Category: News

Soccer unites people

The Tibet Women’s Soccer Team will compete at the 2017 Vancouver International Soccer Festival as special guests and as ambassadors of peace. (photo from One Team United)

One Team United for Peace and Development Society recently announced that the Tibet women’s soccer team will compete at the 2017 Vancouver International Soccer Festival (VISF) as special guests and ambassadors of peace. This is the first Tibetan women’s team of any sport to compete internationally.

The Canadian embassy in New Delhi, India, has granted the team travel visas to Vancouver for the 13th annual festival, which takes place June 30 to July 12. The team of 15 Tibetan women welcomed the successful invitation following the Feb. 24 disappointment when they were denied tourist visas by the U.S. embassy in New Delhi to attend the Dallas Cup in Texas.

After a video of the young athletes reading a letter in front of the embassy asking for help went viral, politicians, athletes, attorneys and human rights advocates around the world reached out to the team and urged for a reversal of the decision. The story appeared on many television and radio programs and in various newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom. However, the decision to deny entry remained firm.

“At Vancouver’s One Team United for Peace and Development Society and the VISF, we believe that soccer has an incredible power which can be used to build bridges between cultures, strengthen communities, create long-lasting friendships and bring our global community closer together,” said Adri Hamael, founder and executive director of the society and its showcase VISF event. “Our invitation to the Tibet women’s soccer team is extended in the spirit of this mandate. I am deeply touched by the team’s inspiring story. As a father of a little girl, for me it is about affording girls and women the opportunity to compete and be treated as equals.”

The Tibet team will be co-sponsored by VISF 2017 and the One Team society. Among the supporters of the team’s visit is Simpson Thomas & Associates. Jewish community member Bernie Simpson is on One Team United’s board of advisors.

“My friendship with Bernie started years ago,” Hamael told the Independent. “I am a Palestinian Canadian, Bernie is Jewish, however, Bernie and I share a common goal: to help others and create a better world…. Many speak about making a difference, few dedicate their lives and resources to making it a reality – my friend Bernie is one of the few.”

In addition to competing in the soccer tournament July 7-9, the women’s team will participate in friendly matches with local soccer teams and will be invited to enjoy the many cultural and sightseeing opportunities Vancouver has to offer.

During the team’s stay in Vancouver, they will be working with Canada’s Sport Hall of Fame inductee Andrea Neil. A pioneer of women’s soccer in Canada, Neil spent 20 years with the national team as a player and assistant coach. Currently, she works in the Vancouver area with former men’s national team player Nick Dasovic at Dasovic-Neil Coaching, where they provide individualized soccer programming and training to elite athletes.

For more information, visit oneteamunited.ca.

HIPPY ventures into Asia

HIPPY, developed in 1969, is being used by some 20,000 families in various countries. (photo from HIPPY International)

For the first time ever, HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents and Preschool Youngsters) will be setting up offices in Southeast Asia.

HIPPY is an early learning program developed by researchers in 1969. It is already being used by 20,000 families in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, Liberia, New Zealand and the United States.

As explained on the HIPPY Canada website, the program “delivers a curriculum based on the needs of children to become school-ready; recognizes role-play as the method of teaching the skills needed to implement the child-centred curriculum; and features a peer home visitor system that enables mothers, who may be hard to reach due to social isolation, poverty, language or other cultural issues, to feel comfortable participating in the program.”

“HIPPY has the same core program across the world. In each country, it is adapted to the cultural and linguistic context,” Miriam Westheimer, director of HIPPY International, told the Independent.

In addition to its Southeast Asia offices, other HIPPY news includes a major expansion in Argentina, progress with the program’s digitization and the development of a HIPPY app.

As well, HIPPY’s program in Liberia continues to grow and is now a part of the government’s early childhood strategic plan. The program was originally funded by Friends of Liberia, a group comprised of former Peace Corps volunteers. For the past three years, it has been funded through the Open Society Foundation and is now a ministry of education program.

