Category: National

Help strengthen community

Anyone who has visited a synagogue in continental Europe or South America can attest that – even in liberal democracies welcoming of diversity – the Jewish community is an at-risk minority requiring extensive security measures. While Canada is relatively safe for Jews, Statistics Canada data nevertheless show that, of the on average three hate crimes per day in Canada, our community is the most frequently targeted.

Canadians outside the Jewish community are often surprised to learn of the significant security measures required in our synagogues, day schools and Jewish community centres. And, although security concerns are a commonplace reality for Jewish institutions, members of our own community are often shocked to discover the enormous price tag that comes with such requirements as security guards, cameras and enhanced locks.

Many community institutions struggle to foot their security bill. Fortunately, the Government of Canada’s Security Infrastructure Program (SIP) helps certain eligible institutions offset some of the costs of external security measures. SIP both helps communities afford vital protection and sends a strong message that the government stands with at-risk minorities.

Indeed, it’s not just the Jewish community that has benefited from SIP. While our institutions are disproportionately affected by hate crimes, Sikh gurdwaras, Islamic mosques, Hindu temples and Christian churches have also been targets. Without SIP, institutions in these diverse communities would be on their own in financing security upgrades.

CIJA’s priorities are guided by feedback from our community, and we have heard from many across the country that community security is a foremost concern. This is why CIJA recently launched an online campaign to call on the federal government to significantly expand SIP to better protect at-risk communities:

First, the federal government should increase SIP’s budget. In Canada, $1 million is available through SIP to vulnerable communities each year. In comparison, £11 million ($20.4 million) is available in the United Kingdom to secure their synagogues and Jewish day schools alone.

Second, the federal government should allow funds to be used to finance the cost of both external and internal measures such as security guards, interior cameras and access controls. These types of protections are effective but expensive. By helping offset their costs, SIP would prove even more helpful to at-risk communities.

Finally, the federal government should make SIP more accessible to institutions with modest resources, including places of worship that serve smaller or lower-income congregations. At present, SIP includes a 50/50 funding formula that leaves many vulnerable institutions unable to access support through SIP simply because they do not have the capacity to match funds. Unfortunately, these are often the institutions most in need. By amending the program to allow for needs-based approval, more of the most vulnerable Canadians would receive protection.

These are all reasonable requests that are attainable through a concerted advocacy effort on the part of our community. You can join thousands of others across Canada by joining CIJA’s campaign. It will take just two minutes and a visit to cija.ca/sip.

Jason Z. Murray is chair of the Local Partner Council, Pacific Region, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

 

Healing one’s self, the earth

Born to Ukrainian Orthodox survivors of the Holocaust, Dr. Eva Pip knows all too well the long-lasting effects of war. Her parents were imprisoned in labor and concentration camps as punishment by the Nazis for harboring Jews on their farm.

“My mother was never a fully functional human being again,” said Pip. “She had a number tattooed on her arm that she was always trying to conceal. She felt that, if someone saw it, they’d think less of her. Her greatest fear was of being sent back.

“She had terrible nightmares for the rest of her life. At least once a week, she would scream in her sleep, as though she was being murdered. I’d have to run to wake her up. She had a lot of old injuries and scars, and an improperly healed collar bone and breast bone.”

photo - Dr. Eva Pip
Dr. Eva Pip (photo from Eva Pip)

Pip’s mother came to Winnipeg by train from Halifax. Her mother did not choose to come to Canada; it was simply where that week’s ship from Germany happened to have been bound. The previous week’s ship went to Australia.

Several years later, Pip’s mother was able to sponsor her husband to come to Canada. He could not get out of Germany when the war ended and the forced labor camp in which he was held was disbanded, as he was wounded and not yet medically fit to be cleared to come to Canada. He finally came in 1949.

Pip was born the next year though her parents never wanted a child. The war had taken the humanity and warmth from them and they found it difficult to cope with basic daily life.

“In many ways, both of my parents were like children,” said Pip. “They could not make decisions, they could not take proper control of their lives, they constantly lived in some past world before the war had happened.

“There must be thousands and thousands of these silent casualties that are not recorded or even recognized. This damage did not stop with the people who personally experienced war atrocities. It affected their children, too, such as myself, who grew up in essence without parents to love and nurture them, to teach them, to respect them as human beings that they have brought into the world.

“My parents never once hugged or kissed me. We had very little food to eat. Often, we ate out of garbage cans. My mother made my clothing out of scraps and bits because she could not afford to buy me anything. My father did not want to support us, although he lived with us.”

Pip’s father worked as a painter for a billboard company, Universal Signs, which was owned by Max Gardner – who was Jewish and who Pip said took pity on her family – until he retired at the age of 66.

“The Gardners were our benefactors,” said Pip. “They gave us their old furniture for our home and did many kind things to help us out. They almost adopted me.

“Our next door neighbors on Manitoba Avenue in Winnipeg’s North End happened to be the parents of Dr. Harry Medovy [a well-known pediatrician and academic]. Although he had already left home long before we arrived, his mother was very kind to us and often shared her home-made Jewish holiday food with us.”

Later on in life, Pip has, in turn, helped out with various Jewish women’s and seniors organizations.

