Limmud Vancouver is accepting submissions until Oct. 15 for presenters at the 2016 learning festival. (photo from Limmud Vancouver)
After two successful events in the past two years, Limmud Vancouver is returning for a third learning extravaganza in 2016.
Following a Saturday night Limmud cabaret, to be held Jan. 30, LimmudVan ’16 will offer a daylong celebration of Jewish learning at Beth Israel Synagogue on Sunday, Jan. 31. Presentation proposals are now being accepted from experienced as well as first-time presenters.
A non-denominational, pluralistic gathering for Jewish learning, Limmud is a growing global phenomenon that began 30 years ago in the United Kingdom and has attracted participants and presenters of all ages and backgrounds. There are now more than 80 Limmud festivals held annually in Jewish communities all over the world, from Canada and the United States to Australia, Turkey, Sweden, India, China, Brazil and, of course, Israel.
Since its inception in 2014, LimmudVan celebrates the wide range of wisdom and knowledge within our Jewish community and we encourage everyone to share their excitement for any topic with a Jewish aspect. In the first two years, presenters have included scholars, teachers, actors, rabbis, lay enthusiasts, scientists, artists, storytellers, cooks, musicians and others. Topics have ranged from Torah study to opera, social activism and Jewish environmentalism to Jewish humor, Czech Torah scrolls to Jews and indigenous peoples.
Whatever topic you are passionate about, you are welcome to present it in the format that appeals to you most, whether dramatic or interactive, as a lecture or something different – you decide. If you would like to be a part of a local, thought-provoking learning event, visit Limmud Vancouver’s website and submit a topic (or two?) about which you would like to share your knowledge and enthusiasm with the wider community.
A core Limmud value is that everyone is a student and everyone can be a teacher within this interconnected learning community. “Volunticipating” is also an important aspect of Limmud. Everyone, including organizers and presenters, registers to participate and take part in the daylong event. And, as a volunteer-led organization, its success depends on the time and energy of individuals who care about community-based Jewish learning. If this is something you are passionate about, and whether or not you would like to present this year, consider gifting some of your time as a volunteer and help make LimmudVan ’16 an event to remember.
Go to limmudvancouver.ca, where you can also see what was offered at last year’s learning event. Short- and long-term volunteers are accepted on an ongoing basis. Presenter submissions will be accepted until Oct. 15, 2015. Chosen presenters will be contacted and the program will be confirmed in November. Tickets for the event will go on sale soon afterwards. Follow Limmud Vancouver on Facebook and Twitter.
On Sept. 20, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and SUCCESS are co-hosting Election 2015 Townhall. The Conservative, Liberal, New Democrat and Green parties have been invited to have a representative answer community members’ questions.
“Although the parties are well aware of the broad topics to be covered at the forum, neither the parties nor their candidates will be told the questions beforehand,” Jason Murray, chair of CIJA Pacific Region Local Partners Council, told the Independent. “It’s important to note that the townhall is not a debate, but an important opportunity to hear candidates address issues important to the communities served by SUCCESS and CIJA. The event will be open to the press.”
Jason Murray, chair of CIJA Pacific Region Local Partners Council. (photo from CIJA-PR)
The selection of the representatives has been left up to the parties, said Murray, “with the only requirement being that the candidate is nominated in a Metro Vancouver riding.”
The broad topics – immigration, employment, seniors’ care, security and the economy – are just some of the issues in which CIJA and SUCCESS share an interest, said Murray. The partnership in organizing the townhall, he said, “allows us to gain strength with greater numbers, bringing together our communities to advocate with candidates seeking office. Working together allows us opportunities to view these issues from each other’s perspectives.”
This is not the first time that SUCCESS has worked with the Jewish community.
“SUCCESS and CIJA’s predecessor, the Canadian Jewish Congress, have a long history of collaborating on civic engagement programs, including townhall-style events around municipal, provincial and federal elections,” said Murray. “Professional and volunteer leaders from SUCCESS and CIJA have continued to collaborate between elections, particularly in helping each other nurture advocacy efforts. We hope to continue to build on what we see as a solid foundation and to continue to bring together SUCCESS and our Federation and Federation’s partner agencies.”
“Both CIJA and SUCCESS are nonprofit and non-partisan organizations that are dedicated to improving the quality of life of newcomers in Canada by advancing the public policy interests of Canada’s communities,” Queenie Choo, chief executive officer of SUCCESS, told the Independent. “We have commonalities and strong values in these areas. Hence, it is a perfect fit as partners in this event.”
Queenie Choo, chief executive officer of SUCCESS. (photo from SUCCESS)
SUCCESS has sponsored other townhalls and information sessions, said Choo. “We have done it in the past for provincial and municipal pre-election forums. At this point, we are focusing on this townhall opportunity to ensure people are informed of the party positions on our topics, such as immigrants, seniors, housing, employment and security. It is also part of our mandates on promoting civil education and responsibility.”
Choo explained, “SUCCESS is one of the largest nonprofit social service agencies in B.C. that provide services for immigrants, seniors and people who need affordable housing. The topics of focus at this townhall really support our mission – one that builds bridges, harvests diversity and fosters integration through service and advocacy. Through this event, we hope to gain a better understanding of each party’s position on these subject matters, advancing our mission in these three key areas going forward.”
