 different campuses have approached Swipe Out Hunger to start their own chapters, yet only about 10% of those have been successfully launched.

“So, it comes down to how difficult it is for universities to actually agree to implement this,” she said.

Originally focused on feeding hungry people in the communities around campus, Swipe Out Hunger has transitioned to focus mostly on addressing the hunger of students on campus.

Ironically, the problem of student hunger is exacerbated by an increasing accessibility of post-secondary education, she said. Financial aid and need-based scholarships are making it easier for young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to attend college. But, once there, they confront the realities of student life without money.

Educational institutions are giving financial aid, even full tuition in some cases, Sumekh said, but the students still have no money. “So who’s going to pay for their housing or their meals or their books or their transportation and all the other stuff?” She estimates that 75% of those benefitting from Swipe Out Hunger now are college students.

Sumekh says hunger leads to increased absenteeism, poor grades and dropping out. She pointed to a Canadian study that suggests 39% of Canadian college students cannot afford balanced meals and fear not having enough food at all. Almost half of the more than 4,000 students who participated in the study said they chose books, tuition and rent over healthy meals, one-quarter said the lack of good food affected their physical health and one in five said their mental health was affected. While there are no Swipe Out Hunger chapters in Canada yet, a similar program, Meal Exchange, exists here.

Universities are slowly coming to the awareness that their students’ well-being depends on healthy, sufficient diets, among all the other factors, Sumekh said. This is evidenced by the shift her organization has seen in the type of people who are approaching Swipe Out Hunger.

“Previously, 100% of the interest in our program was from students,” she said. “Now, over 50% of our interest is coming directly from administrators.… Universities are finally recognizing that they have students on their own campus who are going hungry and they have to do something about it.”

There has been a stigma around colleges acknowledging hunger among their students, she added, but this is diminishing in the face of recognition of the need.

Swipe Out Hunger also had a recent advocacy triumph. In June, thanks to pressure from Sumekh’s organization, the California state legislature and Governor Jerry Brown approved $7.5 million in funding to encourage colleges throughout the state to adopt a Swipe Out Hunger program, establish food pantries and hire staff to help students access nutritious food. So far, 1.3 million meals have been shared – and that number is likely to grow, as Swipe Out Hunger catches on in California and nationwide. Despite this success, Sumekh hopes her organization goes out of business.

“If there’s anything we believe, it’s that the old model of charity doesn’t work,” she said. “We don’t want to exist 20 years from now.”

Swipe Out Hunger is aiming for a systemic shift, where universities take it upon themselves to ensure that students’ needs are met, a universalization of an ad hoc program now on some campuses in which meals are provided to students in need.

While Swipe Out Hunger isn’t aimed specifically at Jewish students or any other cultural demographic, Sumekh credits both her Jewishness and assistance from the Jewish community for inspiring the initiative. The daughter of refugees from post-revolution Iran, Sumekh is excited to be sharing the stage at FEDtalks with Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of Hillel International, because she was involved with UCLA Hillel and got lots of support from the campus group when she was starting Swipe Out Hunger.

“When I was getting the program off the ground, I would go to Hillel and they would say, Rachel, whatever you need, tell us and we’ll make it happen,” she said. “It was an amazing way to see the Jewish community say, let’s just support this young Jew, even though what they’re doing isn’t just for Israel or just for Jewish people. If they’re doing something that’s living out our values, we should want to support that.”

For the full FEDtalks lineup and tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017.

Unity, not uniformity, Hillel’s goal

Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of Hillel International, will be part of FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from Hillel International)

There are internal and external challenges facing the Jewish community, said Eric Fingerhut, and their solutions will come from the young people who are currently on college campuses.

The former U.S. congressman has served since 2013 as chief executive officer of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life and is one of five speakers at FEDtalks, the opening of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, which takes place at the Chan Centre next week.

“The one place that the future of the Jewish community actually comes together in a relatively concentrated way for a relatively concentrated period of time is the college campus,” Fingerhut said in a telephone interview with the Jewish Independent. “The question that I want to address with the audience is, how can we use the opportunity of the college years to build a unified Jewish community – not a uniform Jewish community, but a unified Jewish community – that will enable the next generation to make their contribution to the long-term growth of Jewish life, Jewish learning and Israel?”

Finding unity among Jews, particularly around issues of religious and political expression, and in the face of anti-Israel activism that is prevalent on college campuses, is not easy, he acknowledged. Occasional reports emerge claiming that Jewish students are disengaging from the contentious debate around Israel and Palestine, but Fingerhut said confronting these issues is a matter of personal choice and disposition.

“There is no question that, on far too many campuses, there have been contentious debates – and sometimes worse than debates, sometimes really disturbing incidents involving anti-Israel and even antisemitic behaviour,” he said. “For some students, being engaged directly, encountering that kind of behaviour, is something that they feel comfortable doing, that they are inspired to do. But, for others, those kinds of situations are less comfortable and it’s not what they came to college to do. They have many other things on their plate. We don’t judge the level of commitment that a Jewish student has to the Jewish community and Israel by whether or not they show up at a counter-protest or a meeting about BDS. We encourage students to do that, but there are many, many ways for Jewish students to engage with Israel.”

