Tikun Olam Gogos’ O Canada! bags proclaim dedication to the ethic of improving the world in friendship with other nations, raising much-needed funds for grandmothers in sub-Saharan Africa who are raising their grandchildren due to the HIV & AIDS pandemic. (photo from Tikun Olam Gogos)
As proud Canadians and fundraisers for the Stephen Lewis Foundation Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, Tikun Olam Gogos have launched a special edition line of O Canada! tote bags – determined to respond to the threats American tariffs pose to Canada, and to the suspension of USAID, which is devastating to the Gogos’ partner organizations in Africa.
According to Stephen Lewis, “Lives will be lost. Our best contribution at this perilous moment is to attempt to replace the resources that America has expunged.”
Tikun Olam Gogos’ response to the White House is to raise more funds by intensifying its efforts to handcraft and market its O Canada! line of large tote bags, zippered and drawstring pouches.
Tikun Olam Gogos (TOG) is part of the Greater Vancouver Gogos, which includes about 20 Gogo groups across the Lower Mainland. Gogo is the Zulu word for “grandmother” and tikkun olam is Hebrew for “repair of the world.” TOG is a volunteer group of grandmothers and grand-others (non-members who help out the group periodically) in Vancouver that was founded in May 2011 and is sponsored by the Sisterhood of Temple Sholom. Its mission is to raise awareness, build solidarity and mobilize support in Canada for grandmothers in sub-Saharan Africa who are raising their grandchildren due to the HIV & AIDS pandemic.
In 14 years of operation, Tikun Olam Gogos has raised more than half a million dollars for the SLF Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign. With its partners in Africa reeling from the withdrawal of other international programs, TOG is more determined than ever to fulfil its motto: “we will not rest until they can rest.”
Priced at $50, just $5 more than TOG’s original signature totes, the O Canada! bags proclaim dedication to the ethic of improving the world in friendship with other nations. So, wear your maple leaf and your heart proudly on your O Canada! tote. You are telling the world “Canada cares.”
To order your O Canada! tote bags, zippered pouches and drawstring pouches, visit tikunolamgogos.org or call Joyce Cherry at 604-261-5454.
From 1925 to today, Na’amat volunteers across Canada and the United States continue to empower women and children in Israel and abroad. (photo from Na’amat Canada)
At a time when charities are fighting to survive, an organization that’s been helping women and children in Israel and North America is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
Na’amat Canada and Na’amat USA, which began as a North American chapter in 1925, will mark the centenary at a gala conference in Toronto in May with delegates from across Canada and the United States.
“It’s a huge deal. It’s a milestone,” said Vivian Reisler, executive vice-president of Na’amat Canada. “We’ve come a long way from Golda Meir sending a message that we need $100 to build X, Y, Z.”
The forerunner of Na’amat was founded in 1921, in what would later become the modern state of Israel, to empower women, including providing vocational training and advocating for improved working conditions and equal pay.
Four years later, a North American branch was born and Na’amat chapters were formed across Canada and the United States over the ensuing decades. Today, thousands of volunteers are continuing to empower women and children in Israel and abroad.
“The success of the organization is due to the dedication of the members, volunteers and donors – because, without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” said Reisler.
Na’amat Canada president Susan Inhaber, a member of the organization for 25 years, agrees.
“We just want to keep building, get our name out there, build the membership and thank all the donors, supporters and members who are making everything possible,” she said. “This is an exciting time for us to be together. It’s nice that we have an organization that’s lasted so long.”
While the North American branch of Na’amat (a Hebrew acronym for “Movement of Working Women and Volunteers”) began in 1925, Na’amat Canada and Na’amat USA became two autonomous divisions in 1965.
“We were together, we split, and now we’re back together (informally, at the Toronto conference) celebrating 100 years,” said Reisler.
Na’amat is the largest women’s organization in Israel. It provides a wide variety of services, including a daycare network for thousands of children, legal aid centres, technological high schools for students who have trouble succeeding in other classroom settings, boardingschools for underprivileged students, and the Na’amat Canada Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention.
Na’amat Canada members at the Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention. (photo from Na’amat Canada)
Established in 1993 in Tel Aviv, the Glickman Centre was the first women’s shelter in Israel. It has three distinct sections: the shelter, a counseling and treatment area, and the Rhodie Blanshay Benaroch Children’s Centre wing, a haven for children living in the shelter.
The Rhodie Blanshay Benaroch Children’s Centre houses a computer room, baby nursery, kindergarten, audiovisual education corner, library, learning centre and outdoor playground, named in honour of Rhodie’s granddaughter, Rho Schneiderman. A musical playground was built in honour of Rhodie’s two granddaughters. Blanshay Benaroch was a dynamic third-generation Na’amat member who was committed to building a safe, loving environment for children who needed it most.
Recently, Na’amat Canada was instrumental in building a new middle school at Kanot Youth Village. More than 300 students will now have a state-of-the-art school to enhance their education.
In the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel needs Na’amat’s help as much – or even more – than it did a century ago, said Doris Wexler-Charow, past national president of Na’amat Canada.
“I think that Oct. 7 changed everything,” she said of the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust.
