{"id":48031,"date":"2025-12-05T01:49:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T09:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48031"},"modified":"2025-12-04T09:23:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T17:23:26","slug":"stories-create-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/stories-create-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories create impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

Choices keynote speaker Mandana Dayani, centre, with event\u00a0 <\/span>co-chairs, left to right, Gail James, Briana James, Lola Pawer and Lisa Boroditsky. <\/i>(photo by Rhonda Dent)<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>On Nov. 16, Choices once again celebrated the work of Jewish women philanthropists. This year\u2019s theme, \u201cL\u2019dor Vador\u201d (\u201cGeneration to Generation\u201d), reflected the more than 400 people who attended the 21st annual event, which took place at Congregation Beth Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw so many younger, first-time attendees,\u201d said Ricki Thal, associate campaign director at Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The event\u2019s four co-chairs also represented the theme: Gail James and her granddaughter, Briana James; Lola Pawer and her daughter, Lisa Boroditsky.<\/p>\n

Briana James introduced the keynote speaker, business leader and activist Mandana Dayani. In doing so, James said \u201cour future shines bright,\u201d with Dayani leading the way in philanthropy and activism, fighting antisemitism and advocating on behalf of women\u2019s rights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dayani took the stage with her husband, Peter Traugott, presenting her material in conversation with him.<\/p>\n

A Hollywood film producer with credits including HBO, Apple TV and Netflix, among others, Traugott also holds a master\u2019s in business administration from Harvard University. He set a light-hearted tone, quipping, \u201cThis is my first at this \u2013 [being] Mandana\u2019s \u2018plus one\u2019!\u201d Speaking about their Jewish life in Los Angeles, where several members of the Dayani family live close by, he described a cross between Everybody Loves Raymond <\/i>and My Big Fat Greek Wedding<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Traugott asked Dayani about her experiences as a new immigrant in New York. She spoke of the culture shock, the lights and traffic in New York. She also spoke, with gratitude, about HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), which supported her family\u2019s flight from Iran, found her father a job as a shoe salesman and found them a place to live, where they became part of the community.<\/p>\n

Dayani said her earliest memories of Iran are of \u201cthe morality police, the fear in everyone\u2019s eyes.\u201d She recalled having a gun pointed at her when she was just 4 years old. She is now 43.<\/p>\n

Her family, who had wanted to leave Iran since the revolution in 1979, finally got a visa to Italy in 1987. They fled there, \u201cleaving everything behind.\u201d The experience has left her, she said, with an enduring sense of \u201chow quickly this escalates, seeing my country taken over by lunatics.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite having to live \u201cwith no safety net, starting over and over again, with no money,\u201d Dayani said, \u201cI\u2019ve never missed a Shabbat in my life…. Shabbat is everything to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dayani\u2019s grandfather was a rabbi and the family Orthodox. She understands the sacrifices that had to be made to maintain their traditions and feels \u201ca responsibility\u201d to do so as well, she said. As for integrating into American life, she described watching TV to learn how to dress, speak and behave as an American. She said,\u00a0\u201cI feel very Persian. Being a Persian Jew, that\u2019s integral to who I am.\u201d\u00a0She also describes herself as \u201cdeeply patriotic \u2013 the US saved my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dayani takes her two daughters everywhere, she said. \u201cIf I meet my heroes, they meet my heroes. If I\u2019m going to the UN General Assembly or the White House, they come with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and Traugott are trying to raise active, responsible citizens. \u201cWe have conversations about what\u2019s happening in the world and they\u2019re always rooted in kindness, through the lens of compassion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dayani advises caution when it comes to internalizing the messages we see online. \u201cIf we cave to the algorithms, we\u2019ll believe that everyone hates Jews and it simply isn\u2019t true,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cSo many people stand with us and love us. The kids are good!\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a question from Traugott about her process as a storyteller, Dayani spoke about \u201cusing storytelling to create impact,\u201d to change society in significant ways.<\/p>\n