Growing up in a home that did not encourage friendships, Pip developed a very rich interior life, and found empathy and compassion for other beings in her North End environment.

“I developed a passion for nature, for the earth, and felt incredible sadness at what was happening to our environment,” she said. “I felt the hardships of the creatures around me that had even less than I did. I could feel their voicelessness and powerlessness from those who could kill on a whim and who were unmoved by the suffering and injustice we inflict on the companion spirits God gave us to accompany us during our brief time on this earth.”

This view led Pip to her career choice. She wanted to speak for those who could not and to raise awareness of how damaging and destructive people’s actions are for our planet.

Regarding any desire to have a family of her own, Pip said, “You cannot miss something that you have not had. I have lived alone all my life. The advantage of this is that spiritual development becomes a much more important life path, without the distractions of family and its problems and demands.

“My work became my family. I obtained my PhD from the University of Manitoba in 1977. At that time, being a woman in science was hard. I was able to go to university only because the National Research Council supported me with scholarships. I worked very hard and got good grades.”

Pip taught at the U of M for three years before transferring over to the University of Winnipeg, where she has been teaching for 37 years. This year, Pip is retiring, though by no means does she intend to spend her days resting. She plans to continue writing and publishing pieces on the environment and working in her large rural garden.

Pip grows most of her own food because she knows it will be clean and free of chemicals.

“I’ve always loved tomatoes,” she said. “That interest has grown into my trying to preserve heritage varieties, as these are rapidly disappearing and are an irreplaceable part of our collective culture. I also grow heritage potatoes and heritage varieties of flowers, giving away much of what I cannot eat. I also harvest wild foods on my land.”

Instead of having a cottage, which Pip views as harmful for the environment, she buys land of ecological value and donates it to wildlife preservation institutions. She has donated most of her land to the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation.

“I hope there is never such a monstrous exhibition of human cruelty and vice in our world again [as was the Second World War],” said Pip. “I hope we never again have millions of damaged human beings in the aftermath. I hope we can make peace with each other, that we can recognize that we are all equal, that we do not look down on each other and pretend we are better, that we do not rob each other of our right to life and right to God, and that we make peace with our Mother Earth.

“For these things to happen, human nature needs to change, our values and our dollar worship need to change. I fear that it will be too late by the time we and our leaders realize this. When it is time for me to hand in my dinner pail, I wish to face God and feel confident I have done a good day’s work.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Interfaith volunteering

Among her volunteer work, Heather Fenyes started Think Good, Do Good with her cousin. (photo from Heather Fenyes)

Heather Fenyes is a full-time volunteer. She is actively involved in Saskatoon’s Jewish community, as well as with a number of organizations on the national Jewish scene. In 2011, she and her then nearly retired cousin, Jan Gitlin, started the organization Think Good, Do Good to create opportunities for people to engage in acts to improve their community.

A teacher by education, Fenyes has spent many years volunteering at the local Hebrew school, at Agudas Israel Synagogue. “We’re a pretty small community and we punch way above our weight class,” she told the Independent.

“Even when I do things with respect to the Jewish community, while Think Good, Do Good is absolutely non-political, there is spill-over in both directions,” she continued. “Because things I care about aren’t compartmentalized, so the kinds of philosophies we work with, with respect to coexistence, apply to what I want for Israel and what I want in Think Good, Do Good, and in my own community.”

As Fenyes’ kids were growing older, she recognized they were probably going to leave Saskatoon once they finished high school. Unless she created something more tangible to keep herself busy, it would be a difficult time.

“My Judaism tells me that we’re not bound by thoughts, but compelled toward to action,” she said. “We have to do good things. I’ve always wanted to work with that philosophy. I’ve always been a passionate believer in social justice and collective responsibility and, frankly, good deeds.”

Fenyes decided a good place to begin was to pay a visit to Judge David Arnot, head of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, explaining to him that she wanted to find a way to work with him as a volunteer.

That initial meeting has resulted in some annual activities that incorporate Muslim-Jewish outreach, Holocaust education and school events that often revolve around Raoul Wallenberg and the concept of “the power of one.”

“We have an annual Holocaust memorial event in which we reach out to 2,000 students over a period of time,” said Fenyes. “I’m married to a refugee whose family escaped Budapest in 1956 during the revolution, after having survived the Holocaust.”

Fenyes has been spending a lot of time in classrooms, leading various lessons on citizenship, reminding students that, with all of our rights come just as many, if not more, responsibilities.

“I do a lot of conversations in classrooms about the things we take for granted and the things we are responsible for,” she said. “Part of this is just for the lesson itself, and a part of it is with the hope that teachers get this new curriculum, for K to 12 classes, in the very near future.”

For the past three years, on March 21, which is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Gitlin and Fenyes have chosen 250 elementary students who they work with on citizenship and take them to the university campus – with their Think Good, Do Good buttons on – to speak with students in the halls. “They approach university students and ask if they have done something good today,” said Fenyes. “I learn infinitely more from these K to 12 students than I teach them.”

While teaching one of the classes, Fenyes met a young student who said he was from Gaza. Fenyes suggested they talk about hummus. “I have a lot of friends from the Middle East and we have an ongoing discussion about who makes the best hummus,” she said.

