From the JI – Page 4

The school year ahead

Back to school is a time of excitement and anxiety for parents and kids. It is a time of new beginnings. For Jewish people, it generally coincides, as it roughly does this year, with the new year and the High Holidays. This confluence creates a somewhat chaotic frenzy in many households.

Jewish tradition is deeply tied to cycles of time, weaving renewal and return into every layer of life. The turning of the calendar is reflected not only in Shabbat, the progression of holy days and the annual cycle of Torah reading, but also in agricultural rhythms, the monthly sanctification of the new moon and daily prayers mapping sunrise, midday and nightfall.

This year, as we move from the beginning of the school year through the procession of holidays, we approach the anniversary of Oct. 7, and the terrible realization that the surviving hostages in Gaza have been held for nearly two years – as well as the continued reality facing Israelis, Palestinians, Jews worldwide and everyone who cares about human life.

As the new school year begins, Jewish families have additional anxieties, knowing as we do that the public school system – not least some teachers’ unions in Canada, including the one in British Columbia – in many cases have not only failed to address the unique challenges faced by Jewish students but exacerbated existing problems while creating new ones. Almost everyone has heard anecdotally of insults and distress faced by Jewish students in public schools, and the situation on post-secondary campuses locally and internationally has been in the news for all the wrong reasons for most of the past two years.

Additionally, this school year marks the first in which British Columbia’s education system officially mandates the teaching of the Holocaust. Most students did learn about the Holocaust before, but it had been left up to the discretion of individual teachers. Now, the Social Studies 10 curriculum requires that the topic be included. (See jewishindependent.ca/teaching-about-shoah.) This is something that the Jewish community and others have long promoted.

It does, however, create new openings for challenges. Given the allegations of genocide in Gaza, and overheated rhetoric against Israel in the public discourse – often invoking the memory of the Holocaust, the mantra “never again” and the appropriation of Jewish historical experiences for political advantage – there is a real possibility that individual teachers in the comparative privacy of their classrooms will attempt to inculcate anti-Israel narratives in the guise of genocide education. We expect there will be reports of inappropriate comparisons made between the Jewish experience in the Shoah and current tragedies in the Middle East – and we know that most such incidents will never be reported.

It should never have come to this with regard to antisemitism, but powerful new generations of Jewish leaders have been forged on university campuses and, yes, in high schools and even elementary schools, rising to occasions they should never have had to meet, but doing so in ways that often have surprised even themselves. As tough as the past two years have been, all evidence so far points to young Jews continuing to rise to every challenge.

When all is said and done, we hope that the next generation of our community grows up stronger, smarter and more determined, individually and collectively. To students and parents: May you go from strength to strength this year and always.

From the JI archives … education

Not surprisingly – “People of the Book,” and all – education is an always-relevant topic that has been covered in the Jewish Independent / Jewish Western Bulletin. The paper seems to have steered clear of editorially supporting any particular Jewish school or type of Jewish schooling, but rather consistently stressed the need for Jewish education, especially for children, but also for youth and adults.

A 1956 editorial noted that “an estimated 50 percent of Jewish children in Canada do not get any Jewish education whatsoever.” While admitting that there were no data to suggest Vancouver fared better than other Canadian cities in this regard, it noted that there were several types of schooling available here, day school, evening classes, religious and secular options. “Only the anti-Semites try to cast all Jews in a common mold, a hateful mold,” it noted. “But the Jews among themselves have always followed diverse paths in the perpetuation of their history, ideals and spiritual heritage.” So, it concluded, “Register your child in the Jewish school of your choice. And, if your child is already enrolled, remind your friend or neighbor about enrolling his child.”

An ever-changing city

Summer is a time when our routines are happily disrupted. Kids are out of school and many of us take time off from work to enjoy the hometown that draws tourists from around the world. Maybe we wander off the beaten path and see parts of our own city we usually miss on our repetitive commute. Perhaps we leave town for a week or two and return with fresh eyes.

