Local – Page 164

Seeking repatriation

From left to right, are Naomi, Michelle and Max Dodek with Gil Lewinsky in Abbotsford. Michelle is holding a one-day-old Jacob sheep. (photo by Jenna Lewinsky)

A couple living in Abbotsford is gaining international attention for their unusual quest. They want to return their flock of Jacob sheep to the breed’s ancestral home – Israel.

After visiting Gil and Jenna Lewinsky at the farm where they rent a barn and outdoor space for their sheep, there is no doubt that these modern Jewish shepherds are committed to taking their flock to Israel. Once there, the couple intends to set up a heritage park for visitors to connect with this aspect of ancient biblical history.

These sheep, according to the Lewinskys, are the descendants of Jacob’s original flock. Sheep are discussed in Genesis 30:32, when Jacob negotiates with Laban to keep the speckled and spotted offspring of Laban’s sheep in payment for his 14 years of service to Laban. As Laban has managed to trick Jacob before, most famously by switching brides and having him marry Leah instead of Rachel, he thinks he’s getting the better deal here, as well. However, the Torah explains the special techniques Jacob employs to grow a strong, large speckled flock, leaving the weaker, solid-colored sheep for Laban. It is the first recorded case of selective breeding and, apparently, it worked.

“People know that Jacob fathered the Jewish people but they don’t know that he also ‘fathered’ a breed of sheep,” said Gil. He also explained that these sheep followed Jacob’s family into Canaan and eventually Egypt. While the Children of Israel returned to Canaan after centuries of slavery, it seems that these sheep did not accompany them. They went west and ended up, many centuries later, in England, where they were bred extensively. A few of the “heirloom breed,” those unaltered from their original ancient Syrian physiology, have made it to hobby farmers in Canada. Not one lives in Israel.

The Lewinskys feel this is a problem that needs to be solved. “God put it into our hearts to bring the Jacob sheep back to Israel,” said Jenna in an interview. In response, she and her husband have formed a nonprofit organization called Friends of the Jacob Sheep with a stated mission to bring the animals back to Israel.

Friends of the Jacob Sheep plans to repatriate the sheep from Abbotsford to the Golan Heights, where the Lewinskys hope to open up a heritage park so that the biblical sheep can be seen in Israel and be put to their original purposes for the Jewish people.

According to Gil, Jacob sheep in ancient times were used in every aspect of life, including using the wool for religious clothing such as tallitot, the skin for leather for tefillin or parchment to make Torahs and mezzuzot, as well as for food and Temple sacrifices. Of course, the horns were also used to make shofars. This breed of sheep has an advantage in the area of shofar making because both male and female Jacob sheep are commonly found with four horns and can grow up to six at one time.

While the Lewinskys are very dedicated to their mission, there are a number of stumbling blocks in the way of their plan. In order to export animals to another country, many policies have to be followed. Ever determined, they have lobbied both the Israeli and Canadian governments to find a way to fast track a trade agreement that would enable the sheep to return to Israel. Federal Trade Minister Ed Fast visited the Lewinskys’ flock in early August this year. The Lewinskys describe Fast as a strong supporter of the state of Israel and they hope to use this contact to further their plans.

“We have around 50 sheep now and, when we reach 80, we will be ready to take them to Israel,” said Jenna. Since my visit to the farm, the flock has increased to about 70.

photo - The Lewinskys’ flock of Jacob sheep now stands at about 70 — The Lewinskys’ flock of Jacob sheep now stands at about 70. (photo from facebook.com/friendsofthejacobsheep)

“Our new flock are from the Okanagan and from Cabri, Sask.,” said Gil in an email to the Independent. “The flock from Saskatchewan trace back to the first four Jacobs that were imported from the U.K. to Canada at the Assiniboine Zoo in Winnipeg. They retain their primitive confirmation.”

The increase in numbers is due in part to the Lewinskys’ continuing efforts to acquire heirloom Jacob sheep from farmers in Canada and the United States, and in part to a good spring, with many of their ewes birthing adorable lambs. Jenna and Gil have investigated and negotiated with an airline that specializes in transportation of livestock to transport the flock as soon as they can wade through the red tape currently preventing the exportation of the animals and, of course, once they have raised the money to do so.

By chance, one sheep made it onto Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun’s Facebook page, and Gil has used his experience as a journalist to get the word out about these sheep all around the world, with the story being picked up in news outlets from Israel Vision TV to Scotland’s Jewish Telegraph. The couple said they are applying for grants from a number of agencies and making connections with both Jewish and non-Jewish communities for support.

For more information on Friends of the Jacob Sheep, visit their website (friendsofthejacobsheep.weebly.com) or like them on Facebook to keep abreast of the latest developments.

Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.

