News – Page 224

New Jewish cemetery on Vancouver Island

The entrance to the newly established Jewish section of Cedar Valley Gardens Cemetery. (photo from OJKMS)

On July 9, in beautiful sunshine, a little bit of history for the Jewish community in central Vancouver Island was made when the new Jewish cemetery in Cedar, near Nanaimo, was consecrated in a ceremony attended by many members of the local Jewish and non-Jewish communities, who participated in the service by walking around the perimeter of the new burial ground, which is a completely segregated part of the Cedar Valley Gardens cemetery.

The new cemetery, which will provide a beit olam for Jews in the area, meets all halachic standards. It took over a year to become a reality, spearheaded by local residents Yvette and David Freeman of Qualicum Beach.

The Cedar cemetery location was first viewed by Elaine Berkman, z”l, of Nanaimo some years ago who, when her time came, wanted to be buried near her home and family. In a prophetic turn of events, she was the first person to be laid to rest in the new cemetery. Her funeral was held immediately after the consecration ceremony, which was brought forward as a result of her death.

Until a few years ago, burial on Vancouver

Island for those Jews who did not want to be buried off the Island was at the Congregation Emanu-El Cemetery in Victoria. Then, a few Victoria residents got together and arranged for an alternative Jewish section in the Hatley Gardens Cemetery near Royal Roads University. That still left community members living further up Island having to use Victoria for Jewish burial, with the attendant journey over the Malahat, often treacherous during the winter, and making for long journeys for spouses and other family members wishing to visit the graves of loved-ones.

Two years ago, the Freemans started to look for a suitable location for a small Jewish cemetery and, after one or two unsuccessful attempts, finally found Cedar Valley Gardens, where the management were happy to cooperate in finding a solution to the requirements for a truly halachic cemetery within the bounds of its grounds.

Once the basic understanding was agreed between Cedar Valley Gardens’ owners and the Freemans, Oceanside Jewish Kvarot Memorial Society was formed and incorporated by David Freeman, who is a lawyer, and binding agreements (including perpetual care and maintenance of the grounds) were finalized with Arbor Memorials (the owners of Cedar Valley Gardens), Sands Funeral Chapel and the new memorial society for a completely segregated section for a Jewish cemetery.

The only obstacle was money since, quite reasonably, the cemetery would not agree to start the various steps required to bring about the necessary changes until expenses were paid. Unfortunately, the North American reluctance to acknowledge that we all have a finite time on this earth and to deal with the practicalities of pre-planned end-of-life decisions meant that there was little or no interest in joining in financially. So, the Freemans decided that they had to front-end the project and to personally guarantee the funds to purchase the grave plots.

With the help of the property manager, the new section began to take shape with all the necessary requirements for a Jewish cemetery. With the project in its final stages, the society still only had the two directors, and the Freemans were pleased to have another member of the local community, Richard Steinberg, join the society’s board. Since Berkman’s funeral, there have been a number of enquiries from local residents after seeing the cemetery grounds.

The Jewish cemetery is operated under the direction of the Oceanside Jewish Kvarot Memorial Society, to which any enquiries can be made to [email protected].

Kesher Hadash teaches about Israel in all its complexity

The 2014 Davidson School group on Vision and Voices, the 10-day trip that precedes Kesher Hadash. The goal of this day in January was to explore the connection to the land and visit Ben-Gurion’s Desert Home in Sde Boker. The conversation there focused on David Ben-Gurion’s vision for Israel in general and for the desert in particular, as he wanted to make the desert bloom. (photo from Davidson School)

Growing up attending Jewish day school in Vancouver from nursery until Grade 12 gave Elana Wenner a strong connection to Judaism and Israel, but not a full understanding of the realities and complexities of Israeli society. With the goal of one day becoming a teacher in Jewish day schools in Canada, and eventually Israel, Wenner wanted a more comprehensive education – and went about getting one.

“I wanted to learn for myself and to be able to teach a more nuanced version of what’s going on in Israel,” said Wenner, 26.

To do so, she participated in Kesher Hadash from January to May 2014. The immersive, semester-long program is offered by the Jewish Theological Seminary’s William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education in Israel, although you do not need to be a student of the Davidson School’s master program to participate. Kesher Hadash strives to give the cohort of Canadian and American students a deeper understanding of Israeli politics and society, a chance to go beyond the picture students are taught in Jewish day school education.