“This young man was enthralled and we had this adorable, non-substantial discussion about hummus … and the teacher was standing looking anxious in the corner…. She said to me about a week later, ‘You cannot believe what happened Heather. Not long before you’d been in the classroom, this young man had been telling me about his family’s discomfort with Jewish people and his strong negative feelings towards Israel. When you left the classroom, he had a change.’ She said if she hadn’t seen it herself, she wouldn’t have believed it.

“He approached the teacher and shared how moved he was by having met me and asked to write a paper … and, it was on coexistence or getting to know our neighbors … something completely opposite to the things he’d been saying before.

“You know how we say, ‘To save one life’? I’m not saying that at all, but, if I changed one young man’s way of thinking, that’s a world.”

Fenyes is very aware of the immigration statistics in Saskatchewan and the challenges they pose. “If we don’t create some infrastructure and have conversations like you and I are having right now, and set up educational opportunities, we are going to be another failed example,” she said. “It’s not just that we need to do it because it’s the right thing to do. We need to do it because, otherwise, we’re going to live in a different kind of community.”

This understanding really hit home when Fenyes’ son received a death threat while studying at Western University. Fenyes did not need that wake up call, but it did remind her of why she was in classrooms and making connections with people of all faiths.

Fenyes said they have learned from experience that, if the Jewish community alone puts on events such as the annual Raoul Wallenberg program – which this year took place on Feb. 5 – they do not have the same impact. Therefore, they have given the Catholic and public schools the mandate to organize the event. This year’s program featured a young man who was born in Congo and lived in Kenya before immigrating to Saskatoon as a refugee; he just graduated from high school last year.

“In a city where we have two separate systems, the Catholic and the public school systems work together,” said Fenyes. “The superintendents from each have been meeting, which is a great image and reality, to plan this event. One year, it’s in a Catholic high school. The next year, it’s in a public one.”

On another front, Fenyes is looking forward to finding ways to work with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

“I think that what we are doing in Saskatoon as a city and community is really impressive,” she said. “I hope we can infect others with some great kind of ailment – Think Good, Do Good. My kids tease me that I live my life with rose-colored glasses. They might mean it as an insult, but I take it as a compliment.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Museum tries to instil hope

Canadian Museum for Human Rights researcher and curator Dr. Jeremy Maron discussed some of the issues the museum faced in deciding what to exhibit. (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa)

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg is one of the newest museums on the block. Dr. Jeremy Maron, a CMHR researcher and curator, discussed some of the issues the museum faced in deciding what to exhibit. The March 4 brown-bag lunch meeting at the University of Manitoba was open to students and the general community.

Maron’s main work at the museum is on the fourth floor, an area dedicated to the Holocaust. Displays on three perimeter walls take a case study approach, emphasizing themes closely related to the Holocaust as well as universal human rights.

“The first theme we look at is the abuse of state power,” he said. “This wall explores how Nazis used and deployed instruments of state power, such as the police, judiciary, laws and regulations, and even education to undermine human rights … and acquiring total dictatorial control of German society, promoting their racist and antisemitic ideology, targeting Jews and other specific groups for social exclusion and persecution, ultimately culminating in genocide.”

photo - Dr. Jeremy Maron makes a point at a March 4 meeting in Winnipeg
Dr. Jeremy Maron makes a point at a March 4 meeting in Winnipeg. (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa)

Maron said the modern nation state, in its ideal sense, is supposed to be the guarantor of human rights. But, in reality, the centralized power of the modern state very often sets the stage for it to be the worst violator of human rights.

“The case of Nazi Germany is a good example of the centralized power and the capacity for it to be mobilized toward the violation of human rights, rather than protection,” he said. “There are many other stories in the museum in which state power is also being utilized in such a manner.

“The second thematic wall in this gallery … moves on to look at persecution and targeting of specific groups in Nazi Germany. This wall explores the increasing intensity of systematic oppression under the Nazis.”

According to Maron, the Allies did not fight the Second World War specifically because they were trying to save the Jews in Europe. However, their winning of the war ended the Nazi massacre of Jews, which continued nearly up until the day of the Germans’ surrender.

“Another exhibit, from which we try to draw human rights connections, is a large digital study table in our Breaking the Silence gallery, also on level four,” said Maron. “This gallery looks at breaking the silence specifically as a human rights act.”

Human rights violations are always accompanied by silence, distortion, justification, minimization and denial, he said. Perpetrators want to hide their crimes; victims who survive may feel scared for themselves or their families, or feel ashamed; witnesses and bystanders often look the other way, so the cycle continues.

The goal of the CMHR is to encourage people to speak out about these violations, to drag the violations out into the light of day and pursue justice, recovery and reconciliation, he said.

“This particular exhibit, Breaking the Silence … looks at a wide scale of human rights violations, putting an emphasis on how people have responded to them in order to break silence,” said Maron. “We tried to place the emphasis of the human rights response in this particular case. It’s a question of focus that tries to adopt a forward-looking perspective, rather than one that is trying to wholly examine the past in and of itself.”

While some visitors feel that the message and exhibit is too watered down, Maron said this was necessary to a certain degree, as the museum’s main focus is to educate and not to horrify or shock.

