Left to right: Esther Mogyoros, King David High School director of development; Shannon Gorski, PAC co-chair; speaker Josh Shipp; and Teaching for Tomorrow co-chairs Gaby Lutrin and Elaine Grobman. (photo from KDHS)
“What’s the difference between a watermelon and a cloud?” Josh Shipp asked the crowd. “Three percent. A watermelon is 94% water and a cloud is 97% water. All that separates them is three percent, but that little difference makes all the difference in the world. That little difference can be all that separates you from being average and being extraordinary.”
Shipp, a “teen expert” and motivational speaker, who graduated from Stanford and has lectured at Harvard and MIT, was speaking at Teaching for Tomorrow, an annual celebration of King David High School (KDHS), on May 17.
KDHS, which has 220 students and expects continued growth, is British Columbia’s only Jewish high school and one of six outside of Toronto. It is also one of the most successful Jewish high schools in Canada from the perspective of having growing enrolment each year.
The auditorium at the Chan Centre was packed, flanked on both sides by galleries full of KDHS students. After an introduction by emcee Liam Sasky, a Grade 12 student, the audience heard a concise, warm and humorous speech from school head Russ Klein. A musical interlude followed, with a duet about friends struggling with the romance that’s broken out between them. Following that came a video about KDHS and its values, focusing on the experience of current students and alumni – the students interviewed emphasized the sense of community at KDHS, and the feeling that they were known and valued personally at the school.
After that came the main event. Shipp was notable for his ability to get raucous laughter from the teens, who he seemed to hold in the palm of his hand throughout his talk. He peppered his speech with memorable images and questions, tech and pop culture references, and self-deprecating humor. Shipp, who was abandoned as a child and grew up a troubled delinquent in a series of foster homes, spoke candidly of his own horrific experiences of abuse and trauma. At the centre of his speech was the role that one caring adult can play; in his life, this was his foster father Rodney, who refused to reject Shipp, saving his life and turning it around. “All of you can be a Rodney to someone,” said Shipp. “Every child, every teenager, every human being is one caring adult away from success.”
Shipp challenged students to reach out to a “Rodney” in their own lives within 24 hours and say “thank you,” something Shipp said took him nine years to do after the day his Rodney turned his life around. Shipp also had a warning for students: face your ghosts.
“You guys are pretty serious here,” Shipp said. “I know it. I watched the propaganda video. You need to be unafraid to seek help for the things that are holding you back. This can be a problem in high-achieving communities like this. Don’t be afraid to seem weak, because talking about these things is not weak – it’s courageous.”
Matthew Gindinis a Vancouver freelance writer and journalist. He blogs on spirituality and social justice at seeking her voice (hashkata.com) and has been published in the Forward, Tikkun, Elephant Journal and elsewhere.
Rebecca Denham, director of services for Jewish Addiction Community Service of Vancouver. (photo by Wendy Oberlander)
The first comprehensive effort to reach Jewish individuals suffering from addictions launched this month in Vancouver when the Jewish Addiction Community Service of Vancouver came into being. Its goal is to approach substance abuse issues – specifically alcohol and drugs – within a Jewish context.
The first two services being offered by JACS Vancouver are a support group for families living with substance abuse and navigational support, to help direct individuals and families to the right channels in the support system, whether they want access to recovery programs, counseling or other resources. But those services will expand rapidly to include community education and awareness building.
“We want to teach people how to identify when someone is in trouble with substance abuse, and to get them to the right services,” said Rebecca Denham, director of services for JACS, who will be providing assistance from an office at JHub in Richmond (8171 Cook Rd., Suite 212).
Denham is planning to do this outreach at schools, synagogues and camps by hosting events that promote awareness. “We want to start conversations” she said, “because that’s where it has to begin: people talking about addiction, where they’re seeing it and how substances are being used and abused.”
Calls for assistance are beginning to come in as Denham reaches out to Lower Mainland addiction service providers, psychologists and counselors to inform them that JACS exists and the kind of support it offers.
“We want to let people in the Jewish community know that there will be services that incorporate their traditions and values, and acknowledge that some of their circumstances may be unique,” she explained. If someone needs to enter a treatment facility, JACS would like to ensure they have access to kosher food and rabbinical support, if they want it. When they’re exiting such facilities, JACS can offer help on moving back to the community safely, and on how to attend Jewish events that may incorporate alcohol, for example.
Denham, an Ottawa native with 15 years’ experience in mental health, addiction and youth at risk, moved to Vancouver in 2010 and worked with Jewish Family Service Agency in its mental health outreach program. She is available to take calls for appointments Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
JACS Vancouver will offer some of the programs provided by JACS Toronto, founded some 15 years ago. There are other JACS programs in cities including Winnipeg, Seattle and Chicago, and Denham is looking forward to partnering with Jewish services across North America and emulating some of their successful programs.
JACS Vancouver’s funders include the Jewish Community Foundation, the Betty Averbach Foundation, the Diamond Foundation, the Kahn Foundation, the Al Roadburg Foundation and the Snider Foundation, as well as private donors. For more information, call 778-882-2994 or email [email protected].