Everyone in Israel is suffering from PTSD, said Wexler-Charow, a retired social worker. “Everybody’s been traumatized,” she said,explaining that Na’amat is providing more counseling services than ever. “Israel needs us. It’s important for us to keep going. The cause is a good one and I think we need our young people to continue where we leave off.”
With Air Canada’s announcement of the resumption of flights from Toronto and Montreal to Tel Aviv, it will be much faster for Canadians to fly to Israel. But will it be cheaper?
The Canadian national carrier is set to resume its routes to Tel Aviv on June 8 with four weekly flights between Pearson International Airport and Ben-Gurion Airport. From August, it will fly from YUL Montréal-Trudeau International Airport once weekly.
Since 2022, when El Al Israel Airlines halted its flights to Canada, there have been no direct flights between Toronto or Montreal and Tel Aviv. Air Canada suspended its Israel operations following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. It resumed services just before the Iranian missile attack on Israel on April 13, 2024, then again suspended flights, repeatedly extending the suspension, until announcing that flights would not be resumed until further notice.
“We are looking forward to booking direct non-stop flights from Toronto and Montreal again,” said Toby Soil of Toronto’s Peerless Travel. “During these very difficult times, we were booking flights from New York with El Al, which did an excellent job, or booking flights with Air Canada, El Al and other European airlines through Europe with a stop-over.”
Air Canada has undertaken an extensive safety analysis, which will continue leading up to and after June 8, said Soil. The airline will continue to monitor the situation in the region and adjust its schedule accordingly, including future service increases as warranted. Prices will depend on availability, class of service and season, she explained.
Other North American carriers that have announced they are resuming flying on the Tel Aviv-New York route include United Airlines, which scheduled flights beginning on March 15, and Delta Airlines, on April 1. Delta had ceased flying to Israel at the end of July 2024.
Air India resumed its long-haul flight services from Delhi and Mumbai to Tel Aviv on March 2. Similarly, China’s Hainan Airlines will resume twice weekly direct flights between Tel Aviv and Beijing starting April 10.
European airlines that have recently announced the resumption of flights to and from Israel include Air France, which resumed flying to Ben-Gurion Airport on Jan. 25; Iberia, which will start on April 1; Air Baltic, on April 2; and KLM and EasyJet both beginning on June 1.
By the summer peak season, three North American airlines will be operating flights to Israel after months in which only El Al scheduled direct flights between Tel Aviv and New York. That near-monopoly allowed El Al to raise its fares. Last November, the airline posted record quarterly profit and revenue. The Israeli airline drew criticism from customers in Israel and abroad for alleged price-gouging.
David J. Rotfleisch is a Toronto lawyer who made aliyah two-and-a-half years ago and now lives in Jerusalem, but commutes regularly to Canada.
“In October 2022, the month after I made aliyah, El Al stopped flying directly to Tel Aviv from Canada,” he said. “That left Air Canada as the only option for a direct flight. Post-October 2023, Air Canada canceled its flights, meaning there was no way to fly directly to Israel from Canada, which I need to do, both because my law office is in Toronto and to visit friends and family.
“Now, with the resumption of the Air Canada flights, a direct 12-hour return flight for the holidays, leaving in September and returning in October, is around $2,300 Cdn in basic economy. Flying Polish LOT Airlines via Warsaw will cost about $1,600 Cdn return in basic economy and will take 19 hours or longer depending on the connections.”
Last September, Rotfleisch was forced to fly Ethiopian Airlines to Addis Ababa to reach Israel for Rosh Hashanah.
With high demand and limited capacity, travel experts don’t forecast a fall in prices during the Passover holiday or summer season.
“Services by foreign airlines are going to gradually grow and we are going to gradually see prices come down, but they are not going to be down dramatically for Passover or the August period, when most Israelis are looking to book vacations with their families,” Yaneev Lanis, co-founder of online booking site Secret Flights, told the Times of Israel. “Passover period is always an expensive period to travel, and especially this year, when there is still going to be less supply than usual.”
He said, “Passover ticket prices are going to be higher, and I wouldn’t expect prices to drop, as demand will be very high and foreign airlines are planning to come back in a low capacity, which means that they will easily be able to fill up their planes and there is no reason for them to reduce prices.”
Overall, ticket prices to and from Israel have more than doubled at times since the Gaza War broke out on Oct. 7, 2023.
Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.
Volunteers with Sar-El in Israel last March. (photo from Marina Sonkina)
Last year, about this time, I was in Israel, volunteering with Sar-El, an organization that connects the Israel Defence Forces with volunteers from more than 30 countries, who provide the army with non-combat support. So many others had wanted to help after Oct. 7 that I had to wait several months for my documents to be processed.
The mood was understandably sombre. Not just the trauma of the Hamas terror attacks, with hostages captive, but also the antisemitism that engulfed the Western world like fire.
I asked some of my fellow volunteers why they had come to Israel during such a dangerous time. The answers I got, especially from non-Jews, both surprised and comforted me. A Christian volunteer from Detroit wanted Israel to know that it did not stand alone. A middle-aged Australian had been sponsored by her church in Sydney to help people of the Holy Land under an attack. Two Romanian girls didn’t speak a word of Hebrew or English, but answered me in Italian: “Aiuto” (“Help”).