“It’s not just a sense of sensitivity we think about, it’s also a question of a fact,” said Maron. “Sometimes, when confronted with material that is explicitly horrific, even for someone like myself who has worked on this material extensively, it almost can shock you into silence as it overwhelms you. I think back to when I was doing my master’s in 2005. I went on a Holocaust commemoration tour [and] we toured Auschwitz. After you go through the gas chambers and you see the walls and the showerheads, you get back on that bus and you are just beaten down. You are sitting there and the guides are trying to debrief and talk, but no one wants to talk because they are beaten down.”

While the CMHR does not back away from the truth or gloss over troubling aspects, they choose to visualize these histories differently, he said. One of the concepts the museum is designed to highlight is that everyone’s actions are the result of choices, and that the consequences of these choices are not inevitable.

“That’s not to say that there are not constraints on choices,” said Maron. “If you’re in the midst of a particular human rights catastrophe and you do something like hide a potential victim in your attic, it’s very possible that you might be targeted as well. So, there are constraints on choices in certain historical circumstances. But, it’s still important to consider that these are choices and actions, and what happens isn’t inevitable. Some objects in the museum speak to some of the less obviously consequential choices that individuals might have made that allowed the Holocaust to be perpetrated on that scale.”

While Maron understands that it’s impossible to know for sure what a single individual could have done, with his display, he hopes to create a deep and meaningful reflection for CMHR visitors and, especially, students.

How to convey a history of conflicts accurately without reigniting tensions is another challenge the museum has taken into consideration, by using careful word choices and avoiding blanket statements. But, maybe the most important aspect and aspiration for the CMHR is ensuring that visitors leave with a sense of hope.

“This hope is not a naive hope that everything is going to be OK, but that … hope is possible as long as we promote the human rights of everyone, and the idea that hope is possible if people are willing to make hard choices and take action,” said Maron. “So, again, we hope our visitors leave with the idea that change is possible if people are willing to do something, while silence and acquiescence is the ally of rights violations.

“Until atrocities are recognized and acknowledged, until people believe action is possible, cycles of violations will continue. Such cycles, we hope, our museum, in some small part, can help improve by inspiring a lot of hard work and devotion by our visitors, who may become dedicated human rights advocates and defenders.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Seek Peace initiative

Steve McDonald, deputy director of communications and public affairs for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (photo from of Steve McDonald)

Every day, a handful of the approximately 500 volunteers at Road to Recovery head to one of the crossing points in Israel, pick up Palestinians who have medical permits for appointments or treatments in Israeli hospitals, and escort them there and back. Entirely volunteer-driven, this is the kind of peaceful bridge-building that rarely makes the media headlines, but that the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is hoping to highlight through its recently relaunched program, Seek Peace and Pursue It.

“This program is designed to encourage Canadian individuals and organizations who are concerned about the absence of peace in the Holy Land to rethink the issue by engaging in practical, positive initiatives that help build peace from the ground up,” said Steve McDonald, deputy director of communications and public affairs for CIJA. “Rather than getting distracted by destructive initiatives like the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, Road to Recovery is exactly the sort of thing that will bolster Israeli initiatives to bring the two sides together and keep activists focused on positive engagement.”

The idea for Seek Peace was hatched by former CIJA executive Len Rudner in 2012, after the United Church of Canada declared it would boycott Israeli settlements. At that time, CIJA reached out to UCC leaders.

“We told them BDS does nothing to advance peace or improve life for average Palestinians, we don’t think it fulfils your own interest in helping Palestinians,” said McDonald.

The efforts were in vain and the UCC continued to advocate a boycott, something McDonald says was a betrayal of average UCC members in Canada, as well as an undermining of longstanding Jewish-Christian ties in this country.

One of McDonald’s tasks is to develop CIJA’s relationship with Christian churches and leaders in Canada, many of whom are interested in Israel and want to get engaged in peace-building activities. At the end of May, he will deliver a presentation at the Toronto School of Theology to Baptist, Anglican and Catholic representatives. His focus will be on one organization: Hand in Hand, a network of Jewish-Arab integrated bilingual schools focused on mutual recognition, inclusion and equality.

“There’s tremendous interest among some of our Christian partners for this sort of work,” explained McDonald. “When they see we’re pro-Israel but not anti-Palestinian, they are somewhat surprised that the organized Jewish community is so interested in peace. We want to show them there are constructive alternatives to BDS, positive ways we can be helping build peace.”

Seek Peace is not directly about fundraising, but rather about providing a catalogue of positive initiatives. The organizations featured include Heart to Heart, where Jewish and Palestinian Israeli youth live together in a camping environment for three weeks and tackle politics, culture and identity through dialogue. There is Project Rozana, which is about delivering medical access for Palestinian-Israeli children who need pediatric intensive care, and there is Tsofen, which promotes the integration of Israel’s Arab citizens into the high-tech industry. These are just a handful of the many constructive, peace-building programs that Seek Peace is trying to bring to the forefront, organizations doing impressive work that often goes unreported.

Within a few years from now, McDonald said he’d love to see churches and synagogues partner to host events that highlight one of these particular or similar causes.

