World – Page 22

Plight of bees is our plight

A European honey bee extracts nectar from an aster flower. (photo by John Severns via Wikimedia Commons)

Around the world, bee populations have been decreasing in number, year by year, at an alarming rate. Such a tragedy isn’t just stinging the beekeepers, whose livelihoods depend on the honey-making insects, it’s affecting global agriculture.

And there’s more at stake than just honey production. Bees’ handiwork assists in the growth of myriad foodstuffs. In fact, millions of honey bees are depended upon to pollinate plants and crops, which produce a quarter of the food we consume.

According to Science Daily from May 2015, beekeepers across the United States lost more than 40% of their honey bee colonies from April 2014 to April 2015, compared to the previous year’s decrease of 34%.

This is determined from an annual cross-country survey that is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and conducted by Bee Informed Partnership with the Apiary Inspectors of America.

The survey asked commercial and small-scale beekeepers to track the health and survival rates of their honey bee colonies, in an effort to understand how to manage the decreasing population. This is the ninth straight year of losses. It’s referred to as colony collapse disorder.

More than 6,000 beekeepers, who manage 400,000 colonies from all 50 U.S. states responded. All told, these beekeepers are responsible for nearly 15% of the nation’s estimated 2.74 million managed honey bee colonies. The total economic value of honey bee pollination is said to be more than $15 billion each year in the United States alone.

Among small beekeepers – those who manage fewer than 50 colonies – a problem area appears to be the varroa mite, a lethal parasite, able to spread between colonies.

Beekeepers, environmental groups and some scientists also suspect blame lies with an insecticide known as neonicotinoids, or neonics. It is used on crops, such as corn, and on plants found in lawns and gardens. Its toll has been taken seriously enough that the Environmental Protection Agency is examining a series of studies on the insecticide and its effects on bees. The investigation is expected to be completed by year’s end.

The issue has even caught the attention of administrators at the White House, who have formed a task force to study the problem.

In Canada, the problem is even worse.

In Ontario, bee losses have been severe over the last few winters, measuring a decline of 58% in 2013-2014, due to a combination of extreme cold, mites, disease and the types of pesticides used on crops.

While it has experts scrambling for a solution, some people and companies are taking matters into their own hands.

One hotel is doing its part to increase the bee population. On the roof of the downtown Fairmont Royal York in Toronto, about 300,000 bees perch in six hives that produce anywhere between 500 and 900 pounds of honey per year. The hotel offers it to guests, and uses it in recipes.

CBC also recently installed hives on its rooftops in Toronto and Montreal, while Vancouver Police will build two hives at its headquarters.

Meanwhile, across the pond in England, the BBC reported that, in January 2014, in more than half of European countries, there were not enough honey bees to pollinate crops. And more than 14% of England’s honey bee colonies died over the winter, according to the latest research from the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA).

In the United Kingdom alone, nearly 90% of the apple crop and 45% of the strawberry crop relies on wild bees and managed honey bees to grow. It is a billion dollar economy there.

The BBKA’s annual survey of beekeepers across Great Britain showed the losses were up from nine percent last year, but lower than the year before; normal losses are about 10%. It blames “poor and variable weather, pesticides, bee diseases and parasites such as the varroa mite and starvation.”

To make matters worse, demand for the little honey-making insects has grown, while their numbers shrink.

Europe is experiencing a boom in biofuels, which is the result of the “EU renewable fuel directive,” where 10% of transport fuel must come from renewable sources by 2020. What that means for farming is planting a third more “oil” crops, like soybeans, oil palm, oilseed rape, sunflowers – all of which require ramping up bee numbers, which simply aren’t there.

According to the journal Plos One, Great Britain has only a quarter of the bees they need – their deficit equaling seven billion honey bees.

In light of this, as we approach Rosh Hashanah, you may think more about that little jar of honey on the festive meal table – millions, or perhaps billions, of honey bees came together to create that sweet liquid.

We know that the symbolism of honey on Rosh Hashanah is to have a sweet New Year. But there’s more: bees and the Jewish people are alike in many ways.

There’s little we can accomplish if we are alone; much that we can accomplish if we combine our efforts towards our goals as a people. We are more productive when in a community; our “hives” are our communities and synagogues, where we are needed – in fact, required – to be drawn to the whole. The honey bee teaches us that we must come together and work towards a higher purpose.

May everything go well next year not only for ourselves, friends, family and others, but for our little busy bee friends, buzz’mun hazeh!

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world.

Jews leave Venezuela

Moises Brunstein now lives in Toronto, but he still has family in Venezuela. (photo from Moises Brunstein)

Political upheaval, economic disintegration, rising crime rates and the implosion of social services have brought Venezuela to its knees. The lucky ones see Soviet-style, hours-long supermarket lineups; the unlucky see bare shelves in a country said now to have the worst inflation rate on the planet, in some sectors upwards of 700%. The chaos, combined with rising antisemitism, has spurred a massive flight of Jews.

Caracas’ once-thriving Jewish community of nearly 30,000 has dwindled in just a decade and a half to a quarter its former size. The exodus continues in conditions exacerbated by the sudden departure of foreign investment and international corporations.

Interestingly, Venezuela was among the first countries to recognize Israel and, in 1991, supported revoking the 1975 United Nations resolution comparing Zionism to racism. Jews have lived in relative peace there for hundreds of years, until the last decade.

In May 2004, Tiféret Israel – the oldest synagogue in Caracas – was vandalized after demonstrators at a government-sanctioned protest graffitied on city walls slurs such as “Sharon is a murderer of the Palestinian people,” “Viva the armed Palestinian people” and “Free Palestine.”

In November of that year, armed and hooded state policemen broke into the Colegio Hebraica, a Jewish grade school in the city. During the three-hour sweep of the premises, under the pretext of a weapons search, the doors were locked and bolted with the children inside. Agents found nothing of interest.

