News – Page 303

Housing survey needs your views

Are you concerned about the cost of living and the lack of affordable housing in Vancouver? Is it preventing you, or someone you know, from feeling connected to the Jewish community? Tikva Housing Society in collaboration with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and with the support of the Jewish Community Foundation is conducting a housing needs assessment to understand and address the growing concern about affordable and appropriate housing options for the Greater Vancouver Jewish community.

The Jewish community includes you. Affiliated or not, your thoughts and stories of your experiences are important because they will help determine how we can best support the diverse and widespread Jewish population. Since the late 1870s, our community has settled in Vancouver and moved within the city as new immigration and neighborhoods were established. By the 1960s, the heart of the Jewish community stretched the Oak Street corridor, into Kerrisdale and Marpole. In recent years, families are transferring to more affordable areas, such as Richmond, White Rock, Burnaby, Coquitlam and the Fraser Valley.

The housing climate and overall population growth in Vancouver is impacting every ethnic and cultural community. According to the 2011 Statistics Canada Census, there are 26,245 members of the Jewish community living in Greater Vancouver. Of these, 4,220 Jewish people are living in poverty, including 450 children. For most, housing is often more than 50 percent of a person’s income, leaving little left for food, clothing, transportation and other costs that enable a balanced lifestyle with connections to the Jewish community. People with mental health concerns, disabilities, seniors, single parents and women fleeing abuse are among those struggling most to get by. Also vulnerable are young adults attempting to become independent while still remaining connected to the communities they call home.

Since 1948, Vancouver Jewish community organizations have successfully contributed land, buildings and grants towards affordable housing. Many of these initiatives have been in partnership with government and private partners, resulting in the management of close to 700 affordable housing units. Tikva Housing is very aware of the current issues and is working towards accessing opportunities for safe, affordable housing primarily for working-age, Jewish, low-income adults and families.

Your voice is extremely important for us. We would like every Jewish person in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland to tell us how to address their housing concerns, to enable them to either remain in, or move to, the community that best meets their needs.

Please take five to 10 minutes to complete the confidential questionnaire at surveymonkey.com/s/tikvahousingsurvey.

Tikva Housing will also be holding focus groups throughout the Greater Vancouver area to complement this information. If you need help completing the survey, would like to participate in a focus group or speak with the housing researcher, contact Hazel Orpen at [email protected] or call 604-563-3309.

Siegel new rabbi at Beth Tikvah

Beth Tikvah Congregation has hired Rabbi Howard Siegel as interim rabbi for the coming year. Siegel is no stranger to the Vancouver and Richmond Jewish community. He served as assistant and associate rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel from 1978-81 and 1986-88. He also served Beth Tikvah as rabbi from 1983-86.

photo - Rabbi Howard Siegel will be with the congregation through June 2015 — Rabbi Howard Siegel will be with the congregation through June 2015. *(photo from Beth Tikvah)*

After leaving Vancouver in 1988, Siegel served congregations in Minneapolis and in Houston. In addition to his congregational work, he was the founding director of the Solomon Schechter Day School in St. Louis and the Jewish Information Centre of Texas (an outreach program to unaffiliated Jews in the Houston and Austin communities). In recent years, he has been an interim rabbi in Los Angeles and San Antonio. Siegel and his wife, Dr. Ellen Lefkowitz, currently make their home in Austin.

Beth Tikvah will be looking to Siegel for advice and counsel in revitalizing their religious school, enhancing religious services, and preparing to search for another full-time rabbi.

“My role is to offer Beth Tikvah continuing rabbinical presence while assisting in strengthening their Jewish presence in Richmond and the Lower Mainland,” said Siegel, who is currently officiating at Beth Tikvah and will be with the congregation through June 2015.

Harper nomination criticized

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Ben-Gurion Airport with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and wife Laureen. (photo by Ashernet)

A petition calling on the adjudicating committee of the Nobel Peace Prize to reject B’nai Brith Canada outgoing CEO Frank Dimant’s planned nomination of Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the honor says accepting the nomination “would be a disgrace and insult to [the] prestigious award.”