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
Alcohol use in Canada – data from Health Canada
The following are excerpts on alcohol use from the Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey, which was an annual general population survey of alcohol and illicit drug use among Canadians aged 15 years and older that ran from 2008 through 2012. There is much more information contained in this survey, which can be accessed at hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/drugs-drogues/stat/_2012/summary-sommaire-eng.php. The Independent was referred to it by Rebecca Denham, director of services for Jewish Addiction Community Service of Vancouver.
In 2012, 78.4% of Canadians reported drinking alcohol in the past year. Similar to previous years, in 2012, a higher percentage of males than females reported past-year alcohol use (82.7% versus 74.4%, respectively) while the prevalence of past-year drinking among adults aged 25 years and older (80%) was higher than among youth (70%).
In November 2011, the Canadian federal, provincial and territorial health ministers received Canada’s Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines, which consist of five guidelines and a series of tips. Low-risk drinking guideline 1 (chronic) is defined as people who drink “no more than 10 drinks a week for women, with no more than two drinks a day most days and 15 drinks a week for men, with no more than three drinks a day most days. Plan non-drinking days every week to avoid developing a habit.” Low-risk drinking guideline 2 (acute) is defined as those who drink “no more than three drinks (for women) or four drinks (for men) on any single occasion. Plan to drink in a safe environment. Stay within the weekly limits outlined [in guideline 1].”
In 2012, among people who consumed alcohol in the past 12 months, 18.6% (representing 14.4% of the total population) exceeded guideline 1 for chronic effects and 12.8% (9.9% of the total population) exceeded guideline 2 for acute effects. A higher percentage of males than females drank in patterns that exceeded both guidelines.
The guidelines were exceeded by youth aged 15 to 24 years at higher rates than among adults aged 25 years and older. One in four (24.4%) youth drinkers versus 17.6% of adult drinkers exceeded the guideline for chronic risk, while the acute-risk guideline was exceeded by 17.9% of youth drinkers and 11.9% of adult drinkers.
In 2012, for the first time, CADUMS asked about four harms people may have experienced in the past 12 months due to someone else’s alcohol use. Types of harm include being verbally abused, feeling threatened, being emotionally hurt or neglected and being physically hurt. One in seven (14.2%) Canadians aged 15 years and older experienced at least one of these harms as a result of another person’s drinking. Verbal abuse was the harm reported by the largest percentage of Canadians (8.9%), followed by being emotionally hurt or neglected (7.1%) and feeling threatened (6.3%), while being physically hurt was experienced by 2.2%.
The Open Hearts, Closed Doors exhibit combines placards of mixed visual and textual material. (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)
“One out of every 122 people alive currently is displaced. That means 60 million people,” says Phillipa Friedland, education coordinator at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
Friedland is explaining the idea behind the current exhibit at the VHEC, Open Hearts, Closed Doors: The War Orphans Project, which was originally mounted in 1997. According to the centre’s website, it is “being re-presented to provide opportunities for visitors to engage with Canadian immigration policies from a historical perspective, using case studies of Holocaust survivors from the local community.”
The exhibit – which runs to June 30 – serves as a testament and warning about the vulnerability of children in times of communal violence. It is also a memorial to the incredible resilience of so many of survivors. The words of survivor Regina Feldman are written above one of the displays: “People were saying that we were free. I didn’t know what freedom meant. Where do you go, what do you do, who will take you? I was 13 years old.”
Beautifully done recreations of photo albums tell the stories of the survivors featured. (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)
Open Hearts, Closed Doors reports the staggering statistic that of the 1.6 million Jewish children in Europe in 1938, only 100,000 survived. The exhibit combines general education about those who survived as orphans with a presentation of the experiences of nine war orphans – Esther Brandt, Marie Rozen Doduck, David Ehrlich, Regina Feldman, Bill Gluck, Celina Lieberman, Leo Lowy, Leslie Spiro and Robbie Waisman – who were among the 1,123 granted permission to enter Canada in 1947.
Permission for the orphans to come to Canada came through a special Order in Council, which bypassed Canada’s racist immigration policies of the time. These restrictive policies had been developed and enforced by then-director of Canada’s Immigration Branch Frederick Charles Blair. Canada had the worst record among destination countries for Jewish refugees: only 5,000 Jews were accepted as refugees between 1933 and 1939. Between 1945 and 1948, among the 65,000 refugees allowed into Canada, only 8,000 were Jews. Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president, remarked in 1938, “The world seemed divided into two parts: those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter.”
The 1,123 orphans of 1947 were allowed into the country on the condition that Canadian Jews take full responsibility for them. Most of the orphans came through the port of Halifax at Pier 21 and boarded trains for 38 communities across the country. The majority of the orphans, more than 790 of them, settled in Montreal and Toronto; 38 settled in British Columbia, four of whom are still alive.
Most foster families were hoping for young children, preferably girls, but the majority of those who had managed to survive were older boys: 70% were adolescent boys and only 37 of the children were under 10 years of age. The orphans came from 15 different European countries, 783 from concentration camps and 229 who survived in hiding. The resettlement project was a massive undertaking practically and psychologically, for both the orphans and their new families. The success of that undertaking can be seen in the amazing lives that so many of the refugees lived.