Hillel, he noted, is the biggest recruiter for Birthright, Masa and other Israel experience programs. Hillel also coordinates Jewish Agency shlichim (emissaries) on 75 campuses, young Israelis who engage face-to-face with Jewish and non-Jewish students on North American campuses.

“We provide many, many ways to engage with Israel so that students can build a relationship with Israel, but not necessarily have to do that through being involved in the middle of some of these very ugly protests,” said Fingerhut.

Almost immediately after becoming CEO, Fingerhut was confronted with the development of the Open Hillel movement, a group that rejects Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership for Israel Activities, a policy that outlines the sort of groups with which Hillel will partner. Fingerhut took a firm line and he maintains it.

“Every student, regardless of their opinions or the issues they want to discuss, is welcome,” he said. “Every conversation is welcome. But, as an organization, we are Zionists. We are seeking to support Israel as our Jewish, democratic state. So, while that would certainly involve debate and discussion … it also means that we will not work with organizations whose mission is to hurt the state of Israel, who are trying to undermine the state of Israel. Certainly, that describes organizations that promote BDS.… We’re not going to work with them and we’re not going to host speakers whose career and work have been about trying to undermine Israel and its role as the sovereign representative of the Jewish people. Those are our guidelines and there are some who would want us to change those and we respect them. They have a right to argue for change, to make their case for change. They are welcome as individuals at Hillel, as everybody else [is], even though they disagree with our policies. But we’re not going to change our policies.”

Geopolitics is not the only potentially divisive area for Hillel. Religion is another factor. Building a pluralistic campus community is hard work, he said.

“Hillel is totally committed to Jewish pluralism,” he said. “Hillel’s a place where you’ll see a Friday night service in one room where men and women are praying separately on either side of a mechitzah, the divider. You’ll see another room where men and women are praying together and a woman is leading the service wearing a tallit. You’ll see in another room where maybe a song leader with a guitar is singing and leading music in a different style. You’ll see another room where people are meditating or discussing the issues of the day because prayer isn’t their thing. There may even be a room where people are discussing why they’re not in any of the other rooms.… And then we all come together and we have dinner and we make Kiddush and we celebrate together as a community.”

Respecting this diversity places a unique responsibility on Hillel, he said, and it portends a better future.

“It’s a core value of ours,” he said. “And we believe that, if a student learns to live in a vibrant, pluralistic Jewish community, where we’re not trying to change each other but we treat each other with love and respect, that will hopefully influence how they lead communities as adults when they graduate and go out into the world.”

As the leader of an organization that is almost a century old, one of the things Fingerhut confronts is an outdated perception of what Hillel is.

“Perhaps the number one question I still get asked from folks who remember Hillel from their college days is, how many people go to Hillel?” he said. “That’s just not a question we ask anymore … because our job is to inspire Jewish life on a college campus, and we do that wherever students are. Certainly, some of the activities happen inside a building that is called Hillel. But Hillel is inspiring Jewish life and Jewish activity all across campus, engaging students where they are.”

For example, he said, students sometimes tell him they don’t go to Hillel, but prefer to spend Shabbat with friends in their apartment or dorm.

“And I smile because I know that that was a Hillel-sponsored program,” he said. “We knew that, if the only Shabbos dinner we offered on campus was coming to Hillel, that will attract a certain number of people. But some are going to say, that’s not the way I want to spend Friday nights, going to a large group dinner. So, we knew that, by getting one popular student in a dorm to invite their friends to a smaller group dinner in an apartment building or in a dorm, that would attract additional students.”

As the news doesn’t generally focus on the positive, what doesn’t make headlines are the numbers of Jewish students engaged in a vast range of activities and programs, Fingerhut said.

“People tend to hear the negative, the problems, the anti-Israel activities, the antisemitism,” he said. “They tend not to see the very vibrant Jewish life that exists on so many campuses.”

FEDtalks takes place on Sept. 13 at the Chan Centre. For tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017.

Newcomers settling in

From left to right: Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Meha Qewas, the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Hesen Mostefa, Brenda Karp and two of the Mostefas’ children. (photo from Temple Sholom)

“I am not scared,” says Meha Qewas, sitting at her small dining table with her 1-year-old daughter on her lap. In front of us is a plate of knefa, a very rich, sweet cheese dish covered in syrup, together with huge tumblers of juice many times bigger than what I’m used to being offered. Meha clearly values hospitality. The only thing sweeter than the mid-morning “snack” is the ebullience and warmth that flows out of Meha and her husband Hesen Mostefa.

When she says she is fearless, Meha is talking about finding work in Vancouver. Despite the challenges, she is confident both in her new friends in the Vancouver Jewish community and in her own ability to master English and overcome whatever other obstacles she may meet. Her confidence is not groundless: Meha was the main force behind and organizer of getting her husband and three children first out of Syria, then out of Iraq, the country where they took refuge for five years. “I wanted my children out of there,” she says, recalling the sight of Syrian children and youth in Iraq taking up smoking and selling candy on the street to make income for their families in the packed, rat-infested refugee housing.