She added, “It is important that people are well informed of the positions and platform represented by each party in order to vote for what they believe in. People are encouraged to vote and be able to elect the party that can best represent them and their community.”
“In advocacy,” said Murray, “there is no substitute for in-person engagement. The Jewish community is a relatively small community in Canada and, particularly, in British Columbia. Through more intensive involvement in the political world – whether volunteering, serving as party activists, or running for office – Canadian Jews can make a disproportionate impact beyond the ballot box.
Community members must send their questions in advance to [email protected]. The Election 2015 Townhall takes place Sept. 20, 2:30 p.m., at Choi Hall (SUCCESS main offices), 28 Pender St.
Eli Winkelman was just looking for a way to fit in at college. But her quest for a niche resulted in an international philanthropic phenomenon.
Winkelman’s passion for making challah caught fire with fellow students and she ended up founding one of the most familiar – and foodie-friendly – philanthropic endeavors in the Jewish community today.
Challah for Hunger is now known to thousands of students on campuses throughout Canada, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. Volunteers gather to make the irresistible braided loaves, then sell them to fellow students and divide the profits between a local charity and a designated national cause.
Winkelman, who founded the international movement, will be one of four speakers at FEDtalks, marking the launch of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign Sept. 17. She will speak on Chesed (Loving-kindness).
Winkelman’s expertise in challah came, as it has for centuries of women, through her mother. But where some recent generations have let the challah thread drop – who has time to knead, braid, bake? – Winkelman’s choice to become vegan sort of changed history.
“I decided to become vegan in high school and [her mother] said, ‘OK, but you’re making your own challah,’” she recalled.
When she arrived at the Claremont Colleges outside Los Angeles in 2004, Winkelman started baking challah for Shabbat dinners at Hillel.
“People heard that I was baking and they showed up to learn from me randomly,” she said. “And every week they came back and they complained that all their friends were eating their challah. So, I saw that there was demand for bread and demand for the activity of making the bread and I thought that we should scale up and do it for a good cause.”
Within two or three months of starting school, Winkelman had launched Challah for Hunger, selling 15 loaves. Her group started out baking in the dorm kitchen, then moved into the kitchen of the campus interfaith centre. They eventually got permission to use the dining hall kitchen.
The national charity is MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger. Local chapters can determine the cause to which they want to allocate the other 50% of profits. Some chapters, like at Emory University in Atlanta, have been supporting the same cause for years (in Emory’s case, a refugee assistance agency). Other campuses operate differently. At Stanford, for example, the chapter partners with other clubs every week and they choose a different designated recipient each time.
“Different chapters approach it differently, which I really love because they are figuring out how they want to be givers,” she said.
Winkelman is no longer operating the organization’s day-to-day activities – she’s started a business in Austin, Tex. – but she is on the board of directors and closely follows the progress. There are now more than 70 chapters worldwide, each baking 30 to 300 loaves, usually weekly. Sometimes they defy tradition and add chocolate chips, cinnamon sugar, sun-dried tomato or other innovations. Canada’s sole chapter is in Montreal.
Baking and sharing bread is an ancient, symbolic and ritualized process. Challah for Hunger makes it social in a way that may be particularly suited to undergrads finding their place and new friends.
“Part of how I define Challah for Hunger is doing it together and doing it on a regular basis so that it becomes a community,” she said. “For me, that is core to the organization. That’s how people learn and grow, by interacting with each other. Especially when you’re baking bread, your hands are engaged in something so you’re busy and that means that you can have a conversation or not have a conversation or have whatever kind of conversation you want with the person next to you. It really doesn’t leave any awkward quiet time.”
For more information about and tickets to FEDtalks, visit jewishvancouver.com. Interviews with fellow speakers Irwin Cotler and Dafna Lifshitz appeared in previous issues of the Independent, and Rabbi David Wolpe will be featured next.
Dafna Lifshitz, CEO of Appleseed Academies, is part of the FEDtalks lineup on Sept. 17. (photo from Dafna Lifshitz)
Israel is known as the “startup nation,” the incubator for much of the world’s most advanced technological, medical, scientific, cultural and other innovative advancements. But Dafna Lifshitz saw a different Israel that doesn’t fit that mold – and she set out to fix the problem.
Lifshitz is one of four speakers at FEDtalks, a series of short, intense speeches on diverse topics that will launch the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign on Sept. 17 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
“In the past decade, Israel has reached incredible heights with the growth of our high-tech industry,” Lifshitz told the Independent in an email interview. “We are a world leader in R&D spending, per capita [venture capital] investment and multinational R&D centres.”
But this activity has been concentrated in the centre of the country, remains in the hands of the privileged few and is creating “a dangerous digital divide between the centre and the periphery,” she said. To leverage Israel’s success to even greater levels, access to relevant technological education must be made more widely available.
“Technology education is a tool to make Israel stronger, more vibrant and more equitable,” she explained. “First, from an economic perspective, future economic growth in Israel is all technology-based. To participate in the workforce and gain access to the best opportunities, everyone in Israel must be able to work online, write code and build technology solutions. Second, from a quality-of-life perspective, we know that those who have access to technology and use it effectively will receive better health care, financial services, and much more. Finally, communities who use technology tools to interact with each other and their leaders are stronger and more vibrant.”