Venezuela’s chief rabbi condemned the raid as community “intimidation.” The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism – based at Tel Aviv University in Israel – reported that the intrusion was “perhaps the most serious incident ever to have taken place in the history of the Jewish community.”

In December 2007, Venezuela’s secret police raided the Hebraic Social, Cultural and Sports Centre, again under the pretext of searching for weapons and drugs, of which they found none.

Coincident with the Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead, December 2008-January 2009), a number of incidents occurred, beginning with then-president Hugo Chávez expelling the Israeli ambassador.

Later, in a public broadcast, Chávez said, “From the bottom of my soul, I damn you Israel. You are a criminal and terrorist state that is openly exterminating the Palestinians,” and he accused Israel of “Nazi-like atrocities.”

At the same time, the Venezuelan foreign ministry dubbed Israel’s actions “state terrorism” and government officials were seen wearing keffiyahs and waving Palestinian flags in the streets at an anti-Israel march said to have been organized by Chávez himself.

On a Friday night in January 2009, armed men broke into Tiféret Israel and gagged and bound security guards. The thugs ransacked offices and left antisemitic slogans on the walls, including a call for the expulsion of Jews from Venezuela. Religious objects in the sanctuary were ruined, and a list of the country’s Jews was stolen.

In February 2009, Beit Shmuel Synagogue was the target of a bomb that shattered windows and damaged a nearby car.

According to the 2009 World Conference against Antisemitism, the average of 45 anti-Israel articles published a month in 2008 jumped to five a day during January 2009, and there were newspapers that accused Israel of genocide.

And the situation didn’t improve much after the Gaza War. For example, the country’s main Jewish organization, La Confederación de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela (CAIV), reported more than 4,000 antisemitic incidents in 2013. And, as recently as this year, the Venezuelan United Nations ambassador, Rafael Ramirez, asked in a speech at UN headquarters in New York whether Israel was “trying to impose a ‘final solution’ on the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Little of this is shocking to Moises Brunstein, an expat now living in Toronto.

A first-generation Venezuelan, Brunstein’s Romanian parents arrived in Venezuela by Red Cross boat in 1941, after having been prisoners in Nazi-occupied France. With no command of the language and no money, Brunstein’s father worked his way up to become president of the local hydro authority.

“We lived a very nice life,” Brunstein told the Independent. That is, until Chávez came to power. Twelve years ago, at age 29, it was time to go, Brunstein said. With only four suitcases, he came to Canada, leaving behind all of his books, furniture and currency. Some cousins remain in Venezuela, but his father’s side has left for Florida, Australia and Spain; his mother’s side for Canada.

It is his belief that the state is trying to squeeze the Jewish community out of Venezuela. “In 2010 and 2011, the main building where Jews had stores was extricated by the government,” he said. “My mother, a lawyer, saw her offices taken over.

“Everything changed when the government aligned themselves to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The Palestinian flag flew in the Venezuelan congress.”

Brunstein last visited Caracas in 2009 for a cousin’s wedding, and found security to be unusually high. “You don’t wear yarmulkes in public,” he warned.

There are various reasons why many Jews remain in the country, he said. The elderly aren’t necessarily mobile and have no command of a second language; those with businesses find it hard to leave.

Brunstein mails his mother basic foods, medicine and personal hygiene products, as well as a Passover care package.

Meanwhile, an expat living in New York, Freddy Steiner, runs his apparel and clothing stores in Caracas – Componix Clothing – from the United States, but his visits back home have steadily declined.

In 2000, about a year after the Chávez revolution, Steiner moved his family from Caracas to Miami.

“Pure safety, the number one issue,” he explained. “The kidnappings start[ed] to rise, the security was deteriorating. More and more people leave each year, knowing how much this is affecting the next generation.”

Caracas, he noted, consistently is ranked among the 10 most dangerous cities in the world, with medical services next to non-existent, except for the wealthy.

“The entire economy is in a coma, shut down,” he said. “Since early spring, malls and restaurants shut down at 7 p.m., there’s no electricity and no water.”

According to Rabbi Ariel Yeshurun of Sky Lake Synagogue in North Miami Beach, which has a sizeable Venezuelan membership, many of his congregants express concern about family who remain in Venezuela.

Abraham Levy Benshimol, former president of CAIV and of the Ascociación Israelita de Venezuela, said that, in addition to the difficulties experienced by all Venezuelans, those Jews who remain are facing increased challenges because of the exodus. “You still have the same number of schools, but you don’t have the same number of contributors,” he said. “So that’s a big problem.”

Chaya Perman, the wife of Rabbi Moshe Perman, director of Venezuela’s Chabad Centre, said, “The recent anti-Zionism is part of what is going on internationally.”

According to Perman, “nearly every Jewish family is affiliated in some way,” with some 90% of Jewish children attending Jewish day school; kosher meat, pizza, and bread products are still available. Given the overall circumstances, however, houses of worship are using up financial reserves to keep afloat, though they are “not yet at the point where they think they need help from wealthy Jewish communities,” she said.

For the Permans, two married children with their husbands and 15 grandchildren remain in Venezuela. They, much like the rest of the community, don’t know whether tomorrow will be better or worse. But there’s always hope.

“It’s a wait-and-see attitude,” said Perman.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world.

Summit’s sage advice

Gwyneth Paltrow, left, and Zooey Deschanel at the Sage Summit in July. (photo by Dave Gordon)

Some 15,000 entrepreneurs gathered in Chicago July 26-29 for the Sage Summit, to hear keynote speakers, network and browse the exhibitors’ stations, which spanned the length of 10 football fields, according to Sage chief executive officer Stephen Kelly, who oversees the accounting software giant.

Celebrity speakers included entrepreneurs and actors Gwyneth Paltrow, Zooey Deschanel and Ashton Kutcher, all of whom have Jewish connections.

