{"id":30618,"date":"2018-10-26T03:49:35","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T10:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=30618"},"modified":"2018-10-25T21:03:00","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T04:03:00","slug":"mezuzah-at-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/10\/26\/mezuzah-at-legislature\/","title":{"rendered":"Mezuzah at legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Selina Robinson, B.C. minister of municipal affairs and housing, admires the new mezuzah on her office door, while Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman looks on. (photo from Chabad Richmond)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Born and raised in Montreal before moving to British Columbia, Selina Robinson first lived in Richmond, then relocated to Coquitlam. She was elected as the member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia for Coquitlam-Maillardville in 2013 and again in 2017. Robinson is a member of the B.C. NDP.<\/p>\n

When I learned that Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman of Chabad Richmond recently helped Robinson affix a mezuzah to her office door at the legislature, I was surprised. I called to ask her how she came to invite Baitelman to help her. \u201cI didn\u2019t,\u201d she replied. \u201cHe just showed up with it!\u201d<\/p>\n

As it happens, Baitelman was in Victoria to fix a Torah scroll. While there, he reached out to Robinson, a longtime family friend, to see if they could meet briefly. She invited him to her office, where they talked about her portfolio and how they could work together to improve housing in Richmond. Never one to miss an opportunity, Baitelman asked Robinson whether she would like to put up a mezuzah. She loved the idea, but told the rabbi she didn\u2019t have a hammer. Without skipping a beat, he said, \u201cThat\u2019s OK, you don\u2019t need one. This mezuzah has adhesive on the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

I guess that falls into the category of \u201cI just happen to have a mezuzah on me.\u201d I mean, don\u2019t all rabbis carry them around?<\/p>\n

Robinson has known the Baitelman family for decades, through her mother\u2019s work at Chabad Lubavitch in Vancouver years ago. She told me that the Baitelman kids used to call her mother \u201cBubbe Rhoda.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she was a university student in the 1980s, Robinson helped run Camp Gan Israel of British Columbia day camp for two years. Later on, when she was living in Coquitlam, she helped build the Burquest Jewish Community Association. She also used to work at Jewish Family Services.<\/p>\n

Robinson\u2019s commitment to the ideals of Jewish life and culture is resolute, and she proudly refers to herself as a \u201cHabonimer.\u201d Yet, her affinity for Chabad is strong, especially their dedication to helping Jews at all levels of observance.<\/p>\n

Robinson regularly shows her new mezuzah to colleagues, and takes the time to explain what it means.<\/p>\n

Shelley Civkin<\/strong> is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the <\/em>Richmond Review, and currently writes a bi-weekly column about retirement for the <\/em>Richmond News. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Selina Robinson, B.C. minister of municipal affairs and housing, admires the new mezuzah on her office door, while Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman looks on. (photo from Chabad Richmond) Born and raised in Montreal before moving to British Columbia, Selina Robinson first lived in Richmond, then relocated to Coquitlam. She was elected as the member of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6422,7368,218,7008,3626],"class_list":["post-30618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-british-columbia","tag-chabad-richmond","tag-judaism","tag-selina-robinson","tag-yechiel-baitelman"],"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\/30618","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=30618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}