Dimant’s intent to nominate Harper for the 2015 prize – to mark the prime minister’s “moral leadership in the world … especially when it comes to standing up to radical Islamist terrorism” – has garnered considerable backlash, including the online petition, created by Calgary resident Edward Tanas, on the website change.org. As of Sept. 15, the petition had amassed more than 29,500 signatures.

The nomination idea has also drawn criticism from the Vancouver-based Canada Palestine Association (CPA), whose chairperson, Hanna Kawas, was quoted in the Vancouver Observer Sept. 1 as saying “with nominating [Harper], you don’t know whether to laugh or cry … it’s outrageous.”

Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay and the official opposition critic for ethics, also spoke out against the nomination, tweeting on Aug. 31, “Nominating Stephen Harper for the Nobel Peace Prize is like nominating [Sun News contributor Ezra] Levant for the Pulitzer Prize. Sorry, Steve, you’re no [Lester] Pearson.”

He later told CJN: “My comment was more sardonic than anything else. I don’t think anyone’s going to pay much more attention to this nomination. The role Canada’s traditionally played internationally is trying to bring parties back to the table, to de-escalate. Mr. Harper hasn’t shown that … we haven’t seen that kind of leadership from this leader.”

Dimant, who, in his capacity as professor of modern Israel studies at Canada Christian College, qualifies as a nominator under Nobel rules, said he viewed the nomination as an opportunity to help restore prestige to an award he believes has been diminished in stature of late.

“When [former Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat received [the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994], it certainly diminished the very notion of what a peace prize is,” he said. “And when [U.S. President Barack] Obama was given the prize for doing nothing except the anticipation of something, it diminished it. I felt it was time to elevate the prize again to the position it held historically.”

Dimant further praised Harper for “speaking up for the people of Ukraine,” as well as for the prime minister’s vocal condemnations of groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic State And he gave a nod to Harper’s staunch support of Israel, saying, “Here is a man who truly understands what it means to fight for freedom, national liberation and to understand that people have a right to return to their homeland and live in security and safety.”

This past January, Dimant and a delegation of other Jewish community leaders accompanied Harper on a trip to Israel, at which time Dimant praised Harper’s “unparalleled” support for Israel and his “principled stance on issues of importance to the Jewish community.”

Angus, however, said Harper’s approach isn’t deserving of the Nobel Prize. Issues connected to the Israel-Palestine conflict, he said, “are such emotionally heavy … traumatic issues for people on all sides. We want a prime minister in Canada who says, ‘Let’s find a way to move toward peace and resolution.’” That was the role Pearson, former Canadian prime minister and Nobel winner, played in the Suez Crisis, he continued, when, in 1956, he proposed a United Nations peacekeeping force to help ease the British and French out of Egypt, “and people saw that as a role for Canada to play.”

Neither Tanas nor CPA could be reached for comment, despite multiple attempts to contact them.

The deadline for the 2015 Nobel nominations is next February. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee website, the 2014 prize has 278 candidates, the highest number on record. The nominees include Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, Edward Snowden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 2014 winner will be announced in early October.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Israel-Hamas talks necessary to rebuild Gaza

Gazan civilians on the roof of a building that had been used for terror activity. (photo from idfblog.com)

As Palestinians begin to discuss the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip after seven weeks of fighting with Israel, Israeli, Palestinian and international officials warn of the risk of another round of fighting unless there is a diplomatic agreement between the two sides as well as an agreement to rebuild Gaza.

Hamas senior official Musa Abu Marzook said that indirect talks with Israel would resume in Cairo later this month. He hinted that Hamas would be prepared to negotiate directly with Israel, saying that there is no obstacle in Muslim religious law to negotiations with Israel.

Israel, for its part, says that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and it will not negotiate either directly with Hamas or with any government that includes Hamas. This could complicate efforts for a new unity government of technocrats from Hamas and Fatah.

European Union Ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen warned last week that without a long-term political solution that would see Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in charge of Gaza, violence could start anew. Israel and Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on Aug. 26, and were expected to restart negotiations on long-term issues within a month. These expected talks come amid growing tensions between Abbas’ Fatah movement and Hamas, which is far more popular in Gaza now than it was before the war.

