Help repair the world

I am flipping through one of my social media outlets, as I lie on my bed, cuddling my 7-month-old baby to sleep. A picture catches my eye. Garbage strewn in front of a restaurant. I look closer, puzzled as to why someone would post a picture of garbage. Then I see. Discarded needles littered amongst the garbage. I read the accompanying message. The poster says that we need to relocate addicts to a secured facility in the north. Provide them with drugs and food and medical care, but we need to get them off of our streets.

I scroll through the comments. I cringe as I read them. I see posts such as, “These people,” “Get them off of our streets,” “Decided to act against societal norms,” “Until they wish to act like proper citizens,” “Undesirables” and so much worse.

The poster is Jewish. Many of the people commenting are Jewish.

My mouth drops open. I take a sharp breath and feel a pain deep inside of me. My heart hurts. I want to cry. My hands shake. It takes all the strength I have not to respond. I am hurt and angry. I shake my head in pain.

I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I haven’t had a drink or a drug in a little over 20 years.

Yes, I am one of those undesirables. So is my husband. My mother and some of my best, most cherished friends.

I was 25 years old when I found recovery. I am one of the lucky ones. I never lived on the street. I didn’t do needles. I didn’t have to experience that kind of bottom, but what being in recovery has taught me is that I am no different than those who live on the streets, than those who inject themselves with needles. Because I am an addict. Once I use, I can’t stop.

The American Psychiatric Association classifies addiction as a complex brain disease that is manifested by compulsive substance use despite harmful consequence. I have a brain disease. I will drink and drug even though it causes harm to me and those close to me. Once I use, I don’t care about anything else. I have a disease that I have to live with and battle for the rest of my life. It is painful. It is a struggle. Some days are easier than others, but the fact of the matter is, I have to live with a disease that can return at any moment. Like a person in remission from cancer.

Does the Jewish community not want me or my children because I am an addict? Am I less of a worthy Jew because of my disease? What about my children? Even as I write this, my heart is beating fast, my breathing is shaky. I think of v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha. I think of how we, as Jews, are commanded to love the stranger who dwells among us, to have one law for the stranger and the citizen, to never embarrass our fellow human beings in public, and to guard our tongues and speak no evil.

Where is the love of humankind when we classify human beings as undesirables? Where is the humanity in suggesting that we take human beings and put them into remote locations, away from civilization? Is this starting to sound familiar? Perhaps like the Shoah? When Hitler classified us Jews as undesirables? Did those Jews have a choice as to whether or not they were classified as Jews even?

I have a disease. I did not choose to be an addict. I did not know, when I drank my first drink and smoked my first joint that I would end up addicted. I was a kid. I did what almost every other teenager did. I experimented. None of my friends from high school are addicts. I am. I got it.

Addicts come from all walks of life. They are your teachers, your lawyers, your doctors, heads of companies, celebrities. They are also those living on the street and leaving their dirty needles behind. Addiction doesn’t discriminate based on your ethnicity, your socioeconomic status or your religion, yet we, as a community, want to believe that addiction doesn’t happen among our tribe. I can tell you that it does. I can also tell you that there are many Jewish addicts and their families who are afraid to come forward precisely because they are afraid that they will be looked down upon and judged as morally impaired. As undesirables.

This, to me, is morally reprehensible. We, as a community, need to act with love. Let’s help repair the world that we live in so that we can love and support all people, even when they are sick with a disease that we don’t understand. It is our duty as Jews. V’ahavta l’reacha kamocha and tikkun olam. Love your fellow as yourself and help repair what is broken.

Amanda Haymond Malul is a JACS (Jewish Addiction Community Service) Vancouver supporter.

Must teach about Holocaust

An item from the Nov. 10, 1938, newspaper in Helen Waldstein Wilkes’ mother’s hometown, Cham, Bavaria. It reads: “In Brief. Jews Taken into Protective Custody. As was the case everywhere in Germany, news of the death of the German Councilor von Rath in Paris unleashed a storm of bitterness and fury against the cowardly Jewboys who are now threatening the lives of Germans abroad because they can no longer unleash their terror and hatred within the Reich. Since, by the Grace of God, we no longer have any Jewish shops in Cham, anti-Jewish action did not take place as it did in so many other German cities. However, for their own safety, those Jews still living here had to be taken into custody yesterday morning.” (Translation by Waldstein Wilkes.)