Hesen also has a remarkable story to tell. Trained as a surgeon in Syria, he volunteered in Iraq with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), which eventually hired him as a doctor. During the years they spent in Iraq, Hesen put in long days with MSF while Meha struggled to take care of the children, run a household and plan their flight from Iraq. Eventually, Meha succeeded in securing passage to Canada with the help of sponsors from Vancouver’s Temple Sholom.

Temple Sholom’s efforts to sponsor Syrian refugees started with a High Holidays sermon from Rabbi Dan Moskovitz about the refugees’ plight. Members of the shul immediately formed a committee of volunteers to bring in at least one family, and others, if possible.

Meetings with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Anglican Diocese followed (the diocese is a federally approved sponsor for refugees with which other groups can team). The committee learned about private sponsorship and began working through Mosaic, a local agency that serves newcomers and refugees, and were connected to the Mostefas. The process to bring them to Canada was started.

In December 2015, however, Canada pulled some immigration services out of Iraq and began working through Jordan. A letter that Moskovitz gave to Senator Mobina Jaffer about the Mostefa family and their situation apparently found its way to the prime minister, and services in Iraq were reinstated as a result.

“In the end, over 200 people from shul got involved,” Moskovitz said. “I met personally with anyone who expressed concern about whether bringing in the refugees was a good idea. Most got on board with the initiative and I’m happy to say that, now that they [the Mostefas] are here, everyone in the community is thrilled.”

The synagogue’s efforts did not end there. They have since brought in another family, Bawer Issa, Shinhat Ahmed and their newborn son. The Issa family was welcomed at a Shabbat service in the synagogue on Aug. 25 (it can be seen on YouTube). Bawer spoke movingly at that event, recounting how some people had asked him if he was surprised, as a Muslim, that he had been rescued by Jews.

“We were not surprised,” he told the congregation. “Growing up in Iraq, we were brainwashed at school every day to hate Israelis and Jews as our number one enemy. My Kurdish father always told us not to care what they said, not to believe it. He told us that Israel had been the first to send aid when Saddam Hussein bombed us with chemical weapons.” Citing Israel’s continued support for Kurdish self-rule, Bawer said that he had already known that Jews were their friends.

At the upcoming biennial meeting in Boston of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the umbrella organization of the Reform movement, a resolution – that Moskovitz helped write – will call for the sponsorship of 36 more refugee families by Canadian congregations.

The wider Vancouver community is invited to welcome the Issa and Mostefa families on Sept. 10, at 11:30 a.m., at a reception at Temple Sholom that also marks the first day back of the synagogue’s Hebrew school. An RSVP is requested to 604-266-7190 or via templesholom.ca/get-know-new-canadians.

Matthew Gindin is 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.

Volunteer to tutor students

Chabad Richmond is looking for seniors to teach English to Israelis. (photo from chabadrichmond.com)

Want to make a difference in the lives of Israeli teens? Consider Israel Connect, a volunteer program where Vancouver retirees engage via Zoom (it’s like Skype) with Israeli high school students who want to sharpen their English conversation and reading skills. The program, which starts after the High Holidays, is sponsored by Chabad Richmond.

“We are looking for retirees, seniors or adults with time available for volunteering. Volunteers do not have to be teachers, and the curriculum will be provided,” said Vancouver coordinator Shelley Civkin. “We’re looking for Jewish adults who are fluent English speakers, have basic computer skills and own a computer with a camera.” Volunteers can tutor from home – it will entail a half hour per week – and technical support will be available if needed. Volunteers will be trained in how to download and use Zoom.

“This is a meaningful way for community members to support Israel in a practical way,” said Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman of Chabad Richmond. “You’ll be doing a mitzvah, while investing in Israel and its young people.”

Time preferences of volunteers will be coordinated beforehand, but sessions will likely take place in the morning between 8 and 10 a.m. The Chabad Richmond Israel Connect program is asking for a one-year commitment from volunteers.

“English proficiency is crucial to Israeli students, since it accounts for a third of their entrance exam marks for university,” said Baitelman. “Partnering with the Israeli Ministry of Education, the Israel Connect program targets teens from the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Israel. The tutoring sessions are vital to students’ upward mobility in terms of education and jobs, which is why this program is so important.”

“Past volunteers really enjoyed helping their Israeli students, and made great connections with them. The students’ marks on their English exams prove that this kind of one-on-one tutoring makes a significant difference in their lives,” said Civkin.

For more information, contact Civkin at 604-732-6330 or [email protected].

Making discourse civil

Rabbi Jay Henry Moses will speak at FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from Rabbi Jay Henry Moses)

While hate groups and their opponents across North America rally, and sometimes brawl, proponents of civil discourse are teaching people to communicate effectively across divides.

However, Rabbi Jay Henry Moses, who will speak in Vancouver this month, admits that those at the extremes may not be fertile soil for seeding civil discussion. It’s the vast majority in the middle of the bell curve he is interested in, the great number of people of goodwill who wish to debate agreeably but sometimes lack the skills to do so.