“My goal would be for this to be taken on at a local and national level by our Christian friends,” he said, “but it’s not specifically for Christians – any community can get involved.”

In Vancouver, the CIJA team already has strong interfaith relationships and is well-positioned to pitch this project to its existing contacts, he added. “I think Vancouver is a place where there could be a lot of appetite for this kind of thing,” he said.

For more information on Seek Peace, visit cija.ca/resource/seek-peace-and-pursue-it.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Expert on sundowning

Dr. Brian Goldman (photo from Brian Goldman)

While most people have heard of dementia, many of us won’t have heard the term sundowning before.

According to Dr. Brian Goldman, emergency physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, sundowning is generally part and parcel with dementia of various kinds.

“Sundowning refers to a person who is sleepy during the day and very active at night,” he explained. “Almost as soon as the sun goes down, that’s when they become active. The activity can be not just when awake and walking about in an agitated or restless state.… For sundowning to have its maximum impact on the patient and others – the caregivers and care providers – you have to have dementia [as well].

“A person who is cognitively intact, who is simply sleeping during the day and being up all night, would have the cognitive reserve to be able to handle that. They might feel they have a problem, need to see a doctor, or they might rearrange their lives because, when everyone’s sleeping, they’re up, [but] they’d be able to cognitively make sense of it.”

Goldman explained dementia as “a chronic disorder caused by a brain disease or injury. It is characterized or marked by impaired cognition or thinking, memory and personality changes.”

Goldman – who grew up in Toronto’s North York, the heart of the Jewish community – said he is seeing more elderly people with dementia. Often he is one of the first people to notice the symptoms.

“As an emergency physician,” he said, “I would say that an increasing percentage of the patients I see in the emergency department are frail seniors. When I started out in the 1980s, we would see an occasional patient over the age 90, but now it’s commonplace.

“I have professional experience, but I also have personal experience. Both my parents have passed away in the last two years and they both reached frail senior years. My mother had dementia. My father did not.”

Why some dementia patients also suffer from sundowning while others do not, Goldman said, remains a mystery. As well, the number of people who suffer from this newly defined condition of sundowning is also unknown, with estimates ranging from as low as two to three percent of people with dementia up to more than 60%.

“It has been said that sundowning tends to occur when the person is in unfamiliar surroundings, though it can also occur in the home,” said Goldman. “It’s well known that some people with dementia have damage to the pathways to their brain that recognize light coming in through their eyes and stimulating a part of the brain called the pineal gland. The pineal gland secretes the hormone melatonin.”

Melatonin is secreted somewhere around 2 or 3 a.m. every morning. It resets your body’s circadian rhythm. If that pathway is disrupted, it makes sense that your sleep-wake cycles would be seriously disrupted.

Another theory is that people who sundown are dreaming vividly. They are flipping between the awake and dreaming states quickly and frequently. And, again, because they don’t have the cognitive reserve, they do not know if they are dreaming or awake.

There is not yet a lot known about sundowning and another phenomenon known as delirium.

According to Goldman, delirium is confusion associated with the activation of the fight or flight response along with symptoms that include tremors, shaking, a fast heart rate, sweating and dilated pupils. These symptoms are sometimes also referred to as “toxic delirium.” People with toxic delirium have a rapid, traumatic change in their demeanor. Triggers of toxic delirium are often fever, urinary infection, pneumonia, flu, or even a heart attack.

“You recognize it if you see a sudden change from what the person was doing a week ago,” explained Goldman. “They look sick, sweaty … something seriously wrong … and there is an underlying cause. Treat the cause and the toxic delirium goes away.

“Sundowning is a more chronic pattern that can go on for months. There is no vast dramatic change. The only change in pattern you might notice, wherein dad or mom wander off at night once a month, then it becomes once a week, then every night. It’s a gradual pattern.”

Ways to help this condition, according Goldman, include regularizing a sundowner’s routine: having meals at set times, a set time for exercise (but not at night), set times for bathing and toileting (like washing in the morning or before bed), and the like.

“The experts say that caffeine should be avoided,” he added. “You want people to walk. Walking is good for them. Visitors are good, but probably not close to the time they’re going to bed. Also, reduce noise from TVs and radios and address the lighting in the room, ensuring you don’t have harsh lighting that could cast disturbing shadows on the wall.”

Besides these steps and before turning to sleep medication, Goldman advised exploring some other preventive approaches. Light therapy has shown some promise, he said, affecting patients in a similar way as those with seasonal affective disorder. This involves getting special light-generating therapy units, which are available without a prescription and come with instructions on use.

When it comes to lost brain pathways, Goldman sees the technique as especially helpful when approached in a “use it or lose it” fashion. “If you want to build up a reserve, this might be a way of doing that, with year-round light therapy,” he said.

“Certainly, making them busier during the day with exercise and other stimulation is the way to go. Somebody with dementia wants adventures in the same way that everyone wants adventures, something new. Keeping to the same routine everyday is helpful for structure, but the novelty factor can be helpful as well.”