People in disadvantaged communities, including those in Israel’s geographic periphery, suffer from lack of access to technology and opportunities in the tech sector, Lifshitz said. “Our challenge is to turn Israel from the startup nation of the few to the startup nation for all.”
And this will be the topic of her FEDtalk – “building a biotech hub in northern Israel.”
As CEO of Appleseed Academies since 2002, Lifshitz has helped a million people in Israel and the developing world access technological education programs through the nonprofit organization.
In Israel, the agency works especially with women, ultra-Orthodox Jews, youth-at-risk, new olim and members of minority communities. Appleseed Academies has 350 centres across Israel. Lifshitz has been dubbed one of Israel’s 100 most influential people by Haaretz and was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Initiatives and Innovation in 2014.
The success of the program in Israel led Appleseed to expand its work to 93 locations in eight African countries through a partnership with Cisco and the Clinton Global Initiative.
“We have managed to build and learn so much in Israel and, from my perspective, if we can share our model with new partners in the developing world, it’s our responsibility to do so,” Lifshitz said. “As importantly, we learn so much from working with cultures different from our own – when I watch how entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe or South Africa work with our models, I’m filled with new inspiration for driving our mission back at home.”
Appleseed Academies partners with the biggest, most successful tech companies in Israel, including Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Google and Bezeq, as well as with government agencies, municipalities and philanthropists.
“We have learned that when disadvantaged communities prosper, our whole society prospers,” she said.
Her own story undergirds the success of Appleseed Academies.
“It probably started with my choice to transition from a religious to a secular lifestyle, along with my decision to study law and start a law firm with a neighborhood friend,” she said. “As a result of my journey, I realized that I can lead change not just on a personal level, but on a broader scale, as well. As one of my close mentors, Cisco VP Zika Abzuk, and Spiderman like to say: with power comes responsibility. I know I can lead change, and simply cannot ignore that responsibility to do so.”
For more information about and tickets to FEDtalks, visit jewishvancouver.com. An interview with Irwin Cotler appeared in last week’s Independent and Eli Winkelman will be featured next.
The Shia Ismaili community, St. Augustine’s Catholic School and Vancouver Talmud Torah students assembled gifts of hope and compassion, and distributed them – along with 2,000 servings of food items courtesy of Tim Horton’s – to residents on the Downtown Eastside. (photo from Vancouver Talmud Torah)
Random Acts’ Class Act is an annual award program for schools worldwide, intended to inspire acts of kindness around the world. The winner is the group that is the most creative and inventive in performing an act of kindness in their community and receives $3,000 US for their school.
Last year, Shoshana Burton and Jessie Claudio, then of Richmond Jewish Day School and Az-Zahraa Academy, respectively, won the Class Act award for Abraham’s Tent: Using Diversity as a Base for Unity, a joint Jewish and Muslim service learning project. Together, they planned a week of giving: teachers and students alike spent the week handing out scarves, shoes and bag lunches in one of Vancouver’s poorest neighborhoods and performing other acts of generosity in their community.
This year, with both Burton and Claudio at Vancouver Talmud Torah, they and their students were runners-up to the award for their Kindness Project.
With the organizational efforts of the sixth and seventh grade students of VTT, local community members were gifted with myriad kind gestures over a span of several months. Among the projects were a Random Acts of Chesed Race, in which students and their families gathered together to spread kindness across the city through a series of small acts; a holiday gift exchange with a neighboring Catholic school, during which students shared in one another’s traditions; and a donation drive for a nonprofit working to provide shoes to children in Haiti and the Dominican Republic (Ruben’s Shoes), for which the group collected more than 710 pairs. In addition, the group also paired up this spring with the local Catholic school and the Muslim Shia Ismaili community to distribute care packages to the homeless community in Vancouver – a project that not only helped the homeless, but the students as well.
“The focus was not only on handing out necessities and food to needy people but also to interact with them with compassion and restore their hope to make sure they understand that they are not forgotten,” wrote Burton to Random Acts, adding that the projects were meant to “build bridges of understanding that we are more of the same than different.”
“Jewish education includes many lessons about doing chesed, being generous, being compassionate, being nonjudgmental and inclusive from a very young age,” Burton said. “Our goal at VTT is not only to teach about it but also to provide students with enduring real-life opportunities to apply those so they can see and feel the great impact of their kind actions…. When we allow them to have a voice in how we will do things, they become empowered and literally unstoppable. They want to do more and we continue to be amazed and touched, seeing them inspired and inspiring all who are around them, including parents and teachers. The younger students watch the enthusiasm of the older ones and want to do it, too – it becomes contagious and takes a life of its own.
“Kids are not only compassionate but also curious to know more about the world, other cultures and faiths,” she added. “Our Grade 7 students had three projects with Muslim and Catholic students. They did not only learn to see similarities and common practices between faiths but also found themselves teaching about Judaism, feeling proud to tell the world who they are. Another example of building bridges with other cultures was when we invited a First Nations cultural group from Alert Bay to come learn about and participate in a Havdalah ceremony. When we were done with the Havdalah, we participated in one of their traditional drum circles, it was fascinating and moving.”