“We had regular history classes teaching … history not just from the Israeli perspective but from other perspectives, from all sides of the political spectrum,” said Wenner. “We took classes at the [Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts] where we watched movies made by religious filmmakers expressing political views through film.”

“The goal is to explore the Israel-Diaspora relationship, to look at the educational vision of Israel and how we are going to teach Israel: what are we going to do, what are different ways to teach [about] Israel, what is the Israel we want to expose our students to?” explained Ofra Backenroth, dean of the Davidson School. “We believe you can’t be a Jewish educator if you don’t understand Israel and all its complexities.”

The program’s name articulates the two core aspects of the program: kesher, meaning connection, shows the goal of creating a deep connection with Israel, and hadash, which means new, expressing the desire to re-imagine the contours of the Israel-Diaspora relationship and suggesting new approaches to contemporary Jewish education.

The program’s name articulates the two core aspects of the program: kesher, meaning connection, shows the goal of creating a deep connection with Israel, and hadash, which means new, expressing the desire to re-imagine the contours of the Israel-Diaspora relationship and suggesting new approaches to contemporary Jewish education.

The program, said Backenroth, is life-transforming, as the students interact with different segments of the Israeli population: secular and religious, Israeli Jews and Arabs, Palestinians and others.

“We learned the nuances between lots of different aspects of Israeli society that are often not brought up in day school, that go beyond just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also the conflict between religious and secular Jews and the differences between Arab Israeli citizens and Palestinians,” said Wenner.

One of their weekly classes was made up of nine North American Jews, nine Israeli Jews and nine Israeli Arabs, where they discussed tough questions about Israel’s existence, history and politics.

“We often got into big disagreements and really had to experience for ourselves what it’s like to be faced with someone who has an opposite opinion and learn how to be respectful of their opinion,” said Wenner.

The journey for students is not easy, she noted. On the school’s website, however, many say that it opened their eyes to the realities of the difficulties and benefits of Israeli life.

“We need to be able to understand that there are not just Jews living in Israel but other people living there and it’s their country, too.”

“It was really difficult,” acknowledged Wenner, “but it wasn’t supposed to be easy. We need to be able to understand that there are not just Jews living in Israel but other people living there and it’s their country, too. During one program, we went on a guided tour of Bethlehem and met Palestinian families and talked to them about what goes on a daily basis. For a lot of people, it was a very challenging experience because it’s so contrary to what we’re used to hearing and knowing about the conflict.”

Wenner, who is currently pursuing of master’s of arts in Jewish studies at Concordia University in Montreal – and who is doing an internship this summer at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia – hopes to take the knowledge she learned during this program and apply it as a Jewish educator in the future.

“A lot of people don’t want to teach about any of the difficult or bad things going on in Israel because they think then we won’t love Israel. I was raised believing you should love Israel like you love a baby – you want to give it everything and, no matter what, love it anyways.

“But we want to love Israel like we love a teenager, where you help it grow and change and try to show it the right way,” she continued. “And that, to me, is the role of educators in North America. That’s the kind of love we should be teaching.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or at [email protected].

Chabad honors Rebbe

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin speaks to the Vancouver audience via webcast. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Empowerment. Scholarship. Connection. Each of these words was used more than once to describe the Rebbe – Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, z”l – and his impact during the July 9 community commemoration of the 20th year since his passing.

At Chabad Lubavitch at Oak and 41st, the six B.C. Chabad Houses hosted a night of learning, with workshops and dinner, followed by a speech, via webcast, from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of Efrat, Israel, and chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone in Israel, and the video The Rebbe: Marching Orders.

Timeless Leadership: An Evening of Inspiration offered two sets of workshops from which attendees could choose. The first set comprised Turning Lubavitch Outward by Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg of Chabad Lubavitch BC; The Rebbe’s Melodies by Rabbi Falik Schtroks of the Centre for Judaism in White Rock; and Stories of the Rebbe by Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman of Chabad of Richmond. The second set was The Wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe by Rabbi Binyomin Bitton of Chabad of Downtown, and The Rebbe’s Advice by Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld of Camp Gan Israel; Rabbi Meir Kaplan of Chabad of Vancouver Island, was unable to attend.