In Korea and China, HIPPY will introduce a fee for the program, creating a revenue stream Westheimer hopes will allow for more programs in developing countries.

“Typically, once we start a pilot program in a new country, we can then attract policy-makers and funders to help sustain and grow the program,” she said. “What’s interesting is that the models in Korea and China are the first programs working with a higher-education parent population and the pilot project starting there sells the program to upper-middle-income families who can purchase it.”

It’s HIPPY’s first for-profit venture. Typically, the program is free-of-charge and relies on volunteers and community participation, but the agencies and organizations in Korea and China that approached HIPPY wanted to do this as an entrepreneurial project.

“We see it as an opportunity to raise some money so we can do this in countries where we haven’t been able to work yet, developing countries,” said Westheimer. “There are several African countries very interested and we don’t have the start-up [funds] to be able to start working there. We’re looking at this as a model for how we can benefit from the sale of the program, if it does indeed take off, to raise funds to support other new countries in the network.”

“We just started a pilot in Asia,” said Westheimer. “We started with 60 families. Now, we are working with 120 families. We hope to double or triple this next year, but it’s growing slowly. The idea is that it could become part of the ministry of education’s plan and we’re laying the groundwork for it to become a national program.

“We started the same way in Argentina. We started in a few shantytowns in Buenos Aires. It started in a Jewish community, through AMIA, the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, and then, several other groups, childcare centres, built in these shantytowns around Buenos Aires.

Because of its success, the federal government has given a grant to expand to six provinces. They started 100 families in each of the six provinces.”

The model is also working well in a few European countries, such as Austria and Germany, where they have something they call “HIPPY-inspired programs.” For these programs, they take the basic concept of working with parents in the home, with home visits or group meetings, but not using the HIPPY-developed curriculum.

“They have their own curriculum,” said Westheimer. “So, we have HIPPY-inspired programs in Finland, Sweden, Turkey and Holland. The Turkey program is … the most remotely connected to the HIPPY network. The other ones are really part of our international network.”

The program in Turkey has been running for about 30 years, she said. While it began as a small HIPPY program, it has evolved into an independent one with really no connection to HIPPY.

For more information about HIPPY Canada, visit hippycanada.ca or call its office in Vancouver at 604-676-8250.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Student vote result different

More than 170,000 elementary and high school students participated in CIVIX’s Student Vote program for the 2017 B.C. provincial election. (image from CIVIX)

More than 170,000 elementary and high school students participated in the Student Vote program for the 2017 B.C. provincial election, including students from King David High School and Richmond Jewish Day School.

After learning about the electoral process, researching the parties and platforms, and debating the future of British Columbia, students cast ballots for the official candidates running in their local electoral district.

As of 4:15 p.m. on election day, May 9, 1,092 schools had reported their election results, representing all 87 electoral districts in the province. In total, 170,238 ballots were cast by student participants; 163,923 valid votes and 6,315 rejected votes.

Students elected John Horgan and the B.C. NDP to form government with 60 out of 87 seats and 39.0% of the vote. Horgan won in his electoral district of Langford-Juan de Fuca with 55.7% of the vote.

Andrew Weaver and the B.C. Greens took 14 seats and would form the official opposition, receiving 28.5% of the popular vote. Weaver won in his electoral district of Oak Bay-Gordon Head with 48.9% of the vote.

Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals won 12 seats and received 25.4% of the vote. She was defeated in her district of Kelowna West by NDP candidate Shelley Cook; Clark receiving 32.1% of votes cast, compared to Cook’s 35.8%.

Students also elected independent candidate Nicholas Wong in Delta South. Wong defeated Liberal candidate Ian Paton by 10 votes.

This is the fourth provincial-level Student Vote project conducted in British Columbia. In the 2013 provincial election, 101,627 students participated from 766 schools.