“This entire exhibit is about resilience,” said Friedland. In the 1950s, psychiatrists who interviewed the surviving orphans offered a bleak prognosis: these were damaged people, their ability to adapt would be limited and they would likely not live long lives. Yet, as they aged, juvenile delinquency was practically nonexistent among them. Multilingual, they quickly picked up English. As the VHEC exhibit states, “Many became not only productive members of the community but its pillars.”
Open Hearts, Closed Doors combines placards of visual and textual material with beautifully done recreations of photo albums telling the stories of the nine survivors featured. A lone glass case contains a single child’s shoe taken from an innocent sent to the gas chambers.
True to its inspiration, the exhibit does not limit its focus to the past but looks to the present and future as well. A map on one wall of the exhibit shows regions throughout the world most at risk of genocide according to the Early Warning Project. These include Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and others.
Open Hearts, Closed Doors perfectly fulfils the mandate of a Holocaust exhibit: it remembers the horrors and heroism of the Shoah while pointing us towards the need to protect the vulnerable everywhere.
Matthew Gindinis a Vancouver freelance writer and journalist. He blogs on spirituality and social justice at seeking her voice (hashkata.com) and has been published in the Forward, Tikkun, Elephant Journal and elsewhere.
Dmitry Rusak with Diane MacKenzie win first place silver level at the Grand Ballroom Competition in Richmond on June 23, 2012. (photo from Dmitry Rusak)
Crimea may seem an unlikely place to embark on a journey into the world of competitive dance, but that is exactly where Dmitry Rusak discovered his passion and launched an international career.
Rusak, a local ballroom and Latin dance instructor, was born and raised in the city of Sevastopol. He began ballroom dance lessons at the age of 7 after a well-known (Jewish) dance instructor and his wife had moved into town and opened a dance school. Rusak’s father – a ballroom dancer himself – encouraged the young boy to take lessons. By the age of 10, Rusak was hooked. He decided to forgo other interests, such as soccer and swimming, in order to commit to dance. He hasn’t looked back.
Rusak’s first dance partner was a girl named Helena. She would bus an hour each way to attend lessons at the school. When they were 10 years old, the pair started to travel around the former Soviet Union to compete in both ballroom and Latin dance. They danced together for approximately five years, progressing through the different divisions and often placing first. They also competed in formation dance, a style of ballroom dance that is characterized by eight couples shadow dancing in a formation team. In fact, Rusak’s first international competition was in formation dance, which took him to Germany at the age of 17.
After high school, Rusak served his two years of mandatory military service as a dancer in the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Black Sea Fleet. The troupe focused on national dance so, when traveling abroad to perform, Rusak was given special dispensation to join his former partners from the Sevastopol dance school to compete in ballroom dance.
After completing his army service, Rusak made plans to move to Israel in search of better opportunities than those that existed in Crimea. He made aliyah at 21 and describes it as an easy process. Although he missed his family, the transition was facilitated by his connection to a Jewish Moldovan dance instructor with a studio in Bat Yam.
Rusak settled in Holon, integrated into the dance community and partnered with a dancer named Viktoria, also originally from Crimea – the two were already acquainted from having competed against each other in earlier years. They married three years after becoming dance partners and, by this time, Rusak’s parents and brother had joined him in Israel.
Rusak lived in Israel for 15 years. During that time, he and his dance partners were Israel’s reigning champions in ballroom, Latin and Ten Dance (waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, tango and Viennese waltz, along with rumba, samba, paso doble, cha-cha-cha and jive). He competed internationally for many years, including in Holland, France and Germany, and won prizes and accolades at each turn.
Rusak had a studio in Rishon LeZion, where he taught ballroom dance to approximately 100 students of all ages, from young children to septuagenarians.
In 2010, Rusak and his wife decided to move to Canada. The financial crisis of 2008 had taken a toll on the viability of the dance studio and Rusak was keen to take his skills elsewhere. The couple also was tired of the matzav, or situation, and wanted to raise their children somewhere more peaceful. Laughing, Rusak added that they found Israel’s climate “too hot” and struggled to adapt because “the mentality is so different.”
The couple settled in Burnaby, where they have family. Since their arrival, Rusak has been teaching group and private lessons at dance studios in Burnaby and Vancouver, including at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCCGV).
For the past three years, Jewish community members Aron and Neri Tischler have been taking ballroom and Latin dance lessons with Rusak at the JCCGV. The couple, married for almost 34 years, was motivated to take group lessons because they “thought it would be fun to have a regular date night and learn something new together.” When they discovered that they “really enjoyed Dmitry’s lessons, dancing with one another, and wanted to get better,” they decided to take private lessons as well, to “ensure couple time and improve our dancing.”
Neri Tischler said Rusak “breaks down the steps so well that even the clumsiest person can catch on!” Moreover, she added, the women in her class refer to the lesson as “therapy” because it “takes you out of everything that is going on in your life, forces you to focus on the beat of the music, the steps and your partner, and just be in the moment, which is pure joy.”