Among the handouts was a timeline of Schneerson’s life prior to his becoming the Rebbe. Born in Ukraine in 1902, Schneerson was considered a child prodigy and, by the time he was in his teens, he was exchanging letters with respected scholars. He married Chaya Mushka, the daughter of the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, in Poland in 1928. He then went to the University of Berlin, followed by the ESTL engineering school and the Sorbonne in Paris, while also giving Torah classes and the like. When the Nazis conquered Paris, the Rebbe and his wife managed to escape, by ship from Lisbon to New York. At his father-in-law’s behest, Schneerson became a director of multiple Lubavitch organizations and began to publish his thoughts on Chassidic tracts and write responsa. In 1951, a year after his father-in-law died, Schneerson became the Rebbe.

Wineberg, who gave a brief overview of Chabad’s history, called Schneerson “a Rebbe for our times.” A more critical problem in our age – the last 65, and especially the last 30-35, years – than assimilation, said Wineberg, has been low self-esteem. In this context, he highlighted the Rebbe’s belief that, “There is no such thing as a small Jew.” The Rebbe took what was an insular, study-focused organization and, while keeping the foundation of Torah and study, broadened its vision to include all Jews, said Wineberg, noting that the Rebbe connected with every single person he encountered. The Rebbe, he said, was the inspiration behind Chabad heading to campuses, to welcoming Jews to dinner, to prayer, to don tefillin.

Bitton provided some statistics on the Rebbe’s outreach and his scholarly contributions: he spoke on 31,393 occasions, for example, and 11,700 of his letters have been published so far; there are tens of thousands of pages of his writings. The Rebbe’s unique approach to learning, explained Bitton, is that he connected talmudic understanding with its kabbalistic translation. When the Rebbe analyzed an idea, said Bitton, he peeled its exterior layers away and got to the pure essence of the idea, the quintessential idea that was at the root of the discussion. For the Rebbe, he said, kol haTorah inyan echad, the entire Torah is one “topic.”

In telling the stories of his encounters with the Rebbe, Riskin echoed some of the sentiments shared by the local Chabad rabbis in their presentations. He compared the Rebbe to Moses, in that, as Moses is still alive in a sense because his teachings continue to be studied, the same is true of the Rebbe. “Certainly for me,” said Riskin, “because not only did he change my life, but he gave me fundamental messages by which I live my life, and which informed my world of education … and my world of the rabbinate.”

Riskin shared how he became the founding rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue in the mid-1960s. Having attended Yeshivah University on scholarships, he wanted to repay the institution and agreed to do some speaking engagements after receiving his ordination, one of which was at “a kind of Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur synagogue” that didn’t have its own building and was in what was then a poor neighborhood. They had a rabbi and were relatively satisfied but not completely, so they approached YU and, after Riskin came for one Motzei Shabbat, they wanted to hire him. When deciding whether or not to accept the pulpit, Riskin was conflicted and received conflicting advice. So, he asked for a meeting with the Rebbe, who told him to listen to his own rebbe (Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, z”l), adding that, “In every battle, there are people who have to get dressed like the enemy and go into the enemy territory … and you will not only win the battle, you will win the war.”

When Riskin argued that his future congregants have no background and that he would have nothing with which to work, the Rebbe said, “You can never say about a Jew that he has no background. Every Jew has a kingly background; every Jew is, after all, a descendant of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, of Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah…. I left the Rebbe’s presence awestruck, and with a very profound sense of empowerment.”

Another encounter with the Rebbe took place after Riskin had spent time working with an eccentric, wealthy man who, when he met Riskin was non-observant and married to a non-Jew. After that initial meeting, Riskin accepted the man as a single member of the shul (i.e. without his wife) but later found himself doubting that decision. When he asked the Rebbe about it, the Rebbe never told Riskin whether he’d made the right decision, but rather said, “No one is able to truly evaluate the profound value of the Jewish soul.” This meant, said Riskin, that “every Jew has an affinity to Torah and you can never give up on any Jew no matter how far away he may have went. And that, too, has become a very important part of my teaching.”

When Riskin was making aliyah, he could not meet with the Rebbe directly – because of the Rebbe’s ill health following a heart attack – but he received his blessing through Soloveitchik at a farbrengen (Chassidic gathering) they were all attending. To the blessing, the Rebbe added that, in Efrat, Riskin “must produce shluchim, emissaries, who are modern on the outside and Chabad on the inside.” Riskin credits the Rebbe for his having been able to establish Ohr Torah Stone, which has, among other programs, hundreds of shluchim.