Local athletes have lots of fun

The silver-medal-winning volleyball team at the JCC Maccabi Games in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (photo by Kyle Berger)

They weren’t the largest delegation at the JCC Maccabi Games in Fort Lauderdale this past August, but Team Vancouver’s 13 athletes certainly made their presence felt.

photo - Jada Wilson, left, and Sydney Cristall at the opening ceremonies of the games in Fort Lauderdale, Aug 7 — Jada Wilson, left, and Sydney Cristall at the opening ceremonies of the games in Fort Lauderdale, Aug 7. *(photo by Kyle Berger)*

No moment stood out greater than when the six local girls joined with four others from around North America – meeting for the first time at the games – to make up a volleyball team. They ended up taking the silver medal, beating out more experienced teams from New York, Massachusetts and California. Leah Serlin, Leah Schwartz, Jada Wilson, Julia Tregobov, Sydney Cristall and Simone Killas, aged 13-16, formed the core of the team coached by Jack Serlin. Despite not practising as a full squad until arriving at the games, the group came together and lost only to the host city’s team of all 16-year-old club players in the finals.

“For a new team facing several challenges, to be able to beat out teams who train and play together all season, such as Bensonhurst (Brooklyn) and Orange County, is quite an achievement,” said Jack Serlin. “It was such an overall feeling of pride and satisfaction seeing the girls come together as a unit, genuinely grow to like and play for each other, and perform so well on the court and have so much fun off of it.”

Serlin said he is already considering plans to battle for the gold medal next summer. “The fact that all the eligible girls can’t wait to come back next year is truly a testament to how successful we were and what an incredible experience the JCC Maccabi Games are regardless of your background or from where you come,” he said.

photo - Rachel Bugis, left, and Magalee Blumenkrans celebrate after a big soccer victory — Rachel Bugis, left, and Magalee Blumenkrans celebrate after a big soccer victory. *(photo by Kyle Berger)*

The Team Vancouver delegation was also made up of soccer players Josh Bugis, Rachel Bugis, Magalee Blumenkrans and Saul Kalvari. Zach Moldowan joined a baseball team from North Miami Beach while Jackson March won a couple of bronze medals in table tennis and Sydney Swick from Winnipeg joined the Vancouver delegation and took home a couple of medals herself.

“The JCC Maccabi Games is awesome every time I go,” said Kalvari, who attended his second set of games this summer. “The people you meet are amazing, from all over the world, and everyone is there for the same reasons. It’s great to be surrounded by so many Jewish teens just there to have fun.”

The JCC Maccabi Games are an annual multi-sport event hosted in different North American cities each summer. Jewish teens from around the globe compete in the Olympic-style event. The JCC Maccabi Arts Fest runs parallel to the games, engaging teen artists, who participate in workshops with a final performance or show at the end of the week. The games and arts fest attracts more than 3,000 Jewish teens each summer.

For more information on the JCC Maccabi Games and next year’s events, contact me at [email protected].

Kyle Berger is Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver sports coordinator, and a freelance writer living in Richmond.

Museum jazzes up website

The new Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia website, jewishmuseum.ca.

The Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia has launched its revamped website, unveiling a new look for the organization, simplifying navigation and making it easier for users to engage with the museum’s diverse programming and to access the holdings of the B.C. Jewish community archives.

The website, jewishmuseum.ca, features a contemporary design. Implementing the archives database system Access to Memory (AtoM), the new site gives researchers access to thousands of documents, photos, audio and video items documenting the 150-year history of Jews in British Columbia.

“For the first time in the history of the JMABC, we have the capability of providing online access to the treasures in the archives, while at the same time adhering to important archival standards,” said archivist Jennifer Yuhasz. “We are excited to join the vast community of professional archives already using AtoM, including UNESCO, World Bank Group Archives, Library and Archives Canada, and most of the provincial, municipal and university archives and libraries across B.C.”

Selections from this archival collection are presented in the form of online exhibits recounting specific themes and events in community history. Exhibits will be added each year.

The production of the new site was made possible through the support of the Betty Averbach Foundation, the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, numerous private donors and the more than 100 contributors to the JMABC’s 2014 Indiegogo campaign. Its launch follows the introduction of a new graphic identity for the museum and archives, designed by local graphic design firm Adria Consulting, which also redesigned the website.

Important elements of JMABC’s new look include a new wordmark, new typography, a palette of vibrant colors and a suite of facet shapes drawn from the Star of David. Together, these elements celebrate the diversity of B.C. Jewish history and the innovative spirit of JMABC, and they will be implemented throughout all of JMABC’s print and online materials, unifying the organization’s public presence as never before. The public were given their first taste of the new identity at the recent JMABC exhibit, Fred Schiffer: Lives in Photos, presented this spring as part of the Capture Photography Festival.

“Our new look reflects the exciting work we are doing, always seeking new ways to share our community’s rich history with everyone,” said Michael Schwartz, JMABC’s coordinator of programs and development. “Adria understood this immediately and devised an identity that boldly conveys our core principles.”

JMABC is dedicated to the collection and sharing of community memories of Jewish life in British Columbia. With 300 linear metres of textual records, 300,000 photographs and 725 oral history interviews, it chronicles all facets of the community’s history.

An invitation to learn

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.

Send in your questions

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.”

photo - Jason Murray, chair of CIJA Pacific Region Local Partners Council — 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.”

photo - Queenie Choo, chief executive officer of SUCCESS — 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.

Help bake a difference

Eli Winkelman (photo from Eli Winkelman)

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.

Equalizing access to tech

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.

VTT Class Act honors

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.”

Cotler speaks at FEDtalks

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.

MPs reception guests

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.