Anyone who has lived in Vancouver and environs for more than a few years can’t help but see change at every turn. Many of us are watching our old elementary and high schools being replaced with new structures, memories being ploughed under with the old bricks. Community centres throughout the city are seeing replacements. Canada’s oldest business, the Hudson’s Bay Company, is being liquidated, leaving another gaping hole (for now, at least) in the retail landscape at the heart of downtown. Woodward’s is a distant memory. And, of course, what old-timers call “the new Oakridge” is being redeveloped into the new new Oakridge, as anyone trying to navigate by car or bus along 41st or Cambie cannot help but be reminded.

Not everyone likes change, put mildly. But, it is inevitable.

It is simplistic to say there is only one way to go – up. There is an alternative, albeit not a good one. We could continue a 20th-century trend to suburban sprawl, in which we lay housing and concrete across precious arable land.

Novelties like laneway houses have attempted to increase capacity in erstwhile single-family neighbourhoods. Along arteries like Oak, Cambie and Granville, single-family homes are giving way to four-, six- and eight-unit developments. As was always the plan, mixed residential and commercial hubs are skyrocketing from the ground up around transit stations, as evidenced most profoundly around Brentwood, Metrotown, Marine Drive and Oakridge.

Which brings us back to what, for most of the past century, has been the “Jewish neighbourhood.”

That term is a bit of a misnomer. A place where most Jews live does not equate to a place where most people are Jews. Even in the most Jew-dense neighbourhoods, we remain single-digit or low-two-digit proportions of the population. Emotionally, traditionally, spiritually and institutionally, since the 1950s at the latest, the rough area around Oakridge, down Oak and Granville and the surrounding blocks, have been home to Metro Vancouver’s Jews.

This reality began fraying about three decades ago, when housing prices began their notorious upward escalations. (Great for homeowners. Not great for first-time buyers.) And the Jewish community became more geographically dispersed, with inevitable positive and negative consequences.

While the City of Vancouver still holds the largest share of the BC Jewish population (at 58%), other municipalities now have significant Jewish populations, including, in order of size, Richmond, Surrey, the District of North Vancouver and Burnaby. Greater Vancouver’s proportion of the BC Jewish population has decreased, though, from 81% in 2011 to approximately 75% in 2021. (For much more data, see jewishindependent.ca/quick-look-at-canadian-jews.)

For Jewish institutions, this reality has demanded accommodations, with services becoming less geographically rooted. Many agencies, notably the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Jewish Family Services and even the Jewish Community Centre, which by its nature is geographically rooted, are successfully delivering programs across the region.

For Metro Vancouver’s Jews, and for every cultural group, this relentless change has personal and collective impacts.

The JWest development on the 41st and Oak JCC site will include – among other things – hundreds of new homes, notably purpose-built rentals, the scarcity of which is a major contributor to the crisis in the housing market. These hundreds of new homes will not, of course, all be occupied by Jews. But they will be a dramatic increase in available homes in what was, and may again become, the heart of a “Jewish neighbourhood.”

This does not take into account the thousands of other new homes being developed within a radius of a few kilometres, not least at the Oakridge site. Will these be affordable housing? In Vancouver, that term has perhaps lost all meaning. Everything is relative. But volume and variety of housing options are the key to what approaches the concept of affordability.

We can only remotely predict the sociological impacts these dramatic physical changes in our city will have on our day-to-day life, including the vibrancy of Jewish life – not only here, but around the Lower Mainland and the rest of the province.

From the JI archives … BC

It is sometimes hard to look back over the pages of the Jewish Independent and its predecessor, the Jewish Western Bulletin, knowing what has happened since the articles were published. From the 1933 optimism that there was hope for German Jewry, to the enthusiastic welcome of a seemingly short-lived El Al office in Vancouver, to colleagues who have passed away.

An uplifting moment

Vancouver hosted the largest convention in the city’s history over the weekend. About 50,000 members of Alcoholics Anonymous descended on the convention centre and BC Place stadium. Among the throngs was a booth representing Jewish Addiction Community Services – JACS Vancouver.

Rabbi Joshua Corber, the organization’s recently appointed director of addictions and mental health services, wanted the group to have a presence at the massive international confab. The booth shared information about JACS’s work, as well as literature from partner agencies in other cities.

For Elana Epstein, who attended the booth and greeted passersby, the experience was transformative – but not for the reasons she expected.