As we have sat waiting to hear who will be president of the land that was once the beacon of hope for so many, we have asked ourselves, “What can I do? Are there meaningful avenues for action?”

Election day Nov. 3, Kristallnacht Nov. 9 and Remembrance Day Nov. 11 form a cluster. For Jews who became refugees or who lost family in the Holocaust and for all their descendants, Nov. 9 has particular resonance. Peter Gay was there. Here’s how he describes it:

“Synagogues were severely damaged or totally burnt out, sacred scrolls desecrated with the peculiar elation and ingenuity that the plunderers brought to their work. Businesses were destroyed, private houses and apartments were reduced to piles of rubble, with furniture, pictures, clothing and kitchen equipment thrown around so that they were barely recognizable. There was some looting…. But for the majority, the thrill lay in destruction for its own sake.

“The world watched, disapproved, and did almost nothing. In the United States, the public’s attention was still focusing on the midterm congressional elections of November 8, and the press was busy assessing the results.” (From Gay’s My German Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin, Yale University Press, 1998.)

For me, the parallels to today send shivers down my spine. The world must not be allowed to forget the depths to which humans can sink.

Awareness of the Holocaust is shrinking. In the United States, a 2018 survey showed that 66% of millennials could not identify what Auschwitz was. A recent survey revealed that about a third of 7,000 European respondents across seven countries knew “just a little or nothing at all” about the Holocaust.

Knowing about the Holocaust can provide a necessary understanding of how an entire population was bullied and manipulated by demagogues before succumbing to hate and fear-mongering. It can also serve as a blueprint for recognizing the dangers of demonization and incitement and help guard human rights and strengthen core democratic values.

Instead of endlessly fretting about social isolation and the threat of COVID-19, I’ve been seeking ways to make the gift of my days here on earth matter. I, a woman who calls herself “accidentally alive,” a woman who left her first home by horse and buggy, now count technology as among the miracles of my life. Recently, from out of the blue, the wife of a second cousin in New York, whom I’d met only once many years ago, decided to gather the extended family (all that’s left, thanks to Hitler and his efficient helpers) via Zoom. Welcoming me to this gathering of the mishpocha was a man in Israel claiming that his great-great-grandparent and mine had been siblings, and that he had read my book Letters from the Lost in connection with his volunteer work at a museum there. The museum used to be a kibbutz, founded by survivors from Theresienstadt, the concentration camp where both of my grandmothers perished and where most of my family suffered before being sent to their final destination, Auschwitz. Perhaps to distance itself from the German and to place upon it the stamp of renewal that Israel became for these lost souls, the kibbutz was named Beit Terezin.

Together with David, this fourth cousin in Israel, I am building a pathway for keeping alive that which we forget at our peril. Please, if you can, go to jgive.com and search for “Letters from Arnold.”

Using artwork and graphics contributed by those early survivors in Beit Terezin, alongside the words of my beloved Uncle Arnold, who spent 17 months in Theresienstadt before enduring the hellfires of Auschwitz, we hope to create a book that will find a home in every Holocaust museum in the world. If finances permit, we will use technology to bring the contents to life in new ways so that those who cannot visit a Holocaust museum in person nonetheless can receive our reminder that it must not happen again. Never Again.

I urge you to visit our website. And if you’d like to do an additional mitzvah, please forward the link to contacts near and far whose family members may once have lived through the hell of Theresienstadt – or worse.

Born in a country that no longer exists at a time hopefully never to be repeated, Helen Waldstein Wilkes describes herself as “accidentally alive” because she, too, was marked for eradication. Now an energized octogenarian with a richly rewarding life, she is author of two award-winning books, The Aging of Aquarius, an uplifting book that encourages people to live their passion by striving to effect change for the better, and Letters from the Lost (also available in German and Spanish translation), a moving memoir of how a box of letters from prewar and postwar Europe changed everything.

That which no one else can do

Listening to an online class by a Chassidic rabbi, I heard this: “We’re each put on this earth to do something unique, something which no one else can do. No one before you, and no one after you.”

A little pressure? No kidding.

He went on to say: “Fulfil your true and essential purpose. That’s where you will see and experience your ultimate blessings.”

High expectations? Heck, yeah.

I hear these words time and again. Why? Because they’re one of the countless mantras of Chassidim. What’s more, they’re encouraging, positive and impressive, so who wouldn’t be curious? Until you find yourself asking: “But what is my purpose in this world?”