Paltrow, most known lately for her role as Pepper Potts in the Iron Man film series, was also the head of Goop, which touts itself as a “weekly lifestyle publication.” (She left the publication days after the Summit.)

photo - Some 15,000 entrepreneurs gathered in Chicago July 26-29 for the Sage Summit — Some 15,000 entrepreneurs gathered in Chicago July 26-29 for the Sage Summit. *(photo by Dave Gordon)*

“The more you create a vision of where you’re going, the more you can create a vertical. Where do you want it to be, where do you imagine it to be, and ask people ‘where do you want it to go?’ – that’s how you form an execution strategy,” she advised entrepreneurs at the Chicago gathering.

She also offered a morale boost for budding entrepreneurs.

“Unwavering self-belief is everything. Everyone’s going to tell you why you can’t do it, and you have to know in your bones that you can do it … and take disappointments with as much grace as you can,” said the actress, whose late father, film director Bruce Paltrow, was Jewish.

Paltrow’s co-panelist, Deschanel of television’s New Girl, is founder of the website Hello Giggles, an online magazine for young women launched five years ago and acquired by Time Inc. in 2015. She has also invested in a hydroponics company that grows sustainable and eco-friendly organic food.

“Trust your gut and be yourself – and watch your bottom line. Customers will thank you for that,” said Deschanel, who converted to Judaism last November.

Chiming in about knowing one’s limits – and about social media engagement – was Kutcher, who has invested in high-tech ventures including Skype, FourSquare and Airbnb.

“I learned by sitting in the rooms being the dumbest person in there and asking a lot of questions,” he said.

Kutcher last year married Jewish actress Mila Kunis. He has been a student of kabbalah and has visited Israel several times.

“I was aggressively into social media early on,” he said at the summit. “From a business perspective, I think it’s valuable from a customer service, customer relations perspective. Building a social media environment for their feedback in a dramatic and visible way creates transparency and delivers a high-quality product and service. From a marketing perspective, if used right, it can be beneficial.”

But, he noted, there’s a critical caveat regarding marketers.

photo - Aston Kutcher with Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter — Aston Kutcher with Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter *(photo by Dave Gordon)*

“They come up with these elaborate social media marketing plans, which inevitably fail along the way,” he said, “because marketers tend to forget it’s a conversation, and they don’t account for feedback.”

Kutcher cautioned against having fingers in several social media platforms, noting it’s more about quality than quantity.

“I feel a lot of people aggressively chase the latest in social media marketing and waste a lot of time in it. It’s this sort of race to be on the cutting edge, but, in another sense, it’s time on inefficient platforms. It’s like in acting – the fans don’t go to the actor, the actor should go to where the fans are.”

Twitter, Instagram and Facebook already have “huge swaths of people and have really great tools for targeting,” he added.

Co-panelist Yancey Strickler, one of the three founders of Kickstarter, which he described as “the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects,” has also been the crowdfunding site’s CEO for the past three years.

Despite Kickstarter’s online base, Strickler had his own warning about social media.

“I think social media is bad for our brains, and it’s hard to have introspection on these platforms.… I wouldn’t doubt, in 20 years, if they found what social media does to our brains is what smoking does to our lungs.”

“I’m worried about my brain now,” Kutcher retorted.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world. He is the managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

“We shall never forget”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum (photo from auschwitz.org)

On July 10, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum. He was accompanied by, among others, Nate Leipciger, a former prisoner of Auschwitz born in 1928 in Chorzów, who emigrated to Canada in 1948 and has visited the memorial on more than one March of the Living; Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs Stéphane Dion; and Rabbi Adam Scheier from Montreal, vice-president of the Council of Rabbis. The guests were welcomed by museum director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński, who told them about the history of the camp and the contemporary challenges of the memorial.

Trudeau laid a wreath and held a minute’s silence in front of the Wall of Death in the courtyard of Block 11, where executions by shooting were held, as a commemoration of all victims of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

The guests visited the vast portion of the museum’s exposition. They saw, among other places, Block 4, which was dedicated to the extermination of Jews and which contains German photographs documenting the arrival of the transport of Jews from Hungary, a model of gas chamber and crematorium II from Birkenau, Zyklon B canisters, as well as human hair taken from the murdered. There is also a display dedicated to the story of storage rooms for looted property which, in the jargon of the camp, were called “Kanada.” In Block 5, the visiting delegation saw personal objects of victims that were found in these storage rooms after the liberation of the camp, such as shoes, suitcases, glasses, brushes and kitchen utensils. The delegation also visited the building of the first gas chamber and crematorium in Auschwitz I.

In the second part of the visit, Trudeau walked through the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. He walked along the rail ramp where the Germans conducted selection of the Jews, and also saw the ruins of the gas chamber and crematorium III, where the Jewish prayer for the dead, the Kaddish, was said. Candles were lit at the monument, commemorating all victims of the camp.

The prime minister also made an entry in the guest book of the museum. “Tolerance is never sufficient: humanity must learn to love our differences,” wrote Trudeau. “Today, we bear witness to humanity’s capacity for deliberate cruelty and evil. May we ever remember this painful truth about ourselves and may it strengthen our commitment to never again allow such darkness to prevail. We shall never forget. Nous nous souviendrons.”

Remembering a friend

On the back cover of Arnold Wesker’s book Say Goodbye: You May Never See Them Again, Alan Tapper is the third boy from the left seated on the ground and Arnold is the fourth.

British playwright and author Arnold Wesker passed away in April. He and I were good friends, and I miss him greatly.

I went to school with Arnold 80 years ago. We were in the same class at Commercial Street School. I am among the students in the photo on the back cover of his book Say Goodbye: You May Never See Them Again – I am the third boy from the left seated on the ground and Arnold is the fourth. The book’s paintings, by John Allin, were of the old Jewish East End of London, England.