Student Vote is the flagship program of CIVIX, a national civic education charity. CIVIX provides learning opportunities to help young Canadians practise their rights and responsibilities as citizens and connect with their democratic institutions. Its programming focuses on the themes of elections, government budgets and elected representatives.

The Student Vote project for the 2017 B.C. provincial election was conducted in partnership with Elections BC and with support from the Vancouver Foundation, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the Government of Canada.

Religious stock

Knowing that, in any one day, hundreds of visitors will pass their shops, usually on the way to the Kotel (Western Wall), shopkeepers in Jerusalem’s Old City stock as many items as possible to appeal to all religions. Prayer shawls, rugs, crosses and ritual items of every size and description are available, as are religious paintings and carvings, key holders and the like. (photo from Ashernet)

חסדי שמים עוזרים

חרדים שטסו מניו יורק הצליחו להגיע לטורונטו לפני כניסת השבת. (צילום: acidbomber via en.wikipedia)

האתר החרדי בחדרי חדרים טוען שחסדי השמים עזרו לחרדים שלא לחלל את השבת. לדברי חדרי חדרים קבוצה של חרדים התכוונה לטוס מניו יורק לטורונטו, לקראת השבת באחד מימי שישי האחרונים. הטיסה התעכבה והחרדים שחששו מלחלל את השבת ביקשו מצוות הדיילים לרדת מהמטוס. פתאם “כשלפתע חסדי שמים” טוען האתר, מגדל הפיקוח ניתן אישור המראה למטוס, תוך שאיפשרו לו לעקוף את כל שאר המטוסים, שהמתינו בתור הארוך על המסלול. עם הנחיתה בטורונטו צוות המטוס ביקש מכל הנוסעים להישאר במקומם, וזאת כדי לאפשר לקבוצה של החרדים לצאת ראשונים מהמטוס ובמהירות. האתר מציין עוד כי בזמן שהחרדים יצאו מהמטוס, הנוסעים היהודים שנשארו לשבת כיוון שאינם שומרי שבת, בירכו אותם בברכת שבת שלום.

אזה טעות: צעיר גנב ארנק ממתאגף לשעבר שהראה לו את כוחו

מתברר שצריך לדעת גם ממי לגנוב ולמי לא ממולץ כלל להתקרב. כך למד על בשרו צעיר בן עשרים וחמש, שגנב ארנק מתושב העיר ורנון שבמחוז בריטיש קולומביה. קווין ברקהאוס שהיה בעברו מתאגרף מקצועני, הבחין פתאם כי מהמשאית שלו נגנבו ארנקו, וכן המעיל וזוג הכפפות. ברקהאוס הכועס הזעיק את אחיו והשניים החליטו להסתובב ליד מספר חנויות משכון בעיר, בתקווה שהגנב ינסה להציע לאחת מכן לרכוש את שללו הגנוב. ואכן זה בדיוק מה שאכן קרה. שני האחים הבחינו כי ליד אחת החנויות עומד צעיר שלבש את המעיל הגנוב ובידו החזיק תיק. ברקהאוס התקרב אליו במהירות ודרש שיציג לו את תכולת התיק. בתחילה החשוד הסכים אך אחרי כן הוא חזר בו. ברקהאוס חטף ממנו את התיק ופתח אותו. הוא מצא בתוכו את ארנקו הגנוב והכפפות. לאחר מכן הוא החליט לפעול מהיר והפיל את הצעיר והצמידו בכוח חזק למדרכה. באותו זמן אחיו רץ להזעיק את המשטרה למקום. המתאגרף לשעבר הצליח אפילו לצלם את עצמו מחזיק בצעיר ששכב על המדרכה ללא תנועה. המשטרה עצרה את הגנב והגישה נגדו כתב אישום על פריצה לרכב וגניבת רכוש.