Rusak’s dance skills are varied. He choreographs wedding dances for couples and teaches ballroom and Latin dance to students of all ages and abilities, including those in wheelchairs. In addition to private and group lessons for adults, his plans for the fall include ballroom dance classes for children as well as for women interested in participating in pro-am (professional-amateur) competitions across Canada. He prides himself on working to meet the different goals and needs of various students, including improving strength, endurance, coordination, posture and sense of rhythm. He believes that “being active and able to perform meaningful dance movements to different musical rhythms is necessary for the harmonious and balanced development of a person and their dance skills.”
Rusak described life in Canada as “great” and reserved special accolades for Vancouver’s Jewish community, who “welcomed us here and helped us to get settled.” He enjoys teaching at the JCCGV for two main reasons, he said. First, he recognizes the influence of his Jewish dance instructors on his career and he is eager to share his skills and passion with members of the Jewish community. Second, he is impressed by the level of commitment of his students at the community centre, many of whom he has taught for several years – their skills will be on display at the Dena Wosk School of Performing Arts year-end show on June 5.
For more information on dance classes with Rusak, call him at 778-928-4086, email him at [email protected] or visit ballroom4u.com.
Alexis Pavlichis a Vancouver-based freelance writer.
High-tech entrepreneur Galya Westler is at TEDxStanleyPark on May 28. (photo from Galya Westler)
The social media available to help us connect with one another are ever-increasing, but they are not always effective. In fact, they often have the opposite effect – when we realize the relations they engender are illusory, we experience feelings of loneliness and inadequacy. So says Galya Westler, a local high-tech entrepreneur, who is creating a simpler, more intimate solution to connect people with their respective communities.
In keeping with the theme of “Ideas to Action,” Westler – along with 14 other local thought leaders – will take the stage at the third annual TEDxStanleyPark on May 28 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. She will deliver a talk entitled Social Media Obesity and Loneliness. She will discuss the growing phenomenon of social media addiction, recount her personal experiences in trying to connect with others during a particularly traumatic period in her life and explore how to use technology to overcome a social media addiction.
According to Westler, too many people suffer from what she terms “social media obesity,” or an addiction to social media, and are “pigging out on selfies of attention.” Moreover, in their effort to be noticed, social media addicts often lose appreciation of how they act in the online world – and exaggerations serve only to enhance the gap between online personas and reality. The ultimate consequence: feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, depression and loneliness.
Westler examines the subject from the point of view of a social media developer with a decade of experience in creating or enhancing online communities. This summer, she will launch Plazus Mobile Social App Builder, her most ambitious social media application platform to date.
Born in Montreal, Westler grew up in Ra’anana after her Israeli parents returned home upon her father’s completion of his PhD at the University of Montreal.
She served as a commander of a radar post in the Gaza Strip during her mandatory military service with the Israel Defence Forces. She describes her experience as “amazing” and “life-changing.” Introverted and lacking confidence in high school, she said her army service – carried out in a male-dominated environment – enabled her to blossom into an outgoing and hardworking soldier who rose to challenges. She would carry this learned lesson with her as she pursued higher education.
Despite an affinity for the humanities, Westler enrolled in Shenkar College’s four-year software engineering program. She had been counseled to do so by her father, a senior high-tech professional in Israel, who told her: “If you study software engineering, the doors will open for you.”
The program was challenging and Westler struggled – not only with the material, but also with the pressure from those around her who suggested she give up and drop out. This discouragement only strengthened her resolve and she persevered to finish the program. Of the 40 students who had enrolled with her, only 11 completed their studies. Westler was the only female graduate.
After a year of working in Israel’s high-tech industry, Westler decided to move back to Canada, settling in British Columbia. She worked for a number of tech companies before opting to incorporate her own, giving her the independence she sought. “I did the corporate-ladder thing, but never quite fit in,” she said.
Since incorporating her first company, 2Galvanize Ltd., in 2008, Westler has built close to 100 websites, mobile applications and backend systems for different companies, including the Yellow Pages. She specializes in creating private social “ecosystems,” or networks, that enable people to communicate on an “authentic” level, unlike other social media sites that she describes as too big and overwhelming to navigate and digest. Her mission is to create systems that support efforts that enable people to communicate in a manner emblematic of times past: “more intimate, more humbly and, very importantly, in small groups.” This led to her involvement with Bazinga, an app that connects building residents to their strata councils, and Wag Around, an app that connects dog owners and facilitates interactions offline.
Simplifying genuine communication between people and their respective communities is what motivates Westler to develop new tools. “The reason I do the work I do is because I truly want to connect people, and the best way to do that is to give them an excuse to connect based on common interests,” she explained.
Westler’s newest commercial development, Plazus Mobile Social App Builder, applies the principle of connecting people in the business realm as a means of facilitating dialogue or enhancing brand. The name combines the words “plaza” and “us,” a tongue-in-cheek homage to more traditional ways of communicating.
Set to launch at the end of June, Plazus is a B2B (business to business) social media tool that will provide a company or organization with an easy, structured and relatively inexpensive way to connect with their customers and communities in their own social ecosystems. It seeks to do this functionally, interactively and in an esthetically appealing manner.
Westler is filled with anticipation as her two seed investors, a team of 10 techies and more than 60 early-adopter customers, eagerly await the launch of Plazus Technologies’ beta product.