Moses is vice-president of the Wexner Foundation, which was founded by Ohio philanthropist Les Wexner in the 1980s to focus on the development of Jewish professional and volunteer leaders in North America, and public leaders in Israel. Moses will visit here as one of five speakers at FEDtalks, the opening event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, on Sept. 13.

The Wexner Foundation has an upcoming summit on civil discourse and the topic permeates everything the organization does.

“The topic is of particular interest to us because, built into the fabric of all the programs that we run for leaders is the element of diversity,” he told the Independent in a telephone interview. “We have, since the very beginning of our work, always been very clear that we serve the entire Jewish people and the entire state of Israel and that the leaders who go through the programs that we run will be stronger and better leaders for having encountered those with different viewpoints, and learn from them. It’s actually long been part of the secret sauce of what makes our program successful … that we’ve managed to be able to bring together people who disagree with each other about important things but who share a common mission of one type or another. We’ve been able to bring them together and have the resulting cohorts be greater than the sum of their parts precisely because of that diversity.”

Nurturing an openness to diversity of opinion, particularly in the frequently contentious realm of Jewish and Israeli leadership, allows alumni of Wexner’s varied programs to bring some of that wisdom to the other circles of influence they occupy, he explained.

Inside and outside of the Jewish world, there are challenges and opportunities around civil discourse, Moses said.

“I am optimistic in the long run but realizing in the short run the hill that we have to climb is pretty steep,” he said. In the aftermath of Charlottesville and other conflicts, the chasm between the ideal and the real is evident.

“The ideal may be that everybody will be able to participate in conversations with people they disagree with and do so in the spirit of openness and learning and growth and not necessarily agree, but at least be able to occupy the same space and have the spirit of open-mindedness in their conversations and maybe get to better solutions because of talking with people who are speaking differently and so on,” he said. “That’s the ideal that we are working towards. The reality is that we have extremes on both ends. We have people whose adherence to their worldview and ideology is so extreme and so rigid that they have no interest in, nor ability to, engage in conversation – civil conversation – with people they disagree with.”

Focusing on these extremes is not a recipe for success, said Moses.

“We have to start by not focusing on them, [and] actually focus on those in the middle of the bell curve who may be on one side or another of any given ideological divide, but who are not closed off entirely to engaging with people they disagree [with],” he said. “I think the vast majority of North American Jews, if you want to talk about the universe that we are mostly influencing, are mostly in the middle of that bell curve somewhere. They are not extremists and [are] candidates for the kind of experiences that can enrich them, and enrich our community, by bringing people together who disagree in the right way.”

Providing people with the tools to express themselves and to listen to those with whom they disagree is an art, not a science, and Moses acknowledges he doesn’t have the silver bullet. But working toward civil discourse may be more urgent now, in the age of social media.

“When conversation is left to its own devices, especially in an era of social media, we often lead with less than our best selves,” said Moses, dryly. “So, having a structure within which to safely and carefully and slowly approach sensitive topics is really important. Letting it unfold organically, as it often does in social media is, in many cases, a recipe for miscommunication and breakdown of civil discourse.”

Bad experiences on social media, Moses fears, have actually made people more wary of having potentially difficult conversations in person.

“They are more hesitant to have conversations in person because they’ve seen online how quickly it can devolve into personal attacks or other really uncomfortable and difficult situations,” he said. “I think we are encountering people we disagree with all the time but I feel like we’re actually talking to them less because we feel we have nothing to talk about. We don’t know how to start those conversations, or we have had them end badly. We’ve had personal relationships damaged and much of that damage has happened online because things happen more quickly and at a greater distance. So, face-to-face conversation is suffering as a result.”

The essence of his message to the Vancouver audience will be that struggling to communicate civilly is not a new phenomenon, but it is made more urgent by contemporary developments.

“This problem is not new – it’s been part of our community’s challenge for centuries,” he said. “At the same time, we are in a moment where, because of a combination of a lot of these factors, it’s a crisis, you have a level of urgency that it may not have had before. I want to make the point that, although unhealthy disagreement has a long history in Jewish life, we also have baked into the fabric of our tradition amazing resources and a time-tested recipe for creating a culture of dissent that allows us to engage in a healthy way as a community. I’d like to address some of the ways we can use those principles from our tradition and from our history, sort of repurpose them for the 21st century, and create a new model for how we can rebuild that culture of healthy dissent using our own DNA and adapting it to our day.”

Before becoming vice-president of the Wexner Foundation, Moses was head of the Wexner Heritage Program. Originally created as a stand-alone foundation, and now based within the larger foundation, the Wexner Heritage Program’s mission is “to expand the vision of Jewish volunteer leaders, deepen their Jewish knowledge and confidence, and inspire them to exercise transformative leadership in the Jewish community.”

“As the director of that program for many years,” he said, “I worked with Jewish communities across North America to identify and then train volunteer leaders – high potential, promising, up-and-coming volunteer Jewish leaders who engage in a two-year program of study of Jewish history and Jewish thought and also of Jewish leadership. We basically are investing in these leaders to give them knowledge and inspiration to go back to their Jewish communal volunteer work with broader vision, more confidence, a deeper network and a sort of bolder vision of what the Jewish future can be and their own sense of responsibility for bringing us toward that future.”