Israel faces rising jihadist threats

Smoke rises in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike on the second day of Operation Protective Edge, July 9, 2014. (photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

With the launch of the Israeli army’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, much of the public’s attention has focused on Hamas, which has escalated its rocket fire on Israel. But the threats the Jewish state faces from Gaza may not be as clear-cut as they seem.

While Hamas is still extremely deadly, it has seen a weakening of its grip on the coastal enclave over the past few years, due to challenges from other Islamic terror groups and isolation from its former patrons in the Muslim world.

“Hamas has been on the brink of collapse,” explained Jonathan Schanzer, vice-president for research at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. “It has become very isolated politically and economically.

“It is very difficult to figure out what Hamas’ calculus is [in its current escalation with Israel],” Schanzer added. “Hamas may have nothing to lose but, on the other hand, they could have really overplayed their hand, which could lead to complete devastation of their assets.”

Since taking control of Gaza in 2007, Hamas has seen a steady decline in its support from the

Palestinian people and the rise of other Islamic terrorist groups there, including its main Palestinian rival, Islamic Jihad, as well as al-Qaeda-inspired Salafi global jihadist groups.

In February, leaders of the Salafist factions known as the Al-Quds Mujahideen Shura Council in Gaza issued a statement pledging allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), which has made global headlines for its brutality and swift victories in the Syrian civil war and in Iraq. These Gaza-based Salafi jihadist groups have often been at odds with Hamas and have been targeted by Hamas’ internal security forces. At the same time, these groups have been responsible for rocket fire on Israel, both from Gaza and Salafi groups operating in the Sinai Peninsula. This includes rockets fired on the southern Israeli city of Eilat in January 2014.

Meanwhile, recent reports indicate that jihadists from ISIS – now also known simply as “Isamic State” – have attempted to infiltrate Gaza from Egypt, the Gatestone Institute reported.

Sderot residents hope Tel Aviv finally understands them

Motorists in Tel Aviv take cover from an incoming terrorist rocket. (photo from IDF Spokesperson’s Unit via Ashernet)

In Sderot, Simone Mizrachi wearily follows her two-year-old grandson as he happily jumps on the bouncy castle in a large indoor playground. A balloon pops and she jumps. The playground has four large underground bomb shelters in case of rocket attacks.

“Enough already,” said Mizrachi about the dozens of rockets fired at this small town in recent days. “My grandson is the second generation already living through these rockets. When we see smoke from the rockets, I try to tell him, ‘Look at the clouds up there,’ but he knows it’s not clouds. At age 2, he already knows what’s going on.”

Mizrachi has lived in this lower-middle-class town of 24,000 for 32 years and has raised her four children here. For the past 13 years, she said, Sderot has been under constant rocket fire. Because it is less than a mile to the border with the Gaza Strip, there are only 15 seconds to get to a shelter after the siren sounds. The Israeli government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build bomb shelters here – at bus stops, schools and in private homes.

Now, for the first time, rockets are hitting Tel Aviv. Mizrachi said she hopes Israel can end the rocket fire all over the country. But, she added, there is a certain satisfaction in the idea that Israelis in bourgeois Tel Aviv now understand what Sderot has been living with all this time.

“Where have they been for the past 13 years?” she asks angrily. “Now, they are finally getting a taste of what it is like to live here. There are times that we get 60 rockets a day. Maybe now that they feel it, the government will finally do something.”

Haaretz conference provides platform for renewing peace push

To some, it was a (peace) camp reunion. To others, it served notice that peace with the Palestinians has returned to its place atop the agenda of Israel’s political left following its dalliance with socioeconomic issues. To the more than 2,000 participants in Haaretz newspaper’s Israel Peace Conference held last week at Tel Aviv’s David InterContinental Hotel, it was an elegant opportunity to mingle with the iconic stewardship of days past – topped by Shimon Peres – while honing the movement’s agenda among those poised to embrace the next wave of leadership, such as opposition head and Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog and activist-turned-politician Stav Shaffir, who personifies the bridge from social activism to the politics of peace.

The history of the Israeli Peace Conference was itself microcosmic of the fortunes of the movement it supports. The idea began amid optimism born of word of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace mission, according to conference chief executive officer, journalist Akiva Eldar. “The original idea was to push [Israeli] Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to say ‘yes’ to Kerry but, around April, everything came to a halt,” he told this reporter.