I ask myself that regularly. There are days when maybe I do a good deed for someone and see that person benefit and I think, “There it is.” Maybe I call an elderly friend and wish them good Shabbos. Perhaps I bake a bunch of challah to give away and I think, “There it is. That’s my purpose. Or is it?”

The $64,000 questions are, How do we identify our purpose? And can we have more than one purpose in life? I think the answer to the second question is a resounding yes.

According to a wise rabbi I know, “Every element of our lives is an integral part of our purpose. It’s multi-faceted at every moment.” Sometimes, our purpose can be doing something that makes us happy. Sometimes, it’s the exact opposite – it’s something we struggle with that, in the end, serves a higher purpose and maybe even has a holy outcome. It’s certainly not random though.

As for identifying our purpose, that can be a bit trickier. My guess is that often we don’t even recognize it in the moment, but it’s there, nonetheless. If you have the privilege of recognizing G-d’s purpose for you, consider yourself lucky.

Some people are blessed to have one, humongous, overarching talent, like being an inspirational public speaker. Or a devoted caregiver. Or whatever. Most of us though – we fumble along searching for what resonates, not only with us, but with others. Because, in the end, we are a collective. What we do is never in isolation. Never. We always impact others. Even if it’s not immediately apparent.

We are not single humans floating around this world, alone, or islands unto ourselves. We’re an integral part of relationships – with G-d, with our loved ones, with our co-workers, with our friends. Even with strangers. What purpose we have in life only comes to life when it impacts others. We don’t exist in a vacuum, thank goodness, because those are filled with shmutz.

The thing is, the details of each individual’s purpose look different. Your purpose is something that no one else on earth can do. However, it all converges at the same point, which is to make the world a holier, more light-filled, compassionate place where G-d’s presence is revealed. Whoa, that’s some heaviosity! I dare you to unpack that.

Constantly dipping my amateur toes in the ocean of Judaism – Chassidism, to be specific – I am struck by how often I hear those words: revealing G-d’s presence in this world. Don’t ask me to explain it. I’m just a rookie, trying to understand it a tiny bit more every day. I have miles to go. But I’m certainly up for the challenge.

All I know is this: sometimes we seek out our purpose, sometimes it seeks us out; sometimes gently, sometimes it whacks us upside the head. It doesn’t matter how it happens. It only matters that it does happen. Sooner rather than later. Because sooner gives us an opportunity to do something great, even if it seems small or insignificant. Purpose is all relative. But to what? To the precise moment when that specific purpose finds its way into the world and affects another human being. That’s all it takes. Simple. Like neuroscience. Or astrophysics.

I don’t profess to have any answers or even suggestions, or insights. I just have my own experiences to share. For most of my life, it never crossed my mind that each of us has a purpose that we’re put on this earth to fulfil, except maybe for the obvious ones: teachers help kids learn, doctors heal people, mechanics fix cars. But what was my purpose?

I spent my working life as a librarian and communications officer at a public library. I mostly helped people find things and do research. For a short period, I was a children’s librarian, so I shared the love of literacy, reading stories, singing songs and teaching rhymes to little ones and their parents. Is that purpose? I’m not sure. Certainly it was fun. But it wasn’t what I would call meaningful, in the spiritual realm. Maybe I impacted a few people in some way, who knows. But did I change lives? It didn’t feel like it.

As a communications officer, I spent a good part of each day writing: annual reports, speeches, press releases, book reviews, brochures. Anything and everything. Was that my purpose in life? I doubt it. Maybe I touched a few people with the annual article I wrote in memory of my father’s yahrzeit. But did that give me purpose? Only momentarily.

Then I retired. And started volunteering.

First, I started baking challah buns, as part of the Light of Shabbat meals that Chabad Richmond delivers to homebound seniors on a regular basis, and delivering some of those meals. Now, I know it sounds kind of flimsy and trivial, but baking challah gave my life more meaning. I wasn’t just mixing ingredients, forming them into buns and baking them. As I learned from some rebbetzins, making challah is an auspicious time to give tzedakah and pray for what you want or need for yourself, for your family and for others. I knew that the people who’d be receiving my challah buns might not otherwise have challah for Shabbat. And, even if it wasn’t meaningful to them, it was to me. Oddly enough, that simple act of baking challah gave me a sense of purpose. Delivering it and shmoozing with the seniors was an extra bonus.

