{"id":48675,"date":"2026-03-27T01:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48675"},"modified":"2026-03-26T17:53:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T00:53:52","slug":"encouraging-young-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/03\/27\/encouraging-young-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Encouraging young voices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Larry Barzelai addresses those gathered for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver\u2019s Public Speaking Contest on March 5. <\/i><i>(photo from JFGV)<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><\/i>On March 5, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver\u2019s annual Public Speaking Contest took place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Students in Grade 4 through Grade 7, from a range of schools, participated.<\/p>\n<p>The contest, which was created more than 35 years ago by Larry Barzelai, with his wife, Rhona Gordon, is jointly presented by Federation, the JCC and Israel Bonds.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt provides young people with a meaningful platform to express their ideas,\u201d wrote Jewish Federation chief executive officer Ezra Shanken in his weekly email message.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir confidence and creativity reflect the strength and promise of the next generation,\u201d noted Shanken, who also spoke at the event.<\/p>\n<p>Federation\u2019s Lissa Weinberger is a key organizer, wrangling both student participants and their parents, as well as volunteer judges and moderators from the community.<\/p>\n<p>Suggested topics ranged from \u201cWhat is your favourite Jewish holiday and why?\u201d to \u201cFrom a Jewish perspective, should leaders be held accountable for mistakes they made in the past?\u201d The 10 suggestions included talking about the Jewish values gained from a favourite picture book, the importance of food in Jewish culture, and the ethics of using ChatGPT; the 11th suggestion was a topic of the student\u2019s choosing.<\/p>\n<p>In each category, there were three winners.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In Grade 7, they were Shiran Cohen (1st), Shael Singerman (2nd) and Meah Corea Reyes (3rd).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In Grade 6, Group 1, it was David Herlin (1st), Olivia White (2nd) and Nogah Goldenberg (3rd).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Grade 6, Group 2, saw Liz Sinderman (1st), Gilad Shortt (2nd) and Miriam Gordon (3rd) take home the top prizes.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In Grade 5, it was Ella Zack (1st), Ben Kupfer (2nd) and Josie Prokosh (3rd).<\/p>\n<p>In Grade 4, it was Levi Wenner (1st), Olivia Bregman (2nd) and Amelia Silverman (3rd).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><i>\u2013 Courtesy Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver<\/i><i><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Larry Barzelai addresses those gathered for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver\u2019s Public Speaking Contest on March 5. (photo from JFGV) On March 5, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver\u2019s annual Public Speaking Contest took place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. Students in Grade 4 through Grade 7, from a range of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3076,4280,218,3543,3544,3753],"class_list":["post-48675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-education","tag-ezra-shanken","tag-judaism","tag-larry-barzelai","tag-public-speaking","tag-youth"],"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\/48675","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=48675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}