“I had a very good life. I had a chance to travel all over the world. But, until now, I’ve been traveling horizontally,” a Parisian Jew of Algerian descent told me. “Now, it’s time to travel vertically,” she said, raising her eyes to the sky. “This land is sacred. I feel it here like nowhere else. And now it’s in peril.”
In spite of rockets being fired into Israel from Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen, the volunteers felt more protected in Israel than they did back home. Many felt relieved that, finally, there was no need to conceal one’s true feelings or to hide one’s Jewishness.
“I don’t feel safe in the US anymore,” said a New York lawyer who had been attacked from behind in the streets of Manhattan, his yarmulke yanked off his head.
A German woman from Munich was on her 10th visit to Israel. “I’m not Jewish, and I can’t explain it,” she said. “All I know is that I love people here. Love their warmth. Chaos? Yes! They talk loud, they are emotional, but I don’t mind that. I plan to spend half a year here once I retire.”
Initially, I wasn’t sure how we, civilians, could help the IDF fight Hamas in Gaza, but my first day at the medical military base near Tel Aviv made it clear. Hundreds of different medications and medical devices that had come from warehouses across the country had to be sorted out, their expiration dates checked. Those who accuse Israel of racism should see these medicines, each labeled in four languages: Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian. (Thanks to Soviet antisemitism and, lately, to Putin’s war on Ukraine, 15% of Israel’s population comes from Russia.)
On the military base, I saw clearly what is best in Israel: its people. The IDF mirrors the diversity and inclusiveness of a society that, in its short history, has accepted refugees from more than 100 countries.
Without Moshe, for example, we would have had no idea how to sort the truckloads of medications arriving every day. Having come to Israel from Bukhara (in Central Asia) as a child, Moshe kibitzed in three languages, instructing us by means of his hands while talking on his cellphone. From his easy smile, I would never have guessed that his wife had recently died of cancer, that his two sons were fighting in Gaza and that, every day after his work with us, he went to a synagogue to pray. One morning, Moshe directed us to place boxes in long rows on the floor, in an unusual configuration. The next morning, a group of children with autism and down syndrome came to finish the sorting, also helping their people’s army.
Paul, a mathematician who came from France, was in charge of the military base’s math department. Ruth, who had made aliyah from the Netherlands as a teenager, was serving as one of the madrichot (female soldiers tasked with organizing and looking after Sar-El’s volunteers); after the army, she hoped to become a specialist in Japanese culture.
On another military base, about 20 kilometres from Gaza, in the Negev Desert, one of our tasks was to assemble care packages for soldiers spending Passover at the front, away from home. In two days, we filled 15,000 boxes with grape juice, matzah and other traditional items. Asoldier with a distinct Californian accent came to help us. He was a “lone soldier,” a soldier who has no family in Israel. Various families take turns welcoming lone soldiers for Shabbat, feeding them and giving them a sense of home.
The cover of a Haggadah that Sar-El volunteers inserted into thousands of Passover boxes that were sent to Israeli soldiers in Gaza. It shows the multicultural character of the Israel Defence Forces. (photo from Marina Sonkina)
Once, an officer joined us, helping make up the boxes, which was unusual, given his rank. Later, I saw him in the mess hall speaking in Hebrew to the base commander, who was originally from India. I found out that the officer was Druze. Living mainly in the country’s north, in the Galilee region, the Druze community enjoys all the civil rights of other Israelis, while maintaining their Arabic language and customs. Many Druze reach high echelons in the army, in medicine and other professions. When a Hezbollah rocket struck the Druze town of Majdal Shams, killing 12 children playing soccer, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went there, addressing community members as “brothers and sisters.” He promised that Hezbollah would “pay a heavy price” for killing their children, and he kept his word.
When I think of the soldiers I met and talked to, one thing sets them apart from young people of their age in North America: a seriousness of purpose, and the burden of responsibility. They know that the survival of Israel lies on their shoulders. They also know that, while defending theircountry, they may not survive. Death lurks behind every corner in Gaza and Lebanon. It has hidden in an effigy of a child pleading, in Hebrew, for help, but booby-trapped with explosives. It was underground, in the tunnels, some going 50 kilometres deep. It disguised itself in doctors’ scrubs, inside Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza, which was appropriated by Hamas terror operatives.
Every fallen soldier is loved and mourned as one’s own child. Army service acts as a social glue in a country into which millions of refugees, speaking different languages, have poured. The IDF is still the backbone and pride of this society.
At a party for troops just returned from Gaza, I saw a religious Jew in a yarmulke (skullcap) and tzitzit (prayer shawl) hanging from under his uniform, with a baby girl in each arm and an automatic rifle dangling behind his back. I talked to a medic, a corporal who was more outspoken than many – a college history teacher in times of peace, he had three young children at home.
“Is there any possibility of peace between Palestinians and Jews?” I asked him.
“Before Oct. 7, I supported a two-state solution because I wanted peace, but the Palestinians do not want peace,” he responded. “We’ve tried it many times in the past. They want only one state, an Islamic Caliphate with Sharia rule. We, Jews, are in their way and they want us dead…. We have to fight – if we want to survive.”