“We kept pushing it off, finally setting it for July,” said Eldar, senior columnist for Al-Monitor. But, by the time the date rolled around, a new set of obstacles had presented themselves in the form of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens followed by the killing of a Palestinian youth. The atmosphere became more toxic to the point where key Palestinian participants, chief negotiator Sa’ib Erakat and businessman Munib Al-Masri, pulled out of the conference. Yet, the decision was made to continue as planned. According to Eldar, “We decided we don’t give veto power to terrorists on both sides.”

Israel master chef hopes to foster peace through cooking

Nof Atamna-Ismaeel reacts to her win. (photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 from israel21c.org)

“This is the most exciting night of my life,” said a grinning, teary-eyed Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, upon her selection as winner of the fourth season of Master Chef Israel.

The April 5 broadcast had more than a third of Israel staying at home on a Saturday night to see who among the remaining three finalists would be crowned this year’s culinary champion of the most popular show on local television, even beating its close competition, Chef Games, which debuted this fall.

Israeli-Arab Atamna-Ismaeel ended up besting competitors Ido Kronenberg, a businessman from Savyon, and Meseret Woldimikhal, an Ethiopian-born immigrant in the process of converting from Catholicism to Judaism, who lives in Rishpon.

Atamna-Ismaeel was a judges’ favorite from the get-go. This year’s auditions for the show, based on the British reality program of the same name, involved two steps: a blind tasting of a sandwich prepared behind the scenes by a wannabe contestant, and a second dish cooked on screen by those whose sandwiches met with the judges’ approval.

Healing effects of medical clowns

Talia Safra and Nimrod Eisenberd of Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem interact with a patient. (photo from Dream Doctors Project)

While clowns have brought smiles to the faces of many children, both healthy and sick, the latter clowning generally has been done on a volunteer basis and without the presence of a medical team. Recently, however, Israel became the first place in the world to recognize the medical benefits associated with positive attitude and laughter. Most Israeli hospitals now offer clown therapy and, due to its growing acceptance and success, the University of Haifa will be the first to offer a clown degree.

This all started with Jacob Shriqui, an Israeli shaliach to Geneva who went on to work in Israel’s health-care industry. Once he retired, Shriqui returned to visit some friends in Geneva and was invited to a meeting in a hospital in Lausanne. When he entered the hospital, he got lost and, in his wandering, he happened to walk by the pediatric department. To his surprise, he saw a giggling child out of the corner of his eye. Upon further investigation, he noticed the clown who was making the child smile.

“The idea came to him that if there is a thing like that, it should also be in Israel, because, until then, there was no medical clowning in Israel,” said Daniel Shriqui, Jacob’s son and past director of the Dream Doctor Project.

When he returned to Israel, Jacob Shriqui used his connections from the time he was stationed in Geneva to create the Magi Foundation, with its main function being the Dream Doctors Project in Israel. Built with the help of philanthropic members of the Jewish community in Geneva, in September 2001, the project started off with three clowns. After a year of experiments and positive feedback, he went from hospital to hospital proposing the concept.

“This is how we grew from three clowns to 127 today, in nearly every hospital in Israel,” said his son. “The main thing was, when my father came to the hospital, he said, ‘Look, we have a tool. It’s called a medical clown. We’re going to give him all the best training we can, and you’re going to try this tool like any other medical device. We don’t know exactly what it does or whether or not it will be effective. If it’s not, you can end the project whenever you want. If it is, you have to take on the responsibility of operating it.’”

From the start, the medical clowns in the hospitals were part of the medical team, a situation desired both by the hospitals and by the clowns.

“We work as part of the medical team because we believe that medical clowning is a medical profession, just like any other, and that it can be very successful,” said Daniel Shriqui. “But first, we had to convince the doctors and nurses of the benefits of having a clown when you take blood from the veins of a child. The child doesn’t cry because the clown is acting and playing with him.

photo - David Shilman (Dream Doctors) playing with his patient, and the nurse at Rambam Medical Centre, Haifa — David Shilman (Dream Doctors) playing with his patient, and the nurse at Rambam Medical Centre, Haifa. (photo from Dream Doctors Project)

“Another example is when a child is taken for a repair surgery after being sexually abused. Typically, the first test after that is done by the doctor, and by the clown paralleling, and everything is recorded.

“We see it really facilitating the work, and being able to work more smoothly with the children, [and] with the parents, too.”