Westler credits many of her entrepreneurial successes in Canada to her Israeli chutzpah. Although she misses Israel, particularly Tel Aviv’s culture and lifestyle, and acknowledges that research and development thrives in Israel because of wonderful talent, she said that her seven years in Vancouver have been “amazing … it’s paradise.”
Westler’s goal is to continue to grow her business and open offices in both Vancouver and Tel Aviv, which would enable her to travel regularly between the two places in the world she loves most.
She said it is important for her to stay connected to Israel for both personal and professional reasons, and she has spoken in Israel about her work and her entrepreneurial path on more than one occasion, including to a women’s Lean In Circle at Google’s office in Tel Aviv and at StarTAU, Tel Aviv University’s Entrepreneurship Centre.
True to her commitment to connect individuals with like-minded community members, Westler herself is involved in a number of different groups and causes. She serves as president of the Vancouver Entrepreneurs Toastmasters Club and is active in several other local business organizations.
Achinoam Nini performs for a full house at the Chan Centre on Yom Ha’atzmaut, May 11. (photo from cjnews.com)
Despite the controversy in the months leading up to her Yom Ha’atzmaut performance at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on May 11, Noa’s concert attracted a full house and every one of the 1,185 seats was sold.
“After all the harrowing events leading up to this concert, I am so thrilled to be here and truly grateful to the Jewish Federation [of Greater Vancouver] for not folding and the Israeli ambassador for supporting!” the Israeli singer, whose full name is Achinoam Nini, posted on her Facebook page soon after she touched down in the city.
Performing barefoot throughout, the singer thanked the audience, Federation staff and the Vancouver Jewish community repeatedly during her show “for sticking up for me.”
In February, the Jewish National Fund of Canada, an annual sponsor of Vancouver’s community Yom Ha’atzmaut concerts, withdrew its support, saying it would take a one-year hiatus “due to the views of the entertainment booked for this year’s celebration.”
The organization’s chief executive officer, Josh Cooper, said “the entertainer that has been hired does not reflect nor correspond to the mandate and values of JNF of Canada.” Its decision followed an article in the Jerusalem Post, later retracted, that claimed Vancouver Jews were “outraged” over Nini’s performance and alleged that she supports the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. She has repeatedly denied the allegation.
After JNF Canada withdrew, the Israeli embassy and the Consulate General of Israel in Toronto stepped in as sponsors. Irit Stopper, deputy consul general in Toronto, represented the state of Israel at the event. It was also attended by Linda Kislowicz, president and CEO of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, Vancouver City Councilor Geoff Meggs and Burnaby-Lougheed NDP MLA Jane Shin.
Outside the Chan Centre, Michael Brosgart, president of the Jewish Defence League in British Columbia, stood with a handful of supporters and a few placards declaring “Terrorists are obstacles to peace; Biblical Zionists are not.”
A folding table held pictures of an Israeli couple murdered by Palestinian terrorists, and Brosgart distributed material to bystanders. The pages contained excerpts from letters expressing objections to Nini’s performance from community member Frances Belzberg and Israel Defence Forces Lt.-Col. Eyal Platek, as well as links to articles about the singer.
“Noa is supporting the most divisive groups in Israel – B’tselem, Breaking the Silence, BDS and JStreet,” Brosgart said. “Unfortunately, Jewish Federation and the Israeli embassy, because they’re funding this, are supporting her. We think this is rotting the Jewish community.”
On JDL’s Facebook page Brosgart elaborated. “This performance will be extremely divisive, distasteful, disrespectful and does not represent the views and interests of the community. Especially at the time we need unity the most. This is not about free speech. Nini can sing her sh—y songs anywhere she wants. However, this is Israel’s Independence Day. To bring an anti-Israel, terror-sympathizing, enemy-strengthening performer on this day is to spit in the face of all who have lost loved ones defending the nation of Israel.”
One Israeli who attended the concert but asked not to be named said she disliked that Nini “does not separate her political views from her artistry. I’m sorry the selection committee didn’t do more research before they chose her, but I think they learned a lesson,” the woman said.
After seeing the Facebook responses of Israelis in Vancouver opposed to the performance, she decided to attend nevertheless. She added that, once Nini was invited to Vancouver, “I think it was the best thing to keep her here instead of canceling the performance.”
The kosher restaurant Shuk Eat & Play hosted an alternative Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration dinner for 110 attendees the same night.
“I heard Noa’s political sayings and I didn’t appreciate it,” said Shuk owner Alon Volodarsky. “So, some people who didn’t like her suggested we hold this dinner for those community members who still wanted to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut but didn’t want to attend the concert.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net. This article was originally published in the Canadian Jewish News.
Grade 6 students from Vancouver Talmud Torah – Sophie Chelin, Ava Abramowich, Sayde Shuster, Ruth Nahmad and Rachel Seguin – do the blessing over the candles at an interfaith Shabbat dinner on May 6. (photo by Jennifer Shecter-Balin)
The joy of learning, the excitement of meeting new people, the comfort of community, the satisfaction of a job well done. All of these energies filled the room at Congregation Beth Israel on May 6. And, while that Shabbat dinner marked the culmination of Vancouver Talmud Torah’s Grade 6 Term 2 Tikkun Olam course, it seemed like a beginning as well.