Epstein and her family have shared their journey with addiction and recovery openly, including in these pages (jewishindependent.ca/family-hopes-to-save-lives). She and husband David Bogdonov and their son Noah Bogdonov have become some of the most familiar faces in this community speaking about and advocating for awareness around addiction and recovery.

At a public event at King David High School last fall, the family shared the path they have been on since Noah began his recovery journey two years ago. The entire family has become engaged with this cause. Noah and Elana have both become professionals in the field – Noah recently moved to Calgary to launch a new recovery centre and Elana was credentialized and recently hired to lead JACS’s new family group, which began earlier this week.

But it was not recovery – or, at least, not recovery in the sense she anticipated – that uplifted her at the AA convention. It was the outpouring of empathy and words of encouragement she received from passersby to her as a Jew, and to the Jewish community more broadly.

A steady stream of people dropped by to peruse the information at the booth, but Epstein was deeply moved by the number who just expressed a few words of support for the situation Jewish people find themselves facing in today’s world.

This sort of acknowledgement is something that has been glaringly absent among her non-Jewish circles in Vancouver, she said.

“I personally needed it,” she said. “I haven’t felt that kind of outreach since the war started.” In one of her local circles, her experience has been quite the opposite.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, at the latest, most Jews have probably, consciously or unconsciously, at different times and in different spheres, become aware of dangers and vulnerabilities when we identify ourselves in public. Any reservations Epstein had quickly evaporated, leaving her “completely surprised.”

“Tears,” she said of her response. “Overwhelming gratitude. I really didn’t expect this and it is a beautiful thing. A really beautiful, heartfelt thing.”

There were other surprises – a lot of non-Jews subscribed to stereotypes that addiction did not exist in the Jewish community. For Epstein, though, it was the few words from a stream of strangers that raised her spirits.

Why did it take strangers from other cities to say the words she needed to hear? Maybe it is easier to speak with people you don’t know. By putting herself out there as a visible Jew in a primarily non-Jewish environment, she attracted the goodwill of people who wanted to share expressions of kindness. Are people who deal in addiction and recovery more sensitive to the pain of others? Is there some other explanation?

We would like to imagine this was an indication that the world is kinder than some recent evidence would suggest.

For one thing, there is a simple phenomenon: haters are loud. The chanters who march through the streets condemning Israel (and often Jews) are few but extremely vocal. Their stickers, spray-paint and graffiti might suggest numbers greater than they represent.

Empathy is quiet. Seeing a Jewish individual standing invitingly at a booth presents an opportunity for a few quiet words that maybe some people have been waiting to express.

It may be rare enough that it bears highlighting. It is still, though, a reminder that compassion abounds, often in places we least expect it. This is a small example – and just one – that modest acts of kindness have profound ripples.

As we enjoy the full bloom of summer, with its (hopefully) bright days and reinvigorating outdoor activities, we thought it was worth sharing that the world can be a more welcoming place than it sometimes seems.

We naturally share with friends our moments of disappointment and distress, seeking commiseration when the world lets us down. Remember also to share your moments of uplift, as this one individual chose to do. We need them.

From the JI archives … yum

While the odd recipe or food-related article can be found in the Jewish Western Bulletin even before it became the Bulletin, regular food columns or special sections seemed to have become a part of the paper under Sam and Mona Kaplan, who owned the paper from 1960 to 1999. The Independent has carried on the tradition, with its annual Food & Drink issue, which you hold in your hand, and with the inclusion of recipes in our three holiday issues, Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover. One thing that becomes apparent in flipping through the archives is that tastes change, and not every recipe, or recipe name, withstands the test of time.

Doing “the dirty work”

Israel’s decades-long conflict with Iran is no longer a proxy war, but a real war. Israel has bombarded sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program – as has the United States – and assassinated top military officials and nuclear program scientists. Israel also has targeted installations of the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps, the branch of Iran’s military that reports directly to the supreme leader and protects the nation’s Islamic identity from internal and external threats. Iran has launched missiles at Israel, as well as at a US military base. As of press time, a US-brokered ceasefire appeared to be holding.