As my volunteer activities increased, so did my sense of purpose. When I began tutoring English to Israeli high school students via video chat through the Israel Connect program, I was terrified, but willing to try. After all, what did I know about teaching? Exactly bupkis. Little did I realize that the curriculum was only the supporting cast. The main actors were my student and me. While the goal of the program is for Israeli teens to become proficient in English vocabulary, comprehension and conversation – and they do – the meaningful stuff happens in our connection to one another. When you parse it, life is all about building relationships. About finding ways to connect. It’s about trust and compassion, learning and discovery. It’s about impact. Traveling both ways.

All that to say that having a sense of purpose in life doesn’t require monumental acts. It simply requires meaningful acts. Acts of giving.

So, go out and find your purpose. Or let it find you. Just get out of your own way.

Shelley Civkin is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.

Comfort food and COVID

There’s been an uptick in the eating of comfort food in our house since the pandemic began. Cooking and eating are a big deal during stressful times.

Now, we were “into” food pre-pandemic. I cook a lot. However, everything went up a notch when our focus turned inwards, particularly for holidays like Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and Thanksgiving. When our neighbourhood bakery closed down in the spring, I went from making only challah to making all our bread. My kids, surprised, said, “Mommy, you made this? It’s really good!” – as they gobbled up the crusty spelt bread I turned out. Over these months, it’s gone from bread production to canning. Once the shelves filled up with jams, pickles and applesauce, autumn became baking and roasting season.

We’ve eaten too much: apple pie and crisp, sweet potato pie, cherry pies, and more. I tried for moderation – and then my husband bought Halloween candy. He started doling out two snack-sized chocolates a day. I couldn’t resist.

In the summer, I combated all this “extra” with dog walks and playing outside, but now it’s cold out again. It’s harder to take long walks. Fall virus numbers have soared, so swim lessons, gym visits and other kinds of exercise are off the table for now.

Imagine my surprise when Daf Yomi, the practice of reading a page of Talmud a day, came to the rescue! I found good advice while reading Eruvin 82b and 83b. After all, it’s not the first time in Jewish history that we’ve gone through periods of stress. When feeling out of control, it might only be natural to struggle with basics like “how much is enough to eat?”

In Eruvin 82b, a discussion emerges. To extend the eruv, the boundary of how far you can go on Shabbat, you can place food in a location, usually cooperatively, with your neighbours, so that you all “share” the space. When you establish this with your neighbours, it’s communal space, like in your house. You can carry things within a larger area. Imagine a block party potluck, and you’re understanding this.

How much food is enough? It’s supposed to be enough when each neighbour puts in enough for two meals. However, that amount must be defined. Is that food enough for two “work day” meals, when people might be doing hard labour? On Shabbat, we eat more, so do we put more out to designate the eruv? How much should it weigh? Does it need to be expensive or fancy food?

The rabbis then do math, which is always a bit dodgy, to be honest. Why? Measurements in the ancient world varied from one geographic location to another. Food staples varied, too – for instance, some places had better access to one kind of grain as compared to others. Rice bread is acceptable, for example, but millet bread can’t be used, because the rabbis say it’s hard to make edible millet bread.

Different communities couldn’t afford the same things and, even if they could afford them, in some cases, the bread they produced was simply not edible. In Eruvin 81a, there’s a discussion about a kind of mixed grain lentil bread, a concoction of wheat, barley, beans, lentil, millet and spelt as spelled out in Ezekiel 4:9. “Rav Hiyya bar Avin said that Rav said: One may establish an eruv with lentil bread.” The Gemara determines that there was a bread made like this in the days of Mar Shmuel, and even his dog wouldn’t eat it. So, the food put out for the eruv must be edible to humans (and dogs) and taste good!

The rabbis refer to the Torah and decide that the manna the Jewish people received while wandering in the desert was about an omer (two litres) each. There’s some dubious calculating to determine how much food is “enough.” The most helpful information I found was repeated by multiple sages over more than a thousand years.

In Sue Parker Gerson’s introduction of Eruvin 83 on myjewishlearning.com, she offers some context for understanding the talmudic text. The sages say, “One who eats roughly this amount [an omer] each day is healthy, as he is able to eat a proper meal; and he is also blessed, as he is not a glutton who requires more. One who eats more than this is a glutton, while one who eats less than this has damaged bowels and must see to his health.”

