Op-Ed – Page 2

When the least is not enough

As we face the fourth wave and the COVID Delta variant, many Canadians are less concerned. If one is vaccinated, risks are much lower. Outside, I see many close-knit groups of people strolling on the streets to restaurants and bars. This correlates with Manitoba’s recent choice to abandon capacity and indoor mask requirements. For those with kids under age 12, it’s a scary scene right before school starts. The Delta variant is looking for vectors, and unvaccinated kids may be one of them.

It’s hard to stop thinking about this as a parent. In anxious moments, I hear the Jaws movie’s theme music as we drive past the elementary school. It’s still summer, but Rosh Hashanah, a new year and a time of reckoning are around the corner.

Much of the pandemic rhetoric now involves a refrain of “getting back to normal.” However, for many of us, we’re not sure normal’s going to ever be the same. Many people have died. Normal isn’t the same after the death of a loved one. Normal also isn’t the same for those who were very ill or are suffering from long COVID. For many parents, including me, this prolonged time at home with my kids has resulted in more teaching and childcare and a lot less time to work. Things may change, but “normal” is something elusive. If our kids are too young to be vaccinated, I’m not sure we’re there yet.

Yet, Elul, the Hebrew month where we contemplate our actions in time for the New Year, is upon us. Even if you don’t ever get to a morning minyan, someone’s blowing a shofar every day now, around the world, except for Shabbat. It’s time to wake up our souls.

This metaphor about “normal” has a lot in common with teshuvah, when we seek forgiveness for what we’ve done wrong to others this year. We apologize and seek forgiveness, but any relationship where one party harms another may remain forever changed. It’s one thing to look at the Torah portion of Re’eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17) and read that Moses set before the Israelites the choice, from G-d, between blessing and curse, and simplistically say, “It’s easy! Choose to be a blessing.” Many sermons sound like this, but, when things go off track, it’s not always simple. Obviously, trying to fix it is the right thing to do, even though the effort may not make a relationship all better.

I’ve been studying the talmudic tractate of Sukkah and, on page 31a, there’s a good example of this kind of unsatisfactory resolution. On this page, an old woman comes before Rav Nahman, the exilarch (leader of the Babylonian Jewish community) and the sages and screams, saying they are sitting in a stolen sukkah. Remarkably, no one disagrees with her! She’s upset because the sukkah was constructed with wood that was stolen from her. Even though she’s right, Rav Nahman is condescending. He pays no attention to her.

Rav Nahman says, “This woman is a screamer and she has rights only to the monetary value of the wood. However, the sukkah itself was already acquired by the exilarch.” His legal ruling is that, when a sukkah is built of stolen wood, the wood’s original owner only deserves compensation for its value.

In Rabbi Elliot Goldberg’s introduction to this Talmud page online on My Jewish Learning, he is uncomfortable with this decision. In other talmudic discussions, a stolen lulav is invalid, or G-d denounces theft, even for the sake of heaven. Even if this stolen sukkah fulfils the commandments on Sukkot, Rabbi Goldberg writes that mistreating an elderly woman who has just been robbed is wrong. Rav Nahman lacks respect for her, demeaning her by calling her “a screamer” and failing to speak to her directly.

What is going to fix this relationship or make things “normal” again? If someone pays this woman for the wood, it doesn’t make appropriate amends for her experience, even if that were all she were entitled to legally.

When studying this, I saw an odd metaphor for some of what’s going on around us. We may be transitioning to a new time in which we all have to cope with COVID as endemic. Our new “normal” may include breakthrough illnesses in those who are vaccinated. It may include feeling unsafe or condescended to or unfairly dealt with, as we navigate changing public health orders that don’t keep some of us safe. This may feel risky or, for some people, like an amazing freedom, as they legally disregard the risks.

However, the chances of being ill or having long COVID remain. Like the old woman who is robbed, we may be eligible for compensation after the fact, but the original trauma remains. If someone steals your wood, it isn’t OK. You may get COVID, even if you’re vaccinated. It might not be OK. Worse yet, you could experience the loss of a child or another vulnerable family member who couldn’t be vaccinated. There’s no compensation for that. Losing even one person is too many.

I may be a risk-averse scaredy-cat, but I’ve been thinking about that talmudic elderly woman in Sukkah 31a. If she hadn’t been robbed in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to confront important rabbis and been treated poorly. The new normal for her didn’t get her wood or her dignity back. So, too, if we can be careful, perhaps we can avoid getting sick during a pandemic – but people don’t choose to be robbed or to be exposed to a virus. If we’re careful, bad things can still happen.

What does this mean for Rosh Hashanah this year? When we seek forgiveness and resolution with others, perhaps it’s not enough to simply try and fix only what we’re legally obligated to fix. If we want a “new normal” in a relationship or in society, we will have to build trust, mend fences and patch up things so that our mistakes can be mended. Our new societal normal should result in an even stronger darned fabric than what existed before the pandemic hole was torn out. We can’t expect everything to come out OK if we behave as Rav Nahman did.

I don’t know how the fourth wave will go, or if vaccination will protect our kids. We could think about one another, behave kindly and with compassion in the meanwhile. Masking up, keeping our distance, washing our hands, and doing extra for one another are important. We owe it to one another, and to that older woman that Rav Nahman shamed. Maybe, when it comes to some Jewish laws or health care, the bare minimum required by the law is just not good enough.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Education v. advocacy

I’ve dealt with all kinds of conflicts as an Israel educator the past 25 years, from the mad parent who storms in and says, “Why do you have that map on your wall and not this map?” to the parents who get into fights in the carpool line because they don’t agree about something taking place or what somebody posted on Instagram.