We grew up together in the Spitalfields area of Stepney. We regularly visited each other’s homes; his house was on the next street to mine. His family were staunch communists and his aunt – who lived on the same street I did – was involved with the local garment workers union. I was introduced to political discourse at an early age through the discussions that regularly took place at his home, but we also enjoyed playing games, like Monopoly. And we did so often.

Arnold, like me, was evacuated to Barnstaple in North Devon during the war. I was evacuated three times: when war broke out in September 1939 to Aylesbury; in the early 1940s to Barnstaple; and, in 1944-45 to Newcastle upon Tyne, returning to London the day that the last rocket landed on a tenement building not far from where we lived, killing and injuring many people. One of my friends, Mossy Berkovitch, was a survivor from the rubble.

Arnold and I kept in touch after returning to Stepney after the evacuation to Barnstaple. I remember visiting with him the different air-raid shelters in the local area but we lost touch after the war. We both served in the Royal Air Force – he wrote about his RAF experiences in two of his plays, The Kitchen (1957) and Chicken Soup with Barley (1958).

We connected again in 1953, when I went to see a production of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech futurist writer Karel Capek. Arnold was in a local drama group, called the Query Players, who performed the play. The show and his performance gave me the theatre bug and I also joined the Query Players a short time later, appearing in many of the group’s productions. Arnold was my mentor, and. I continued to act and write, but became involved in local politics. Since moving to Canada, I have been involved with and worked on committees of many Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, and presented and produced Anthology of Jewish Music on Vancouver Coop Radio for 35 years.

I am currently re-reading Arnold’s autobiography, As Much as I Dare, which he wrote in 1994. It is a vivid account of his life to that point, and I am pleased that he remembered me in his story. He was a prolific and multi-award-winning writer and his plays have been performed all over the world. He was one of the first among the Angry Young Men literary group and was knighted by the Queen for his service to English literature. But, mostly, I will remember him as my friend.

Alan Tapper is a local freelance writer. His work has been published in the Vancouver Sun, Province, Courier, National Post, among others, as well as the Jewish Western Bulletin, now the Jewish Independent, and online publications. His first story was published in the London Evening Star when he was 14.

Affirming transgender rights

Citing both changing social practice and traditional Jewish values, the international association of Conservative rabbis passed a resolution on May 22 calling on Jewish institutions and government agencies to embrace the full equality of transgendered people.

The Rabbinical Assembly’s Resolution Affirming the Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People begins, “Whereas our Torah asserts that all humanity is created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s divine image….” It discusses historical evidence of “non-binary gender expression” in Jewish texts dating back to the third-century Mishnah. It calls on synagogues, camps, schools and other institutions affiliated with the Conservative movement to meet the needs of transgender people and to use the names and pronouns that people prefer. It also encourages Conservative institutions to advocate for national and local policies on behalf of transgender people. In light of its passing, the Jewish Independent spoke with several local rabbis from across denominations about the resolution and about transgender inclusivity in their communities.

“The statement feels comprehensive and as positive and embracing as it should be,” said Rabbi Hannah Dresner of Or Shalom, which is part of the Jewish Renewal movement. “We need always to try to get to the heart of what the halachah (Jewish law) and the mitzvot are trying to do for us. The way they were concretized in another century does not limit them for all time. Halachah is a process. I think it is beautiful when any part of the community pulls up a chair at table and says we are participating in the ongoing evolution of halachah. This is at the heart of what it means to continually create Torah, to turn Torah over and over, to continually participate in the exchange between the Holy One and human beings, which is God giving the written Torah and our response by taking it in and answering in the voice of our humanness. This is at the heart of what the halachic process is and should be in any sphere.”

LGBTQ people are fully welcomed at Or Shalom, and people are called to the Torah by their preferred gender identification. Or Shalom is currently working on infrastructural and ritual changes to be more explicitly and fully inclusive of LGBTQ people in all spheres. “There are alternatives that are easy and sweet,” said Dresner. “We just have to do our work.”

When asked what he thought of the Conservative resolution, Rabbi Dan Moscovitz of Temple Sholom, a Reform congregation, replied with typical humor: “Great, welcome to the party.” He said he views the resolution as a return to the deep values of the tradition, not a departure. “This is at the core of who we are commanded to be as human beings – to find the tzelem Elohim (image of God) inside of each individual and to not be confused or distracted by outside appearances, generalizations or labels,” he said.

The resolution is largely the same as that passed by the Reform movement in November 2015. As early as 1965, the Women of Reform Judaism called for the decriminalization of homosexuality. In 1977, Reform’s Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution calling for legislation decriminalizing homosexual acts between consenting adults, and an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians. In the late 1980s, the primary seminary of the Reform movement, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, changed its admission requirements to allow openly gay and lesbian people to join the student body. In 1990, gay and lesbian rabbis were officially affirmed and, in 1996, so were same-sex civil unions. In 2000, a resolution followed fully affirming sanctified Jewish unions for same-sex couples and, in 2003, there was a resolution affirming the full acceptance of trans- and bisexual people, a stance confirmed and elaborated in the 2015 resolution.

“We have trans members, both adults and children, who we embrace and welcome fully,” said Moscovitz. “We call up to the Torah by preferred gender and gender-neutral pronouns which are present on our gabai [person who calls people to the Torah] sheet…. All bathrooms are multi-gendered or non-gendered.”

Moskovitz cited the case of a bar mitzvah boy who now identifies as a female and was offered a mikvah ritual as a transitional symbol, as well as a new Hebrew name and the reissue of the bar mitzvah certificate as a bat mitzvah.