Another part of the hospital-clown agreement is that the hospital gets the clowns’ services for one year for free with no obligation and no contract. If after one year, the hospital is happy with the results and wants to continue with the project, the hospital needs to start participating in the payment for the clown services.

“We knew we were here to stay when, last year, the head of the Ministry of Health in Israel called and said, ‘I need your clowns immediately,’” explained Shriqui. “‘We’re going to vaccinate all the children in Israel under nine years old for polio. We’re going to open almost 1,000 vaccination stations and I need all your staff, more than 100 clowns, to be present in the station to help us to do this.’” For the first three months, most of the clowns went from station to station and helped the nurses vaccinate the children.

“I suggested to one of the biggest hospitals in Israel, two years ago, that they use a clown in the oncology department for adults,” said Shriqui. “A few months ago, there was a budget problem and the hospital told the department we have to stop the clown service. A week later, the hospital manager received a letter signed by 70 patients, doctors and nurses, protesting against no longer having the clowns come to the unit twice a week. They explained why it is so very important, that the clowns transform the unit from a sad [one] to more positive.”

The increasing demand for hospital clowns is coming from within the medical field. The project works to fill the requests for services, but sometimes hospital budgets do get in the way.

“Especially in the oncology department, the children often are in the hospital for a really long time,” said Shriqui. “Unfortunately, many times it ends by the death of the child. But, during these months, sometimes years, there is a special relationship formed between the clown and the child, because our clowns work at the same place for years.

“In Israel, it’s a bit different…. The clown gives their own private cellphone numbers to the parents. I remember one case where the parents called a clown when he was off duty, at home, and said, ‘Listen, tomorrow we have to go to chemo and we’d like you to come assist, because the child asked that you to be there.’”

The project held a conference in October 2011, where clowns from around the world came to Israel.

“We help many clowns that come from all over the world and work with us to learn how to do this work better with medical teams, and then to be really involved in the processes and the medical treatments,” said Shriqui. “My philosophy is that a clown has to work freely. To get the best from the clown, you have to free him to be part of the team – and we have proof that if you free the clown, even to be in the operating room, you get unbelievable results.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Evidence for and against pot

Standing, from left to right, are panel facilitator Michael Levy, CFHU board member Stav Adler, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and Dr. Kathryn Selby. (photo by Michelle Dodek)

It may be a common occurrence in many parts of the city, but it is still a rare thing to pass through marijuana smoke while entering an Orthodox synagogue. But that was the case on June 24, when a panel discussion took place at Schara Tzedeck on the topic Should I Change My Mind About Weed? A small number of attendees, unsatisfied with a merely academic consideration of the topic, opted for a more psychoactive engagement.

The director of the local Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, Dina Wachtel, was inspired to convene a panel on marijuana after watching Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN documentary on the topic.

Prof. Raphael Mechoulam, a Hebrew University chemist and a leading expert on the subject, said that marijuana has been used in societies from India and China to the Middle East “forever.” Queen Victoria’s doctor, J. Russell Reynolds, used it to treat the queen’s migraines.

Mechoulam said that cannabidiol (CBD), a component in marijuana, may have medical uses “in almost all diseases affecting humans.” Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the component that causes a high, CBD does not deliver a high and has no known side effects. However, there have been almost no clinical trials on humans, probably because pharmaceutical corporations would not be able to patent it and governments, for various reasons, have avoided the matter.

Cannabinoid receptors are abundant in multiple brain regions, he said, including those affecting movement control, learning and memory, stress, cognitive function and links between cerebral hemispheres. Marijuana can impact appetite, blood pressure, cerebral blood flow, the immune system and inflammation.

In tests on mammals, such as mice, marijuana reduced brain trauma and reduced or eliminated cancerous tumors. There was a clinical trial on its use around epilepsy and its effect on patients experiencing 10 to 30 seizures per day. Cannabinoids were tested on people for whom existing drugs do not work and resulted in positive outcomes in large numbers of adult patients. “This is the only clinical trial that has ever been reported – 35 years ago,” he said.

Infants undergoing cancer treatment that causes vomiting were given small amounts of THC. “We saw a complete stop of all vomiting and nausea,” with no side effects, he said.

In treatment of schizophrenia, current drugs have some extremely unpleasant side effects, he noted, while CBD has none. Even so, in most jurisdictions, marijuana is in the same legal category as heroin.