Irwin Cotler, left, with Bob Rae. Cotler is one of four speakers who will participate in FEDtalks, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign launch on Sept. 17. (photo from irwincotler.liberal.ca)
Irwin Cotler, one of the foremost figures in international human rights, will speak here next month on global trends impacting the Jewish community. He is one of four guest speakers at FEDtalks, an innovative new opening event for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign.
When the new Parliament is sworn in after the Oct. 19 election, Cotler’s career as an elected politician will end. He has served as MP for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal since 1999, and as minister of justice and attorney general for Canada. He is not seeking reelection.
His proudest achievements in politics, he told the Independent, include legislation against human trafficking, particularly of women and children. He also cited the legislated equality of marriage for gays and lesbians, which he shepherded through the House. “We were at the time only the fourth country in the world, in 2005, to do so and it was very divisive at the time,” Cotler said of the civil marriage law.
He also takes pride in being the attorney general when Steven Truscott’s conviction for rape and murder was overturned and declared a miscarriage of justice. Truscott was a 14-year-old Ontario boy sentenced to death in 1959 for the rape and murder of a classmate. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he was jailed for a decade before being paroled, but it was another four decades before his name was cleared and he was acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
In addition to landmark acts, Cotler said his proudest roles in public office have included helping individuals in ways that never make the news. “I think the one [achievement] that remains unheralded and that is true for all MPs is the one in which we try as best we can on a daily basis to act as an ombudsperson for the constituents in our riding,” he said.
After he leaves office, he will devote more time to the defence of political prisoners, he said. In his role as an international human rights lawyer, Cotler has been central to some of the most prominent cases in the world, including those of Andrei Sakharov, Nathan Sharansky and Nelson Mandela. He is currently on the legal team for Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, the Venezuelan political prisoner Leopoldo López and the Iranian Shi’ite cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi. He has been recognized with numerous honorary degrees and other awards, including Parliamentarian of the Year by his colleagues in the House of Commons. He chaired the International Commission of Inquiry into the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg.
“I am even exploring establishing a Raoul Wallenberg Centre for International Justice named after the first [Canadian] honorary citizen, a unique international consortium of politicians, scholars and jurists, human rights defenders, NGOs united in the pursuit of justice, inspired by and anchored in Wallenberg’s humanitarian legacy,” he said. “Those are some of the things I’m looking forward to.”
At the FEDtalks event, Cotler said he will address “mega-trends” affecting the Jewish people worldwide, foremost being what he calls the “Iranian five-fold threat.”
The nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 powers, “both in the process of arriving at the agreement with Iran and the agreement itself, has overshadowed, if not sanitized, the other four threats,” he said.
Those overshadowed or sanitized threats, he continued, include Iran being the leading sponsor of international terrorism, “the hegemonic threat in terms of its destabilization of the Middle East and beyond,” the danger posed by Iran’s state-sanctioned incitement to hate and to genocide, and the “massive domestic repression” in Iran.
“While the nuclear negotiations have been going on, for example, Iran, which already was executing more people per capita than any other country in the world in the time of [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, has almost doubled the execution rate and yet we hear very little about it, and that’s only one example,” said Cotler. “I’ll be speaking about the criminalization of dissent, the prosecution and persecution of Baha’is and other religious and ethnic minorities.”
The second mega-theme, he said, will be terrorism, security and human rights, including how we combat terrorism without undermining civil liberties, and a third theme will probably address antisemitism in what he calls its old and new forms. “The old, or classic, antisemitism being the discrimination against, denial of, assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal citizens within any society that they inhabit,” he explained, “and the new antisemitism being the discrimination against, denial of and assault upon the right of Israel and the Jewish people to live as an equal member among the family of nations or, at its worst, to even to live.”
FEDtalks, the opening event of the annual campaign for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, takes place Sept. 17 at Queen Elizabeth Theatre. More information is available at jewishvancouver.com and tickets are available at ticketpeak.com/JFGV. Interviews with the other speakers will appear in successive issues of the Independent.
Left to right: The Hon. Alice Wong, Conservative MP; Erinn Broshko Conservative candidate, Vancouver Granville; Bonnie and Allan Belzberg; and the Hon. Jason Kenney, Conservative MP. (photo by L. Broshko)
Conservative Party of Canada MPs Jason Kenney and Alice Wong were special guests at a reception held on Aug. 9 at the home of Allan and Bonnie Belzberg. Erinn Broshko, the Conservative candidate in the Vancouver Granville riding, addressed the gathering and introduced Kenney, Canada’s minister of national defence and multiculturalism. Kenney spoke about the federal government’s support for Israel, foreign policy and other topics of interest to the group. His remarks were candid and well received by the approximately 35 people in attendance.
While Kenney was in Vancouver, he participated in the most recent Canada Decides 2015 townhall organized by Temple Sholom and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
B.C. Generation students in Ottawa earlier this year. (photo from CJPAC-BC)
This summer, CJPAC, the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, celebrated the first anniversary of its British Columbia office. The multi-partisan organization, which already had offices in Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton, recently expanded its presence with offices in Vancouver and Winnipeg.