Ending Iran’s nuclear program, or, at a minimum, setting it back, is the objective of Israel’s military operation. Regime change – a situation in which the Islamist government of the ayatollahs is replaced by something presumably better – is on the lips of Israeli and American leaders. But, as tempting and positive as that might sound, the immediate mission is more specific and tangible. Some express hope that the debilitated Iranian regime may be subject to internal rebellion. We should remember, though, that the Iranian regime fought an eight-year war with Iran that cost a million lives and millions more injured. That conflict, which ended in an effective stalemate, suggests massive loss of life is not a barrier to the ayatollahs’ ideological objectives.

Western countries, Americans especially, have seen the dangers of becoming entrenched in catastrophic military affairs half a world away, with decades-long engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan in which the people of the region by some measures are now worse off than ever.

We all prefer diplomacy to war, of course, and the discourse in the lead-up to Israel’s strikes on Iranian sites was focused on whether a negotiated resolution was possible. For now, however, negotiation is off the table, although a weakened Iran with a disabled nuclear program would presumably be more amenable to talking.

The objective of preventing end-times religious fanatics like those of Iran’s government from obtaining nuclear weapons is something that most reasonable people can get behind. But “mission creep,” the potential for a limited military plan to expand into a long-term engagement, is one of many dangers stemming from the current situation.

Underestimating the seriousness of the enemy is another threat. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister in 1939, notoriously negotiated with Hitler and his name has gone down in history as someone who, put mildly, badly misjudged the preference for negotiation over force.

There have been dramatically conflicting reports about how close Iran is – or was – to nuclear weapons. Reports that Iran was on the cusp of nuclear capability were the justification for Israel’s attacks. Other reports suggest they were further away than Israel alleged. Perhaps no one knows but the Iranian regime.

We wish for peace. We also wish for a world where those who threaten peace can be contained. These basic truths can seem contradictory in the short term. But the long-term wish for peace, indeed the very survival of the Jewish people to judge by the explicit genocidal expressions from the top leaders of Iran in recent decades, requires that the nuclear program they have been constructing must never be allowed to near completion.

Interestingly, many voices who have condemned Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza are far more amenable to their approach with Iran. Although some people certainly view the Iranian threat and the Hamas threat as two prongs in the same war, the world seems more likely to acknowledge the urgent danger posed by Iran than they do the threat by Hamas, which is, at this point, limited primarily to Israelis. A nuclear Iran is viewed, by people in the West, as a direct threat to their own well-being – and that has seemed to focus their minds and create a common cause with Israel in ways the battle with Hamas has not.

Self-interest is a powerful force. A few leaders – notably Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said Israel is doing “the dirty work” for “all of us” – have acknowledged that the fight against Hamas and Iran are parallel battles. Others seem determined to view them as largely separate, as though existential threats to Israel are neither as concerning nor as world-changing as the Iranian dangers.

This may be true, in terms of scope, especially now that Hamas is widely seen to be massively weakened. However, the larger reality, as expressed by the German leader, remains: Israel is the frontline in a war that affects us all.

From the JI archives … oh, Canada

Time to vote again!

You may not know there is an election underway. Voting to elect delegates to the Canadian Zionist Federation closes Sunday, so you still have time to cast your ballot.

Although some of us have been receiving emails urging us to vote, it’s likely that most of us don’t even know there is campaign going on. It’s not front-page news.

Those chosen in the CZF election on Sunday will become delegates to the 39th World Zionist Congress, in Jerusalem, in October. (The legendary First Zionist Congress was convened by Theodor Herzl, in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897.)

Even if you haven’t yet heard about the elections, we think it’s worth taking a few moments to familiarize yourself with the slates, their platforms, and the role of CZF in connecting Canadian Jews to Israel. We encourage you to take this opportunity to have a small but important voice in the future of Zionism and our relationship with the Jewish homeland. Registering to vote costs $2.

The Canadian Zionist Federation is a national affiliate of the World Zionist Organization, and is comprised of 11 national Jewish Zionist organizations. These include the religiously affiliated groups ARZA Canada, “the Zionist voice of the Canadian Reform movement,” the Conservative movement’s MERCAZ Canada, and the Orthodox Eretz HaKodesh; political groups affiliated with Israeli parties, including Likud Canada, Herut Canada and Meretz Canada; ethnically oriented groups like Shas Olami, affiliated with the Sephardi and Mizrahi Orthodox party Shas, and Mizrahi Canada; and a linguistic grouping, the Canadian Forum of Russian-Speaking Jewry, as well as the non-denominational, non-partisan youth group Young Judaea, and Ameinu Canada, “a national, multi-generational community of progressive Jews in Canada, the United States, Australia and Brazil.” The slates in this election reflect and overlap within and across these groupings.