There are several connections between the Wexner Foundation and other speakers at FEDtalks, Moses noted. Also at the Chan Centre podium will be Eric Fingerhut, president of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, of which the Wexner family has been very supportive. He also noted that Ruth Wasserman Lande, another speaker (profiled in the Independent Aug. 18), is a Wexner alumna.

Moses has a request for the Vancouver audience: “Judge me kindly if I’m sharing the stage with Ruth, who is an extraordinarily impressive and charming person.”

For the full speaker list and to purchase tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com.

Talmud Torah celebrates 100

Vancouver Talmud Torah’s expanded new campus includes many collaborative spaces. (photo from VTT)

On Sept. 17, Vancouver Talmud Torah will mark its centenary, celebrating “its humble beginnings as an afterschool cheder to the VTT of today – a modern, state-of-the-art facility with the capacity to educate generations of Jewish children in the decades to come, just as we have been doing for the past 100 years,” head of school Cathy Lowenstein told the Independent.

The focal point of the celebratory evening is the documentary Vancouver Talmud Torah Onward: The 100-Year History, written and directed by Adam Bogoch. The event sold out in three hours, said David Bogoch, Adam Bogoch’s father and chair of the VTT Alumni Fund, which supported the project.

David Bogoch was on the VTT board for seven years. He served as alumni chair when he was a board member and it’s a position he retains.

“It is my hope that anyone who attended the school could reconnect with the school and their classmates through the alumni organization,” he said in an interview with the Independent. “It is not an association, nothing formal, just a large family of friends, past students and parents of students.”

The alumni fund, he said, “receives donations and, in turn, makes gifts to the school. Over the last few years, the alumni fund installed an alumni garden at the corner of Oak and 26th, purchased band instruments for the students of the school, and purchased display cases for use in the hallway of the school.

“In an effort to get more people excited about reconnecting with the school, I felt it was necessary to document the 100-year history of the school, and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the school appropriately. It is important for future parents, board members, staff and administration, and the community at large, to know how much of a struggle it is to keep the school open, paid for, able to properly care for and educate the children who walk in the door. It takes great effort from many individuals, and the full support from the entire community to keep Talmud Torah doing its best.

“We must also recognize all of the leaders of the past and the people who helped the school become what it has become,” he added, “so the documentary was a natural fit. The film is a permanent reminder and a wonderful gift to the school.”

The film was produced independently from the school, said Lowenstein. While they knew an historical piece was being made, she said, “the fact that it was completed to coincide with VTT’s 100th anniversary year was sheer good fortune. Many of us were interviewed, but we actually had no idea how and when it would all come together.”

photo - Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school Cathy Lowenstein — Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school Cathy Lowenstein. *(photo from VTT)*

Lowenstein said the production of the film “is close to the heart of David and Adam, who are the son and grandson of the late Dr. Al Bogoch, z’l, a former VTT board chair who, through passion and conviction, single-handedly engaged our community to burn our last mortgage. Adam is a wonderful storyteller and he does his family proud through the recounting of Talmud Torah’s fascinating story. VTT Onward is a vitally important historical record of our school.”

Some members of the VTT leadership team were shown a rough cut of the film and, said Lowenstein, “while we might not endorse everything that’s said in the film, it would be an honour to kick off VTT’s 100th year by showing it to our community.”

The title of the film, she said, captures “the very essence of what our school is about. We are always looking to fulfil our mission of academic excellence and nurturing lifelong learners. We have a responsibility to look ahead, to plan and vision forward to ensure that we are offering the best possible in core academics and Judaic studies to our students and families.”

But looking back is also necessary. “The film relies on archival photographs and live interviews with some of the very community leaders who ensured that the school remained strong and viable through some exceedingly difficult periods,” she said. “I appreciated learning about different perspectives from many community stakeholders. It is not often that one has the opportunity to hear so many different points of view from those who have been intimately connected to the school.

“The challenges our predecessors faced are the very same challenges we also face today – and that Jewish day schools across North America confront as well. I found it encouraging to see the ebb and flow and highs and lows of this institution, yet with the reassurance that VTT is a treasured community asset that is vital to the growth, strength and future of our community.”

Stressing her pride in the school’s faculty, Lowenstein said, “Although our expanded new campus allows us to do things we never imagined possible, what happens inside the four walls of the classroom (and now in our many collaborative spaces) is still our top priority. I have a team of key professionals dedicated to ensuring that the academic and Jewish experience at VTT remains relevant and vibrant. We are continuously looking to improve our offerings, and each new school year brings new ideas and new innovations. This, to me, is the hallmark of a responsive and reflective school.”

As for some of the current challenges, Lowenstein said, “As the community knows, we have just completed the building of a magnificent new campus and now we must finish paying for it. Paying down the interest on our loan is one of our key priorities to remain financially sustainable. One of our greatest challenges – and it applies to almost every independent school on Vancouver’s West Side – is the decreasing number of school-age children in the catchment due to Vancouver’s high housing costs. This is an issue that VTT, [Jewish] Federation and so many other Jewish community agencies are exploring and trying to address. Our board of directors is also committed to ensuring VTT remains an affordable option to middle-income families.