CJPAC’s mandate is to engage Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians in the democratic process and to foster active political participation. It is dedicated to helping community members build relationships within the Canadian political arena.
In the last year, CJPAC’s B.C. office has hosted a number of events, including Vancouver Connect: Meet Your Next Mayor, which was an opportunity for 100 participants to meet with mayoral and city council candidates in advance of the municipal election, and the second annual Women in Politics gathering, at which 45 community members heard about working in politics from five female politicians and political staffers.
In addition, last May, 11 B.C. high school students traveled to Ottawa as part of CJPAC’s Generation program for two days of networking and training sessions. While in Ottawa, the students had a tour of Parliament Hill, observed Question Period and met with elected officials from all parties.
“In a little over a year, CJPAC has had a tremendous impact on the B.C. community,” said Karen James, CJPAC board member. “Its staff has addressed over 700 people at synagogues throughout Vancouver, as well as 200 campers, 90 high school students and 60 seniors. They have also visited community members in Nanaimo, Kamloops, Kelowna and Victoria.”
CJPAC’s ultimate goal is to help the Jewish and pro-Israel community have an impact beyond its numbers by encouraging as many of its members as possible to get engaged in politics, particularly through volunteering.
“Our unique programs are aimed at all age groups and are designed to make people comfortable with volunteering, even if it’s for the very first time,” said Kara Mintzberg, B.C. regional director. “In this federal election year, it is important that our community volunteers in high numbers. It doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment; just a few hours can make a significant difference to a campaign.”
According to recent research, only 10% of Canadians have volunteered in an election. However, in the last federal election, 101 – one-third of ridings – changed parties and 51 ridings had a margin of victory of five percent or less. Volunteers are hugely important, particularly in close ridings, and campaigns need people for all kinds of tasks: envelope stuffing, door knocking, making phone calls, putting up lawn signs and identifying and getting voters to polling stations on election day.
Bill Kaplan, CJPAC board member, noted that “recent polls indicate that the federal election could be very close, particularly in B.C., which means that our community – although small relative to the rest of the Canadian population – has the ability to make a real difference just by volunteering, regardless of the party or candidate individual members choose to support.”
During the last federal election, CJPAC connected more than 900 community members with campaigns.
“We would be happy to help connect you with the candidate or party of your choice in 2015,” said Mintzberg. “If you’re not sure who you would like to volunteer with, we can help with that, too. The important thing is to get involved and ensure our community has a significant impact this election.”
For more information on how to connect with the campaign of your choice, contact Mintzberg at [email protected] or 604-343-4126. To learn more about CJPAC and its programs, visit cjpac.ca.
Last year, Yad b’Yad, Hillel BC and others joined the Pride parade. This year, they will host a booth at Sunset Beach, which will allow them to engage more in discussion with festival-goers. (photo from Hillel BC)
The Jewish contingent in this year’s Vancouver Pride celebration is inviting everyone to participate. Yad b’Yad, the Jewish LGBTQ organization, will have a booth at the festival site on Sunset Beach, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2.
The parade runs from noon until 3 p.m., culminating at the Sunset Beach site. Jonathan Lerner, who is coordinating Yad b’Yad’s participation, said the decision was made to participate as a booth rather than to march in the parade, as the community has done beginning in 2010.
“We have messaging we want to get out,” said Lerner. “While it’s great to march in the parade, you only get to pass people by for a few quick seconds and maybe, if you’re lucky, you get to hand them something. For us, we wanted to be able to have conversations with people, meet people, introduce ourselves, tell them where they could come find us, have discussions with members of the queer community and the Jewish community. So, we felt like a booth would better serve that purpose.”
Yad b’Yad will be giving away items, offering face painting, a spinning wheel with prizes and an educational component, he said.
The presence of the group on Pride day has a dual purpose, he added.
Carmel Tanaka and Rotem Tal were among the Hillel BC participants at last year’s Pride. (photo from Hillel BC)
“It’s incredibly important for LGBTQ Jews to see us there and know that resources do exist for them,” Lerner said. “It’s also important to show that the Jewish community supports the queer community. There are a lot of other ethnic and religious groups that participate. It’s important for us to have a presence there and show that we stand in solidarity with other minority communities and support them when they need it.”
Yad b’Yad is Hebrew for hand in hand, which is meant to symbolize the two communities working together and the two identities that many people have, Lerner said. Yad b’Yad is just about a year old and represents a solidification of the community’s approach to LGBTQ issues, which until now was more ad hoc.
The community’s first participation in the Pride parade, in 2010, was spearheaded by Hillel BC, with support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and other community groups, including synagogues. Lerner, who is director of operations, administration and finance for Hillel BC, explained Yad b’Yad’s mandate.
“We started out to provide resources to queer members of the Jewish community and to advocate for the Jewish community within the LGBTQ community, because we still see a lot of antisemitism within that community,” he said. “Once we established the group, Yad b’Yad, it was a decision among the organizations that had been involved before – including Federation, CIJA [Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs], Hillel – that Yad b’Yad as a group should sort of lead the charge” in organizing Pride day events.
“We encourage all the agencies to come out to the booth, be part of the celebration,” Lerner added. “If an organization wants to come and be part of the booth, maybe bring with them a couple of pamphlets about their organization, they are absolutely welcome to do so.”