Israel education could face even more pitfalls and political pressure this fall after May’s conflict in Gaza. A new survey of American Jewish voters that found 22% of all respondents believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians and that 20% of respondents under age 40 don’t believe that Israel has a right to exist.

It’s challenging to make the classroom a safe environment for such conversations if the home and community are not. That’s why we think it’s important to take the stance we have adopted at the Centre for Israel Education: educators should not use their podiums to spread their political views or launch polemics. Our job is not to tell students what to think, but rather to train them how to think, an effort best accomplished by incorporating as many primary sources and as many different voices as possible.

Taking that apolitical stance, checking your biases at the classroom threshold, is an empowering approach to the education about Israel for teachers and students. Educators can explain to parents that their job is to enable students to think critically for themselves, to assess sources, to understand the differences between history and narrative and between competing narratives, and to appreciate the ideals of a Jewish state and its realities, which are messy, complex and imperfect.

Israel educators should establish a tone of respectful discourse, incorporating listening and critical thinking at the beginning of the school year. It’s OK to disagree with somebody else’s opinions and ideas, as long as the discussion is based on stated sources.

That’s how we teach every other subject. A literature student, for example, who wants to assert that Nietzsche or Sartre was a nihilist has to provide evidence from texts, not just cite a parent, a teacher or a social media influencer.

Educators also must help students understand the vagaries of vocabulary? What words are laden and to whom? “Occupation” means different things to different people, and there are reasons some people talk of Judaea and Samaria while others speak of the West Bank.

Understanding vocabulary is a skill that needs to be taught, as are map reading and literary analysis. When we teach students these skill sets, we enable them to reach and defend conclusions based on documents they’ve examined themselves.

This educational approach is far different from the advocacy model: “If you hear X, you should say Y.” My two kids, who are now in college, would have rebelled if I had told them that. They would have done the opposite just because they were teens.

We can’t engage, empower and prepare students for tricky conversations by teaching them automatic answers or avoiding the complexities altogether. That path leads to students concluding that their teachers lied to them and to believing the worst accusations against Israel.

Instead, we educators must tackle these difficult topics by modeling respectful, informed conversations regardless of personal opinions about, say, whether Israel used disproportionate force in Gaza in May. We must provide historical context and complexity to equip our students with resilience and help them become critical consumers of information so that the slogans they encounter on campus and social media don’t resonate.

This endeavour can’t be limited to one Judaic studies classroom; it has to be embedded into the daily consciousness and experiences of everyone in the school. It requires support from non-Jewish educators and those teaching science and math, literature and social studies. It involves school administrators, board members, rabbis and parents engaging in the same respectful, informed conversations, and accepting that the best practice in Israel education is to treat it as education.

That’s how we can avoid the pitfalls and politicization of teaching about Israel and produce thoughtful Jewish adults who can engage with difficult questions rather than drown in competing narratives.

Tal Grinfas-David is the vice-president of outreach and pre-collegiate school management initiatives for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Centre for Israel Education in Atlanta and is a former Jewish day school principal.

Recalibrating our life route

In the summer, we read through Torah portions that sound like very weird vacation routes. As a Shabbat regular joked during our livestreamed service, it sounded like the old-fashioned CAA TripTiks.

In the days before GPS or MapQuest, you went to your local automobile association’s shop. A travel agent would hand you tour books for wherever you were traveling and create a personal set of maps, with highlighted routes, for your journey. With lots of tips for where to stop, eat and how to use your sightseeing time along the way, it was pretty useful. I used those tour books in years past, but my family eschewed the TripTiks; my parents insisted we could read maps on our own.

Considering the long list of places that the Israelites went during their 40 years in the wilderness, it could be compared to a family summer vacation gone wrong. Rather than the fastest, most direct route between two points, the Israelites wandered. In fact, it was their behaviour and relationship with G-d that had gone wrong. This exile and wandering was very much about the journey. In Numbers 32:13, it says: “The Lord was incensed at Israel and for 40 years He made them wander in the wilderness, until the whole generation that had provoked the Lord’s displeasure was gone.”

We often talk in platitudes, like “life’s a journey, not a destination,” but let’s be honest. Most of us want to get places in life – accomplish things and do things properly. We might enjoy hiking or meandering down country roads, but most of us don’t want to see our whole lives as a lot of meaningless wandering.

This issue hit home for me in my recent studying of Tractate Yoma, which is all about how Yom Kippur works. Towards the end of the tractate, on page 86A, the rabbis discuss repentance and the notion of “hillul Hashem” or “desecrating the name of G-d.” Their explanations don’t seem direct at first. Rav suggests it’s like when a public figure, such as him, goes to the butcher, takes meat and doesn’t pay immediately, thus setting a bad example. Rav Yohanan suggests that, if one walks a distance without Torah or tefillin, it indicates a lack of appropriate respect for the Divine.

The tractate continues with when someone’s friends are embarrassed by his reputation, and other examples. Then, finally, a really difficult one: “But one who reads Torah and learns Mishnah and serves Torah scholars, but his business practices are not done faithfully and he does not speak pleasantly with other people, what do people say about him? Woe to so-and-so who studied Torah, woe to his father who taught him Torah, woe to his teacher who taught him Torah. So-and-so who studied Torah, see how destructive are his deeds and how ugly are his ways.” (Tractate Yoma 86a)

There it is, the person who disgraces G-d’s name and struggles when seeking repentance on Yom Kippur. This is because, despite a clear road map of how to behave, he got very lost on his way.