The issues on the table for the Cairo talks include an airport or sea port for Gaza, which Israel is expected to oppose, rebuilding Gaza, which is estimated to cost $7.8 billion, and demilitarizing the Strip, which Hamas has opposed. Cairo is also expected to host an international donors conference in October.

In the short term, the Palestinian Authority has appealed for more than $550 million in emergency aid for Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are still homeless after the fighting.

Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said, “Reconstruction is the ultimate goal, but our government won’t accept a return to the status quo. We are getting to a limit that can no more be accepted. Never again, never again.”

Israeli officials said they would support the PA having control over a demilitarized Gaza Strip.

Haifa’s Rambam practises medicine without borders

The parking lot at the Rambam Health Care Campus is a dual-purpose facility capable of converting into a fortified 2,000-bed underground hospital in times of conflict. (photo from Rambam Health Care Campus)

Not unexpectedly, southern Israel suffered more than other areas of the Jewish state during this summer’s conflict with Hamas. Yet up in northern Israel, 30 doctors from the Haifa-based Rambam Health Care Campus (RHCC) were drafted into the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

“Israel is a small country, so everything affects you whether you are in the conflict or not,” Prof. Rafael (Rafi) Beyar, a renowned cardiologist and the director general of RHCC, told this reporter.

Now, in the aftermath of the 50-day summer war, RHCC is proving that medicine has “no borders,” in Beyar’s words. The week of this interview, doctors at the hospital conducted a successful kidney transplant on a 14-year-old boy from Gaza.

photo - The robotic catheterization system allows the doctor to open heart blockages and implant stents in patients remotely — The robotic catheterization system allows the doctor to open heart blockages and implant stents in patients remotely. *(photo from Rambam Health Care Campus)*

The largest hospital in northern Israel, RHCC serves more than two million residents and functions as the primary medical facility for the Northern Command of the IDF. In addition to treating Gazan patients and training Palestinian physicians, the hospital is receiving wounded Syrian refugees.

Many of RHCC’s Gazan patients are children facing cancer and kidney diseases.

“These kids don’t have any other solutions,” Beyar said.

While suffering from kidney failure, the Gaza boy treated this week also had a blood condition that obstructed some of his blood vessels. Doctors first needed to check for useable blood vessels, and only then could they transplant his sister’s kidney into his body. When it became clear that the boy’s functioning blood vessels could not sustain the new kidney, doctors implanted a synthetic connector that saved his life.

On the Syrian front, RHCC has received nearly 100 wounded refugees over the past few months. IDF soldiers provide the necessary immediate treatment for injured refugees at the Israel-Syria border in the Golan Heights, and then bring them to the hospital. Most of the Syrian patients have sustained injuries from shock, bombs and other blasts. When they are treated and recover, most return to Syria, but some don’t want to go back, said Beyar.

Like the patients from Syria, most of the Gazan patients are thankful for the treatment they receive from RHCC. Although Beyar doesn’t know what happens to the patients once they return to Gaza, he said, “Someone who is treated and whose life is saved knows how to appreciate that.” Beyar added that he believes Israeli medical treatment of Gazans “has a long-term impact” on how Palestinian civilians view Israel.

SoftWheel reinvents the wheel

The concept of SoftWheel was initially imagined as an improvement for wheelchairs, but its potential uses are numerous. (photo from SoftWheel)

While new patents and inventions appear all the time, they don’t often aim at a mainstay, like the common wheel, which has had the same design for thousands of years.

Many inventors have focused on how a wheel connects to a vehicle through different suspension systems. An Israeli startup has infused the suspension right into the wheel itself, with a selective shock absorption system.

Dubbed “SoftWheel,” the concept was imagined by Israeli farmer Gilad Wolf when, a few years ago, he broke his pelvis and was confined to a wheelchair.

“Sitting on one of the more sturdy wheelchairs, having to manoeuvre around his fields, Gilad decided to design an improved model with suspension,” said Ronny Winshtein co-founder, inventor and former chief executive officer of SoftWheel.