טלוויזיה של כסף: חברה למיחזור מצאה כסף בטלוויזיה שהוחזר לבעליו

תושב מחוז אונטריו בן השישים ושמונה הופתע ששוטרים דפקו על דלת ביתו באחד הערבים. השוטרים הראו לו קופסא ושאלו אותו אם הוא מזהה אותה. האיש (שהמשטרה לא פירסמה את שמו עד כה) הכיר מייד את הקופסא והשוטרים ביקשו שיפתח אותה. בפנים נמצאו לא פחות ממאה אלף דולר בשטרות וכן אף מסמכים בנקאיים של האיש. השוטרים ציינו שהקופסא נמצאה בתוך טלוויזיה שפורקה במפעל למחיזור. האיש נזכר פתאם שלפני לא פחות משלושים שנה, הוא החביא בתוך טלוויזיה כסף שקיבל ירושה מהוריו וכן מספר מסמכים. הוא שכח בכלל מהכסף ולפני מספר שנים נתן את הטלוויזיה במתנה לחבר קרוב. מתברר שהחבר מאס בטלוויזיה הישנה והחליט להעביר אותה למפעל למחיזור. עובד המפעל שפירק את הטלוויזיה מצא בתוכה את הקופסא. הוא פנה למנהל שלו ודיווח לו על מציאת הכסף והשניים הזעיקו את המשטרה. השוטרים בדקו את הכסף ומצאו שהוא חוקי. לאחר מכן הם איתרו בקלות יחסית את האיש לפי המסמכים שהשאיר בקופסא. לאחר שהתברר למשטרה שאין לו עבר פלילי, והוא הצליח להוכיח כי הוא קיבל את מאה אלף הדולר בירושה מהוריו, הכסף הוחזר לו לשמחתו הרבה. סביר להניח שלהבא אותו אלמוני מבוגר לא יחביא עוד כסף בתוך טלוויזיה או בתוך חפץ אחר.

Halifax “owns” bagel

East Coast Bakery opened in Halifax on May 14 last year. (photo by Alex Rose)

Gerry Lonergan wants to put Halifax on the bagel map. “Why do Montreal and New York own bagels?” he asked. “Two cities shouldn’t own bagels. Why can’t Halifax own them?”

Lonergan’s East Coast Bakery celebrates its one-year anniversary May 14. Since he opened last year, he’s been churning out quality bagels. The bakery came in third in a local newspaper’s poll for best new business after being open for only 45 days – and the voting had started two weeks before the store’s first day.

Although Lonergan is from Montreal, he is adamant that his bagels are their own style, which he calls East Coast. There are a few things that set them apart.

The first is sourdough: Lonergan is the only baker he knows who uses it for his bagels. The second is that his bagels are kosher, even though Lonergan himself isn’t Jewish.

With a laugh, he noted that Chabad Rabbi Mendel Feldman “said if I do become Jewish I wouldn’t be able to open on Saturday, so it works for everybody in the community.”

photo - Gerry Lonergan
Gerry Lonergan (photo by Alex Rose)

About his decision to go kosher, Lonergan explained, “If I went kosher, it was another level of auditing, of standards, of quality that I felt a lot of people would have trouble following my example, so it would give me a leg up in it from a business standpoint. But, also, I thought it was the right thing to do, it would just add that extra bit of authenticity to these bagels.”

Halifax Jewish community member Josh Bates helped Lonergan get started. The two met when a mutual friend told Bates he had to try Lonergan’s bagels, when Lonergan was still making them from home.

“In terms of becoming kosher, I also introduced him to the Chabad rabbi who kosher-izes his bagels, if that’s the word,” said Bates.

Bates works in the mayor’s office and, although he didn’t help Lonergan in any official capacity, he was able to use his knowledge to help in other ways.

“He had a few questions around building code, getting approvals, finding a location. I introduced him to the executive directors of a couple different business improvement districts in Halifax,” explained Bates.

With a background in the electronics industry, where he streamlined production processes, Lonergan knew how he wanted his bakery to function and what he would need to make it happen. The entire back of the bakery is open concept, so the customer can see as the bagels and challot are made every step of the way.