All of the examples touch on how we behave in community, and how it reflects on us and affects others. Shaming oneself or harming others disgraces G-d’s name because, well, we’re all made in G-d’s image. We should know better.

Many of us are still taking summer adventures, but it was helpful for me to read about finding one’s way more existentially, and to consider Yom Kippur. It had remarkable relevance to something else that happened.

Recently, we were involved in what would have been a big real estate purchase for our household. My kids and husband were very excited. We made tons of plans and, like the careful tourists we are, we had the routes on our “roadmaps” highlighted. We knew which steps we had to get through, and how to proceed. This was to be our summer adventure.

However, the experience proved far more challenging than usual – and no map would have helped. In the end, we learned that the seller’s finances were so tangled and she owed so much money that the sale couldn’t go through. Like the story in Tractate Yoma, it felt embarrassing and upsetting. It’s hard to see a person fall off the path that most of us expect to take.

We don’t think of closing an open construction permit or paying property tax bills as being central to our life journeys. Yet, just like the poor behaviour that caused G-d to get angry at the Israelites, sometimes our missteps cause a lot of misery down the line, and to other people.

Being an upstanding person, who promptly pays bills and deals with the chores of adulthood, doesn’t just reflect on one’s own character. As the rabbis pointed out, behaving properly avoids embarrassing others or setting a bad example. It reminds us to talk about “Torah,” or generally upright things. We should apply what we learn – to behave kindly and ethically towards others all the time.

When someone doesn’t do this, it’s not just an issue of seeking individual repentance and everything is fixed. The ramifications go beyond an individual’s bad behaviour. It turns out that not paying taxes or taking care of household maintenance affects many others nearby in a community.

When this failed real estate deal happened, it wasn’t our fault. It felt, I explained to my parents, like we’d put our car in a parking lot with an invisible sinkhole. When the sinkhole opened up, all the cars, including ours, fell in. When we got to the (imagined) parking lot, all was lost, but there was nothing we could have done. We couldn’t have known that this experience would derail us from our journey.

I can’t lie. Being thrown off the highlighted route was disconcerting. I kept thinking about how the car’s GPS voice says “recalculating” when we’re driving and get lost. It’s taken me nearly a week to process the failed home purchase. Now, we must create a new metaphorical summer destination, with fun activities for our kids.

We can’t always control our path. Maybe that’s why those platitudes mention “the journey” instead. While we focus on our destination, the lake or camping or a staycation, it’s so important to think about how we behave and live along the way. Our actions can affect everybody.

I took a long walk with my dog on Shabbat, and spoke with three separate neighbours. They all needed the company and the conversation. Was this one of my new stops, on an entirely different path?

The Israelites wandered 40 years to get to the Promised Land. Sometimes, the things we do along the way are the most important part after all.

The Talmud’s advice, support

We have relatives who live in Surfside, Fla., where a high-rise collapsed. Many people are still missing or have died. Although the area around Miami is urban, the town of Surfside is small and close-knit, with fewer than 6,000 residents and a fairly large Jewish population. When we contacted my husband’s first cousin and his family, he told us how their beloved community centre, where they swim and gather every day for afterschool activities and camp, was the reunification centre. He described his job sorting out the kosher and non-kosher food donations for everyone. What stood out most was his comment, “This is all very personal for us.”

There’s little we can do from Canada other than pray and offer moral and financial support. This crisis, where our cousin’s friends, and their children’s friends, are among the injured, lost and missing, is on our minds.

I continue to study my Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day) but, I’ll admit, there are times where I study the text and then say, “Well, I’ve done that,” but nothing in particular speaks to me. It’s sometimes a chore. It’s the equivalent of when, in pre-pandemic days, I might organize everything to get the whole family to synagogue for services. By the time I’d gotten everyone fed, dressed up, out the door and through the service without major misbehaviour, I’d count it a big success – even though the prayer part was largely “dialing it in” for me. That is, I hardly had a chance to feel engaged in the prayer, singing or learning. (I’d guess many parents know what I’m talking about here!)

Meanwhile, here on the prairies, it is ridiculously hot now. I’m cruising through Tractate Yoma 83a close to midnight, when the temperature is just cool enough in my non-air-conditioned house to concentrate, and I read this: “… with regard to one upon whom a rockslide fell, and there is uncertainty whether he is there under the debris or whether he is not there; and there is uncertainty whether he is still alive or whether he is dead; and there is uncertainty whether the person under the debris is a gentile or whether he is a Jew, one clears the pile from atop him. One may perform any action necessary to rescue him from beneath the debris. If they found him alive after beginning to clear the debris, they continue to clear the pile until they can extricate him. And if they found him dead, they should leave him, since one may not desecrate Shabbat to preserve the dignity of the dead.” (Yoma 83a)

I gasped. Of course, the rabbis knew the trauma of a rockslide or a building collapse. What they described made me feel even prouder, knowing that the Israeli rescue team was in Surfside. Those Israelis got off the airplane, set up camp at the site and went to work. The search only stopped on Shabbat afternoon so they could start to set up demolition, a week after the collapse, as the building is unstable, and Hurricane Elsa is coming.

In a very raw situation, I could see ancient texts working through some of the awful issues Surfside rescuers have faced.

Oddly, this section of Talmud covered a lot that seemed personal. There is a whole part on how to help a pregnant person with her cravings, even on Yom Kippur. The notion of eating being absolutely necessary to nurture a life (hers and the fetus) was clear to the rabbis and, even on Yom Kippur, one must help a sick or pregnant person to eat if it’s necessary for health. As someone who has been pregnant with twins, I found this powerful and insightful.