Wolf partnered with some colleagues and an Israeli nonprofit organization for rehabilitation technologies called Milbat and, together, they approached Tel Aviv-based Rad-Biomed Accelerator to assist in funding and developing the project.

“Rad-Biomed CEO David Zigdon liked the idea but decided to come up with a product that would be disruptive in technology and market orientation,” said Winshtein.

With Winshtein, they decided they would put the suspension in the wheel and make it selective – i.e., to work only at high-magnitude shocks – otherwise, the wheel would remain purely round and concentric, functioning like any other wheel.

In 2011, SoftWheel was founded with this notion in mind, and it attracted some of the best and brightest players in Israel to the wheel business. One of them, Ziv-Av Engineering, assisted them in developing the wheel’s unique mechanism.

“Putting suspension into the wheel has many advantages, like giving you the freedom to plug in the suspension onto any frame you like,” said Daniel Barel, SoftWheel’s current CEO. “You can just pick one out of a catalogue. As well, the suspension covers 360 degrees of incoming shocks, rather than [the] linear shocks absorbers provided in most frames.”

Barel explained why a design like theirs had not been done until now. “With promise comes challenges, and having the shocks in the frame of a flexible wheel creates design challenges for the rest of the vehicle’s frame – a challenge fairly non-existent in wheelchairs.”

The biggest problem with wheelchairs is adding suspension to the chair, as it adds weight. “Active wheelchair users commonly disconnect the wheels from the frame when getting into their car, etc., and pull the wheelchair components with a single hand from the ground to the passenger seat … so, weight becomes a major issue,” said Barel. “By adding suspension (meaning, adding some weight) to the wheels, which are always lighter than the frame, [it is easier to manoeuvre the chair portion].… On the other hand, SoftWheel understands the need to have the lightest possible wheels, so the overall wheelchair weight won’t be more than current lightweight wheelchairs.”

What makes SoftWheel’s wheel better than any other, according to Barel, is the embedded suspension. “It’s a real suspension with not only springs, but also dampers, which are needed to absorb the shock. Also, it’s selective, so, during a ride on a regular road, the hub won’t wobble within the frame, keeping more of the good propulsion energy.”

The company has filed several different patent applications for utility and design that they are confident will provide broad protection to their inventions.

Barel acknowledged it is difficult to reconsider one of the oldest possible technologies ever invented, but also exciting.

“We’re currently focused, first and foremost, on the market, with a first product for active wheelchair users … in the very near future,” said Barel. “We also made substantial progress in designing similar wheels for commuter bicycles, some of which also include a motor in the wheel hub.” The prototype is featured in the video below.

“We also develop concepts for other types of vehicles based on our know-how and technology, and have been in discussion with some very interesting players in Israel and abroad,” he added.

The company is very proud to be part of the Israeli startup Kaleidoscope. Winshtein believes that it is not by chance that so many innovative technologies have originated in Israel. He said it is embedded in the culture, the atmosphere, jokingly adding, “Probably, also [the] heat and humidity, but mostly the openness, from any level, to try and change the world for the better.

“SoftWheel has been a globally oriented company from day one, and we already have good and friendly ties with different global and national players from different market segments.”

One of the other companies that has shown interest is an aircraft landing gear manufacturer. Another focus for SoftWheel has been implementing the technology on city bikes, as more and more cities introduce bikes that anyone can pick up and return at different locations (for a cost).

“As the wheels reduce the impact of typical street blows, both wheelchairs and bikes that use them can move around freely without having to access ramps,” said Barel. “The suspension systems currently available in city bikes are unsuitable for such obstacles and often result in the rider taking the impact. Eventually, the product will sell itself and, in doing so, it has to answer real needs for real individuals.