Dayani acknowledged that anger spurs some of her work, such as her fight against the first Trump administration\u2019s policy of attempting to deter migrants by separating children from their parents. She recalled her fears as a child, landing in New York, not wanting to let go of her mother\u2019s hand. \u201cI can\u2019t think of a worse thing you could do to the most vulnerable population in the world,\u201d she said. This sentiment led her to travel to Texas to see the policy in action, as the disconnect was just too powerful, she said. \u201cThe country that saved me is doing\u00a0this<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her strategy in situations like this, she said, is to \u201ccall all the women I know who are smarter than me\u201d to together \u201credirect the world\u2019s attention to what we want them to look at. Real issues. It worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

She explained, \u201cWe received hundreds of millions of dollars of donated advertising…. I was so moved by how everyone showed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The advertising aspect \u2013 the dissemination of information \u2013 was absolutely essential, she said, noting that \u201c20% of the pro-Hamas information being spread on social media right after Oct. 7 was disseminated by bots, not real people\u2026. It was planned. There was spin\u00a0on the day it happened<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Mandani posted a video about this online within days of Hamas\u2019s attack, the post got some 50 million views within a couple of hours. Death threats started coming in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a progressive leader and none of those people were speaking up,\u201d she said, referring to other human rights and anti-hate activists.<\/p>\n

Even though, as Traugott noted, Dayani doesn\u2019t just work for a single demographic, but rather does outreach on behalf of various groups who have experienced different kinds of trauma and marginalization, she lost friends after Oct. 7 \u2013 or, as she put it, \u201cso-called \u2018thought leaders\u2019 remaining silent because they couldn\u2019t stand 10 negative comments\u201d on their social media accounts. Dayani said the people she thought were her peers lacked the courage to stand up for justice when it came to Jews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Among many other initiatives, Dayani founded, in 2024, the Calanet Foundation for young people, to harness \u201cthe power of Jewish stories in response to the branding work done by the Palestinian contingent.\u201d After Oct. 7, she saw \u201cso many black squares on people\u2019s feeds,\u201d as a mark of Jews\u2019 grief. She also wanted people to focus on \u201cthe desert flower growing out of a crack,\u201d the calanet <\/i>(Hebrew for anemone), which symbolizes strength and resilience. She quoted the adage \u201cThey tried to bury us \u2013 they didn\u2019t know we were seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Calanet\u2019s projects is One Mitzvah a Day, which entails expressing thanks to those who stand up against antisemitism and\/or in support of Israel \u2013 \u201cone text a day, such as expressing gratitude to Trader Joe\u2019s for selling Israeli feta,\u201d said Dayani, noting that 5.5 million messages have been sent since the project\u2019s January launch. Traugott pointed out that \u201cmost of the allies weren\u2019t Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dayani asked the audience to consider \u201cthe power of this room, when everyone does the work.\u201d She said, \u201cJust do what you\u2019re doing today \u2013 keep showing up.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shula Klinger <\/b>is an author and journalist living in North Vancouver.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Choices keynote speaker Mandana Dayani, centre, with event\u00a0 co-chairs, left to right, Gail James, Briana James, Lola Pawer and Lisa Boroditsky. (photo by Rhonda Dent) On Nov. 16, Choices once again celebrated the work of Jewish women philanthropists. This year\u2019s theme, \u201cL\u2019dor Vador\u201d (\u201cGeneration to Generation\u201d), reflected the more than 400 people who attended the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48032,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5432,801,24490,7549,3649,24488,22725,24489,24491,2763,24487,1959],"class_list":["post-48031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-annual-campaign","tag-antisemitism","tag-calanet","tag-choices","tag-jewish-federation","tag-mandana-dayani","tag-oct-7","tag-one-mitzvah-a-day","tag-peter-traugott","tag-philanthropy","tag-ricki-thal","tag-tikkun-olam"],"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\/48031","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=48031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}