Potential volunteers, or anyone seeking additional information, can email [email protected].
Louis and Toby Rubinowitz and their son, Israel, are buried together in the Jewish section of Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery, while Toby’s sister Sarah is buried separately. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
“Like a bolt from the blue, and to my profound astonishment, I was on Tuesday afternoon set upon by a number of special constables and arrested,” Israel Rubinowitz wrote from his prison cell in Nanaimo.
It was autumn 1913 when the budding defence lawyer made a plea for his release, penning a letter to Judge Frederick Howay in the midst of a coal miners’ strike on Vancouver Island. Though a Conservative in politics, Rubinowitz offered a passionate, occasionally radical, perspective in British Columbian courtrooms. He grew up in Vancouver, studied at McGill University in Montreal and attended Oxford University in England on a Rhodes scholarship in 1905. He returned to Vancouver and had only practised law for a short time when he found himself in Nanaimo – as both counsel and accused.
His predicament began when he agreed to represent members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Conflict had been brewing in mining communities on Vancouver Island’s central east coast since miners set up pickets in 1912. The coal companies refused to bargain and hired strikebreakers to keep their mines operating. “Special” constables, untrained and inexperienced, patrolled the region to keep order. In the summer of 1913, clashes broke out between strikers and replacement workers, starting in Cumberland and Nanaimo and spreading to Extension, South Wellington and Ladysmith. The provincial government declared martial law and sent in a militia on Aug. 13 after one man was killed, several surface mine buildings were burned down and homes were damaged. More than 200 strikers were arrested and 166 charged. None were granted bail. Martial law remained in the area for the next year.
The union hired experienced Vancouver labor lawyers Joseph Edward Bird and John Wallace de Beque Farris to defend the accused members. A group of Nanaimo residents fundraised independently and hired Rubinowitz, despite being advised by union officials and their lawyers that he was too inexperienced.
On that fateful Tuesday afternoon in September, Rubinowitz met with strikers Walter Pryde and William Moore on a Nanaimo street to discuss his clients’ cases. Special Constable Maguire and five other constables were patrolling the neighborhood. Maguire spied Rubinowitz and his companions and told them to move along. The trio continued walking, and were engaged in discussion when a train appeared and came to a halt. Twelve replacement workers disembarked, walking past the three men and the constables.
According to the Nanaimo Free Press, Maguire told Rubinowitz, “You are arrested for picketing.”
“I dare you,” Rubinowitz answered. “You don’t know who I am.”
“I don’t care who you are,” Maguire replied.
“After being publicly paraded through the principal streets,” Rubinowitz wrote in his letter to Howay, “I was taken to the police station where I was ultimately informed after persistent demands, that I was being charged with besetting or watching and following and intimidating workmen.”
Rubinowitz further wrote he had been falsely arrested. “I solemnly declare it is a wicked and deliberate trick to prevent my appearing [in court] for the men.”
After spending a sleepless night in jail, Rubinowitz appeared before Magistrate J.H. Simpson. He denounced the charge against him as “preposterous and fantastic.”
The exchange was reported in the Free Press:
“You put yourself in a false position,” the judge told him.
“You are not entitled to make such a suggestion,” the young lawyer responded.
“I ask for no favors,” Rubinowitz also told the court. “If I do not get justice here, I shall get it elsewhere.”
As reported in the Daily Colonist on Sept. 26, 1913, Israel Rubinowitz was released from jail “on his surety of $500.”
Thomas Shoebotham, acting for the Crown, requested that the bail hearing be moved to Friday, and the judge consented. But Rubinowitz’s letter to Howay and telegrams to newspapers had an impact. His plight received sympathetic media coverage from Victoria to Toronto. After his second night in jail, Rubinowitz was granted bail, though the judge let him know his letter to him was “ill advised.”
Rubinowitz stood before a packed courtroom for a preliminary trial on the Friday. He objected to Simpson’s presence on the bench, arguing Simpson had implied his guilt at the bail hearing and criticized the selection of Shoebotham. The judge overruled both objections.
“I was going to No. 1 mine with Pryde to see the district,” Rubinowitz testified. “I asked Moore to join me.… I stood about a minute pointing north and south. That gesture was seen by police.” Rubinowitz said Special Constable Collison pushed him. “I turned round and may have stared at him indignantly.” As for the arrival of the replacement workers, he said, “I was absorbed by my guides and didn’t notice them.”
Sam Davis, a Crown witness, was one of the workers coming off the train. He testified that he had not been spoken to by any of the accused and had not known anything about the incident until after their arrest.
Simpson seemed determined the case should proceed. “The least can be said is that the three men were in a disturbed district,” he told the court, “and that permission could have been obtained if they cared to have applied for it.” He also defended the special constables’ actions, saying, “… if no notice had been taken of this incident, there was a chance of another outbreak in the district.”
Shoebotham argued that an impartial jury in Nanaimo would be difficult to obtain because public opinion was “inflamed” in favor of the strikers, and requested the trial be moved to the mainland. Rubinowitz agreed but added, “I desire to dissociate myself from the reflection cast upon the good name of the citizens of Nanaimo.” (NFP, Oct. 2)
A month later, dressed in lawyer’s robes, Rubinowitz stood before Judge Aulay Morrison in a Vancouver court. “I appear, my lord on behalf of Pryde and Moore,” he said, “and I ask that they, together with myself, be discharged.” Before the morning was over, a jury found the three men “not guilty.”