With the knowledge and relationships gained and curiosity and compassion further engrained, these students now have an even more solid foundation from which to carry on their interfaith connections and broaden their experiences beyond the Belief project.
The initiative of Jennifer Shecter-Balin, director of admissions and communications at VTT, who guided the students with Grade 6 humanities and tikkun olam teacher Meghan Davey, the project was inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s seven-part Belief series.
Every week, students watched an episode of the series, explained Shecter-Balin in an email to the Independent. They then “completed related assignments and activities to both deepen their own connection to Judaism and broaden their understanding of other world religions and belief systems.”
“Each week, we journeyed across the globe to learn about different streams of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and other non-traditional beliefs systems,” she explained to those gathered on May 6. “In addition to gaining further grounding in their Judaism, our students expanded their perspectives and worldviews through learning about myriad different spiritual practices, rituals and beliefs.”
“Throughout the term,” added Davey, “we broadened our vocabulary and learned terms such as monotheism, agnosticism and atheism…. We debated the merits of arranged marriages; we compared the divinely inspired versus the scientific; and we discussed the concept of miracles and what constitutes one. But most satisfying was the fact that the students all agreed that being alive and having one’s health is indeed miraculous.”
Davey also noted that, “They have learned to identify similarities across the religions – the importance of water for purification in so many traditions, for example – as well as significant differences between the major world faiths.”
For the course’s final assignment, students had to interview someone of a faith other than Judaism and then write about that person’s beliefs and influences.
“For many students, this was their first time ever interviewing an adult and someone of a considerably different background to them,” said Shecter-Balin.
The result is a nicely designed spiral-bound book of essays on the 40 interviews conducted. A copy of the book was placed at every Shabbat table and Shecter-Balin invited guests – the students’ families and many of the interviewees – to read through it.
“Like us,” she said, “you’ll learn about a host of beliefs, practices and unique life experiences, and you’ll read our students’ enthusiastic reflections about this assignment. Most importantly, their hearts and minds have further opened without compromising the integrity of who they are or where they’re from. In fact, we believe it will only serve to strengthen their identity.”
For many of the guests, the dinner was their first time in a synagogue and their first time attending a Shabbat dinner. Sharing this experience and more about Judaism, said Shecter-Balin, is a way to continue to build bridges of understanding. “This, we believe, is tikkun olam, or the Jewish commandment to repair the world,” she said.
Davey thanked all the parent volunteers who helped prepare the meal with Shlomo and Hagar Yekutieli; VTT head of school Cathy Lowenstein and assistant head of school Jessica Neville “for their support with this initiative and trusting us to think a bit outside the box”; Ellen Wiesenthal, VTT’s director of curriculum and programming, who led everyone in a few Shabbat songs after the blessings; and Beth Israel’s Gaynor Levin, for her help in planning and organizing the dinner.
Lowenstein said a few thanks of her own, including to Beth Israel Rabbi Jonathan Infeld for being so welcoming. She also introduced Rabbi Marc Kasten and his family, who came to Vancouver for the weekend. Kasten – who is currently at Temple Beth Am Day School in Miami – will start in August as VTT’s new school rabbi and director of Jewish life and learning. He spoke about some of the Shabbat rituals before they were fulfilled, mainly by the students: the singing of L’Cha Dodi, the candlelighting, the blessing of the children by their parents, the Kiddush and Hamotzi.
The next step in the project, Shecter-Balin said, is “to send a copy of the book to Oprah along with notes from the students sharing their personal reflections of watching the video series.”
Robbie Waisman, left, and Éloge Butera will be the keynote speakers on May 26. (photo from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre)
At a first-in-a-decade gala dinner this month, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre will mark three significant anniversaries.
“It’s more than 40 years since the first Holocaust symposium for high school students at the University of B.C.,” said Nina Krieger, VHEC’s executive director. “It is more than 30 years since survivors of the Holocaust formed the Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society for Remembrance and Education with the vision of creating a permanent legacy in the form of a teaching museum. And it is now just over 20 years since the doors to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre opened.”
Krieger said it seemed like an appropriate time to invite the community to celebrate the achievements of the past, learn about the diverse programs in which the centre is currently engaged and also the ambitious plans for the future. The event, titled Looking Back … Moving Forward, takes place May 26, 5:30 p.m., at Congregation Beth Israel.
“As an organization, we are at a turning point,” she said. “What started as a small Holocaust museum on the edge of the continent has grown into an institution that is renowned in its field for innovative, impactful pedagogy, exhibits, programs and collections.”
Thanks to a grant from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and a legacy gift from the estate of Edwina and Paul Heller, she said, the centre is digitizing its artifacts and archival collections, including one of the earliest extensive collections of audiovisual survivor testimonies.
“When Dr. Rob Krell began interviewing survivors on videotape in the 1970s, he was among the first to do so in North America,” Krieger said. “The collection now includes more than 200 testimonies, which have been shared with other archives, including Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, and are currently catalogued into a new VHEC system that will support access to these first-person accounts of the Holocaust.