The Conservative movement has been slower to change its position on LGBTQ sexuality than the Reform. In 1990, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), which sets halachic policy for the movement, stated their desire to “work for full and equal civil rights for gays and lesbians in our national life.” Nevertheless, the CJLS maintained a ban on homosexual conduct, the ordination of homosexuals as rabbis and same-sex marriage unions until 2006, when LGBTQ people were first admitted for rabbinical ordination; in 2012, the Israeli Masorti (Conservative) movement followed suit. In 2012, the CJLS allowed same-sex marriages, with the U.K. Masorti movement following in 2014. The 2016 resolution is a milestone for the Conservative movement.

Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel, which is part of the Conservative movement, applauds the new document. “Kevod ha’ briyot [the dignity of all created beings, cited in the CJLS resolution] is very important…. For me, the over-arching concept of respecting all human beings and making them feel welcome, bringing them into the Jewish community is vitally important and is the keystone of the resolution.”

Infeld said the resolution is an expression of foundational Jewish values. “It is critically important to recognize the humanity and holiness of every person and that’s the essence of the resolution,” he said.

Beth Israel has private, non-gender-specific washrooms available, and calls to the Torah for an aliyah are done on the basis of the gender with which the person identifies, he noted. “We don’t loudly announce our stance so much as we are very happy to have trans and gay people in our synagogue as a natural part of the social fabric of our shul, by being warm and welcoming to everyone who walks in the door,” he said.

Speaking to the JI only days after the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, Infeld said, “The Orlando massacre is another reminder of the need to fight discrimination on every level and recognize the humanity of every person.”

Unlike non-Orthodox denominations, Orthodox Jews maintain traditional rabbinic stances against homosexual conduct, and behaviors such as cross-dressing or identifying with a gender aside from one’s birth gender. Nevertheless, there are a number of Orthodox rabbis and Jewish groups that are openly LGBTQ and/or call for greater inclusivity in Orthodox communities. And, in recent years, a number of Orthodox statements have been issued – mostly from within the Modern Orthodox world but also from others – calling for the expression of love, support and inclusion of LGBTQ people without condoning LGBTQ behaviors.

“We do not judge anyone here,” said Chabad Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu of Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel. “We love and welcome everyone. We follow the Orthodox halachah that the Torah only allows union between a man and a woman, but gay, lesbian and transgender people are welcomed in our community and no one will judge them or condemn them. We do not ask questions about people’s behavior or police them. We love people, and we do not make everything they do or don’t do our business. We have had and do have gay and lesbian couples here and, in the past, even one Orthodox gay couple, and they were not judged, no one is saying anything to them. Everyone is welcome here.”

Matthew Gindin is a Vancouver freelance writer and journalist. He blogs on spirituality and social justice at seeking her voice (hashkata.com) and has been published in the Forward, Tikkun, Elephant Journal and elsewhere. He has written more on the Rabbinical Assembly resolution on forward.com (“Jewish values tell us to back equality for transgender people – it’s in the Torah”), medium.com (“Repentance in the wake of Orlando”) and hashkata.com (“All a horrible mistake: The Bible’s supposed condemnation of homosexuality”).

Impact of Brexit vote

In the historic referendum last week, the United Kingdom voted to leave the 28-nation European Union (EU), sending shockwaves throughout Europe and the international community. The results of the so-called “Brexit” vote – 52% in favor of exiting the EU and 48% opposed – spurred the resignation of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and called into question the identity and strength of the EU, while leaving many nations, including Israel, wondering how the vote will affect policy and trade in the years ahead.

“It’s hard to know what is going to happen, and nothing is going to happen right away,” said Dr. Oded Eran, the former Israeli ambassador to the EU. “There is no doubt that Israel will be left to follow the agreements that will be made between the United Kingdom and the European Union, and to adjust its economic and trade relations with Britain accordingly.”

Opposition leaders in France and the Netherlands have hailed British voters’ decision, calling for similar referendums on EU membership in their countries. “This is the dilemma that the European Union will face,” Eran said. “If Britain was a singular case, then this would be a simpler situation.”

A major factor in the Brexit vote was the influx of Muslim immigration into Europe. Supporters of the Brexit suggested that Muslim immigration threatens the distinct character of European nations.

Opponents of leaving the EU cited growing xenophobia and anti-Islamic sentiment in British society, often coupled with antisemitic sentiments.

According to Fiamma Nirenstein – a former Italian parliamentarian who served as vice-president of the parliament’s committee on foreign affairs and as a member of the Italian delegation to the Council of Europe – there are opposing views within Europe’s Jewish communities on the causes and potential consequences of the Brexit vote.

Nirenstein noted that one school of thought views the Brexit vote “as a sort of punishment for Europe” for growing anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment.

“Over the past century, Europe has been so bad to the Jews,” she said. “And, increasingly now, Europe is against Israeli actions, and Europe is seeing an explosion of antisemitism. So, in the view of one camp, there is something wrong with Europe and something needed to happen to demonstrate that, and the Brexit vote represents this.”

On the other side, Nirenstein suggested, is a second camp that views the Brexit vote negatively – “as an event that strengthens and empowers an illiberal right-wing sentiment throughout Europe,” a sentiment that is simultaneously antisemitic and anti-Islamic and, at its core, anti-immigration.

“As a people that have ourselves been strangers in many lands, Jews have always identified with the value of welcoming the other, so this camp of Jews is against the [Brexit] vote,” said Nirenstein, who also served as chairperson of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians.

Research into psychedelics

Jordan Sloshower (photo from Jordan Sloshower)

The use of psychoactive plants and mushrooms for sacramental and religious purposes has been widespread throughout the world’s cultures for centuries. More recently, in the 1950s and 1960s, academic centres investigated the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelic compounds – primarily lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) – to treat forms of mental illness and addictions. After producing thousands of papers, the field came to a halt in the 1970s, due to the “war on drugs” and the classification of psychedelic drugs as a Schedule 1 drug in the United States. Nonetheless, the past 10 years have seen a resurgence of interest in the field of psychedelic science.