“Like with any new concept, you do everything in your power to bring into the market the best possible product, under time and budget constraints. With time and growth, and feedback from the users, we’ll naturally be able to improve the product in different parameters, ones we already have in mind and ones we probably hadn’t thought of yet.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Peering into universe’s past

A small black hole gains mass. Dense cold gas (green) flows toward the centre of a stellar cluster (red cross in blue circle) with stars (yellow); the erratic path of the black hole through the gas (black line) is randomized by the surrounding stars. (photo from wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il)

At the ends of the universe, there are black holes with masses equaling billions of our sun. These giant bodies – quasars – feed on interstellar gas, swallowing large quantities of it non-stop. Thus, they reveal their existence: the light that is emitted by the gas as it is sucked in and crushed by the black hole’s gravity travels for eons across the universe until it reaches our telescopes. Looking at the edges of the universe is, therefore, looking into the past. These far-off, ancient quasars appear to us in their “baby photos” taken less than a billion years after the Big Bang: monstrous infants in a young universe.

Normally, a black hole forms when a massive star, weighing tens of solar masses, explodes after its nuclear fuel is spent. Without the nuclear furnace at its core pushing against gravity, the star collapses. Much of the material is flung outwards in a great supernova blast, while the rest falls inward, forming a black hole of only about 10 solar masses.

Since these ancient quasars were first discovered, scientists have wondered what process could lead a small black hole to gorge and fatten to such an extent, so soon after the Big Bang.

In fact, several processes tend to limit how fast a black hole can grow. For example, the gas normally does not fall directly into the black hole, but gets sidetracked into a slowly spiraling flow, trickling in drop by drop. When the gas is finally swallowed by the black hole, the light it emits pushes out against the gas. That light counterbalances gravity, and it slows the flow that feeds the black hole.

So how, indeed, did these ancient quasars grow? Prof. Tal Alexander, head of the particle physics and astrophysics department at the Weizmann Institute of Science, proposes a solution in a paper written together with Prof. Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University, which appeared in a recent issue of Science.

Their model begins with the formation of a small black hole in the very early universe. At that time, cosmologists believe, gas streams were cold, dense and contained much larger amounts of material than the thin gas streams we see in today’s cosmos. The hungry, newborn black hole moved around, changing direction all the time, as it was knocked about by other baby stars in its vicinity. By quickly zigzagging, the black hole continually swept up more and more of the gas into its orbit, pulling the gas directly into it so fast, the gas could not settle into a slow, spiraling motion. The bigger the black hole got, the faster it ate; this growth rate, explained Alexander, rises faster than exponentially. After around 10 million years – a blink of an eye in cosmic time – the black hole would have filled out to around 10,000 solar masses. From then, the colossal growth rate would have slowed to a somewhat more leisurely pace, but the black hole’s future path would already be set – leading it to eventually weigh in at a billion solar masses or more.

Alexander’s research is supported by the European Research Council. Visit wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il for more Weizmann news.

Challah baking lessons from an expert

More than 120 women attended Community Mega Challah Bake that was led by challah-baking expert Rochie Pinson, who also gave a lecture. (photo from Chabad Lubavitch BC)

More than 120 women from across Greater Vancouver gathered on Wednesday evening, Sept. 10, for the Community Mega Challah Bake at the Lubavitch Centre. The event was a joint project of N’Shei Chabad of British Columbia, the Chabad centres of Vancouver, Downtown Vancouver, East Vancouver, Richmond, University of British Columbia and White Rock, Congregation Beth Hamidrash and Congregation Schara Tzedeck.

First, the women made and kneaded their own dough, led by challah baking expert Rochie Pinson of New York. They then enjoyed mingling and refreshments and a lecture by Pinson about the deeper significance of challah making and Rosh Hashanah. After that, they returned to their baking stations to braid their challah, once again led by Pinson, who demonstrated various methods of braiding.

“I had such a wonderful time and I was so happy to see the different organizations coming together for this event,” said one participant as she left with two beautifully braided challahs.

“The evening surpassed all of our expectations!” said Henya Wineberg, co-coordinator of the event. “The display of unity in the community was heartwarming to see.”

Pinson, who teaches challah-baking workshops to women across the world, will be publishing a book about challah baking titled Rising, with an expected release date of fall 2015.