“Ultimately, our goal is to ensure we meet the diverse needs of our VTT families. We want students to receive their Jewish education at VTT from the early years until they become proud graduates in Grade 7.”

“For 100 years,” said David Bogoch, “the school has been a focal point of the Jewish community. Students make lifelong friends from their years there. They learn so much about being Jewish and what that means. The students become successful leaders throughout the entire community as they grow up, and the entire community benefits from the school.”

Thrilled by community

Rabbi Philip Gibbs is the new spiritual leader of Congregation Har El. (photo from Rabbi Philip Gibbs)

Rabbi Philip Gibbs, who took up the pulpit at Congregation Har El / North Shore Jewish Community Centre in July, had an unusually straight path to Judaism in many ways, at least for someone living outside the Orthodox world.

“Judaism was always part of my life,” Gibbs told the Independent.

Growing up in Marietta, Ga., he attended a Reform synagogue, went to Hebrew school and lived in a home life structured by Judaism. He found Judaism both comforting and intellectually engaging. He loved the thorny moral questions of Jewish tradition and studying Torah stories for guidance about how to live in the world. By the time he finished high school, he was on the regional board of the Reform Jewish Youth Movement (NFTY).

Being a leader in NFTY helped Gibbs see what it meant to bring others to and through the experience of Judaism – and the seed of a rabbinic calling was planted.

Gibbs went to college at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., and graduated in 2012 with a double major in Hebrew and the humanities. He also attended summer programs for intensive Talmud study and, as he settled into “that place of serious learning about Judaism,” he felt at home. He was enamoured by how the Jewish community supported each other in times of crisis and celebration, giving a wider sense of meaning to even happy moments.

Gibbs attended the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), attracted “by its academic emphasis and its acknowledgment of the evolution of Judaism.” It also fit his personal level of observance.

He focused on Talmud and halachah (Jewish law) at the seminary and became the secretary of the committee on Jewish law and standards. He became passionate in his interest in halachah, both theoretically and as a “road to values.” He enjoyed taking ritual practice and explaining “the goal and meaning of it from a place of depth.”

Gibbs graduated with a master of arts in Talmud and received his rabbinic ordination earlier this year.

As a rabbinical student, he was engaged with global social justice and human rights issues, and became a member of Rabbis Without Borders. In his second year, after touring Hebron with T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization, he was featured in an article in the Forward about younger rabbis willing to grapple fully with the moral complexity of life in Israel.

Gibbs connected to Congregation Har El, which has been without a permanent spiritual leader for just over a year, through the JTS matching process for new rabbis. He had been to Vancouver before and looked forward to flying out for the interview.

“B.C.’s wilderness and outdoors activities are a big draw for me,” said Gibbs, who led the Jewish Outdoor Leadership Institute camp Ramah in the Rockies and is looking forward to the hiking and skiing opportunities available in the Vancouver area. “I grew up doing a lot of hiking in the southeast and led backpacking trips with Conservative movement summer camps. When I got here, I was also thrilled to find a community of very nice and caring people, a place that wanted depth in what they were doing.”

Gibbs said his main priority right now is getting to know the community before he begins putting together any new ideas. He is also getting to know Vancouver.

“It’s great,” he said. “One of the first things I did was get a bike – it’s a city very easy to get around in. My first view was before the forest fire smoke came in, and it was absolutely beautiful.”

Helping out new immigrants

Sol and Shirley Kort (photo from Alisa Kort)

The Kort family – in an initiative led by sisters Beverley and Alisa – has established a scholarship in their parents’ names with the National Council of Jewish Women. The award will provide education funding to two newcomer women each year.

Beverley and Alisa’s parents, Shirley and Sol Kort, have both passed away. They met, said the sisters, in Shirley’s hometown of Edmonton at a Shabbat dinner event organized by the local Jewish community for the American Jewish soldiers stationed there – this included Detroit-native Sol, who was then in the U.S. army.

The couple moved to Vancouver in the 1940s and Sol started up the business Kent Chemicals with a fellow American who relocated to Vancouver.

Of Kent Chemicals, Beverley said, “He did that for many years, until the 1960s. Then, he sold his business and went into continuing education at UBC. On the side, he was leading and developing a lecture series called Search for Meaning, and more. He decided that, instead of being a chemist, he’d become an adult educator in the humanities.”

Sol was in his 40s when he changed career paths. In his new endeavour, he enjoyed connecting with people who were pushing the boundaries of understanding philosophy, science and psychology – people questioning the world.

Beverley recalled going to her father’s lectures, along with other kids, starting in her early teens. “I’d sometimes leave school and go to those lectures,” she said. “People came and stayed at our house. I was exposed to all sorts of interesting perspectives, like Buddhism and different types of spirituality, levels of consciousness, and ideas. I was already curious about human nature and this catapulted me onto the level of, ‘Oh, my God! Wow. What’s going on?’”