In the last decade, research has resumed at prominent universities, such as Johns Hopkins University, University of California-Los Angeles and New York University, where clinical trials have examined the use of psilocybin (the psychoactive component of “magic mushrooms”) to treat cancer-related end-of-life anxiety, as well as addiction to alcohol and tobacco. And, a recently formed group at Yale University – the Yale Psychedelic Science Group (YPSG) – is exploring the science behind such research.

YPSG was formed with the aim of reviewing and discussing academic research in the psychedelic sciences via examining academic articles and papers, as well as hosting leading scholars in this field from across the country. The group is working to host an interdisciplinary forum in which clinicians and scholars from across Yale can learn about and discuss the reemerging field of psychedelic science and therapeutics.

One of the leaders of this resurgence is Winnipeg-born and -raised Jewish community member Jordan Sloshower, who is currently a second-year resident physician in Yale’s psychiatry program.

“I first thought I was going to do infectious disease, which is a more typical path for someone like myself interested in global health,” Sloshower told the Independent. “But I found that, clinically, I was most interested in interpersonal relationships, so social dynamics and psychiatry was feeling like a better fit.

“What actually happened was I was able to go do a psychiatry elective in Peru – both in Lima and in a smaller city in the mountains – and, for six weeks, I got to interact with different aspects of their mental health care system there. It was really my first exposure to what we call ‘global mental health,’ and I learned that this is actually a very vibrant field.”

Sloshower found that mental health was a hugely underserved area, with not only a lack of access to care, but with human rights abuses. With a lot of work needing to be done in the field, he decided to combine his interest in global health with his clinical interest in psychiatry. This led to his working in Nepal’s mental health system as well, at the end of medical school.

Regarding the field of psychedelic science, Sloshower dates its inception back to when Albert Hoffman synthesized LSD.

“Now, the way I think of it is as a broad interdisciplinary study of how these molecules act biologically, socially and economically,” he said. “I think there are also political, arts and anthropological angles. I think the term psychedelic still brings up thoughts of art and music from the ’60s. It’s a broad term.”

According to Sloshower, the term psychedelic means “minds manifesting,” which some refer to as “hallucinogen.” In context, this refers to compounds that cause perceptual alteration.

The province of Saskatchewan, as it happens, was one of the leaders investigating LSD for the treatment of alcoholism and cancer-related anxiety. In Europe, psychedelic drugs were used for psychotherapy. Thousands of papers were published on this until, Sloshower said, “things got shut down when psychedelic drugs were classified as illegal drugs.”

Psychedelic drugs went from being perceived as potential wonder drugs to something awful, and then just disappeared. Then, about 10 years ago, Dr. Rick Strassman in New Mexico did a study looking at dimethyltryptamine, a psychedelic drug found in many species of plants as well as in our own bodies.

“There’s a huge need for new treatments that work rapidly in a sustained way, and we need treatments that are not toxic,” said Sloshower. “So, it makes a lot of sense that we should look at these drugs, which actually have safety profiles that were demonstrated to be excellent back in the original wave of research and, increasingly, in controlled settings.

“There have been several trials using psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms to treat cancer-related anxiety, which, again, picks up from the ’60s. There’s been a promising study with psilocybin to treat alcohol and nicotine dependence.”

While Sloshower said he is not an expert in the matter, he was willing to explain the basics of how these compounds work on the brain. He said that psychedelic drugs activate a subtype of serotonin receptor in the brain and that “serotonin is one of the key neurotransmitters in mood, attention and a range of different things.”

He said, “Typical antidepressants usually act on the serotonin system as well. One potential mechanism of how psychedelics exert peculiar effects on thought and perception is by interrupting something called ‘the default mode network,’ which is kind of like a neural correlate of the ego. It’s a network of neurons that fire together in your baseline consciousness when you’re doing self-referential thinking. In people with depression who have a lot of ruminant thoughts, you see an increased activation of the default mode network and, with both the use of psychedelics and mindfulness practice, you actually see a decrease in activation of the default mode network.”

Among the speakers YPSG has hosted is a speaker from Johns Hopkins who discussed his work using psilocybin to treat tobacco addiction. Another expert, from NYU, was part of the trial done on psilocybin for cancer-related end-of-life anxiety. The results from both studies look promising.

Sloshower anticipates that some Canadian universities will soon become more interested in researching psychedelics. “Actually, the Canadian medical journal, I noticed on the front cover a few months ago, had psychedelics on it,” he said.

When asked about any possible connection between psychedelics and the increased interest in medical marijuana, Sloshower said they are not explicitly connected, although both are part of a search for new therapeutic approaches.

“From my point of view, it’s not so much a matter of the drugs (antidepressants) being overused as much as it is that the drugs don’t work as much as we’d like,” he said. “In a lot of cases, we don’t have great treatment. In depression, for instance, the medications either work partially, take a long time to start working or have a lot of side effects.

“In these cases, the treatments we have aren’t really adequate. We need new ones. We don’t really have good drugs for substance use disorders either. Actually, something that’s been interesting with psychedelic drugs is that the model being proposed, unlike typical antidepressants, is based on a very limited number of drug exposures over a very short period of time.”

The proposed model includes providing treatment in clinics only, with people requiring only one or a handful of drug-therapy sessions linked with psychotherapy, as studies have shown both rapid-acting and prolonged effects of psychedelics.

As for the cancer anxiety research, it has shown improvement in patients’ mood six months after having received a single dose of psilocybin.

“That’s why I think there’s a lot of interest,” said Sloshower. “I don’t think it’s going to be a miracle, but another tool we’d have alongside other treatments we already have.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Couples need to talk about sex

Doreen Seidler-Feller, PhD, is a clinical psychologist who has decided to focus her practice, in part, on the underserved population of Orthodox Jews. (photo from Doreen Seidler-Feller)

While sex is vital to our existence, it remains a topic many people are not comfortable discussing. Yet it is critical that we at least feel comfortable talking about it in private with our partners. It is even more fulfilling if we are able to enjoy the act of it with them, too.