Spanish Jewry’s Golden Age

An illuminated Chumash from the El Escorial Library collection in Madrid. (photo from Courtesy of El Escorial Library)

Everyone has heard: “All good things must come to an end.” This saying certainly holds true when talking about Spanish Jewry’s Golden Age. Back in the Middle Ages, Spain’s church and state used forced conversion, expulsion and the Inquisition to obliterate Jewish life on their peninsula. While we might have some sense of how these methods devastated the lives of this once great Jewish community, we are probably less aware of the toll it took on the products of this culture, namely its books.

Let’s first be clear about what the Spanish Inquisition was. In her article “Medieval and Early Modern Sephardi Women,” published in the volume Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, Prof. Renée Levin Melamed writes that the Inquisition was “a temporary legal institution or court set up by the Roman Catholic Church in order to extirpate suspected heresy. Its jurisdiction was solely over baptized Catholics; thus, it could bring to trial converted Jews or Muslims, suspected witches, sectarians and the like.”

What set the Spanish Inquisition in motion? According to Prof. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (author of Ferdinand and Isabella), in the late 1400s, the Spanish monarchs genuinely dreaded that the souls of their Catholic subjects would be forever lost to Islam and Judaism. Indeed, there was a pervasive fear that those who had already left Judaism (those former Jews known as conversos) had not really put aside their original religion. Hence, Spanish Christians strongly suspected conversos of Judaizing. To deal with this perceived threat to Christianity, the king and queen established the Inquisition.

Once the institution began functioning, religious considerations were perverted into accusations based upon economic rivalry, as well as the settling of assorted personal grudges. Moreover, as the offices of the Inquisition had the power to impound the possessions of the accused, it became advantageous to keep the institution going. Far worse than losing one’s possessions, however, was the sadistic physical torture the indicted commonly suffered, and the death by burning of those convicted. Fernandez-Armesto writes that contemporaries of Ferdinand and Isabella chose conveniently (and paradoxically) to forget – or ignore – the fact that “the Spanish royal house, too, was remotely affected by Jewish blood, through its founder, Henry of Trastámara, and his mother, Leonora de Guzmán, mistress of Alfonso XI.”

While Christian officials busied themselves in setting up the Inquisition, a few undaunted Spanish Jews moved ahead in printing sacred Hebrew texts. Significantly, these came to be highly regarded: “Their biblical texts were regarded as more accurate and authoritative … their codices are … very precise,” writes Teresa Ortega-Monasterio in Spanish Biblical Hebrew Manuscripts.

In Early Hebrew Printing in Sepharad ca. 1475–1497, Prof. Shimon Iakerson points out that “in 1482, Solomó ben Moisé Levi Alkabiz was established in Guadalajara and produced the first printed edition of the Talmud; in 1485, [Eliezer ben Abraham ibn] Alatansi was established in Híjar; and, in 1487, Samuel ben Mousa y Emanuel was working in Zamora (Torre Revello 17).”

While we know that Alkabiz printed a Rashi commentary on the Torah, information about Alatansi’s press is limited, and researchers only know of a fragment from the halachic compendium of Jacob ben Asher, including two copies of the latter prophets and two copies of the Torah. From what we know, ben Mousa, like Alkabiz, printed Rashi’s commentary on the Torah, as well.

It should be noted that during this same period, Hebrew printing was going on elsewhere, but it has been difficult to assign locations. Nevertheless, by comparing the fonts and printing paper to known texts, it is possible to suggest (but not confirm) those who may have worked on the books and the possible location of their workplace.

Intriguingly, for a limited time, there was cooperation between Jewish and non-Jewish printers. For example, it appears that Alfonso Fernandez de Cordoba “rented out” his frames to Jewish printers in Híjar in order that they might decorate the pages of their editions. Elsewhere, the Christian type caster Maestro Pedro of Guadalajar was mentioned in a Hebrew text.

Still, the Spanish monarchy felt threatened by the accessibility to Jewish learning afforded by the printing of Hebrew texts. Copies of the Talmud became a target of the Inquisition. From there, the hunt intensified, turning towards other Jewish texts. Two years before the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered Grand Inquisitor Fray Tomás de Torquemada to burn Hebrew books. Later, during an auto-da-fé (act of faith, which really meant the public burning of a heretic) extravaganza in Salamanca, this same church father oversaw the burning of more than 6,000 volumes, which were said to be “infected with Jewish errors.”