Maimonides, a physician and a Torah scholar more than 800 years ago, wrote a lot on healthful eating. In Gerson’s article, she includes eating tips from him, as well as from Rashi and Adin Steinsaltz. Regarding Maimonides, he said, “One should not eat until his stomach is full. Rather, he should stop eating when he has eaten close to three-quarters of his full satisfaction.… Overeating is like poison to anyone’s body.”

It’s only natural to use food to celebrate, to comfort and to cope during this crazy time of upheaval. How can we combat this temptation? The rabbis advise: remember not to overeat, eat only what is edible and healthy, and practise moderation.

This is hard. We live in a world of plenty, possibly even including leftover Halloween chocolates. But there are Jewish teachings, over generations, about avoiding overeating. Weight gain could make us more susceptible to complications from COVID-19, and so many other illnesses. It’s not good for us, but, knowing how much food is “enough” isn’t a new issue and, like everything else, it’s a Jewish one. The rabbis probably didn’t have leftover candy or sweet potato pie, but they knew the temptations we might feel to make, or eat, too much of them.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

 

Golden coins found

(photo by Shai Halevi/IAA via Ashernet)

A small pottery jar containing four pure gold coins dating from the Early Islamic period was unearthed during archeological excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), as part of the Jewish Quarter Development Corporation’s plan to build an elevator and make the Western Wall Plaza more accessible. The jar was found by IAA inspector Yevgenia Kapil and, some weeks later, excavation director David Gellman found the coins inside it. “To my great surprise, along with the soil, four shiny gold coins fell into my hand,” said Gellman. “This is the first time in my archeological career that I have discovered gold, and it is tremendously exciting.”

According to IAA coin expert Dr. Robert Kool, “The coins date from a relatively brief period, from the late 940s to the 970s CE. This was a time of radical political change, when control over Eretz Israel passed from the Sunni Abbasid caliphate, whose capital was Baghdad, Iraq, into the hands of its Shiite rivals, the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa, who conquered Egypt, Syria and Eretz Israel in those years.”

According to Kool, “Four dinars was a considerable sum of money for most of the population, who lived under difficult conditions at the time. It was equal to the monthly salary of a minor official, or four months’ salary for a common labourer. Compared with these people, the small handful of wealthy officials and merchants in the city earned huge salaries and amassed vast wealth. A senior treasury official could earn 7,000 gold dinars a month and receive additional incomes from his rural estates amounting to hundreds of thousands of gold dinars a year.”

יום הבוחר בארה”ב

(image by Zoonar/A.Makarov)

יום הבוחר: תושבי בריטיש קולומביה במערב קנדה הימרו כי דונלד טראמפ ינצח בבחירות לנשיאות ארה”ב היום, וימשיך בתפקיד לארבע שנים נוספות. אירוע הבחירות יהיה הפופולארי ביותר בהיסטוריה בקרב המהמרים

הבחירות לנשיאות ארצות הברית שיערכו היום יום שלישי, יהפכו לאירוע הפופולרי ביותר מאז ומעולם בקרב המהמרים השונים בעולם. רבים מהם מהמרים כי הנשיא הנוכחי, דונלד טראמפ, נציג המפלגה הרפובליקנית, הוא זה שינצח בבחירות את המועמד מטעם המפלגה הדמוקרטית, ג’ו ביידן. להערכת המהמרים אם כן טראמפ ימשיך לשמש נשיא ארה”ב בקדנציה נוספת בת ארבע שנים בבית הלבן.

בארה”ב חל איסור להמר בנושאים פוליטיים כמו הבחירות לנשיאות. לעומת זאת ניתן להמר על תוצאות הבחירות בקנדה במספר מדינות באירופה ובמקומות נוספים בעולם.

תושבי מחוז בריטיש קולומביה שבמערב קנדה השכנה מצפון של ארה”ב, החליטו כבר מי ינצח בבחירות לנשיאות ארה”ב, שיערכו היום (שלישי). לפי הערכת הקנדים או יותר נכון בין אלה שמהמרים, טראמפ ינצח בבחירות את ביידן.

לפי מצב ההימורים להיום: ארבעים וארבעה אחוז מצביעים על טראמפ כזוכה בבחירות, לעומת עשרים ושבעה אחוז שמאמינים שביידן ינצח. ואילו ללא פחות מעשרים ותשעה אחוז אין בשלב זה מועמד עדיף וזה קצת תמוה.