The World Zionist Organization styles itself as “the parliament of the Jewish people,” and it convenes every five years. WZO sets priorities for the Zionist movement worldwide. It is the main global voice on policy around Israel-diaspora relations, on such topics as Jewish education funding abroad, aliyah and religious recognition. The WZO allocates hundreds of millions of dollars in funding through Zionist institutions like the Jewish Agency, Keren Hayesod (United Israel Appeal) and Jewish National Fund.

Through the Canadian Zionist Federation – and then via the World Jewish Congress – each of us is granted a say in these essential issues. If you care about Israel and its relationship with the diaspora, and you would like to have a voice in the direction of that relationship, this is one important avenue.

Take time to peruse the platforms of the various groups vying for your vote. You may want to place particular attention on issues around the preservation of Israeli democracy, and legal protections and social equality for women and minorities in the country. Perhaps one or more of the platforms will reflect your views on how Israel can work toward peace while protecting its citizens and ensuring the long-term security of its borders.

Read the materials and see which slate best reflects your opinion on how many millions of dollars should be spent to strengthen Jewish life in Israel and worldwide. These elections – and the decisions to be taken at the Congress to which the delegates will be sent – represent the values and priorities of world Jewry.

Israel and Jews collectively are at an unprecedented moment – and while, by definition, every moment is unprecedented, especially in Jewish history, this feels different.

Perhaps you didn’t know you were eligible to vote. Maybe you were only vaguely aware of the Canadian Zionist Federation and what it does. You had probably heard of the First Zionist Congress but maybe didn’t know that the through-line in Zionist history continues from Basel in 1897 to Jerusalem in 2025.

Now you know a little more. Dive deeper. And, on or before Sunday, vote at czf.ca.

Flipping through JI archives #1

In putting together the Jewish Independent’s special 95th Anniversary issue last month, I came across so many articles of interest. Too many, of course, to include in one issue or series of issues. But I figured it’d be fun to have some random glimpses back into our community’s history. This is the first “Flipping through JI archives” column that will appear through to the end of the year. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will.

July 27, 2001: This clipping isn’t so random. It’s the first Summer issue we put together. Pictured are Pat Johnson (reading), Kyle Berger (fishing and backpacking) and me (playing tennis and baseball). The late Baila Lazarus, who took the photo, is cheering the city’s nightlife.

June 13, 2008: Baila Lazarus, z”l, took most of our staff-filled Jewish Independent Summer covers, and she took this Rockower Award-winning one, which I absolutely love. With the help of Sue Cohene of Kol Halev Performance Society, we – left to right, Ron Friedman, Leanne Jacobsen, Josie Tonio McCarthy, me and Steve Freedman – donned period clothing to play a round of croquet in Cohene’s backyard.

June 28, 2002: Spot colour has been used in the paper since the 1940s, albeit sparingly. In the 1960s, bright red print or text frames would highlight stories the paper’s publishers thought urgent. Less dramatically, the Jewish Western Bulletin and Jewish Independent logos would be in spot colour. It looks like holiday issue covers have been printed in full colour since 1999, but this photo seems like the first we ran as part of an article. Too bad it wasn’t for a happier story!

March 26, 1992: Israel Bonds has long advertised in these pages. This article notes the organization’s inaugural Canadian dollar investments.

May 17, 1934: Safeway was a regular advertiser in the paper’s early years. Imagine berries from Aylmer in tins! Those two cans for 15 cents translates into about $3.36 in today’s dollars and, according to its website, Safeway has a deal on about the same amount of fresh strawberries for $3.99 (down from $6.99). The 59-cent cost of a three-pound tin of Crisco (with a free pie plate!) translates into $13.21, but you’d have to pay slightly more today, $14.29. And, there is no size equivalent to the pound of coffee on Safeway’s website, but based on the price per 100 grams it lists, it’d cost you $13.35 today, but 35 cents in today’s dollars is only $7.83.