Meanwhile, Beverley’s mom, Shirley, was busy doing her own work, serving on the board of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver for many years and being involved in National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), among other pursuits. Later, Shirley helped form Shalom Vancouver, a welcoming service for newcomers to Vancouver.

“This was very important to her,” recalled Beverley. “People would describe her as one of the most welcoming, supportive people. When we did a special kind of presentation about my mom for the NCJW after she passed away, people got up and spoke about their relationship with her, especially young women who moved to Vancouver when she was quite involved in the council. They just found there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to help them get settled – connecting with people, coming to our house for dinner. Our whole family has this culture of, come for dinner, how can I help you connect, that kind of thing.”

Alisa added, “My mother was also on the board of the Volunteer Bureau of Canada and had been a president of the Vancouver chapter of the NCJW a number of times, [as well as being] involved in their mobile hearing testing project, HIPPY and Shalom Vancouver. My father was involved with the Vanier Institute of Canada and was director of humanities and science in continuing education at UBC.”

Alisa noted that one of her father’s good friends, author Ted Roszak, wrote of Sol that “he was ‘a bright, inquiring and caring educator who wanted to bring every leaping mind he could find to his school.’”

When Sol passed away, the Kort family established a fund in his name at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library, as he was an avid reader. They also sponsored the Sol and Shirley Kort Author Series, the opening night of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, for many years.

photo - Shirley and Sol Kort — Shirley and Sol Kort *(photo from Alisa Kort)*

“My mom, during her life with my dad, was always hosting events and having people come and speak, and dealt with the behind-the-scenes things, organizing and being social,” said Beverley. “For her, hosting the author series in her and my dad’s name was a nice continuation of that. We did that for many years. They would come to our house the night before. And, the author would come, and my mom would meet him and talk. We named it after both of them because we always wanted to do something for both of them together.”

When Shirley passed away, the family wanted to find a way to further commemorate both of their parents’ lives, and looked to the NCJW, even though Sol wasn’t a member of the council.

“He was like a feminist more than his own daughters were, and he was an educator and a mentor,” said Beverley. “He was always finding people who needed mentoring. We were hosts for a Bosnian family who we’re still good friends with. After retiring, they set up weekly sessions with him to talk about books. He led speaking series for seniors and was always looking for ways to teach.”

Among the NCJW initiatives that were important to Shirley was HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters), said Beverley, and she talked about it “a lot during the last three years of her life, as she struggled with dementia. HIPPY is about mentoring women and furthering their education. We wanted to do something that would further education and make a difference in someone’s life – that’s why we chose the scholarship.”

The Shirley and Sol Kort scholarship provides $2,500 per year to two newcomer women toward their education.

“HIPPY is a way of keeping my parent’s memory alive and supporting something that represents the essence of what they found important in the world, which is welcoming people, furthering education, being supportive and being larger than the Jewish community,” said Beverley.

According to Alisa, her parents were interested in people, above all – they were passionate about education and in helping newcomers to the Jewish community and beyond. Beverley and Alisa also are inspired in what they do by their late grandmother, who informally adopted one of the young children who made their way to safety via the Kindertransport.

Regarding the HIPPY scholarship, Alisa said, “It seemed to embody all that our parents held dear and it also seemed very important to support women, particularly women with children struggling to find a new life in a new country after having to let go of so much of what made them who they are.”

The initial recipients of the award, said Alisa, “were both very highly motivated and articulate about their experiences as immigrant women and mothers in Canada, and how … being involved in HIPPY has factored into their journey and continues enriching their lives. They’re multicultural in background. One of the women intends to complete her bachelor of social work and the other wants to get her social work diploma.”

Past president of NCJW’s Vancouver chapter, Debbie Altow, said, “Shirley Kort inspired us all in council. Besides working to bring HIPPY to Canada, she led the way – she was the first in our membership to use a computer; she worked tirelessly to pilot a hearing testing program for preschoolers (a project taken over by Vancouver’s health department); she hosted so many meetings that daughter, Beverley, printed up a neat collection of her recipes; and she had family and friends all over Western Canada, especially in Edmonton and Winnipeg.

For more information about NCJW in Vancouver, visit ncjwvancouver.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Tzedakah not charity

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will be in Vancouver for FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from HarperCollins)

A group of elderly retired men routinely gather in a Tel Aviv coffee shop and talk about current events. Given the world situation, their chats tend to be very downbeat. One day, one of the men in the group declares, “I am an optimist.”

His friends look at him in puzzlement and one of them asks, “You’re an optimist? So why do you look so worried?” And the man replies, “You think it’s easy to be an optimist?”

This is a joke Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells when he speaks about Jewish humour – a topic on which he literally wrote the book. It also sums up his response to a question posed by the Jewish Independent in a recent telephone interview.

Telushkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including the two-volume A Code of Jewish Ethics, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History and The Book of Jewish Values: A Day-by-Day Guide to Ethical Living. He is routinely cited as one of North America’s most engaging thinkers and writers on Jewish topics and he has devoted his life to Jewish education.

“I am by nature an optimist,” he said, explaining that his study of Jewish history inspires pessimism, but Judaism’s promise of messianic redemption makes him an optimist. “Hence, I end up as an optimist with a worried look on my face,” he said.