Unfortunately, some newlywed Jewish Orthodox couples find themselves unable to consummate their marriages in an enjoyable way, due to a lack of sexual education and some misguided sexual advice from their peers. Enter sex therapist Doreen Seidler-Feller, PhD, a Los Angeles-based clinical psychologist who has decided to focus her practice, in part, on the underserved population of Orthodox Jews.

“I’m the last resort for everyone in this area,” Seidler-Feller told the Independent. “Nobody likes to come and face the situation in which they need to talk about something as intimate as their sexuality and their relations with their partners.”

Since people often only go to Seidler-Feller after they have exhausted all the options they can think of to solve the difficulties by themselves, she sees more complicated cases.

“It’s rare that I see a man alone,” she said. “It’s more likely that I’d see a man together with his wife, presenting as a couple, or that I’d see women alone. The reason for this is that, frequently, the problem is identified as theirs [the woman’s]. If it is an issue of painful intercourse or the involuntary contracture of the vaginal musculature that denies entry to the man … any sort of pain condition inside the vaginal vault or inability to tolerate intercourse … it makes sense that she would present alone.”

As treatment progresses, Seidler-Feller brings her patient’s partner into the process, as there is always some bridging required to bring the couple back into harmony and aid in their sexual choreography. Sometimes, the partner, too, may have a problem undiscovered until that point. In that case, his individual problem becomes addressable.

“The issue that causes the greatest anxiety is the inability to consummate marriage – a pain condition and an inability to tolerate insertion are conditions most likely to bring them into treatment,” she said. “These conditions not only deny the couple the opportunity for the mitzvah pru u’rvu [being fruitful and multiplying]. They deny them the opportunity for pleasure, the sensations of adulthood, and related normalcy.”

According to Seidler-Feller, the next most likely causes for seeking treatment are if the man has erection or ejaculation control difficulties, while the least likely cause is a woman being unable to achieve orgasm.

The majority of Orthodox couples and individuals Seidler-Feller sees are between the ages of 21 and 35.

“People, usually women, also sometimes want to come to me to talk about something in their past that they haven’t been able to talk to anyone about, that may be relevant to their sexual dysfunction,” said Seidler-Feller. “In that case, my being a stranger to her – not necessarily part of her community – is a plus, not a minus. That is because usually it enables the patient to maintain a certain kind of anonymity. At the same time, it enables her to raise the question of to what extent an experience of either subtle or outright sexual abuse might be relevant to her sexual difficulty.”

Since the work is so intimate, Seidler-Feller works strictly in person – not over the phone or electronically – partially to challenge the taboo around frank sexual discussion in the Orthodox world. Also, because of the inhibition that exists around both the language and activity involved in human sexuality, one-on-one discussions are most useful.

In a world where oblique language supplies the vocabulary, Seidler-Feller is not a fan of maintaining the status quo. One of her objectives is to train couples to be completely open with each other, to say what they mean and mean what they say.

“They can deal with the rest of the world in euphemism and indirection, that’s fine,” she said, “but I don’t want them, with one another, to talk in euphemistic and inhibited language, as it may lead to difficulties and misunderstandings.”

On the other hand, Seidler-Feller does not advocate the use of clinical or vulgar language. Her intention is simply to help a couple speak clearly to each other, so they can effectively express their desires.

“Once the dysfunction is behind them, they are left with a world of possibilities about how to enact their sexual relationship,” said Seidler-Feller. “Some find, at that stage, that they want to have a more ample, open and variable sexual relationship. For that to be realized, they need to be strong internally and know what they feel and want. This way, they can refer to their experience clearly and can effectively achieve their wishes.”

Seidler-Feller’s treatment is short-term behavior-oriented psychotherapy and involves focused discussion, not actual activity of any sort in a session. Her patients are given a series of exercises designed for them, specifically based on what their diagnostic assessment reveals and what are their halachic (Jewish law), cultural and value considerations. The exercises, which the couple completes in the privacy of their home, are the subject of each session. Usually, the person who has the dysfunction begins by doing self-directed exercises. Later, the couple performs partner exercises together.

“Over the course of the week, I expect my patients to do the exercises three or four times, and journal,” said Seidler-Feller. “Then, they bring back their journals or good memories, as the case may be, and we talk about what they did over the course of the week. And, I put in my two cents about how to enlarge it or differently shape it.”

In this broad way, Seidler-Feller approaches numerous issues wherein primary medical causes have been ruled out or are limited in their effects.

Seidler-Feller would like to see a standardized curriculum in Orthodox day schools.

“I’d like to see Orthodox day schools become more courageous, to face the fact that we live in a modern world where people of all kinds get their sexual information and values from all sorts of places,” she said. “It’s still true that most get information from their peers, which is variable, and, even when the information is good, is never enough.

“A sexual ethic involving a modern Jewish approach to sexual values must be developed to have a chance of captivating the imagination of both young Orthodox men and women, as well as the non-Orthodox. Otherwise, we condemn our young to the values either of the street or the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law].”

Seidler-Feller sees talking about problems surrounding sex, and giving young people especially a way to think about sex as something that is spiritually and emotionally enriching, is critical. She also thinks it will reduce a lot of personal anguish and marital tension.

“I’d like to see public forums in the Orthodox world, where people like me are invited into synagogues, panels or programs, offering the opportunity to talk about responsible human sexuality in the Jewish context, Orthodox context, in a straightforward, unapologetic way,” said Seidler-Feller. “This could help rabbis in the institutions that have failed us, to the extent that they consider all public discussion on sexuality as somehow immodest and prohibited. My dream is that when they come to the chuppah [marriage canopy] and to the world of marriage beyond, couples are truly prepared.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Caring for people at life’s end

Henry Fersko-Weiss, president of the International End of Life Doula Association. (photo from Henry Fersko-Weiss)

Doulas offer support to expectant mothers, guiding women and their partners through the childbirth process and into their first steps of parenthood. Now, a similar concept is gaining ground to fill a need at the end of our lives.