It was important for Lonergan to find the perfect place to set up shop, in part because his machines need three-phase power, which wasn’t available in every potential location. One of those machines turns tubes of dough into rings, which are then each individually hand-stretched before being boiled in a pot of honey-water. The machine churns out the rings at a rate of 3,600 an hour, or one a second.

While living in Montreal, Lonergan visited Halifax a few years ago and knew it was the place he wanted to be.

“I came for a five-day trip and I just fell in love. I just said, ‘Wow the people are so nice, the ocean is amazing.’ I just saw lots of opportunity here, and I saw there was a need for what I wanted to do here. There was a need for artisanal bread, artisanal bagels,” he said. “Within 48 hours of that trip, I said, ‘That’s it, I’m moving.’ I came home and put my house up for sale within about five days.”

In less than a year, East Coast Bakery has become something of a Halifax institution. Aside from his bagels and challot, which are based on old family recipes, Lonergan hopes to add hamantashen by next Purim. But even if he keeps the menu the same, Bates said the quality of Lonergan’s baked goods should ensure the bakery’s success.

“No matter how good a bagel is, it’s always better when it’s fresh out of oven…. I like a thin sweet bagel right out of the oven and, until East Coast Bakery opened, you couldn’t get that in Halifax,” he said.

And the challah? “Best challah I’ve ever had,” Bates said. “When I go in there and buy a bag, I have hard time not finishing an entire loaf on my walk home.”

Alex Rose is a master’s student in journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax. He graduated from the same school in 2016 with a double major in creative writing and religious studies, and loves all things basketball. He wrote this article as part of an internship with the Jewish Independent.

End-time visions

Are we living in the “end times”? Many would agree that, some days, it feels like it. Vancouver School of Theology’s Inter-Religious Studies program will host an apocalyptically themed conference this month called Visions of the End Times. Presenters will invite attendees to explore their fears and hopes for the future.

As part of the conference, which runs May 23-25, the keynote speaker, psychologist Dr. Lionel Corbett, will give a free public lecture. In the May 23 talk, Corbett will discuss the psychology of apocalyptic thinking and religious violence.

On the mornings of May 24 and 25, more than a dozen regional scholars will speak about concepts of the “end times” found in sacred texts, film, popular music and contemporary culture. Afternoon activities will include a multifaith panel of local religious leaders and a creative writing workshop.

The conference had its genesis about three months before the U.S. election in a conversation between Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, the director of Inter-Religious Studies at VST, and Harry Maier, professor of New Testament and early Christianity studies. The two professors contemplated why zombies are such a popular motif in contemporary culture. Are they a metaphor for soul-less humanity, for consumer culture consuming itself or a political world that has no awareness or conscience? This led to a discussion of the possibility of an academic conference on zombies in popular culture.

“Then,” Duhan Kaplan explained to the Jewish Independent, “we remembered we’re faculty at a theology school, and that zombies sort of appear in the Bible, in Ezekiel’s prophecy about the resurrection of the dead. So, we broadened the topic to Visions of the End Times and made the conference a VST project.”

Duhan Kaplan said she expects the conference will yield lively discussion. “My prediction for the thread that runs through the conference [is that] we will debate whether the world is getting worse or better, or heading in any direction at all.”

She said speakers will address topics such as extremism and religious violence, visions of the end times articulated by religious traditions, the meaning of end-times themes in music and film, the nature of utopian thinking, and a deeper look at end-times teachings in Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures. There will also be an open mic Tuesday evening featuring music and poetry of the end times, which Kaplan hopes will be “whimsical and fun.”

“I do believe that eschatological concepts [ideas resulting from the study of the end times] are helpful metaphors,” she said. “They place even terrible events into a hopeful vision. When something bad happens, they say, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just a blip on the way to a good end.’ For example, when something bad happens, many Jews say, ‘These are the footsteps of Mashiach.’ Personally, I take great comfort in Isaiah’s vision that ‘the lion will lie down with the lamb.’