Goldman said these practices can offer some relief of the effects of dementia, including Alzheimer’s, the most common cause and form of dementia.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Difficulties with conceiving

At Limmud in Winnipeg earlier this year, Bryan Borzykowski talked about his and his wife Lainie’s difficulties in having children. (photo from Rebeca Kuropatwa)

At this year’s Limmud in Winnipeg, on March 13, Bryan Borzykowski spoke about the miscarriages he and his wife, Lainie, experienced and, in particular, the anxiety they felt during her pregnancy after multiple miscarriages.

A woman’s body innately senses the starting point of pregnancy and it recalculates, again and again, throughout the pregnancy, often determining whether or not it is possible by week 12 to carry a baby to term. This is why women are cautioned not to mention a pregnancy until after that point.

Miscarriages and difficulties in conceiving occur more often than we know – in large part because of our discomfort in speaking openly about the topic. Recently before his Limmud talk, Borzykowski – who is a freelance writer in the field of finance – had written an article on his family’s experiences in Today’s Parent magazine.

Borzykowski and his wife had their first miscarriage before their first child, a second one between their first and second child, and three more between their second and third child.

“The first miscarriage was 10 years ago,” he said. “We’d been going through pregnancy issues for a decade. So, after we realized we had this miscarriage, it was really terrible. But, once we started talking about it, everybody said, ‘I’ve gone through this as well’ … which was really nice to hear.

Apparently, 10-20% of women go through miscarriages. I think it’s got to be higher. Pretty much everyone I know has had one.

“The problem is when you have more than one, especially when you’re dealing with your wife going through this terrible situation. You just want to be there for her. There’s not a lot of time to go talk to friends about it.”

The couple went through IUI (intrauterine insemination) treatments in the hopes of getting pregnant again after their first child. Through these treatments, they discovered they had lost their second child’s twin, which apparently is somewhat common.

“They did tell us that a lot of people have twins, but one disappears … literally, disappears,” said Borzykowski. “At eight to 12 weeks, when they do the ultrasound, it’s already gone. Sure enough, we found out that we lost this twin, which was actually really difficult. We were happy we had one, but the strange thing about this is how attached you get to this thing before it’s even a real thing.

“But you do, you get attached to the idea of the baby. It’s hard to articulate to people who haven’t gone through it. You feel stupid, dumb, getting attached to something that’s not this thing. You start thinking about ways to … avoid the thought process.”

Borzykowski has found that it gets harder to talk about miscarriages the more they happen, but the couple was determined to try for a third child. They did succeed, via in vitro fertilization, which raised questions about the $15,000 cost.

Borzykowski found himself getting into financial conversations with friends. “It’s awkward, talking about your financial situation, about how you’re paying for it,” he said.

The couple’s last miscarriage occurred at 16 weeks. They took a test that showed the baby had Down syndrome. They ended up having only a couple of days to contemplate their options before they learned they had another miscarriage. At that point, they reevaluated their desire for a third child.

“It sounds silly,” said Borzykowski. “A lot of people can’t have more than one. We fully admitted we have an amazing life and are blessed with two kids, but we wanted three. That was hard, because a lot of people would say, ‘You have two, why do want a third?’ I don’t know. We wanted another, but we were pretty close to giving up until, one day, we decided to try. We just didn’t use protection. Somehow, Lainie got pregnant – no fertility [treatments], nothing. But, we didn’t talk about it for three months … not connecting, trying not to feel like you’re going to have a baby. You don’t want to jinx it. If something happens, you don’t want to feel the pain.”

Only after the three months had passed did the couple begin, little by little, to feel a sense of hope, that this was really going to happen.

“We took this test again,” said Borzykowski. “There’s this great test. It tells you everything…. It came back negative. We immediately breathed a sigh of relief. I don’t know. Something changed.

“As time went on, we came to terms with the fact that we were having a third baby … and we started connecting to her, although we didn’t fully think it was going to happen until I was holding her.

“When she came out, it was a miracle. I appreciate her. I appreciate all my kids, but there’s something about what we had to go through to get her that just makes it special … enough to make me realize the importance of opening up, which is difficult still. It helps.”

According to Borzykowski, research and statistics show that talking about miscarriages helps you get through them and that, while men usually get over the experience faster than women, it does affect men as well, with long-lasting effects.

From his family’s experiences, Borzykowski also learned that it was OK to go for what they wanted, as long as they felt they could manage the emotional possibility of having another loss.

“We knew we wanted a third,” said Borzykowski. “That was never the question. It was just … the emotional toll. We didn’t want to break up our family. I don’t think it would have, but I can’t say for sure. But, it worked out for us. I’m glad we went for it. I’m glad it worked out well. It’s easy to say now, but I’m glad we didn’t stop.”

Something else Borzykowski learned from these experiences was the significance of he and his wife being there for each other. These were experiences that made them even closer, he said. As well, for Borzykowski, having people to talk to about it was key – whether a family member, a friend or a professional.

“It also forces you to deal with death on a more regular basis and, in a sense, gives you an advantage over some of your peers in the future,” he said. “People often don’t understand the depth of loss that comes from losing an unborn child and the only way for them to understand it is by talking about. Then, maybe people would understand that, if we need more time, that’s OK.