Dr. Kathryn Selby, a clinical professor in the University of British Columbia’s pediatrics department specializing in developmental neurosciences, spoke on marijuana’s effect on the adolescent brain. She spoke of the “enormous plasticity of the teen brain” and said that THC can alter the brain’s structure and function, and that the neurotoxic effects can be lifelong. Maturing of the human brain continues into the 20s, she explained, and the prefrontal cortex, which involves judgment and executive functions, develops last. There are two peaks in brain maturation and cerebral volume, happening in early childhood and then, for boys, at age 14-and-a-half and, for girls, at 11-and-a-half. Trauma, stress, substance abuse and sedentary habits can negatively affect development.

The effects of marijuana use in the short term can be loss of motivation, fatigue and, in about 10 percent of users, addiction. Neuroimaging indicates that the longer-term impact of marijuana use by adolescents is strongly associated with psychoses such as schizophrenia later in life. Selby said there is a 40 percent increase in prevalence of psychosis among users, with a 50 to 200 percent increase in psychoses among heavy users and, among those who use marijuana daily during high school, there is a 600 percent increase in depression and anxiety later in life. Correlations also include lowered IQ, intellectual and emotional issues.

The frontal lobe, which is not completely formed by adolescence, is also the most affected by alcohol and drugs and leaves users vulnerable to the “adverse developmental, cognitive, psychiatric and addictive effects of marijuana.” Selby recommended that, if marijuana is used at all, that it be “as late and as little as possible.”

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, Schara Tzedeck Synagogue’s spiritual leader, also has a biochemistry degree. Although the Torah does not say anything specifically about marijuana, Rosenblatt made the comparison to what the Torah and Talmud say about other forms of altered states, particularly drunkenness. If there were any questions about the severity of potential outcomes from inebriation, Rosenblatt said, the drunkenness and castration of Noah is a cautionary tale.

Rosenblatt also mentioned the story of Lot, whose daughters got him drunk and seduced him, resulting in Amnon and Moab, who were both Lot’s sons and grandsons. Rosenblatt cited it as an indication that drunkenness and disinhibition is to be avoided.

The holiday of Purim is of particular interest in this discussion and Rosenblatt said there is a modern interpretation of the old dictum that Jews should become so drunk on Purim that they cannot tell the difference between the names of the villain Haman and the hero Mordechai. The modern view, the rabbi said, is to drink a little, get tired, fall asleep and, when asked who is Haman and who is Mordechai, to roll over and snore.

Rabbis in recent years have overwhelmingly concurred that use of, say, morphine for terminal patients is justified, but the use of untested alternative measures is not.

“Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence,” said Rosenblatt. If studies indicate that marijuana were clinically proven to assist in recovery or treatment for various diseases, he said, it would almost certainly become acceptable.

photo - Raphael Mechoulam at CKNW — Prof. Raphael Mechoulam at CKNW. *(photo from CFHU)*

The panel was moderated by Michael Levy, CKNW radio and Global TV personality. Stav Adler, president of CFHU Vancouver chapter, introduced the evening. Hodie Kahn, president of Schara Tzedeck, invited the audience to stay around for munchies after the event.

Were minds changed? After Mechoulam’s presentation, he received an enthusiastic standing ovation from about half the audience of 200 or so. After her presentation, Selby was greeted with polite applause, while one man jumped to his feet.

Pat Johnson is a Vancouver writer and principal in PRsuasiveMedia.com.

ISIS looking to Jordan

An Israeli border policeman patrols the area of the Judean desert, near the Jordan border. After swift victories in Iraq, the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) terrorist group is setting its sights on Jordan, threatening to drag Israel into the global jihadist conflict. (photo by Nati Shohat/FLASH90)

Emerging from the chaos of the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group has gained the world’s attention for its brutal medieval-style justice and its swift victories in Iraq, threatening to overrun the weak U.S.-backed government there. But now ISIS is also setting its sights on Jordan, threatening to drag Israel into the global jihadist conflict.

“They are a vicious and brutal group, and have even done some things that al-Qaeda thought were unwise,” Elliot Abrams, who served as deputy national security advisor for former President George W. Bush and is currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told this reporter. “More people, more money and more guns. They do constitute a real threat.”

The goals of ISIS are clear from its name. Alternatively translated as the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (the Arabic name for the Levant region) or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the group seeks to control the entire region, which, in addition to Iraq and Syria, includes Jordan, Lebanon, and even Israel and the Palestinian territories.