“I don’t think human beings will ever make a [peace] treaty that holds indefinitely,” she continued. “But, while peace holds, people do experience a bit of ‘the World to Come,’ as we sometimes call the end times in Jewish thought.”

Corbett’s public talk is at 7 p.m. on May 23 at Chapel of the Epiphany on the University of British Columbia campus. For more information, visit vst.edu/event/vision-of-the-end-times-an-inter-religious-conference.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Preschool at the JCC

In the JCCGV’s program for 2-year-olds, there are only a few spots left for September 2017. (photo from Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver)

Hidden at the end of the hall on the garden level of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver there is a preschool program for 2-year-olds with just a few spots left for September 2017.

Shalom Aleph and Shabbat Shalom are small classes especially designed to be a child’s first introduction to school, a chance to learn through play with other children in an environment rich with materials to spark creativity and critical thinking skills.

Children are welcomed by early childhood educators and invited to choose what learning centres they want to spend time in. There is a place to glue things together, paint and play with play dough. There are blocks for constructing, a toy house for imaginative play, books to look at and enjoy, as well as sand and water for sensory exploration. Songs, stories and conversation fill the room, as children begin to learn how to be together in a group, how to take turns and how to negotiate and share, with kindness and compassion.

This preschool program and all the licensed early childhood programs at the JCCGV’s Simkin Family Child Development Centre are inspired by research from the preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and guided by the B.C. Early Learning Framework from the Ministry of Education. The Child Development Centre is a Sheva cornerstone community and a designated lab school community – Sheva is the Jewish early learning framework of the Jewish Community Centre Association of North America, which celebrates children as competent, capable and curious.

Director Susan Hoppenfeld would be delighted to take interested parents on a tour and share more details about the preschool program. She can be reached at 604-257-5162.

Caesarea’s treasures

An aerial view of part of the Caesarea excavations. (photo by Griffin Aerial, via IAA and Ashernet)

On April 27, the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, Caesarea Development Corporation, Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Israel Nature and Parks Authority announced cooperation on an unprecedented scale in conserving and making accessible the public buildings of ancient Caesarea in Caesarea National Park, as well as developing and making the settlement’s beaches more accessible. The more than $28 million project will hopefully help attract three million tourists to Caesarea by 2030.

Caesarea has been a vibrant port city since its establishment about 2,030 years ago and throughout the various ensuing periods. The archeological excavations have revealed many remains that range from the time of Herod to the Crusader period. According to IAA director Israel Hasson, “To date, only about six percent of Caesarea’s treasures have been discovered, and magnificent finds on a global scale are buried beneath its sand dunes.”

פסח מפואר

איוונקה טראמפ ומשפחתה השתתפו בפסח מפואר בוויסטלר: הוצאות ביטחון כבדות על חשבון משלם המיסים. (צילום: Philippe Giabbanelli)

בתו של נשיא ארה”ב, דונלד טראמפ, איוונקה טראמפ ומשפחתה בילו את חופשת פסח בעיירת הסקי וויסטלר. טראמפ, בעלה ג’ארד קושניר, שמשמש יועץ בכיר לנשיא ושלושת ילדיהם הקטנים התארחו במלון ארבע עונות המפואר (חמישה כוכבים) שבוויסטלר. שם במשך ארבעת ימי החג הראשונים הם אכלו כשר ועשו את ליל הסדר. עלות אירוח של ארבעת ימי הפסח (כולל ליל סדר) ליחיד במלון מוערכת בכ-4,000 דולר אמריקני (כ-5,500 דולר קנדי), כך שהמשפחה שילמה בסך הכל כ-20 אלף דולר אמריקני (כ-27 אלף דולר קנדי). הביקור המלכותי התקיים הרחק מהתקשורת וברובו המשפחה הייתה מבודדת משאר אורחי המלון. לאחר שהסתיים התגלה לתקשורת האמריקנית כמה נאלץ משלם המיסים האמריקאי לשלם, עבור הוצאות אירוח של צוות אנשי הביטחון של השירות החשאי האמריקני, שלא משו מטראמפ הבת, קושניר והילדים.