Telushkin is one of five leading thinkers – originally there were four scheduled – who will speak at FEDtalks, the kickoff of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign next month.

Telushkin’s lifetime devoted to Jewish education was motivated in part by his concern that Jewish religious devotion tended to emphasize ritual observances “as if ethics were necessary, but sort of an extracurricular activity.”

Judaism, he said, has important and uplifting rituals, such as Shabbat and the observance of the holidays. “But there are these incredible insights in Judaism that apply to us in every day of our lives.” That is why he wrote The Book of Jewish Values, which is an exploration of ideas and lessons that can be applied day after day.

Exploring these ideas, he said, can ameliorate some of the challenges facing the Jewish people, such as assimilation and intermarriage.

“If two percent of Jews were intermarrying, you could make a big fight and just do everything in your power to stop intermarriage,” said the rabbi. “Once you’re dealing with intermarriage rates approaching 50%, you can either write off the future of the Jewish people … or you can say, guess what, Judaism has things to teach Jews and non-Jews. If Judaism has something to offer people, it can offer it to non-Jews as well. That’s the role that Jewish education can play. We can model values that people can look at and feel enriched by.”

If Jewishness plays a central role in one’s life, Telushkin said, a person should want to share that with a spouse and model Judaism “in a way that would also make them want to share in Judaism.”

With Dennis Prager, Telushkin wrote the book Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism. The provocative thesis suggests that something particular about Jews inspires Jew-hatred; that Jews bring it upon themselves.

“Antisemitism, we argue, is ultimately a reaction to Judaism and its values,” Telushkin said, “to the Jewish concept of God, which denied the gods of the others, to the Jewish concept of law.”

The centrality of education in the Jewish tradition has led to personal and collective successes that, in turn, have inspired jealousy, he continued. This jealousy leads to antisemitism and it is indeed, Telushkin said, something inherent in Judaism that provokes this response.

“The reason Jews have succeeded, often much more than their neighbours, is because Judaism entered the world with a demand that no other religion had made: that everyone has to be educated – and you shall teach it to your children – and that focus on education led to greater success.”

Antisemitism, he added, is also inspired by the unique theological relationship between God and the Jewish people.

“There is no other religion that fuses religion and peoplehood the same way,” he said. “When Ruth converts to Judaism in the Bible, she says, amech ami, your people shall be my people, Elohayich Elohai, your God shall be my God.”

This connection between religion and peoplehood also defined antisemitism and the way it morphed during the Age of Nationalism. Until around 1800, when the world in which Jews lived was primarily a religious one, antisemitism focused on the God of the Jews and the rejections of the prophets of Christianity and Islam.

“When nationalism emerged, antisemitism was increasingly focused on the people who were Jews,” Telushkin said. Conversion to another religion would no longer erase Jewish national identity, and membership in a peoplehood, a nation, became the focus of antisemitism. “Hence, the greatest antisemitism in the world today is anti-Zionism.”

The most catastrophic forms of tyranny in recent history, Telushkin added, were direct refutations of Jewish values.

“What was Nazism if not a rejection of all the values that Judaism was trying to bring into the world? What was Soviet communism if not a rejection of all the values the Jews bring into the world?” he said. “Nazism and communism were both radical repudiations of the Jewish notion of God. They held that the state had the highest value. That’s why Soviet dissidents used to chant the song ‘I Fear No One Except God,’ because, in a totalitarian society, people who fear God think that there is something higher than the government, higher than the party. Today, of course, there is the danger of Islamists, people who claim to believe in God but who certainly don’t believe in a God whose primary demand of humans is ethical behaviour.”

At FEDtalks, Telushkin will speak on the topic, Tzedakah is Not Charity. The word charity, he said, suggests something done voluntarily, out of love. “While the word tzedakah derives from the word justice, which suggests that it’s not only a voluntary thing to give tzedakah, it’s an act of justice, which means not doing so becomes an act of injustice,” he explained. “What I want to emphasize is that Judaism is rooted in the notion of not just volunteerism but also obligation.”

By example, he suggested comparing two types of diets. People go on diets, he said, usually for one of two reasons – to be physically more attractive or healthier – but few are able to maintain a strict diet for a month or longer without breaking it.

“Because, in the final analysis, it’s voluntary,” he said. “Everyone knows people who keep kosher, who can go for years without eating foods that are forbidden because they feel commanded … when we do something out of a sense of commandment, we do so with a greater sense of consistency.”

Charities often suffer during tough economic times, he added, because people see charity as voluntary. But, even during tough economic times, people pay their taxes because they are afraid of the consequences of not doing so.

“So the notion of mitzvah in

Judaism is a notion of commandment, something is obligatory,” he said. “I emphasize that point because people consider mitzvah a good deed, but it’s really a commandment.”

FEDtalks takes place at the Chan Centre on Sept. 13. For tickets and more information, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017. The Independent has invited all of the speakers to be featured in advance of the event. Last week: Ruth Wasserman Lande. Next week: Rabbi Jay Henry Moses.