By this time, several of the 160 accused strikers had been sentenced, following “speedy trials” in Nanaimo. They pleaded guilty on the advice of lawyers Bird and Farris in the hope of appeasing the court.
The remaining accused, having pled “not guilty,” were being tried in New Westminister. Rubinowitz represented 23 clients, while Bird defended 34. Most were granted bail and, when their trials finally concluded in the spring of 1914, nine went to prison, while others received a suspended sentence or were released because of time already served. Twenty-two men were pardoned. The last union man was released from prison Sept. 25, 1914. The union had been broken and many striking miners were blacklisted and had to find jobs elsewhere.
Rubinowitz was still seeking vindication, despite his acquittal, suing the Nanaimo Herald publisher, J.R.H. Matson, and its editorial writer, R.R. Hindmarsh, for libel. Among the alleged statements was the suggestion Rubinowitz had been purposely “seeking notoriety” the day he was arrested in Nanaimo. The case was tried June 8, 1915, before Justice William Clement with Sidney Taylor, KC, representing Rubinowitz and Robert Reid defending the newspapermen. On the second day, a jury rendered a verdict in favor of Rubinowitz and the Herald was ordered to pay him $1,000 and legal costs.
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Israel Isidore Rubinowitz was the only child of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Louis and Toby Rubinowitz. The couple had been among thousands of Eastern European Jews emigrating to North America to seek better opportunities and escape the pogroms under Russian rule. Louis immigrated to New York City in 1879, at age 19, and traveled on to Pittsburgh, where many Lithuanian Jews had already settled. Two years later, he married Toby Rosenthal, and their son Israel was born in 1882. When Israel was 8, the family moved to Vancouver.
The couple were among the first Jews from Eastern Europe to settle in the city. David Oppenheimer, Vancouver’s second mayor, from 1888 to 1891, and a German Jew, represented the small population
of Western European Jews. Antisemitism does not appear to have been widely prevalent in the city’s early years. By the 1920s, this would change in Vancouver and elsewhere. Early tolerance of Jewish residents may be due in part to members of the dominant white population channeling their prejudicial treatment toward residents of Asian background. As well, only 83 Jewish people resided in Vancouver in 1891, increasing to 2,400 by 1931 – compared to 45,000 people in Toronto and 17,000 in Winnipeg.
Louis operated a grocery in Steveston with two partners. In 1894, his family lived in Gastown, the city’s first downtown core. In 1896, Louis opened a department store, Rubinowitz and Co., on the main floor of the five-storey Dominion Hotel, at the corner of Water and Abbott streets. He sold clothing, boots, shoes and other goods.
Sarah Rosenthal is buried separately from the Rubinowitzes, on the edge of the Jewish section of Mountain View Cemetery. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
That same year, Toby’s sister, Sarah, 23, arrived from New York, divorced, pregnant and severely depressed. She gave birth to a son, named Abraham, and they lived with the Rubinowitz family. Israel was 13 when his aunt took her life, drowning in Burrard Inlet. At the coroner’s inquest, which confirmed death was by suicide, it was discovered Sarah had been pregnant and had an abortion. The coroner attempted to discover who the man involved with Sarah could have been, but to no avail. Louis and Toby continued to care for Sarah’s son and gave him their surname.
While attending Vancouver High School and College, Rubinowitz helped his father in the store. He won academic awards in his senior year. He volunteered in the Duke of Connaught’s Own Rifles, a local militia that recruited from his high school. Following graduation with a bachelor of arts degree at McGill, Rubinowitz articled in two Vancouver law firms, his training temporarily postponed when he won a Rhodes scholarship – the second British Columbian to do so. He studied at Oxford University, then returned home to complete his articles. Attracted to England, Rubinowitz traveled overseas again to practise law for about two years before returning to Vancouver in 1911. He was admitted to the B.C. bar July 9, 1912.
Living with his parents, Rubinowitz had only a short distance to walk to his law office on Granville Street. He became a member of the Masonic order, continued his involvement with the Vancouver Zionist Society (of which he was a founding member) and, during the First World War, was active as secretary of the B.C. Red Cross.
When the First World War began in 1914, Sarah’s son, Abraham, was working as an electrician and carpenter. After the government implemented conscription in 1917, Abraham, 21, was drafted. Following his service, he moved to the United States.
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Rubinowitz had only been practising for a short time when, in May 1913, he took on the defence of a female nurse arrested for murder. Mrs. Ida Ironmonger, 43, was accused of administering drugs to Mrs. H.O. Anderson to induce an abortion, resulting in her death. Rubinowitz’s attempt to have his client released on bail pending the murder trial was unsuccessful. In October – only four days before his own trial in connection to the Nanaimo arrest – Rubinowitz convinced the court to reduce Ironmonger’s charge to “giving noxious drugs and aiding and abetting a deceased woman to commit an illegal operation.” In the four-day trial, Rubinowitz made the case, which included medical testimony, that “the act might have been committed by the deceased herself.” Ironmonger was acquitted after the jury deliberated a mere five minutes.