אם כן מתברר שעלות שהיית צוות הביטחון במלון המפואר של וויסטלר במשך ארבעה ימים נאמדת ב-60 אלף דולר אמריקני (כ-82 אלף דולר קנדי). בנוסף השירות החשאי קיבל אישורי כניסה לאתר הסקי של וויסטלר למספר ימים שעלותם כ-7,000 דולר אמריקני (כ-10,000 דולר קנדי). לא פורסם בשלב זה מה עלויות הטסת צוות הביטחון של השירות החשאי מארה”ב לקנדה.

מטבע הדברים ביקור של רמי דרג מהשורה הראשונה כרוך גם באבטחה מהצד הקנדי. ועד עתה לא ברור מה העלויות הכרוכות בפעילותם במקום של שוטרי המשטרה הפדרלית (האר.סי.אם.פי). מומחים לנושא הביטחון מציינים כי ביקור של טראמפ ומשפחתה בקנדה מחייב תאום מראש עם שלטונות הביטחון של קנדה, במסגרת פרוטוקול של אירועים מהסוג הזה, כדי לאפשר היערכות ראויה.

איוונקה טראמפ כתבה בחשבון הטוויטר שלה (ב-10 באפריל) על האירוח בפסח בוויסטלר: “במהלך פסח אנו משקפים את המשמעות של יציאת מצריים וחוגגים את השחרור מעבדות, שממנו אנו נהנים היום. חג שמח”. אגב לעומת הבת הנשיא טראמפ לא השתתף השנה באירועי סדר הפסח, מטעמים שהיה עסוק מאוד בהתייעצויות בנושאים בטחוניים חשובים.

האתר החרדי כיכר השבת הפליג בתיאורים בנוגע לסדר במלון ארבע עונות של וויסטלר, ואירוח משפחתה של איוונקה טראמפ. האתר מציין כי המשפחה חגגה את ליל הסדר “בנופש יוקרתי כשר למהדרין במלון ארבע עונות. זאת לצד ארבע מאות משפחות הנמנות על האליטה היהודית בארה”ב. בהם אנשי עסקים וראשי חברות מובילים. הזוג קושניר התנהג בצניעות ובפשטות. בני הזוג וילדיהם ישבו בחדר נפרד בליל הסדר, אותו ערכו על פי כל כללי המסורת היהודית. הילדים שאלו מה נשתנה ואכלו אפיקומן. מלון ארבע עונות בוויסטלר הוא המקום היחידי בצפון אמריקה שיש בו סקי אקסלוסיבי. ובפסח בדרך כלל בתקופה הזו כבר אין שלג בכל המקומות אלא רק בעיירה הזאת. משפחת קושניר השתתפתה בתפילות במהלך החג, ולאחר ארוחת הבוקר בימי חול המועד יצאה לסקי בהרים באזור. בנופש עצמו שולבו דרשות תורניות, כאשר הנואם המרכזי היה מנהל הזרוע החינוכית של חב”ד, הרב אפרים מינץ. עוד נאמו המרצה האמריקני הרב שלמה סיינפלד, הפרשן היהודי של פוקס ניוז עמי הורוביץ, השפית דיני קליין ומדריך הטיולים דניאל הלף”.

יצויין כי ב-28 בפברואר עם פתיחתו של מלון הדירות טראמפ אינטרנשיונשל ונקובר, הגיעו לאירוע שלושת בניו הנוספים של נשיא ארה”ב. אז נאלצה משטרת ונקובר לתגבר את האזור עם כוחות רבים לאור המפגינים שהגיעו למקום. עלות המבצע הזה עלתה למשלם המיסים הקנדי כ-100 אלף דולר קנדי.