“What about your children?” I asked. “Will they have to fight, too?”
“Yes, them, too,” he said. “They’ll be left with no other choice.”
I shook my head in distress but said nothing.
“Look,” said the man, “illusions cost us very dearly. We can’t afford them anymore.”
I remembered Golda Meir’s words, spoken in 1957: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
There is a truce in Gaza now. But, while some 20,000 Hamas fighters have been eliminated, 10,000 armed fighters are still at large.
Marina Sonkinais a fiction writer, and teaches in the Liberal Arts Program 55+ at Simon Fraser University.
Cochin Jews at the 450th year celebration of the Paradesi synagogue, December 2017. (photo by Shalva Weil)
A study on the Purim traditions of the Cochin Jewish community by Prof. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University was published in the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. It examines the historical and cultural significance of effigies in Purim celebrations among Cochin Jews, tracing their evolution from the 16th century to the modern day.
The Cochin Jewish community, numbering no more than 2,400 at its peak in 1948, lived in harmony with their Hindu, Christian and Muslim neighbours. Unlike other Jewish communities, they never experienced antisemitism in India, except during the Portuguese conquest of the 16th century. Their unique Purim celebrations featured role reversals that symbolically challenged societal hierarchies based on caste, religion and gender. This inversion of power structures was most vividly expressed through the construction and destruction of effigies representing adversaries, a practice embedded in the communal and ritualistic fabric of Cochin Jewry.
By the 20th century, Cochin Jews increasingly aligned themselves with the global Jewish community. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the majority of Cochin Jews made aliyah by 1954, leaving behind only a small number of Paradesi and Malabar Jews scattered across the state of Kerala. The once-thriving Cochin Jewish community on the Malabar Coast is nearly extinct, and traditional Purim celebrations have all but disappeared. With only one Paradesi Jew remaining there and a handful in other former Cochin Jewish locations, synagogue services now rely on visiting Jewish tourists.
In stark contrast, in Israel, where an estimated 15,000 descendants of Cochin Jews now reside, Purim is celebrated in ways that reflect broader Jewish and Western cultural traditions. Children dress up as superheroes, soldiers and biblical figures; they participate in school parties and exchange hamantashen. Observant Jews continue to read the Book of Esther in synagogue and hold festive meals, incorporating their heritage into mainstream Jewish customs.
Weil, who has been awarded this year’s Yakir Yerushalayim honour as a distinguished citizen of Jerusalem due to her lifelong research into ethnicity and gender, highlights in her research the transition of Cochin Jewry from a localized, community-bound identity to an integrated and globalized Jewish experience. While their presence in India has nearly vanished, the legacy of Cochin Jews continues to thrive in Israel and beyond.
מספר האמריקאים שעוזבים את ארה”ב ועוברים למדינה השכנה מצפון – קנדה – הולך וגדל. זאת, בעיקר עקב בחירתו המחודשת של דונלד טראמפ לנשיא המדינה
קרוב למאה אלף אמריקאים חצו את הגבול בעשר השנים האחרונות והפכו לתושבי קבע או אזרחים, לפי דיווח של ממשלת קנדה. וזאת בעיקר עקב בחירתו של טראמפ בפעם הראשונה לנשיאות (לפני כתשע שנים), לצד הרגשת חוסר הביטחון האישי, שהיו מהגורמים המרכזיים להגירה לקנדה
בעקבות המתיחות הפוליטית הגוברת בארה”ב, בוודאי אחרי בחירתו בחודש נובמבר של טראמפ לנשיא האמריקני בפעם השנייה, והזעזועים החברתיים העמוקים, יותר ויותר אמריקאים בוחנים אפשרות להגר לקנדה. נתוני גוגל טרנדס מראים זינוק משמעותי בחיפושים אחר מעבר לקנדה, שהחלו לאחר העימות הטלוויזיוני בין הנשיא היוצא ג’ו ביידן לטראמפ, כשביידן נראה מבולבל מאוד לאורך השידור, כך לפי דיווחים בעיתונות האמריקנית
מהלנה-רי ג’ונסון, אישה שחורה בת ארבעים ושתיים, מייצגת את גל ההגירה הזה. ג’ונסון, שגדלה בדרום ארה”ב ועברה ללוס אנג’לס, החליטה בשנת אלפיים ושמונה עשרה עבור לקנדה עם בן זוגה. היא רצתה לחיות במקום שבו המדינה לא נמצאת במלחמה מתמדת. לדבריה במדינה כמו קנדה היא מקום בו היא מרגישה בטוחה יותר עם משפחתה
לפי נתוני ממשלת קנדה, בין השנים אלפיים וחמש עשרה ועד הרבעון השלישי של שנה שעברה, קיבלו למעלה מתשעים ושלושה אלף אמריקאים תושבות קבע בקנדה. המספרים עולים בהתמדה כמעט מדי שנה מאז בחירתו של טראמפ לנשיאות בארה”ב בפעם הראשונה