התאגיד של ממשלת בריטיש קולומביה – בי.סי לוטוריס קורפוריישן – שאחראי על כל ההימורים במחוז, החליט לאפשר לתושבים המקומיים להמר גם על זהות המנצח בבחירות לנשיאות בארה”ב, מבין השניים שמנהלים קרב איתנים, טראמפ וביידן. לפי הערכת בי.סי לוטוריס קורפוריישן למעלה מעשרת אלפים ישתתפו בהימורים לנשיאות ארה”ב היום. ובכך צפוי להישבר שיא המהמרים לאירוע בודד ביום אחד. אם כן ההימורים על הזוכה לנשיאות בארה”ב יותר פופולריים במחוז בריטיש קולומביה, מאשר זהות המנצחים באירועי הספורט הבולטים ובהם: משחקי הפלייאוף של הסופר בול, משחקי הפלייאוף של האן.בי.איי ומשחקי הפלייאוף של ההוקי. אגב, בבחירות לנשיאות לארה”ב הקודמות (שנערכו לפני כארבע שנים) בין טראמפ למועמדת המפלגה הדמוקרטית, הילרי קילנטון, כשבעת אלפיים ומאתיים מתושבי בריטיש קולוביה לקחו חלק בהימורים על זהות המנצח.

יש לציין כי אתר ההימורים של הבי.סי לוטוריס קורופריישן הוא הראשון בקנדה שהציע להמר על הבחירות בארה”ב. בשנה האחרונה בעיקר לאור מגיפת הקוביד, היקף ההימורים באתר של הבי.סי לוטוריס קורופריישן גדל משמעותית והגיע לכשני מיליארד דולר קנדי.

גם בקרב המהמרים באמצעות פלטפורמת ההימורים של אתר ההימורים הבריטי אודצ’קר, טראמפ ינצח את ביידן. בשלב זה בין המהמרים המועמד הפופולארי ביותר הוא טראמפ שזוכה לחמישים ושישה אחוז. זאת לעומת ביידן שזוכה לעשרים ושמונה אחוז בלבד. סגנית הנשיא המועמדת של ביידן, קמלה האריס, זוכה לפופולריות בשיעור של שמונה אחוזים בקרב המהמרים, ואילו סגן הנשיא של טראמפ, מייק פנס, זוכה לפופולריות בשיעור של חמישה אחוזים בלבד בקרב המהמרים. ואילו הזמר הראפר השחור, קניה וסט, שגם הוא הכריז על ריצתו לנשיאות ארה”ב, זוכה לשלושה אחוזים בלבד כמועמד פופולארי לזכייה בבחירות בקרב המהרים.

באתר אודצ’ר מציינים כי ההימורים על הזוכה לנשיאות ארה”ב היום, הופכים להיות האירוע הפופולרי ביותר בהיסטוריה מאז ומעולם, בקרב המהמרים השונים ברחבי העולם.

הקנדים כאן נערכים אף הם לבחירות: לפי הערכה כשש מאות ועשרים אלף קנדים שמחזיקים גם באזרחות אריקנית יכולים להצביע בבחירות אלה. בבחירות הקודמות לנשיאות רק כשלושים ושלושה אלף מהם הצביעו, ומדובר בכחמישה אחוזים בלבד. אך הפעם הדבר אמור להיות שונה בתכלית וקרוב לוודאי שאחוז הקנדים שיצביעו בבחירות לטובת טראמפ או ביידן יהיה הרבה יותר גבוה.

Celebrating community

Featured speakers at this year’s Choices are Hannah Amar, left, and Michelle Hirsch. (photo from Jewish Federation)

Hannah Amar wants people to keep in mind two words when they listen to her story: resilience and connection.

Toronto-born Amar was 10 years old when she and her parents were hit by a drunk driver in a catastrophic car accident. She was the sole survivor. She went to live with an aunt and uncle, in a home with little to no Jewish identity. Her quest to regain her Jewish identity and the difference it made at the most difficult moment of her adult life is a story she will share next month at Choices.

Choices is an annual celebration of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. (Click here for an interview with Federation’s women’s philanthropy co-chairs.) It brings together hundreds of Jewish women who have made a choice to support the community through volunteerism, professional work, engagement or a financial gift. This year’s event takes place virtually on Nov. 8, and will recognize the power of women’s individual and collective contributions. The keynote speaker this year is Michelle Hirsch, a Cleveland woman who mobilized her circle to support the Jewish community of Houston after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on that city in 2017. Amar is the community speaker.