Even after the expulsion, this ruthlessness continued, as Inquisition officials confiscated Jewish books and searched for any so-called “Jewish contamination” in the conversos community. Arias Montano (1527-1598), the first director of El Escorial Library, described the situation this way: “Of Hebrew books, of which there was great wealth in Spain, there is now great poverty.” In fact, the Inquisition finished off Hebrew printing in Spain.

Miraculously, some Hebrew books printed in Spain survived this onslaught, often as single copies or as mere fragments, writes Iakerson. Some of these remnants exists in Spain, stored in places like the library of the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, in the library of the Royal Palace of Madrid and in the library of the Complutense University of Madrid. While the originals remain out of the public eye, some facsimiles are on view today. For example, in Cabinet 43 of the Escorial Library’s viewing room, there is a facsimile of a 15th-century Torah, which also contains the Masora, or Masoretic texts (various scholarly notes on the biblical text written into the margins).

In his 1969 book Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, art scholar Bezalel Narkiss located illustrated medieval Spanish Jewish manuscripts in several European libraries and museums. These beautiful texts are now housed in places such as Sarajevo’s National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, National Library of Portugal in Lisbon, the Oriental Department of the Berlin State Library, British Museum in London, Israel Museum in Jerusalem, National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, Oriental Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester. Many of these collections are available for online viewing. For example, in 2012, the National Library of Spain gathered and mounted a large temporary exhibit of Spain’s most important medieval Hebrew texts. The exhibit is now viewable online and includes Hebrew Bibles, liturgical texts, texts dealing with reason and revelation, biblical exegesis, polemics and Spanish reports on the Inquisition trials of various conversos, suspected of Judaizing.

With the ability to digitize ancient documents and with the increasing international connection between libraries, perhaps additional surviving medieval Spanish Hebrew texts will be discovered. At the very least, we hope to learn more about those already discovered fragments of this once-flourishing Jewish culture.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic (take-a-peek-inside.com).

Charedi community confronts mental illness

An artists’s rendering of the new facility now under construction in Bnei Brak. (photo from Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Centre)

Chavi (not her real name) awkwardly positions herself on the chair in the group therapy room. The doctors gave her parents no choice, hospitalize her or she may develop organ failure as a result of her extreme anorexia. Chavi is 16 and has grown up in the Charedi enclave of Bnei Brak, where there was little public knowledge or discussion about this debilitating disorder.

The group therapy room is in the adolescent unit where she has been hospitalized, a couple of miles away from her community and yet a world away from the life she knows. Girls talk openly about intimate experiences. They discuss the influence of media on their eating disorders and they talk about their secular lifestyles. Chavi doesn’t understand; she understands the words, but not their connotations. She is told that this place will help her get better but she feels lonelier than ever, like an outcast, discarded from her community and implanted into an alien world.

Chavi is one of the lucky ones; her parents noticed the signs of her illness and took her to seek help. One in four people will experience mental illness in their lifetime and the Charedi community is no different. And times are changing: Israel’s Charedi community is breaking down barriers to tackle the stigma of mental illness.

“The last few years have seen the community join together to fight mental illness,” explained Nechami Samuel, a psychotherapist at Mayanei Hayeshua Medical Centre (MHMC) in Bnei Brak. What was once a taboo subject is now being discussed and debated by rabbis, and the message is hitting home. “People in our community don’t turn to medical professionals in these situations, they turn to their rabbi for help with shalom bayit [domestic harmony],” said Samuel. “These rabbis are now referring families to us, seeking professional guidance and, together with MHMC, leading a revolution in reducing the stigma of mental illness.” This changing atmosphere could not happen soon enough – within the first days of the recent Operation Protective Edge, air-raid sirens began to sound in Bnei Brak.