אולם החיים בקנדה אינם חסרי אתגרים ובעיות. יותר ויותר אמריקאים מדווחים על הקשיים הכלכליים במעבר. כך למשל, כריס אולט בן הארבעים, שעבר מפורטלנד לויקטוריה במחוז בריטיש קולומביה, סיפר שהדירה שלו בארה”ב בבניין מגורים עלתה כשלוש מאות אלף דולר. ואילו אותה דירה בקנדה עולה בין חצי מיליון לתשע מאות אלף דולר. ובתים פרטיים הרבה יותר יקרים בקנדה ומחירם נאמד סביב מיליון דולר או אף יותר
האמריקנים שעברו לקנדה מספרים שהשירות הרפואי בקנדה הוא חינם עבור אזרחים ותושבי קבע, או בעלות נמוכה מאוד. וזה יתרון אדיר מול ארה”ב שבה השירות הרפואי עולה הרבה מאוד כסף, ויש משפחות מתקשות להתמודד עם הוצאה חיונית וגדולה זו. מצד שני זמני ההמתנה לטיפולים רפואיים ארוכים במיוחד בקנדה, עם תורים שיכולים להגיע לשנה וחצי עבור ניתוחים לא דחופים. המצב כל כך חמור עד כדי כך שאנשים נאלצים לטוס למדינות אחרות, כולל בחזרה לארה”ב, כדי למשל לעבור ניתוחים מסובכים
למרות בעיות ההגירה הקשורות בקנדה, המהגרים מדווחים על יתרונות משמעותיים. מערכת החינוך נחשבת איכותית יותר, והביטחון האישי גבוה יותר, בעיקר בכל מה שקשור לעניין רישוי הנשק, שהוא פרוץ לגמרי בארה”ב. וזה מעלה חשש גדול אצל הורים ששולחים ילדים למסגרות החינוך נוכח תקריות הירי, שהפכו כבר לדי שכיחות במדינתם
אם כן, אמנם קנדה מהווה פתרון אטרקטיבי לאמריקאים שמחפשים שינוי נוכח התנודות הפוליטיות במדינה והחשש לביטחון האישי שלהם, אבל היא לא אוטופיה. גם במדינה השכנה יש לא מעט מורכבויות ואתגרים כלכליים, חברתיים ותרבותיים. וכידוע חיי מהגרים לא תמיד קלים במיוחד בשנים הראשונות לקליטתם במדינתם החדשה
טראמפ שנכנס שוב הפעם לבית הלבן מדיר שינה מאמריקנים רבים שמבינים היטב עד כמה הוא מסוכן למדינתם, למערב ובעצם לעולם כולו. ועל כן מספר המהגרים מארה”ב לקנדה צפוי לגדול בשנים הקרובות. בקנדה שמתעבים את טראמפ מקבלים את האמריקנים בזרועות פתוחות כבני משפחה לכל דבר ועניין.
For decades, conversations about antisemitism and racism have been running on separate tracks, Prof. Magda Teter told the Independent. But there is a connection, she said, and, in her March 4 talk at Congregation Beth Israel, she will explain that link.
Prof. Magda Teter, author of the forthcoming book Blood Libels, Hostile Archives: Reclaiming Interrupted Jewish Lives, speaks at Congregation Beth Israel on March 4, 7:30 p.m. (photo by Chuck Fishman)
The lecture, called Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism, is co-presented by the synagogue and the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Teter, a professor of history and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies at Fordham University, is president of the American Academy of Jewish Research. She is the author of several books, most recently Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism (2023). Her book Blood Libel: On the Trail of An Antisemitic Myth (2020) won several awards, including the 2020 National Jewish Book Award. Other publications include Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation (2011), Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland (2006) and many articles (in English, Hebrew, Italian and Polish).
Teter has a new book coming out soon, called Blood Libels, Hostile Archives: Reclaiming Interrupted Jewish Lives, which, according to the summary, “explores two places: Trent, in northern Italy, and Sandomierz, in eastern Poland … both had been sites of anti-Jewish libels falsely accusing Jews of killing Christian children, Trent in 1475 and Sandomierz twice – in 1698 and 1710; in both, the instigators of the Jews’ persecution left unique and extensive archives, both towns have physical remnants of these deadly affairs, and, finally, neither town has an existing Jewish population. Yet, centuries later, these anti-Jewish libels have not been relegated to the past; in both towns, their legacies still reverberate today.”
“There has been a lot of scholarship about blood libels – the false accusations against Jews that emerged in the Middle Ages, charging them with killing Christian children,” said Teter. “Scholars, including myself, have analyzed the trials, the rhetoric, iconography and anti-Jewish works to understand how these anti-Jewish ideas emerged and spread. What is largely missing from this scholarship is the real, not the imagined, Jews – those Jews whose lives weredestroyed by these accusations. So, what this book is trying to do is to recover the lives of Jews who were subjects of these accusations and tell us about them, how they lived, rather than how they were imagined by their accusers. The tricky part of this is how you recover their lives from documents that were created for the purpose of showing Jews’ guilt and how cruel, heinous and hateful Jews were. So, this book is trying to do just that: to peel through the layers of hostility for the glimpses of lives that were destroyed. It matters. This allows us to wrest the story away from the Jews’ accusers.”