Just before this part, in Yoma 82a, there’s a discussion about helping kids learn to fast for Yom Kippur. The rabbis’ advice was clear – help younger kids, a few years before, to wait a bit before meals, or to practise missing a single meal, in preparation for getting ready to fast at age 12 or 13.

I grew up in an actively Jewish Reform family, but I never knew of a family member studying Talmud. I was struck by how this common-sense Jewish teaching was passed down so exactly. When I read it in the text, I was literally seeing how my parents taught me about fasting on Yom Kippur. I first introduced “skipping snack” on Yom Kippur to my twins, as a stepping stone on the way to trying to miss a meal later on. We were following the Babylonian Talmud’s playbook here, even if we hadn’t read it ourselves.

Also part of this discussion is the concept of bulmos, which sounds a little connected to modern food disorders. In Tractate Yoma, bulmos means a person is desperate for food and must eat. As in, they might go blind if they don’t manage to raise their blood sugar. What is this ailment? Maybe a serious drop in blood sugar, or someone who has diabetes, or someone suffering from starvation. In these cases, the person must eat. All normal conventions about paying for food or kashrut are cast aside to help a person regain their health.

In times of stress, like heatwaves, rockslides or building collapses and illness, or even happier (but still stressful) moments like pregnancy or childrearing, we sometimes feel all alone. We struggle with things that are deeply personal. I was surprised at the timing of studying these pages of Talmud. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, because Daf Yomi operates on a seven-and-a-half year cycle. Even so, it was also deeply reassuring to feel less alone while thinking about big issues like health, how we are raising our kids, and the huge loss of life in Surfside.

There’s no sugar-coating it: we must, as adults, face difficult things. However, studying these wise Jewish leaders’ opinions and experiences with those same issues offers some companionship, even across a divide of 2,000 years.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

To be heroes in our eyes

William Shakespeare designated a minor character in his play Hamlet to express and offer to us profound advice, something that is really an observation about the nature of the human animal. It rattles around in our minds, and probably has since time immemorial.

In Act 1, Scene 3, Polonius’s advice to his son, Laertes, is “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

It may be that many people do not think about it, but some of us – those with aspirations regarding the roles they hope to play in the lives they will lead – have this buzzing around in their conscious and subconscious minds. And it begs the question, who and what is that self?

Some of us, and certainly it was true in my case, concocted, in the days of our youth, fanciful tales of the derring-do we would accomplish in our lives. Aided and abetted by library readings that detailed the accomplishments of heroes in past times, I painted myself into the foreground of these scenarios. Along with this, necessarily, went standards of behaviour that demanded selflessness and virtue. I not only had to be brave and courageous, but I had to be honourable and generous. A hero could not be otherwise.

So, to be true to myself, there were rigid standards of behaviour to which I imagined I should live up. I am sure many of us have been subjected to entreaties from parents, other adults and teachers, as to standards of behaviours that were to be expected of us, and some of these were incorporated into what we wanted from ourselves.

No standards are applied as rigidly or as harshly as the ones we inflict on ourselves. Taking them into account in our private moments, we are aware of every one of our transgressions. Totting up the score, we make judgments all the time as to whether we are worthy of the self-respect we would like to possess. We dearly want to like ourselves if we can. We wrestle with our failings and remember most of them.

And we judge our accomplishments, too, of course. How close did we come to achieving those deeds of derring-do, however we define them, that we promised ourselves we would undertake? Are we on the way to being heroes in our own eyes? Or, at least, can we enjoy a satisfaction for our accomplishments, including meeting our standards of behaviour towards others? If we didn’t make it all the way, did we fight the good fight sufficiently to make us worthy of self-respect? After all, it is ourselves with whom we cannot escape living. How much self-destructive behaviour can be traced to remorse in this arena?

Where have you been in life, you dashing daredevils? What mountains did you climb? What goals did you set for yourself, to reach or exceed? Were they modest and did you achieve them to your satisfaction? Were they vainglorious and did you feel the bitterness of defeat? Was public attention your goal, for good or ill, or did you not need acclaim? Did you find satisfaction in the effort itself? Did you have to be satisfied with only partial accomplishments? Were you like me, who blundered around until the moment caught me, rather than seizing these moments?

If you are just starting out, you have all this to look forward to. Go forth, you heroes and heroines of endeavour!

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Form forces Jews to be white

A friend of mine was recently angry and anxious about a university human resources form. The form reflected how people self-identified. In other words, how diverse was this Canadian university’s workforce?

The form’s questions asked about race. On that form, it said that Jewish people should mark on their forms “white.”

The person who told me about this wrote on the form that this was racist and wrong. In fact, Jews come in every single colour and are from all over the world. Jews aren’t defined by only the (Ashkenazim) European “white” category. If we’re identified as an ethnicity, that doesn’t define our race.

Also, Judaism isn’t solely a religion. We’re still considered Jewish even if one converts to another religion, or isn’t practising or is a descendant of a Jewish person. In Canada, First Nations, Inuit and Métis are Indigenous. Historically, Jews are also considered indigenous – to Israel.

Non-Jews have racialized us as “other” for thousands of years. This othering isn’t a new thing. It’s a core component of antisemitism. In Hitler’s Germany, categorizing Jews as a different race and subhuman made it easier for genocide to take place.