“When people start opening up more,” he continued, “that changes some of the cultural thinking around it…. If you knew, before the miscarriage, that everyone went through it, maybe it wouldn’t feel as shameful or you wouldn’t feel as lost.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Improving celiac care

Following several months of research, discussions and consultations, the Canadian Celiac Association (CCA) is celebrating 2016 Celiac Disease Awareness Month with the unveiling of a detailed algorithm to be distributed to all family doctors across Canada. With awareness and understanding of celiac disease varying greatly within the medical community, the result until now has been a hodgepodge of treatment and follow-up plans that leads to confusion and, in many cases, continued illness and suffering.

The new best practices algorithm, developed by the CCA’s Professional Advisory Council, aims to bridge this gap by clearly outlining the diagnosis and follow-up regimen for a Canadian with celiac disease.

“We hear it all too often,” said Anne Wraggett, CCA president. “Some doctors give the patient their diagnosis and simply send them on their way. Others recognize the need to monitor vitamin and mineral absorption levels, watch out for bone density problems, and be aware of the connection between celiac disease and other serious disorders such as type 1 diabetes and thyroid disease.”

“This is all about creating a standardized regimen, based as much as possible on evidence-based medicine,” added Sue Newell, operations manager for CCA. “We hope that this will lead to a consistent approach among all medical doctors, naturopathic doctors, gastroenterologists and other medical professionals. We need everyone ‘singing from the same songbook’ on this, so those diagnosed with celiac disease get the support they need.”

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder in which the absorptive surface of the small intestine is damaged by gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. As a result, the body is unable to absorb nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals, which are necessary for good health. An estimated one percent of Canadians are affected by celiac disease and an estimated additional five percent of Canadians suffer from non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which is an intolerance rather than an autoimmune disease but nevertheless requires a gluten-free diet.

Symptoms of celiac disease can include gastrointestinal distress, migraines, fatigue, extremely itchy skin rashes and more, or there may be no overt symptoms at all. For celiacs to continue to ingest gluten puts them at risk of serious associated medical conditions, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, infertility and malnutrition.

Medical professionals, patients and others can download the best practices algorithm from the CCA website (celiac.ca), which also contains up-to-date scientific information and details of CCA’s programs to support all Canadians with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.

 

Jewish-Muslim unity efforts

On March 13, members of Calgary’s Muslim community visited Congregation Beth Tzedec. Jewish community members had visited Green Dome Mosque the week prior. The events were part of the Our House is Your House program. (photo from Shaul Osadchey)

After a 2014 clash between Palestinian and Israeli supporters on the grounds of Calgary City Hall that ended violently, Imam Syed Soharwardy of Green Dome Mosque reached out to local rabbis and Jewish community leaders, and Rabbi Shaul Osadchey of Beth Tzedec responded by inviting Jewish and Muslim leaders to his synagogue for discussions.

The discussions helped make the next demonstrations peaceful. They also helped transform the general relationship between the Muslim and Jewish communities, which led to two unity events held this past March.

“From that conversation, we made a commitment to meet again and continue the conversation,” said Osadchey. “We continued to meet at Beth Tzedec monthly and, within about two months, we decided to form the Calgary Jewish Muslim Council.”

That council has been meeting for almost two years, discussing various issues that affect both communities. Through this, the rabbi proposed the concept of Our House is Your House, the program that hosted the recent unity events. The program’s purpose is to bring together lay members of the communities for table conversations – not for lectures about religion, but simply to come together to explore mutual commonalities.

On March 6, about 50 Jewish community members made their way to Green Dome Mosque in northeast Calgary for the first of two consecutive Sunday events, the second of which took place at Beth Tzedec.

“We had a very inspiring program in which the clergy spoke at the beginning and then a lot of people were then invited to ask questions and express how they felt about doing these kinds of programs and getting to know each other,” said Osadchey. “We had refreshments and people visited with each other. It was quite a significant day.”

According to Osadchey, those who attended were impressed, finding the imams forthright in explaining how they felt the use of certain quotes from the Quran, such as, “you shouldn’t make friends with Jews or Christians,” were often used out of context and not in the true spirit of Islam.

The plan is to expand Our House is Your House with the program My House is Your House, matching people up for dinners in community members’ homes. There is also another program, funded by a Beth Tzedec member, that will see Jewish and Muslim teens (15- to 16-year-olds) engage in philanthropy.

“We’ll have six to eight Jewish youth and six to eight Muslim youth meet for six sessions, alternating between the mosque and the synagogue,” said Osadchey. “They will focus on learning about charity in each other’s traditions. They’ll identify common values, and then will go through a process of selecting and then allocating funds that have been donated to organizations in Calgary that they think reflect the values that they’ve articulated. So, it’s going to be an opportunity for the teens to get together and build a relationship, and do something constructive and positive to influence the community.”

Another initiative between the communities involved the Soup Sisters, an organization that was started by two Beth Tzedec women and has grown to include chapters in many Canadian cities, as well as one in Los Angeles. (See jewishindependent.ca/soup-ladled-with-love.)

“They make soup that is then donated to abused women in shelters and other facilities,” said Osadchey. Wanting to do a soup project for Syrian refugees, “the women came to me and asked how to get halal meat. I sent an email to several imams, asking them if they knew anyone who’d be willing to donate 86 kilograms of halal meat. Within an hour or two, I got a response from an imam saying he has the name of an individual able and happy to do that and that he’s expecting my call. Again, things are working in ways that we’re able to accomplish wonderful goals to help people in the community.”