Teter, who isn’t Jewish, grew up in communist Poland where, she said, “Jewish topics were a taboo.” Nonetheless, Poland is “a country whose history is so tightly intertwined with Jewish history, so I was very conscious of Poland’s Jewish past,” she said. “I wanted to learn more.”
This led Teter to Columbia University, where she earned a PhD.
“One of the inspirations for me in taking on difficult topics is the arduous path of Jewish-Catholic dialogue and reconciliation in the aftermath of World War II,” she explained. “It was a process of hard and honest conversations. What these conversations and subsequent documents that emerged show is that hard truths don’t have to tear groups apart but can bring people closer together. But, I think, in the last several years, we have been losing the ability to talk to one another on difficult topics. We, as a society, tend to look for affirmation or we walk away, block or dismiss. We closed ourselves in comfortable bubbles.
“My last book picks up threads that may have been left unexamined in the history of antisemitism – the questions of power and domination,” she continued, referring to Christian Supremacy. “As for the responses, in general, people are initially taken aback by the book’s title … but then, if they are willing to read or listen, they become appreciative of my pointing to something that they had not noticed before. That’s my goal in teaching and writing – I am not looking for affirmation, I hope readers or listeners will leave with a few ‘new thoughts.’ I also hope to learn from the readers and listeners. Their questions often help me clarify my thoughts as well and often inspire ‘new thoughts,’ too.”
Teter, who became a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research in 2016, has served on the executive board and, at one point, as treasurer of the academy. She was elected president in 2022 for a two-year term, and is currently in her second and last term.
“It is the oldest organization of scholars in Jewish studies in North America,” she said of the academy, which was founded in 1920.
“While at the beginning it focused on amplifying the scholarship of the fellows,” she said, “since the beginning of this century, the academy has been focused on programs intended to cultivate the next generation of scholars. For example, the academy awards the annual Salo Baron Prize for the best first book in Judaic studies, runs the biennial summer graduate student workshop and the early career workshop for untenured faculty and, with the increasingly diminishing opportunities for graduate student research, the academy offers dissertation research grants.”
Last month, in an interview with The New York Review of Books – for which she has written – Teter was asked what responsibility historians have to be guided by what’s happening in the present. She cautioned, “We must allow the past to speak on its own terms, even when asking questions that are pertinent to the present.”
“We are all shaped by our own experiences and contexts,” Teter told the Independent. “We often ask questions that are relevant to our own lives. But these may be questions that people of the past did not ask. We have to try to understand their lives on their own terms. They did not know what we now know. They did not hold the same values we do. So, it’s OK to ask about how women or non-binary people were treated in the past, or how people thought about the environment, or how they responded to pandemics, but we should not try to make them feminists or environmentalists.
“Let me give you another example, the world is now animated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and many ask questions about how these different peoples engaged with each other historically, how they thought about one another – if they thought of one another. To find answers, we go to historical sources, but we have to read these historical sources on their own terms, not look only for examples that confirm what we already believe. We need to let them speak in the language and the values of the time in which they were created, not through the lens of now.”
There are other lenses too, and ways of connecting the past with the present. In a 2023 interview with JTA, Teter said, “Understanding Jews’ place in history and society, on their own terms but also on the terms imposed on them from the outside, holds much relevance today.”
“There are two vantage points from which Jews’ place in history can be seen: from the outside, and how Jews experienced their own lives,” she told the Independent. “The 2023 interview took place before Oct. 7 in the context of a recognition by the New York Jewish Week of my role in giving Jewish life in the Bronx more visibility, a borough that has now one of the smallest Jewish populations in New York but one that was, in the mid-20th century, proportionally, the most Jewish borough in New York, with nearly 50% of the population being Jewish.
“But that sentence from 2023 can be illustrated in 2025 in another way. Today, we are still reeling from the aftermath of Oct. 7. One of the main topics that concerns Jewish communities around the world is the rise of antisemitism. But when we talk or write about the history of antisemitism, we typically talk about what antisemites think or do – that is, we discuss it in terms ‘imposed’ from the outside, but what I am asking us to do is to also pay attention to Jews’ lived experiences, and not to refract that experience solely through the external lens. It is something that my forthcoming book is trying to do.”
When asked whether she was, in this moment, hopeful, despondent about or resigned to what humanity is capable of, Teter said, “We live in very dark times. I am very depressed when I look at the ruling elites, whether political or corporate. I am also despondent about the role social media is playing in our society – robbing us of our ability to talk to one another, to argue and reason with one another. I am most hopeful when I am with my students, when we have time to spend together and patiently wrestle with difficult topics or texts. When humans take that time to stop, read, think and talk, things can become better. Social media and the current commercial media environment push us to react without discernment.
Prof. Magda Teter’s talk at Beth Israel is a free event, but registration is required at bethisrael.ca.
Anat Gogo, executive director of Tikva Housing Society, speaks at the opening of Susana Cogan Place, Sept. 13, 2023.(photo by Alina Ilyasova)
Tikva Housing Society’s annual fundraising campaign starts March 3 and runs to March 9. While the society has increased its capacity over the years, the demand for its services continues to outpace its resources.