This historic narrative around antisemitism parallels that of many other oppressed people. Yet, the antisemitic misinformation campaign is powerful. Even though there are only about 14 million Jews in the world, antisemites consider us to have an outsized influence and power that somehow overpowers and dominates others. As an example: even as hate crimes against Jews have increased, they are poorly covered by mainstream news. Yet, we are also allegedly controlling the media at the same time. Huh?

These tropes aren’t logical or rational. Prejudice, discrimination and hate are often fueled by emotion. Leaders then use these strong feelings to gain power, control and wealth and to scapegoat minorities like Jews.

What are ways to counter this in a 21st-century context? There are social media activists who speak out daily, raising awareness and fighting against this misinformation. Many Jewish families open their home and Shabbat tables up to enable non-Jews, one at a time, to learn about who we are. Others write books and conduct interviews on radio and TV. Yet not all of us are public figures, or want to be.

Even as “regular” people, we can be proud owners of our Jewish identities. We can continue to learn, think and reflect on who we are, what we believe and our place in the world. We can stand together, recognizing that, as Jews, we are all responsible for one another – kol Yisrael arevim zeh le zeh. We can attempt, through pride and knowledge, to control our own narrative.

I, too, was frustrated by that human resources form. Now, I’m puzzled whenever I see a form that asks me what my identity is. Since a bit after the Second World War, light-skinned Jews in North America have been encouraged to tick off the “white” box on these “self-identity” forms. The horrors of the Holocaust were put aside by governments and non-Jews, in an effort to help European, “white” Jews integrate into society, but simply checking “white” erases us. It erases Jewish ethnicity and it erases Jews of colour. Jews from the Middle East, India, Asia, Africa and South America – Jews from anywhere we’ve lived where skin colour might not have been deemed Caucasian, white or European.

This North American erasure is so deep that Jews of colour often describe the discrimination they face when attending synagogue – there are many instances in which a member of the Ashkenazi “white” majority questions if they are full-fledged congregants. They’re asked if they are converts, or guests. Imagine the alienation Jewish people with darker skin face when asked, “Are you really Jewish?” or “Where are you really from?” every time they walk into a service.

Israel’s Jewish population is much more diverse in terms of skin tone than what one finds in the United States or Canada but, historically, it’s been hard for Mizrahi Jews to gain leadership roles in Israel, too. So many Israeli Ashkenazi Jews have bought into this whiteness identity, too.

In the United States, when Jews “became” white, they no longer were excluded from country clubs, university quotas, etc. There was an advantage to accepting this new categorization, even as it still created terrible, completely unethical inequities among people, including Jews, based on skin colour.

As a result of this “becoming white” transition, some oppressed minorities and the political left now may see Jewish people as part of an oppressive white majority. In this view, white Jews have no legitimate complaints about how we are treated, because, suddenly, we’re just part of the privileged majority. So, in addition to hate from the political right, there’s also abuse from the left if Jewish people speak out about antisemitism.

Navigating this landscape is difficult. We all have bias. No one is completely free of it. We’re raised with it and must each work to do better. Yet, in a time when Canadians are watching hate crimes rise against Jewish and Muslim communities, it’s our obligation to do more. Confronting Canada’s residential school history, the deaths of Indigenous children, and Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people overall forces us to think further about what it means to uphold certain “historic” narratives – narratives that don’t reflect what really happened.

Manitoba now wants to collect data about race, ethnicity and indigeneity on its COVID vaccine consent forms. This would allow the province to learn more about vaccination rates and virus rates in various populations.

I’ve printed out the paperwork for my second jab and I’m looking forward to celebrating this chance to be fully vaccinated. Even so, I’m wondering what box to tick off. Choosing “Other” reinforces that antisemitic tradition of negative identity politics. I’d like to avoid that. I’m proud to be Jewish – but it’s not one of the options on the form.

Push back against antisemitism

The last three weeks or so have been a trying time for the Jewish community both in and out of Israel.

An 11-day onslaught of terrorist missiles sent thousands to bomb shelters or to their building stairways while the Iron Dome took down 90% of the missiles from the sky. Some got past, however, and 11 Israelis, Jewish and not, died. The loss of innocent life – both Palestinian and Israeli – is heartbreaking.

In the Diaspora, we hoped that a tense political situation would not turn into something worse. When it did, we watched the videos of missiles launched, of buildings hit, of funerals held – and of a country protecting itself and its people.

We then braced for the public opinion backlash. While Israel defended itself from more than 4,000 missiles fired from civilian neighbourhoods into civilian neighbourhoods, we were told by news outlets and celebrities on talk shows and social media that Israel’s actions – in which it went to extreme lengths to target only terrorist assets – were unjust.

I believe that Israel has a right to defend itself. I believe that Israel has a place in the Middle East, and I see it increasingly accepted by its neighbours. I believe Israel has much to offer the world.

Zionist is not a dirty word. I am an unapologetic Zionist. I stand with Israel. I believe in our people’s history, collectivity, peoplehood and right to self-determination.

Grievances with government policy do not give licence to question Israel’s right to exist. I do not believe that anti-Israel equals pro-Palestinian; if it did, then those burning Israeli flags in the streets would be calling for peace, or for a two-state solution, not to “globalize the intifada.”

In Gaza, Hamas – a listed terrorist entity in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union – remains a barrier to peace. I believe Palestinians deserve better. I believe that Palestinians are entitled to equal rights and to self-determination. This is not at odds with my Zionism.

I believe that anti-Zionism, as defined by the International Legal Forum as “the prejudice against the Jewish movement for self-determination and the right of the Jewish people to a homeland in the state of Israel,” can itself be antisemitic and create a climate that allows antisemitism to fester.

