{"id":23975,"date":"2017-04-28T03:41:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T10:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=23975"},"modified":"2017-04-26T12:43:32","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T19:43:32","slug":"gathering-in-solidarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/04\/28\/gathering-in-solidarity\/","title":{"rendered":"Gathering in solidarity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attendees spoke to one another at their tables, following a list of questions to guide discussion. (photo from Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A small group of Jews and Christians gathered at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on April 4.<\/p>\n

After the first bomb threat at the JCC, Richard Topping, principal of Vancouver School of Theology, reached out to the Jewish community. He approached Laura Duhan Kaplan, director of Inter-Religious Studies at VST and rabbi emerita of Congregation Or Shalom. Yael Levin of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and JCCGV executive director Eldad Goldfarb then organized the dialogue, at which members of the United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches were present.<\/p>\n

The evening opened with the singing of an egalitarian version of \u201cHinei Mah Tov\u201d \u2013 \u201cHow good it is when brothers dwell together as one,\u201d with achim<\/em>, brothers, changed to kulanu<\/em>, everyone. Topping then took the podium.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the first bomb threat was made at the JCC,\u201d he said, \u201cpeople at VST began asking is there anything we can do to show our solidarity with the Jewish community? We understand that a hoax like this is scary and it makes our friends feel vulnerable. In a post-Holocaust world, we don\u2019t want to wait and see how a threat turns out. We want to assure you that we stand in solidarity with you against antisemitism. We are here to assure you that we stand with you against violence and against threats of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharon Dweck, development director of the JCCGV, gave an overview of the JCCGV\u2019s activities within the Jewish community and beyond. She then shared her recollections of the first threat. \u201cI broke my rule about keeping my nose out of daycare and rushed to hug my child,\u201d she said. \u201cDays after, as \u2018manager on call\u2019 after the bomb threat, I felt afraid and vulnerable, as well as a great sense of responsibility. \u2018Would another threat come on my watch?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In total, the JCC received two threats, both of which were hoaxes.<\/p>\n

Attendees spoke to one another at their tables, following a list of questions to guide discussion. People talked about everything from the importance of tikkun olam to Jewish humour, people they knew in common, their Jewish or Christian upbringings, and concerns over the then-upcoming vote to support the boycott, divest from and sanction Israel movement at the University of British Columbia, which was defeated.<\/p>\n

Matthew Gindin<\/strong> is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the <\/em>Forward and <\/em>All That Is Interesting, and has been published in <\/em>Religion Dispatches, <\/em>Situate Magazine, <\/em>Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attendees spoke to one another at their tables, following a list of questions to guide discussion. (photo from Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan) A small group of Jews and Christians gathered at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on April 4. After the first bomb threat at the JCC, Richard Topping, principal of Vancouver School […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6908,5260,42,7015,5660],"class_list":["post-23975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-bomb-threats","tag-interfaith","tag-jcc","tag-vancouver-school-of-theology","tag-vst"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}