“The need for affordable housing within the Jewish community remains urgent, with 691 people currently on the Jewish Housing Registry, which Tikva maintains in partnership with Jewish Family Services,” Anat Gogo, executive director of Tikva Housing Society, told the Independent. “Among those on the registry, there are 103 families, which includes a total of 179 children who are currently without stable homes.”
This is the case, despite Tikva Housing having expanded its reach and impact within Vancouver’s Jewish community.
“While rental prices have started to stabilize after two years of unprecedented increases, affordability remains a pressing issue, and the need for Tikva’s services continues to grow,” said Gogo.
Currently, Tikva manages 168 housing units and provides stable housing and financial support to 374 individuals – 260 adults and 114 children – across seven properties and through its Rent Relief Program, said Gogo.
“To better support tenants and provide more direct management, Tikva has brought property management in-house for two of its properties,” she added. “This recent change is in addition to two other sites that are managed in-house and three properties where we provide tenant-relation services.”
Tikva recently raised the maximum Rent Relief Program subsidies from $750 to $828 per month for individuals and couples, and from $1,200 to $1,330 per month for families.
“This increase is in alignment with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation guidelines, which define the average rents in Metro Vancouver,” explained Gogo. “Our passionate and dedicated team continues to grow, and we have brought on new staff to ensure our tenants receive the support they need. We’ve also enhanced our volunteer board and committees made up of professionals with expertise in real estate, development, finance and the nonprofit sector.”
This year’s fundraising campaign aims to raise $100,000 to help address the growing housing affordability crisis, said Gogo, noting, “The challenge of affordability is not limited to low-income families. Increasingly, two-parent households that were once able to manage market rents are now struggling to keep up. There is also an ongoing need for affordable housing close to Metro Vancouver’s Jewish amenities and community resources.
“Rising costs, financial instability and security concerns due to rising antisemitism have contributed to a growing number of community members reaching out to Tikva Housing for housing options,” she said. “This campaign is an opportunity for our community to come together and ensure that more individuals and families have access to safe, stable and affordable housing.”
Since 2011, Tikva’s Rent Relief Program has helped hundreds of community members facing temporary financial crises stay in their homes, said Gogo. “Expanding this program is the primary focus of our annual fundraising campaign, as it provides urgent, critical financial assistance to individuals and families who are paying market rent but are at risk of losing their housing due to unexpected financial hardship.”
Both the Rent Relief Program and Tikva’s properties are at maximum capacity.
“The only way Tikva can address our community’s housing insecurity is through donor generosity,” said Gogo. “Donations are crucial to help us achieve our mission to provide access to innovative and affordable housing solutions.”
To support Tikva Housing Society’s annual fundraising campaign, visit tikvahousing.org or call 778-998-4582.
The Al and Lola Roadburg Residences – a place to call home. (photo by David J. Litvak)
Since moving to Vancouver from Winnipeg in 1991, I have moved approximately 30 times. Most of these moves have not been made by choice but, thanks to the good folks at Tikva Housing Society, I have hopefully made my last move in Vancouver.
I am a publicist/writer, and a mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at the Louis Brier Home and Hospital. Like many people here, I do not earn enough to own my own home. Living in a city where development is rampant is even challenging for renters, like me. We are at the mercy of the latest development, where, oftentimes, residences are torn down to accommodate new and more expensive apartments or condominiums (this has happened to me several times), or landlords, who give us notice to accommodate family members needing a place (which also has happened to me several times).
Since 2022, I have moved five times. However, my last two moves were much easier, thanks to Tikva Housing, which provided me with shelter and helped me navigate the challenging housing market.
I was familiar with Tikva but hadn’t wanted to reach out to them, except as a last resort. When I received two months’ notice in the dead of a freezing winter, during a COVID outbreak at my workplace, at a place I had been living for less than six months, I decided to contact them. I was desperate.
After I took the first step – signing up with the Jewish Housing Registry – I was informed that there was a suite available in a brand-new apartment building that had two floors of its nine storeys reserved for Tikva residents. I had to delay my move for a couple of months so that I could remain close to the Louis Brier for Pesach – as an observant Jew, I have to walk to places on Shabbat and holidays. Thankfully, friends put me up for those months and Tikva Housing saved the suite for me. Tikva even let me move some of my stuff in, though I wasn’t living there yet.
Once I moved into my apartment, I felt like I was living on a kibbutz. There were many familiar faces from the Jewish community living there. It was nice to see folks that I knew, including a colleague from work. The building itself was in a great location, not far from the Marine Gateway Canada Line station. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be a great location for me, because of its distance from the Louis Brier.
Even though this apartment didn’t end up working out, I was grateful to Tikva Housing for providing me with temporary shelter. I was even more grateful when a place became available in a 20-unit building in Kerrisdale that Tikva was able to purchase because of a $10 million donation from the Al Roadburg Foundation.
Not only did Tikva Housing Society find me this amazing apartment, but the staff did everything they could to make my move as painless as possible. I now have peace of mind, knowing that Tikva Housing is my landlord and I am no longer at the mercy of the city’s development. I love my new place. Hopefully, I will be able to call it home for a long time.