“With these digitization projects, we are going to be able to reach exponentially more scholars, students and members of the general public in Vancouver, in Canada and around the world,” she continued. “The impact we can have on Holocaust studies will be enormously increased. More importantly, thousands more people will be able to access our impressive collections. Furthermore, thanks to a related project in which we are developing complementary pedagogical materials, educators worldwide will be able to access multimedia teaching resources at age-appropriate levels to share this history in impactful ways.”
Krieger said Looking Back … Moving Forward will introduce attendees to the power of firsthand eyewitness testimony. The keynote speakers will be Robbie Waisman, a survivor of the Holocaust, and Éloge Butera, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Their stories of survival are examples of the kinds of VHEC programs that reach more than 25,000 B.C. students annually.
The event is also intended as an opportunity for attendees to learn about the breadth of VHEC programming.
“People are often surprised at the diversity of the programs and services we deliver,” Krieger said.
Earlier this month, the 41st annual Symposium on the Holocaust at UBC brought about 1,000 students from across Metro Vancouver to the university for two days of meetings with Holocaust survivors and historians. In addition to this annual event, VHEC now delivers similar “satellite” programs in 10 school districts and sends outreach speakers to schools all year round. Teachers’ conferences, learning resources and hands-on Discovery Kits help teachers educate about the Holocaust at age-appropriate levels. School groups and the general public visit VHEC to experience locally and internationally developed exhibits. Survivors access services including financial, medical and social supports. Scholars and other researchers use Western Canada’s largest collections of Holocaust-related materials. Four annual commemorative events – International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, the High Holidays cemetery service and the Kristallnacht Commemorative Lecture – provide opportunities for both mourning and learning.
“We hope that attendees of Looking Back … Moving Forward will come away with a deeper appreciation of the work we are doing,” Krieger said. “And with our deep appreciation that everything we accomplish is due to the support of people who understand the value of what we are doing.”
The event is co-chaired by Mariette Doduck, Shoshana Lewis and Helen Heacock Rivers. Honorary chairs are the four past presidents of the organization: Waisman, Krell, Rita Akselrod and Jody Dales. For tickets, visit vhec.org.
Pat Johnson is communications and development consultant at Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, as well as a member of the Independent’s editorial board.
Hootsuite’s Ryan Holmes speaks to an attendee at the Innovators Lunch on May 4. (photo by Sandra Steier)
More than 550 people at the Jewish Family Service Agency’s Innovators Lunch on May 4 raised more than $266,000 for the important services JFSA provides.
Starting the event at the Hyatt Regency, featuring Hoosuite founder and chief executive officer Ryan Holmes, was Beth Israel Rabbi Jonathan Infeld who, before the motzi, said a few words about volunteer Elayne Shapray, whose funeral had been that morning. Incoming JFSA board chair Karen James also spoke about Shapray’s contributions, noting that she had been “honored with the highest volunteer award from JFSA, the Paula Lenga Award, for her quiet strength and years of support.”
Innovators Lunch committee members, left to right, Shannon Ezekiel, Hillary Cooper and committee chair Sherri Wise with keynote speaker Ryan Holmes, CEO and founder of Hootsuite. (photo by Sandra Steier)
When event chair Dr. Sherri Wise took to the podium, she thanked everyone involved in making the lunch possible, including her co-chairs, Shannon Ezekiel and Hillary Cooper. Richard Fruchter, senior management consultant at JFSA, added his thanks and, after a video about JFSA’s impact, introduced Dr. Neil Pollock who, with his wife Michelle, matched all new and increased donations to the lunch up to $20,000.
Pollock spoke about his family’s involvement with JFSA. In particular, he spoke about Dorita Flasker, who came to Vancouver from South America as a senior, having had all her wealth expropriated by her home country’s government. In the years since JFSA connected them, she and the Pollocks have become family, and they all recently celebrated her 80th birthday together.
Shay Keil of Keil Investment Group of ScotiaMcLeod, one of the lunch’s co-presenting sponsors, introduced the keynote speaker. Holmes founded Hootsuite in 2008, said Keil, taking the company from a small startup “to a global leader in social media with over 13 million users, including 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies.”
“My parents were both teachers – they left teaching in the ’70s to get back to the land, to become farmers,” said Holmes. “They bought a hobby farm. I grew up with goats, chickens … kerosene lamps, a water well in the Okanagan Valley.”
He discovered computers – “magical things” – at the library. The librarian noticed his enthusiasm and suggested he enter a schoolwide programming contest. Two months later, he won the contest – the prize, an Apple IIc computer, which had to be connected to the family car’s battery, as their home had no electricity.
His first business was a paintball company he started in high school. He went to university to study business, but dropped out and opened a pizza place, which he ran for a couple of years. After selling the restaurant, he moved to Vancouver, bought a computer and started learning how to build HTML websites. He got a job at a dot-com that crashed about six months later, so founded his own agency, Invoke. He continued to learn his craft and eventually hired employees. They had customers to whom they would provide computing services and they built a number of products, such as product-management and e-commerce systems.
“Around 2008, we started to do marketing on social media for our customers,” he said. “What we realized very quickly was that there weren’t very many tools out there to manage social media…. We needed a tool to help manage multiple team members and multiple social networks all from one place, and that was the aha moment for Hootsuite.”