Across the world, we are witnessing a horrific surge in antisemitism in connection with the conflict. In the United States, Jews have been chased down and beaten. In the United Kingdom, there were chants to “rape their [Jewish] daughters” and antisemitic incidents have risen almost 500%.

Canada is not immune. Recently, in Montreal, peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators were pelted with rocks. In May, Toronto experienced a 500% spike in antisemitic incidents compared to last year. Nazi symbols were spotted at anti-Israel demonstrations across the country, including in

aOttawa and London. In Vancouver, we saw a Jewish business owner being harassed and threatened, and an increase in hateful posters and graffiti. The recent spate of antisemitism has also spread online. There are numerous incidents of Jewish students bullied, businesses targeted, and many others harassed.

While my phone explodes with messages from family and friends asking how to respond to hateful social media posts and vicious videos and memes, it is easy to feel cornered. It is easy to assume that public opinion equals the right opinion, but a simple understanding of history reminds us that it does not.

We must speak out and push back against this rising tide of antisemitism.

We know that what starts with the Jews never ends with Jews. Combating antisemitism is not only about protecting Jews but also about protecting the very fabric of Canadian society. Thousands across Canada are joining the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) in calling for the federal government to convene an emergency summit on antisemitism – a forum to discuss enhancements to community security, education for youth about Jewish history, suffering and triumphs, and a Canada-wide campaign for social media literacy. Join our call to action at fightit.ca.

Neither Israel nor its supporters are perfect. Nobody is. The disproportionate criticism toward the Jewish state is unwarranted. Israel must, and will, stand by its principles, which are – not coincidentally – those same principles that gave rise to Western societies. As long as it does, I will stand with Israel, and you should, too.

Judy Zelikovitz is vice-president, university and local partner services, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

Balancing our wants and needs

It’s warm out! My kids and I are longing to be outside all the time – but we can’t. Not only is there still remote school, work and other obligations, but our neighbourhood is loud with construction noise. It’s hard to play in the yard when a table saw is screaming through stonework next door. It’s also a constant social-distancing game. Our corner lot is busy. People walk on the sidewalks on two sides, and construction workers on a third.

Some might respond with, “Well, move to the country, why don’t you?!” When we bought our house, it wasn’t so crowded, nor near to so much construction. We’ve made a life here. Moving requires a lot of upheaval. We want to keep our kids in the same school, too.

Like most things, we all must balance our desires and wants (for quiet, for more space, etc.) with our needs (relative safety, proximity to the basics like healthcare, school, work, groceries and a Jewish community). This balancing act is deeply personal. It’s not obvious from the outside what will work best to resolve this, and it’s not always clear “from the inside” either.

In my Talmud study recently in Tractate Yoma, I’ve been learning about how the high priest was to do the rituals of atonement on Yom Kippur on behalf of the Jewish people. It’s a series of very precise, concrete rituals. While deep meaning is assigned to some of these steps, the rabbis mostly want to parse what should be done to make the ritual work effective, as compared to making it invalid. They indicate that, if the high priest does it wrong, a year’s worth of sin remains for the entire Jewish people.

This kind of detailed ritual and accounting sounds like an enormous burden. The Temple high priest must have been under a lot of pressure! After all, when you consider the fate of Nadav and Avihu in Leviticus 10:1, who present “strange fire” as an offering to G-d and die. Or, if you consider Korach, who rises up against Moses – he and his buddies Dathan and Abiram and their families are destroyed when they rebel. In Numbers 16, the ground bursts open and swallows them up. Doing things wrong or inappropriately has consequences.

Some see that our tradition offers us a lot of fearmongering. There are those who worry that if they do things wrong – Jewishly, professionally, or other life choices – they will be literally “struck down.” Others don’t take any of it seriously and, as a result, their inability to abide by norms – public health orders, religious rules, societal ones, professional ones, etc. – results in a lot of problems for the rest of society.

What does this mean? If we turn it around and look for the gifts around us, instead of the potential hazards, perhaps things clear up and seem better. At least, searching for the gifts helps me cope.

We caught that upside recently – the gift, at 11:30 a.m. on a weekday, when, for whatever reason, the saws next door were quiet. The weather was sunny and cool. My twins stopped fighting. I looked up from the porch to find them in the yard, playing an ad hoc game of badminton, while keeping the dog occupied with her ball instead of fetching (and dismantling) the shuttlecock.

As warmer weather and, hopefully, healthier times are ahead, we have so many positive opportunities. It’s a rare moment where we can actually make personal, religious, social or political changes that might have seemed impossible before. Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely many pandemic moments when I’ve been caught in the detailed burdens or negativity – anxiety and fearmongering – struggling to see the good.

However, watching my kids laugh and chatter as they swung around their rackets, I was reminded of how lucky most of us actually are. Having a home, food and educational access, never mind green space, are great luxuries right now. Further, having a path forward, due to the COVID vaccines, also is a gift. Nobody has done everything right and, in the days of the Temple in Jerusalem, the high priest’s rituals served to help everyone process those mistakes, while we have different paths towards course correction and self-improvement today.

It’s important to recognize the flipside, which is that we haven’t done everything wrong, either. The warm and sunny days ahead can give us a bit of a break. It’s a window into whatever post-pandemic future lies ahead. Just as the warm weather provides us a bit of respite, so, too, do Jewish texts, which help us process our mistakes and concerns, balancing them with the joys, too.