Fear, exhaustion and uncertainty often leave us unsure of how to best support a loved one during their last days, while we also try to deal with our own impending loss.

The idea for end-of-life doulas was conceived by licensed clinical social worker Henry Fersko-Weiss, who works in hospice care in New York and New Jersey.

“There seemed to be a gap in the services that were traditionally available to people,” Fersko-Weiss told the Independent. “As wonderful as hospice is in the U.S., where most people die in their own homes – which is the ideal, unless there’s a cultural reason not to – that’s when people really need help the most.

“They recognize that death is very close and now they can’t avoid thinking about it. They are exhausted and the care demands have increased. They need more help than they were able to access through normal programs. So, I started to think about how to figure this out … and, at the time, a friend of mine was learning how to become a birth doula.”

Fersko-Weiss had not heard about doulas before then. But, as his friend shared with him what she was learning in her training, he increasingly felt this would also be an ideal way to approach the end of life.

“There are a lot of tremendous similarities between birth and death, clear differences as well,” he said. “I became intrigued and started learning more about birth doulas. And, I took the training myself, so I would learn exactly what they were learning.”

By then, Fersko-Weiss was convinced that there were many tools, techniques and principles of care from the birthing world that could be transferred in a very positive way to the end-of-life sphere. So, he went to Carolyn Cassin, the chief executive officer of Continuum Hospice Care in New York City, where he was working at the time, and presented the idea to her. She encouraged him to follow it through.

By 2015, Fersko-Weiss had established a not-for-profit organization that trains and supports end-of-life doulas.

“Currently,” he said, “my work is focused on promoting the use of end-of-life doulas through organizations that care for people at end of life, as well as training people publicly and helping them to achieve certification through the organization that I head: the International End of Life Doula Association.”

To create the program, Fersko-Weiss incorporated some of the concepts from the birth doula training, such as visualization and guided imagery, techniques used by birth doulas to help ease pain.

“I started building on that and writing the training, looking for material that would support some of the things that were important and created a model of the different phases of care that this would offer,” he said. “At that first training, I had 17 people. Once we went through that first training, which was a weekend – which has become the standard for us, about 22 hours – we went on and kept training, and developing the program, and serving patients and their families.”

There are three phases to the model Fersko-Weiss has created, the first of which is summing up and planning. This occurs as early as possible, when the patient and the family are shifting their focus to end-of-life comfort care and away from a cure.

“But, even if they were still focused, to some degree, on a cure, parts of what we do would still make sense, probably even months before somebody would be at the point of dying,” said Fersko-Weiss. “We work on exploring the meaning of their life, as they look back over their life, and help them think about what they might want to leave behind as a legacy that reflects that meaning that they’ve uncovered or what they think is important for their loved ones and friends to remember them by or to carry into their lives.”

Psychologist Erik Erikson has examined the different developmental stages that we go through within our lifespan and refers to the last of these stages as “integrity versus despair.”

“When somebody is dying and facing death, they are automatically propelled into that final developmental stage, no matter what age,” said Fersko-Weiss. “In that stage, they have to contend with coming to the point of a positive completion of their life as they go through reviewing their life. Or else, they move towards despair, anguish and feeling that their life either didn’t matter or didn’t fulfil their dreams.”

The other aspect of the first phase of Fersko-Weiss’ program is planning what one’s last days of life will look like. This entails finding out what would be most helpful to them and their family to allow those last days to unfold in a way that honors who they are, carries deeper meaning for everyone involved and makes it easier for the person to approach death.

The second phase of the program is when the person is actively dying, which generally comprises the last two to four days of life.

“We stay with people as much as possible, around the clock,” said Fersko-Weiss. “We help them understand what is coming next. We support the family emotionally and spiritually, and we assist with physical care in a basic way.

“We will stay [with the family] through the death,” he continued. “We will wait hours afterwards to give them time to process it and have the death experience sink in a bit. We sometimes call the funeral home for them, or friends, if they are too emotional. We stay with them through the body being removed from the home and also up to the point where they feel more comfortable being on their own.”

Phase three of the program has the doula returning to the family three to six weeks following the death to review and tell the story of the dying process. This helps the family see some of the many beautiful and loving things they did together during that time, reminding them how things went, as they may have not have been thinking clearly during that time due to the pain of loss.

“This is done as a way to reframe some of the negative pieces that they are carrying that may be coming back to them over and over again in their mind, and help them to begin the very early stage of grief, understand what grief work is about,” said Fersko-Weiss. “We help them through some of the early grief work and then refer them to programs in the community or within the organization that were perhaps involved with the care as well. We may, at that point, do a final ritual to bring closure to our work with them.”

The end-of-life doula service is provided primarily by hospice and out-care programs, which may be part of a hospital. Fersko-Weiss is working to spur interest in this service at assisted living facilities and nursing homes. This type of care is also starting to be done by groups of people getting together to provide the service to a dying person and their family.

Fersko-Weiss has been teaching at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Toronto, doing a compressed form of the doula training he offers in the United States. Students attend classes one weekend a month for six months, and graduate as certified contemplative end-of-life-care practitioners.

“My understanding of hospice in Canada is that many people are very underserved,” he said. “There are a lot of people who are dying without the ability to access hospice care in Canada.”

Fersko-Weiss has also been working with a Canadian organization called the Home Hospice Association.

“They are still in the process of forming, but their intention is to provide home hospice in Canada and to solve the problem of lack of access,” he said. “Their intention is to build into that program the utilization of end-of-life doulas.”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.