Until 1968, abortion was illegal in Canada under the Criminal Code. “There is no place in Canada for the professional abortionist,” Judge Murphy told the court in reference to another Rubinowitz client, Joseph Kallenthe, who was found guilty by a jury in a Vancouver court in 1915. The judge also noted of the accused, “I have no doubt from the skill you displayed that you have had much practice.” Rubinowitz urged mercy, stating it was Kallethe’s wife and two children “on whom the brunt of the punishment will fall,” and Kallethe was sentenced to three years in prison.
In 1918, Rubinowitz represented a couple who had taken out a marriage licence without a religious or secular ceremony. They had two children before learning they were not legally married. Rubinowitz corresponded with the B.C. attorney general’s office, stating it was “only fair, particularly to the woman, that every effort should be made to make the marriage valid and to make the children legitmate.” The government responded that the issue could only be remedied with a private member’s bill, an action his clients could not afford. The couple’s dilemma was submitted by letter to a newspaper editor, signed by a “Vancouver barrister.” This led a reader of the newspaper in the same predicament to write the attorney general. Consequently, the Marriage Act was amended, providing for the legitimization of children to couples in this legal situation.
Rubinowitz was presented with his most challenging cases in the midst of Canada’s 1918-1919 “red scare” era. The federal government had suspended civil liberties, enacting the War Measures Act during the First World War in pursuit of “enemy aliens.” In the social turmoil after the war, fear of an uprising similar to the Russian Revolution in 1917 led to a government crackdown on left-wing activists. Panic – real and imagined – culminated in the spring of 1919 with the Winnipeg General Strike. By June, as the strike was nearing an end, the government amended the Immigration Act. A newcomer to Canada could not be legally landed if suspected of subversive activities, as determined before an immigration board. The verdict rendered – behind closed doors – could not be challenged in a civil court.
A month following the amendment, 27 Russians in British Columbia were charged with participating in an anarchist ring connected to the Union of Russian Workers. Rubinowitz defended several of the accused. Secret service agents working with the Royal Northwest Mounted Police provided most of the evidence for the prosecution. After the hearings, the board ordered the deportation of 14 of the 27 men.
Bird’s son, Henry, also a lawyer, acted for the local defence committee. He appealed the cases to the Ministry of the Interior. It was agreed that one of the accused would not be deported but had to report regularly to the police. In October, the other 13 Russians were sent to an internment camp at Vernon to await further arrangements.
Rubinowitz instigated a perjury charge against two of the secret agents, accusing them of giving false evidence to the immigration board against three of the accused. Rubinowitz pointed out that the immigration board had taken away rights guaranteed by the Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus Act, such as trial by jury and release on bail. He also criticized the board’s composition of appointees, stating they were not familiar with law. Judge Morrison and the Crown lawyer “severely” rapped him for saying fair play had not been done. The judge said the act “was really a war measure” and necessary “for the preservation of the nation.”
On Jan. 14, 1920, the case was moved to a higher court. Meantime, the detention camp in Vernon was closed. One of the 13 accused was released on parole and the others were transported to the B.C. penitentiary.
In May, the two secret agents were acquitted, the judge deciding the evidence had not been sufficient to sustain a charge. Rubinowitz was ordered to pay $2,000 in court costs.
The 12 imprisoned Russians were paroled that December but never deported because the government was unable to find a country willing to accept them. Considered a victory for left-wing activists, these detentions and those elsewhere in Canada had nevertheless served to send an intimidating message to politically active immigrants.
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Rubinowitz was a 41-year-old bachelor when he developed acute bronchopneumonia in the spring of 1923. In the early morning of Aug. 15, he died in his parents’ home. The burial was held the following day.
Israel Rubinowitz died on Aug. 15, 1923, and is buried alongside his parents in Mountain View Cemetery. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
News of his death came as a “distinct shock” to members of the legal community, who responded with an “overflow of high esteem,” according to a newspaper account. He was described as a shrewd lawyer, quick to spot a weakness in an opponent’s argument, as well as considerate, courteous and kindly “even in the heat of battle.”
His parents carried on. Louis ran unsuccessfully for mayor three times and for alderman five times over the ensuing years. He “achieved a reputation as an eccentric and perhaps this is why he was not a recognized leader of the [Jewish] community,” observed a writer for the Jewish Independent’s predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin.
In 1939, Louis visited Vancouver archivist James Matthews to set down his stories.
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The Rubinowitzes are buried together in the Jewish section of Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery. Toby passed away in 1952, aged 90. Louis entered a provincial home for the aged in Coquitlam a few years after his wife died, passing on in 1958 at age 98. Sarah is buried separately on the edge of the Jewish section.
Janet Nicol is a history teacher at Killarney Secondary School in Vancouver and a freelance writer, with a special interest in local history. She blogs at janetnicol.wordpress.com. The writing of this history – which will be published in greater length in the 2016 edition of The Scribe – was inspired by the novel The Sacrifice by Adele Wiseman (1928-1992). In the words of its protagonist, the family patriarch, Abraham: “… and yet there was a time, I think, when I had everything … but now, when I look back, I had at least the beginning of everything.”