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” based on Psalm 150, reminds us that the Temple was not just a place for sin offerings. Psalm 150 is filled with music, instruments and happy expression, often in relief after making those Temple offerings. According to the Talmud, huge groups sang Hallel as part of their Passover lamb sacrifice. Their observance made the Temple Mount ring with communal song.

Sometimes, finishing the difficult rituals and processing our experiences and the anxiety can put the noise and the stress behind us. The exercise can offer us a chance to bask in the sunshine and the music. Let’s all hope for that gift of laughter, music and thanks, as we celebrate Canada’s short summer season and lean towards the light.

Israel during terror attacks

Between May 13 and May 21, Adina Horwich, who made aliyah from Montreal in 1975, kept a blog of what was happening recently in Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls, or Shomer HaChomot. Below are excerpts from her blog, which can be read in its entirety, along with more recent entries about everyday life in Israel, at jewishpostandnews.ca.

May 13

I write from my humble apartment in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot (Armon Hanatziv) neighbourhood. We sure have had our share of troubles, some stabbings and terror attacks in recent years, which have resulted in a number of fatalities. Surrounding us are three not-exactly-friendly Arab villages: Jabel el Mukaber, Tzur Baher and Um Lissun. My place is a mere five minutes’ walk from them.

Late Monday afternoon, I heard a siren wailing. As that’s a regular occurrence around here, I didn’t pay it any mind. Police frequently patrol the area, so I wasn’t alarmed. After it persisted … I decided to sneak a quick peek at the TV. On the upper right corner of the screen, Home Front Command ran a list of cities, warning residents that they were at that very moment being fired upon. Jerusalem appeared.

My building, built in the ’70s, has no proper communal bomb shelter. From my experiences in 2014 with Tzuk Eitan (Operation Protective Edge), while my son was doing reserve duty in Gaza, I knew to calmly open my door and join other neighbours in the stairwell.

I spent the rest of the evening glued to the news of much of the rest of Israel being relentlessly bombarded, including Jaffa, where my daughter resides, and Acco (Acre), where my son-in-law works.

Next morning (Tuesday), I woke to more bad news of overnight shooting and the firing of hundreds of rockets, inflicting great panic, shock, fear, injuries, extensive emotional and material damage on hundreds of innocent civilians, old and young, Arabs and Jews alike.

This whole week I sit comfortably, in surreal, fantasyland silence, yet less than two hours away, my fellow Israelis are running in and out of bomb shelters. Some of the casualties didn’t make it in time, including a female elderly caregiver from India. The TV flashes, blares eyewitness accounts, some with bloodied bodies, of sleepless nights, ambulances unloading the injured, hospital staff describing the nature and seriousness of the victims’ conditions. Sombre announcements of victims’ names.

I want to hear and see everything. The endless analysis offered by a slew of commentators and reporters (including a married couple, parents of an infant), all of whom themselves are in the line of fire and haven’t slept in their own beds for days.

Minute-by-minute dramatic reports, progressively worse and horrific by the hour and day, are too much to process. Graphic images of the riots and vandalism that erupted in the so-called mixed cities, pogrom scenes of burned shuls and their desecrated contents, of the unraveling of the hard-won, good working relations (some even social) woven between the Arab and Jewish sectors are devastating. Invasive footage of shattered and scarred dwellings, peoples’ entire homes in disarray with their owners milling about, lost and disoriented.

The very least I can do is stay tuned and attuned to the plight of thousands around Israel, try to feel their fear, anxiety, pain. The rehabilitation they’ll need to undergo, the post-trauma symptoms that will surely ensue. The stamina and perseverance they’ll need to muster, to brace themselves for chasing the authorities to grant compensation, be it to assess their homes or to evaluate their mental or physical state…. It might take years to even have their claims heard, let alone see any money. Where will they live in the meantime, how do they replace their possessions, clothing, furniture, appliances? How will shopkeepers rebuild their businesses, earn their livings?

I hope they have strong support systems and get all the help they need. I wish them a hefty dose of resilience, of faith and confidence to overcome this tragedy.

May 16

In five hours, we’ll begin the Shavuot holiday…. Advance plans for a long weekend to join my daughter housesitting at a desirable Tel Aviv location were scrapped last Thursday. This daughter is scrounging around for a night or two’s lodging, making the rounds, as she can’t go back to the Jaffa apartment she moved into, just six weeks ago, just yet. I popped out to the local supermarket, in my car, now stripped bare of the Israeli flags that have adorned it since Holocaust Memorial Day…. I was advised to take them off, which I did, reluctantly.

On the car radio, I hear how residents of Ashkelon send their praise, cheer on, salute the Israeli Defence Forces and whoever else in the city is doing their utmost to protect them.

On TV, a reporter visits the maternity ward at Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital, interviews a woman awaiting the birth of her baby. Will it be amidst rocket fire? The normally high level of anxiety at such a time, absolutely “skyrockets.”

Mass demonstrations against Israel are happening across the globe. Who are these people? Have they any intelligent, informed opinion about this crisis?…

May 20

Talk and more talk of a ceasefire. My foot, in a pig’s eye, fat chance!! So much for the 6 a.m. deadline. That’s been postponed until tomorrow, maybe…. Polls of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Sderot residents show that the majority want this to go on until it’s well and truly over…. Similar findings are reflected among the general Israeli public, who, for a change, have just finally begun to realize, once and for all, how it feels to be under siege, how people of the south have been feeling for 20 years.

The electric company’s workers decide not to enter Gaza to repair damaged or fallen electric lines until, unless the bodies of Shaul Oron and Hadar Goldin are returned….