David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer and publicist, and mashgiach at Louis Brier Home and Hospital. His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com.
Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia’s Margot Beauchamp, left, and Jeff Moss, right, with advocate for seniors’ rights Howard Glick and Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors’ Care and Long-Term Care Susie Chant. (photo from JSA)
Jewish Seniors Alliance, whose mission is to reduce isolation, build connection and uplift and support Jewish and other seniorsin the province, started 2025 with a new name.
At its annual general meeting last November, the organization chose to rename itself the Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia. Formerly, it was called the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver. One of the motivations for the change was to better reflect the organization’s goals and the services it provides.
The new name comes as JSA expands its advocacy work throughout the province, with efforts such as extending its reach, via its Senior Line magazine, to more communities. The new name, it maintains, recognizes the need to connect with more seniors in the province. Initially, JSA intends to partner with outreach programs in the Sea-to-Sky, Burquitlam and Surrey regions.
Similarly, the JSA Peer Support Services program has been rebranded. It will now be known as Community Support Services (CSS), which the organization believes will express its objectives and more clearly define the services it offers with senior volunteers and clients: senior peer support and friendly visiting/calling.
Concurrently, JSA has relaunched its advocacy work around free home support for all BC seniors, stating that it had success with this effort in the run-up to the provincial election. It will continue to meet with government and opposition MLAs, as well as work with and through community partners to ask people to contact their MLAs to voice their support for the initiative.
“The JSA approach to advocacy and government relations has been focused and targeted on decision-makers,” said JSA executive director Jeff Moss during a Jan. 22 Zoom event, in which he discussed the proposal for universal home care in British Columbia as a way to reduce the burden on individuals and government spending.
Moss summarized a recent mandate letter to Susie Chant, parliamentary secretary for seniors’ care and long-term care, which advocated for increased health-care availability, cost containment, responsive health systems, increased senior care, engagement with stakeholders and communication with the health ministry.
Howard Glick, an advocate for seniors’ rights and barrier-free healthcare, joined Moss on the Zoom panel. Glick had recently produced a short video, The Home Care Imperative: A Humanitarian Solution, on the need for free home support in the province, which was shown to the audience.
The video emphasized the advantages of home care, including aging in place, which can allow seniors to preserve their independence and dignity. It can also produce systemic savings that reduce waits for long-term care and free up hospital beds. And its implementation can be expedited, as home care can be scaled more quickly than construction for long-term care facilities.
Also stressed in the video was the idea of accessible, personalized home care as a better way to benefit seniors in their daily lives. The video argued that such a measure would foster independence and connection while strengthening the health-care system overall. This issue is particularly pressing, as the number of seniorsin the province, and across the country, is set to increase in the coming two decades.
Most older adults, the video pointed out, would prefer to stay at home. Research from the Office of the Seniors Advocate, under the leadership of both former seniors advocate Isobel MacKenzie (now a JSA board member) and current advocate Dan Levitt, shows that many admissions to long-term care could have been treated at home with the right supports. Women, people in rural communities and those living alone make up a greater percentage of those moving into long-term care, according to the office’s report.
According to the video, British Columbia, when compared to Ontario, is lacking in several features that pertain to senior care, such as funding, services, eligibility, caregiver support and integration. The costs associated with accessing care for seniors in British Columbia greatly exceed those of other provinces as well, the video contends, noting that Alberta, Ontario and other provinces offer free home support for older adults.
Following the video, Moss reviewed a long list of advantages of providing free home care.
“The benefits are personalized at-home care, ease of access, reduced hospitalizations, fewer unnecessary admissions to long-term care, better health outcomes, increased independence and peace of mind,” he said.
During the question-and-answer session, it was conceded that the home-care model proposed in the video is, at present, far from the current reality.
“At this point, the system is fragmented, disorganized and unreliable, and there are a whole bunch of other problems. What our video is advocating is how to make things work for people in the future and that means reevaluating the structure of the system completely,” Glick said.
“Before any changes can be made, we have to have influence and contacts, we don’t have that yet. We’re just in the starting process of trying to get our foot in the door with the people who have the money and make policy,” he added.
Jewish Senior Alliance of British Columbia executive director Jeff Moss, left, with Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Polievre. (photo from JSA)
The January event was part of the JSA-Phyliss and Irving Snider Foundation Empowerment Series and was co-sponsored by the Kehila Society of Richmond, COSCO and West End Seniors’ Network.
Moss, Glick and Margot Beauchamp, JSA’s quality assurance liaison, have since met with Chant. According to Moss, Chant gave them her support to move the initiative forward by way of making an introduction to the ministers of finance and health, along with opportunities to speak with all MLAs. JSA is also seeking the support of Brennan Day, opposition critic for rural health and seniors’ health.
JSA is working to advance the interests of seniors at the national level as well. During Conservative Party of Canada head and leader of the Official Opposition Pierre Poilievre’s visit to Temple Sholom on Feb. 2, Moss said he took a moment to let Poilievre “know that 65% of BC seniors are living on less than $40,000 annually and that adjustments are needed in the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors so that they can ensure more sustainability to age better.”
Poilievre directed Moss to follow up with his policy team.
