Category Opinion

Positivity is vital to life

The 15th annual Chutzpah! Festival of the Jewish Performing Arts concluded on Sunday with the group Diwan Saz. Their main message: music has no borders. And, “Don’t believe the news,” i.e. Israel is more than a conflict zone. Yet, our…

Five things every kid needs

What do children require in order to thrive? Here are five vital things we must give to our children. 1. Self-worth All children have the need to feel accepted. When we nurture our child’s feelings of self-worth, we create a…

Netanyahu lacks leadership

photo - At a rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on March 7, calling for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be replaced in the upcoming elections, protesters held signs saying “Change Now”

At a rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on March 7, calling for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to be replaced in the upcoming elections, protesters held signs saying “Change Now.” (photo by Ashernet) This week’s pre-election tempest is over whether…

Apology spoof short-sighted

screenshot - In a HaBayit HaYehudi election ad, party head Naftali Bennett has an apology problem

As election season progresses in Israel, how Israelis are seeking to position themselves is becoming clearer than ever. In its attempt to unseat Bibi Netanyahu, the joint Labor-Hatnua slate is billing itself as the “Zionist Union,” a moniker that rankles…

Bipartisan support of Israel

The controversy around Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress this week was so fraught with partisan rancor – or at least with punditry alleging partisan rancor – that the theme at the AIPAC conference in Washington,…

The value of duty, empathy

When Vancouver-based philanthropists Rosalie and Joe Segal announced a lead gift of $12 million towards a new centre for mental health, I felt deeply moved. I had had occasion to visit a loved one at the old facility a few…

Concerns over Europe

The attack on a Copenhagen synagogue – and the public reaction to it – has been illuminating. It also raises echoes from Danish and Jewish history, in ways that are not encouraging. Of all the many incidents during the Holocaust…

Zionism’s meaning in Diaspora

After the attacks in Copenhagen, like after the violence and vandalisms that have rocked the French Jewish community, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is urging the Jews of Europe to come to Israel as violence against Jews and Jewish institutions increases…

Compassion in the face of death

Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously struck down the law that makes it illegal for doctors in Canada to provide medical assistance to severely ill patients who wish to die. The court decision permits physicians to assist in…

The godliness of survival

As the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz approached last month, discussion turned to the shrinking number of survivors. My father-in-law, Bill Gluck of Vancouver, was one of them, having been deported to Auschwitz from Hungary in 1944, a…