Soharwardy, who initiated the Jewish-Muslim unity talks, is also the founder of Muslims Against Terrorism and the Islamic Association of Canada. He is a Sunni Muslim who follows the Sufi tradition.

“About three months ago, Rabbi [Osadchey] and I were chatting,” said Soharwardy. “He said, ‘Let’s do something grassroots instead of a rabbi and an imam talking. Let’s involve our families, women, children, everybody.

“I think this was the first time in the history of, at least Canada, that such a large group from the Jewish community came to the mosque. They had a dialogue, they had food … we sat together for an informal discussion…. That inspired so many Muslims. It removed misunderstanding. People realized, Jewish people are not our enemies, we have so much in common.”

photo - About 80 or 90 members of the Muslim community went to Beth Tzedec on March 13
About 80 or 90 members of the Muslim community went to Beth Tzedec on March 13. (photo from Shaul Osadchey)

About 80 or 90 members of the Muslim community went to Beth Tzedec on March 13, he said. “We sat down, we saw the Torah, we heard three rabbis there. We were so amazed. I was happy to see we have so much in common. I’m so happy and I’m still, in my mind, still in that synagogue, listening to this rabbi and the way he was performing. I can’t call him anything except a person of faith, and his Jewish faith is very close to my faith. It’s just an amazing feeling. I don’t understand why we are enemies. I don’t think we are enemies.”

Soharwardy can hardly wait for the next step of inviting some new Jewish friends to his house to share food and conversation.

“I think, at the family level, we should start engaging ourselves,” he said. “That will build the relationship among adults as well as children … so our children will get the understanding that we are not enemies, we don’t hate each other. We are normal humans, Canadians, and neighbors.”

Osadchey added, “We recognize there’s still a lot of work to be done in both communities. There’s a lot of suspicion, a lot of stereotype and misinformation that exists in our communities about the other. To further break that down really takes people-to-people contact.

“There’s a lot of anxiety and a lot of cynicism and doubt about whether these efforts are really viable,” he continued. “I think the more that we’ve done together as two communities, the more the message is emerging that, yes, this is worth doing. We’re not under any illusion that we are going to change events in the Middle East, but we are creating an alternative model that will have a ripple effect beyond Calgary, that will say to people, having good relationships and learning about each other and respecting each other is definitely possible and desirable.

“We’re doing it with people in the Jewish community and Muslim community. We all have relatives in the Middle East. We have relatives elsewhere, too. So, to be able to model what we are doing and let people know about this will put the seed of change elsewhere … so that it goes beyond our local efforts.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Maccabi sports camp

The Maccabi Sports Experience at Ontario’s Camp Northland offers a traditional overnight camp with outdoor activities, blended with multi-sports instruction. (photo from Maccabi Canada)

Maccabi Canada and Camp Northland have partnered to create a unique program for children wanting to stay involved with sports over the summer. A first of its kind, the Maccabi Sports Experience at Ontario’s Camp Northland offers a traditional overnight camp with outdoor activities, blended with multi-sports instruction over a period of three weeks. The program will debut this summer July 27-Aug. 16, during the camp’s second session.

“A lot of kids found that, at camp, they don’t get to the opportunity to really focus in on the sports that they love to play as much as they’d like,” said Simon Wolle, director of Camp Northland. “But they don’t want to give up camp either, despite that strong interest, so they end up coming to camp but kind of missing sport.… Why not try to find a way to marry the two?”

The new offering features two weeks of rotating skill development clinics in four different sports – basketball, beach volleyball, soccer and tennis – followed by a specialty week, where participants can choose one sport to focus on. Parts of each day will be dedicated to the Maccabi sports program, while also giving the group the opportunity to integrate with other campers. The program will be run by a combination of Maccabi coaches and Camp Northland staff.

Tommy Bacher, president of Maccabi Canada, called the new endeavor a natural progression of the organization’s ongoing community sports initiatives. Bacher believes launching a summer camp experience under the Maccabi banner is the perfect way to build on the weekly sports programming offered in basketball and volleyball over the past year. The eight-week programs feature grassroots learning in 90-minute sessions, where the focus is on honing skills and having fun. The camp is the next step in those growing efforts.

“It allows us to touch a lot more kids. For every kid that goes to camp, 500 [others] hear about it,” said Bacher. “For us, it’s an opportunity to bring more kids into a quality program that revolves around sport and them being Jewish. The more things we can do with that, the better. My whole goal is connecting the next generation to their past, to their heritage and to the state of Israel. And we’re using sport as a way of doing that.”

Bacher said the camp will also provide a parallel overnight setting to the Maccabiah Games in Israel, allowing participants to form bonds with each other through a shared three-week experience. Wolle is excited to provide that outlet.

“We want to create a home for every Jewish kid to find their place and make connections and stay connected to the Jewish community,” said Wolle, echoing Bacher’s sentiments. “There are kids using the medium of sport to feel more connected to the Jewish community and we wanted to create that pipeline … between sport and camp, and say you don’t have to give it up. You can have your cake and eat it, too.”

For more information, visit maccabicanada.com.