When Amar came to the University of British Columbia, she sought out Hillel, the Jewish student organization, in an effort to reconnect with her Jewishness. This was her initial foray into the community.

After university, she was working in a corporate office and met a man with whom she had two sons, 16 months apart. That relationship ended and he largely disappeared. With two kids and no child support, Amar struggled to make ends meet.

With no family to fall back on, Amar put her belongings in storage and spent the better part of a year with no fixed address. She had some savings intended for her kids’ education, which was all that kept the three of them off the streets or in a homeless shelter. At one point, she was living in a room above a Starbucks, reached through a long set of steep stairs – she was eight months pregnant and had a 1-year-old.

Earlier, though, when she was still at her office job, Amar passed by the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel, on West Broadway. Since leaving university, and Hillel, she had not been in close contact with the Jewish community. Coming from a kickboxing class, dressed in her hot pink hoodie, she stopped outside the Kollel and was wondering whether to go in when a rabbi came down the stairs with a lollipop in his mouth.

“I thought, I can totally approach this rabbi because he’s eating a lollipop,” she recalled.

Rabbi Levi Feigelstock invited her to services on Shabbat and, the following week, she was at his family’s Shabbat table. It was the beginning of a solid connection. Both of her sons had their bris at the Kollel.

As her relationship collapsed and her housing situation became critical, it was that connection with community that provided a safety net.

A few weeks ago, Amar and her kids – Sam, 7, and Judah, who is almost 6 – moved into a three-bedroom townhome at the Ben and Esther Dayson Residences in the River District of South Vancouver. The Dayson Residences are a project of Tikva Housing, a nonprofit society that provides access to affordable housing, primarily for Jewish low- to moderate-income adults and families. The neighbourhood, which opened in 2019, consists of 32 townhomes.

“My kids are so happy, I’m so happy,” said Amar. “It’s a life-changer. It really is.”

Around Sukkot, Chabad visited with their mobile sukkah and all the kids in the residences came out. Amar loves walking around and seeing Shabbat candles in windows.

“The sense of community here – it is remarkable,” she said. “Going from no fixed address and only being the three of us for so many years to finally reaching out and dipping our toes in community and now having that.… Reaching out to the Jewish community helped me.”

The kids have already made best friends in the neighbourhood and Amar is enjoying having neighbourhood kids dogpiling on her living room floor.

“The amount of stress that’s left my body is unbelievable,” she said. “I had pain every day. Just yesterday, I woke up and I had none, so that’s pretty remarkable. I feel it leaving my body.”

Two generations ago, when Amar’s grandparents arrived in Toronto from Morocco, they, too, were aided by the Jewish community organizations that were there to help.

“It just really goes to show you how the connection in the Jewish community is amazing and how the help there is also amazing,” she said.

The keynote speaker for the Choices event, Hirsch, will share the story of how a small act of tzedakah snowballed into a huge relief effort for the Jewish community of Houston.

Hirsch is senior vice-president of her family’s business, an insurance brokerage.

“We joke that our family’s business is not just insurance for people but it’s also in our blood to ensure the future of the Jewish community,” she said. Growing up in Akron, south of Cleveland, Hirsch saw the model her grandparents and parents set in that city’s relatively small Jewish community.

“Everyone was involved because everyone was involved,” she said. “Every Jew knew every Jew and that’s just how it was.”

Hirsch became active locally and internationally, with the Jewish Federations of North America’s Young Leadership Cabinet and, more recently, with the National Women’s Philanthropy Board. She also serves on the board of the Jewish Agency for Israel North America and as chair of Cleveland’s Women in Philanthropy.

When Hurricane Harvey hit, her Young Leadership Cabinet colleagues in Houston were posting photos of the disaster on the group’s social media page. “Everyone was asking what can we do to help,” Hirsch recalled. “Some of the people in Houston were saying, we need things: people need diapers, we need cleaning supplies, none of the stores are open, the roads are blocked. We can’t just go to the store or order something to get delivered.”

Courier companies and Amazon were not delivering in Houston, but private vehicles were permitted to enter the city. Hirsch connected with colleagues in Dallas and asked if it would be possible to corral supplies there and transport them to Houston. One of the donors to the Dallas Federation owns a shipping company, so they obtained a cargo truck.