Vital organs from the Jewish man killed in the Lod lynch are transplanted to four or five recipients; one’s an Arab. The Arab man who rescued a Jewish one being beaten by Arabs visits him in the hospital.

Families band together to cook. Armed with steaming, overflowing pots, they head out to makeshift bases to feed troops in the south. Singers, entertainers visit people huddled in bomb shelters. Morale is, as in hockey terms, “gathering speed.” Things are looking up, even as throughout the day rockets continue to pummel down [from every direction].

May 21

My sleep was disturbed by what sounded like gunfire, but was probably fireworks, set off by “celebrants” of the ceasefire they consider a victory…. How many rockets should be tolerated? It’s a given there will be more…. Hamas is not a sovereign nation, nor a nation at all, but a recognized terror organization that represents nothing and no one, but its own barbaric agenda. Yet, it has garnered so much support from “civilized,” “enlightened” countries, that shower Hamas with financial and moral resources. They’ve engaged us in this savage war on a civilian population for years. Nowhere else in the Western world would this ever be remotely tolerated….

Chazak v’amatz (Be strong and brave) Am Yisrael!

Accepting a lack of control

Over a year ago, I wrote an article for the CBC with suggestions for parents on how to stay sane while coping with kids during the pandemic. I did some research, thought about it, and set out some points to follow. Now, all these ideas sound, well, familiar, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat them. I mentioned things like making a routine, keeping up with learning and life skills, getting some alone time, exercise and going outside. I included efforts to have intentional fun, and practising gratitude. As I write this, much of Canada is experiencing the third wave. Manitoba, where I live, is now our country’s hot spot. It’s been a long haul for all of us.

I’ve been struggling with what is “new” when, frankly, much has stayed the same. Even as some of us have gotten vaccinated, we still need to stay home. Like everyone, I’ve gone through periods of feeling anxious, as those in charge waver on how best to keep people safe. Then, the most recent war in Israel and the Palestinian Territories erupted … and things seem even scarier.

It’s hard to admit that we have little control as individuals. We choose who to vote for, or to wear a mask, or to social distance. We cannot individually control global pandemics, violence, extremism or antisemitism. That lack of control can be very scary.

I often retreat into absorbing “flow activities” to keep myself well during such difficult times. Often, I’m cooking, sewing, knitting or spinning yarn. I’m reading or taking long walks with the dog and kids. We’re watching geese and goslings on the riverbanks and spotting woodpeckers and warblers. Taking time to see and make new things can be really good for our mental health, and it’s often positive and productive.

I also continue to study my page of Talmud, usually late at night. I recently read Tractate Yoma 35, which discusses, in part, what the high priest would wear in the Temple, as he does his most holy actions of the year, on Yom Kippur. Everything is spelled out in detail. This is done by the rabbis both to explain what used to happen in the Temple and what perhaps might happen again, if the Temple were rebuilt. Even the cost of the priest’s clothing, which must be paid for and owned by the public, is noted.

The high priest acts for the whole community and, at the same time, these rituals have to be performed by him alone, as an individual. It’s an example of where the entire community must support a leader but has no control over that leader’s actions.

In the midst of this careful recounting of how he is to fulfil his duties, it says in Yoma 35b: “Rav Huna bar Yehuda, and some say Rav Shmuel bar Yehuda, taught: after the public service concluded, a priest whose mother made him a priestly tunic may wear it and perform an individual service … provided he transfers it to the possession of the public.”

The rabbis’ discussion indicates that the tunic the high priest’s mother made him must be donated to the Temple after he wears it. If he is attached to it, this might be hard. Also, it might be worth more than what the high priest’s garb should cost. It’s something a dear one made him, and it could be both emotionally and monetarily valuable. Yet, his mom makes it freely, knowing it might only be worn at this one time, and then donated for wider Temple usage.

Bear in mind what this meant. A high priest’s mother wants only the best for her child and, yet, must submit to the whole community who depends on him. So, she procures the right fibre-linen. She might have to process it, or it might come ready for spinning. She spins enough for a garment on her spindle. (There were no spinning wheels or industrial textile factories back then!) She weaves the fabric, and sews it into the tunic according to the given specifications. Then, she gives all that work away simply for the chance to clothe her son for a short time in her own handiwork for his extremely important event, serving on Yom Kippur on behalf of the Jewish people. This lesson is an ancient one – and, yet, many of us have to learn it over and over.

There’s so much we cannot control. Many huge world events are beyond us. We learn to submit to the experience that we cannot bend to our will. In the meanwhile, though, we can do everything in our power for good, as we see it. We can offer our money, creations and time. We can behave properly and follow instructions … and wait.

Many of my activities feel the same way as that mother’s tunic, although I have no high priests at my house. I spend many hours on meals, making clothing, helping kids learn, exercise, etc. Then, I finish my tasks and give it away. This “disappearing” work makes a difference in the universe, but I’m no closer to controlling the entire pandemic, the unrest in Israel, or beyond.

This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had as a parent and an adult. We must accept where we are because, in some cases, nothing we’re capable of will control the situation or effect change. However, in the meantime, we can be like that high priest’s mother. We can offer up our love, our handiwork, our peaceful efforts and knowledge. We can expect never to see it again, like that gorgeous linen tunic.

Learning to make things and give them away may be the most important gift. The activity itself is the part that calms me down in the face of so much uncertainty. Last night, I used some knit remnants and my sewing machine and made a lightweight sweater for a 9-year-old. This is an ancient Jewish process, but it’s also another brand new sweater. Tomorrow, he may wear it … in the mud puddles and the rain – and that’s OK, too.