“We have seen an influx in cases because of the war. For some, anxiety disorders get worse, and people who have had no prior anxiety issues may develop disorders because of the situation,” explained Dr. Michael Bunzel, chief psychiatrist at MHMC. “We have been charged by the Ministry of Health as an acute-stress treatment centre for Bnei Brak to deal specifically with trauma in the case of a national disaster. The idea is to create separate sites for trauma so that people don’t have to go to the emergency room. Mayanei Hayeshua serves as one of these sites.”

“Take, for example, postnatal depression: 10 years ago, it [was thought not to] exist in our community. We’re talking about a communal prevalence of 13 percent and yet it was brushed under the carpet.”

In addition to the upsurge in cases of post-traumatic stress and anxiety, MHMC is continuing to tackle the basic mental health needs of the community. “Take, for example, postnatal depression: 10 years ago, it [was thought not to] exist in our community,” said Shimon Goloveizitz, head of administration for MHMC’s psychiatric services. “We’re talking about a communal prevalence of 13 percent and yet it was brushed under the carpet.” Today, in addition to the organizations that have been founded to provide support, a substantial public awareness campaign has been instigated. “Recently, we hosted a rabbi-therapist to give a lecture to men to help them spot the signs of postnatal depression in their wives and support them effectively, and the turnout was overwhelming.”

Prior to his position at MHMC, Goloveizitz managed a health centre in central Israel. “One day, they decided to do an evening for Charedim because they never came to any of their health-promotion events,” he recalled. “They chose a night during Chanukah, brought in glatt-kosher food and entertained the Charedi visitors with a female singer and scantily clad dancer. They just simply didn’t understand.” There is a need to provide more information about social norms so that there is less misunderstanding between secular and religious Israelis.

MHMC is currently home to both child and adult outpatient and day-care psychiatric services but it has struggled to serve the high demands of this typically under-served population. The therapists take into account religious sensitivities and the particular challenges of conforming to religious norms. “When I am conducting family therapy and the father doesn’t look at me, rather than racing to conclusions of autism or communication disorders, I think shmirat ha’ayin [guarding the gaze],” said Samuel. “Even in standard diagnostic tests a child can be diagnosed with low intelligence because he doesn’t know culturally determined answers, or a yeshivah student diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder because his religious lifestyle fits the criterion for this disease.”

“We don’t close our doors to anyone. We have patients from all religious backgrounds, but it is an environment of religious respect, which is unique to our institution.”

MHMC is now halfway through the construction of a state-of-the-art psychiatric facility that will become the first in Israel solely dedicated to serving the religious population; it promises to increase the available treatment options. “We don’t close our doors to anyone,” clarified Goloveizitz. “We have patients from all religious backgrounds, but it is an environment of religious respect, which is unique to our institution.”

The new facility will house inpatient services in addition to its current outpatient services and is hoping to become a centre for excellence in Israeli mental health care. “There is no doubt that there is a need for an inpatient facility when a person is endangering himself or others, but our goal is not to be a sanatorium. We want to give people the tools to reintegrate into society as speedily as possible and for that we need to build a welcoming environment in which religious people, like Chavi, will feel comfortable living,” said Samuel.

Israel’s mental health system is currently undergoing reforms. The country’s psychologists currently predominantly offer psychodynamic therapy, which is a long-term, in-depth therapeutic approach primarily focusing on unconscious internal conflicts. Under the new system, there is a move toward evidence-based practice, which advocates the use of treatments that have a strong empirical support. While this does not exclude psychodynamic therapies, it does recommend more targeted treatment approaches based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for specific disorders.

“Our main purpose is to get our patients back out to the community and we use whatever treatments have been shown to be most effective for that purpose,” said Samuel. “Especially with these treatments, which have strict protocols, first and foremost, the research outlines the importance of cultural applicability and individual tailoring of treatment goals and plans.”

The future looks hopeful for the mental health of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. With 3,350 patients accessing Mayanei Hayeshua’s psychiatric services in 2013 alone, the improved services are needed. “The first stage of the revolution on stigma has been a success,” said Samuel. “Now we have to stand up to the challenge of the increased demand for our services.”

Anna Harwood is a writer and clinical psychology student at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. She made aliyah from England at the end of 2010 and has been living in Jerusalem ever since.