Soon thereafter, Hootsuite was launched. Investors were found about a year later – “Remember, this was at a point when people were asking, ‘Is Twitter just a fad?’ ‘Is Facebook just the next MySpace or the next Friendster, is it going to be obsolete in a year?’ People didn’t know if social media was relevant and was here to stay.”
Hootsuite – which has about 800 employees – is headquartered in Vancouver, but has offices around the world. “We send 28 million messages a week and these messages reach three billion users across the planet every week.” Among those users have been the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, and the White House.
“We’re in an era of unimagined disruption,” he said, pointing to three trends driving it: social (sharing videos, for example, which can go viral), a more collaborative economy (businesses like Uber) and mobile.
“Sixty percent of people who complain on Twitter expect a response within one hour,” said Holmes. “So, if you’re a brand, if you’re a business, and you’re not there … it’s like you don’t have a website, like you don’t have a telephone…. The thing about social is there is an implied contract: you’re naked and transparent….” If customers do not get a response, “they’re going to talk about it over and over again and, so, you’re going to be brought into the open as a business.”
Holmes compared various communications technologies. “The telephone took 75 years to reach 50 million users, radio 38, television 13, LinkedIn six-and-a-half, Twitter four, Facebook three, Instagram 1.7. Adoption is happening quicker and quicker.”
He then talked a bit about Snapchat, and showed the audience how to use it.
About the next big thing, he hopes that, like “the PayPal mafia” – “a group of alum … [who are] driving a lot of the innovation that’s happening in Silicon Valley” – there will be a “maple syrup mafia.”
“I would love to see the alum of Hootsuite go on to create the next 10 Hootsuites within Vancouver and more within Canada,” he said.
Already, the B.C. technology sector employs more people than the mining, oil and gas, and forestry sectors combined. To create an even better ecosystem for innovation, he said, there are three key requirements: capital (money to build companies), environment (places for people to live and work) and talent (education and immigration, as there currently is a lack of supply).
“There is huge opportunity for people who want to head into this industry,” he said, predicting an increasing demand for these types of jobs.
During the question-and-answer period, Holmes responded to concerns about privacy – he believes the good aspects of technology outweigh the bad; housing – a problem for every business, he said, putting the onus on the government to increase supply, create more diverse product (not just 500-square-foot living spaces) and implement policies to control demand; and corporate responsibility, which he thinks will become more of an issue. To him, the lack of what once were basic skills – such as writing – is simply the evolution of language, the next steps being the keyboard and more voice-activated technology.
Lorne Segal, chair, Courage to Come Back Awards. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
In its chai year, the Courage to Come Back Awards had a record night on May 5 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, with more than 1,500 guests and more than $1.43 million raised for Coast Mental Health.
In his address, Courage to Come Back chair Lorne Segal pondered the question of why the event is so popular. “Because,” he said, “at these awards, like nowhere else, we feel the extraordinary power of the ordinary spirit and the deep humanity so often lacking in our daily lives.”
He said, “We all shed a tear tonight and, whether it was a tear of joy, of hope, of love, it was not because we wanted to, but because we needed to. You see, we need to know that, even against the worst hand we could be dealt in life, we too can triumph. Because our six heroes tonight could do it, so can we.
Cynthia Ramsay, publisher of the Jewish Independent, and Shay Keil of Keil Investment Group of ScotiaMcLeod. (photo from Cynthia Ramsay)
“Each of us came into this room for a different reason, but we will all leave with our nourished souls tied together by one common thread: the unshakeable belief that, by seeing the very best in others – courage, faith, hope, endurance – we will somehow find the strength to face our own fears and achieve our greatest dreams. And for that, we need to thank our six superstars who are symbols of the possibilities which lie within us all.”
This year’s six honorees were Christy Campbell (in the physical rehabilitation category), Jemal Damtawe (addiction), Meredith Graham (social adversity), Dr. Barbara Harris, (mental health), Coltyn Liu (youth) and Tom Teranishi (medical). Since 1999, Courage to Come Back has now honored 103 individuals who have had the “courage to overcome serious adversity, change their lives for the better and move forward to help others do the same.”
Co-hosting the gala evening were Randene Neill and Kevin Evans, while Howard Blank emceed the fundraising portion of the proceedings. In his comments, Blank noted that Coast Mental Health helps an average of 12 clients a day and that its programs address three main pillars: housing, employment and support services.
The largest donation of the evening came from B.C. taxpayers, as Minister of Health Terry Lake donated $100,000 from the province on behalf of Premier Christy Clark and Minister of Finance Mike de Jong. The largest private donation came from Joseph and Rosalie Segal, who contributed $50,000. Many other individuals and companies made donations, several citing the Segal family as their example of what it means to give back to community.
There was no shortage of role models for giving that night, with the six honorees leading the way. There were many meaningful takeaways, including Liu’s statement: “Mom’s lesson: don’t feed the negative monster inside; rather, fight with a belief in yourself and for a reality you want.” And Graham’s reminder that, “sometimes, you can give what you didn’t get.”
“What part will you play,” she asked the crowd, “to change lives today?”