Hirsch made a preliminary Amazon wish list – toiletries, cleaning supplies, toothbrushes, other necessities – and posted on her personal social media, asking colleagues from Young Leadership Cabinet and other connections to share it. She went to bed and, eight hours later, awoke to find more than 1,000 items had been purchased and were on their way to the Dallas JCC.

“We kept adding additional items and, a few days went by, and then the Amazon trucks just started rolling in,” she said. The cargo truck made its way from Dallas to Houston well before couriers resumed services. The Houston JCC became their warehouse and volunteers came, opened the boxes, sorted the items and prepared them for community members to collect what they needed.

A couple of weeks later, some of the organizers made the trip themselves, including Hirsch. They helped out on the ground, rummaging through the flooded JCC preschool to see what toys and other items could be salvaged.

“It sounds like a sad story,” Hirsch said, “but really it’s an inspiring story, not of just mobilizing but the idea of a community that was facing such destruction that just rose up together to really come together and put back the pieces. It’s just a beautiful story of people coming together.”

More of both these women’s stories will be shared at the Choices event. For information and to register, visit jewishvancouver.com/choices-form.

First-ever virtual Chutzpah!

The new artistic managing director of Chutzpah!, Jessica Mann Gutteridge, faced unique challenges in presenting the festival. (photo from Chutzpah!)

“This has been a challenging time for all communities. I hope that this year’s Chutzpah! Festival can bring a sense of joy, and the communal spirit that comes from sharing performing arts experiences with others, whether at the theatre or from the comfort of home,” said artistic managing director Jessica Mann Gutteridge in a recent interview with the Jewish Independent.

This will be the first-ever Chutzpah! The Lisa Nemetz International Jewish Performing Arts Festival that people will be able to watch at home. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, all of the performances will be available online, Nov. 21-28, with a few opportunities to attend small-audience shows that are being live-streamed from the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre. Not only will this be the first Chutzpah! presented digitally in the festival’s 20-year history, but it will be the first directed by Gutteridge.

“I knew that I had an exciting and challenging year ahead of me when I took the helm of Chutzpah! from Mary-Louise Albert, who was artistic director before me for 15 years,” said Gutteridge. “I really could not have anticipated how much the world would change just three weeks later, when the pandemic shuttered the Rothstein Theatre and the entire performing arts sector. The first month or so was spent focusing on our staff’s well-being and helping the many users of our theatre to reschedule and replan all the events that had to be canceled.

“The first thing I did for the Chutzpah! Festival was to take some time to think,” she said. “My board was wonderfully supportive from Day 1 and assured me that whatever scale I felt was right would be all right with them – even if I wanted to postpone for a year. I spent a great deal of time just thinking about the purposes of the festival, how it serves the community and the relationships we have with our audiences and community of artists. Even before COVID, when I was thinking about what my first festival might look like in a transition time, I felt inspired to bring together artists who had performed in the festival in the past with new artists who I hoped would join us in the future. So, I began by reaching out to artists from both groups so that we could just start to get to know each other, and find out how everyone was responding to this unprecedented situation.”

By early summer, said Gutteridge, it became clear that the health-related restrictions with respect to the pandemic would still be in place in November, “so I began to think about how we might incorporate digital presentations into the festival, and to talk to artists who were exploring this form of performance in their work.

“I was thrilled to learn that Iris Bahr, who was in the 2019 festival, is not only a brilliant actor and stand-up comic, but is also a podcaster who interviews other artists and public intellectuals with much wit and insight. I invited her to perform her solo stand-up, but also to function as our festival host and conduct live interviews with all the festival artists,” said Gutteridge. “Because Iris divides her time between Israel, New York and Los Angeles, we knew she would have to appear digitally and, though this adds another layer of technical complexity, I think it’s such a special opportunity that the present moment brings us – to join artists from across the world and have a chance to learn more about how the pandemic is changing and shaping their creative work.”

The festival’s online-only shows will include Bahr’s stand-up comedy performance (click here for story); New York-based playwright Rokhl Kafrissen’s Shtumer Shabes (Silent Sabbath) and former Vancouverite-current Londoner (England) Tamara Micner’s Old Friends, both of which are works-in-progress; a concert by Israeli pianist and composer Guy Mintus; and Israeli choreographer Ella Rothschild’s Pigulim.

There will be two shows live-streamed from the Rothstein, where limited audiences will be permitted. Ben Caplan will perform music from Old Stock, which is adapted from his music-theatre piece Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (see jewishindependent.ca/searching-for-a-safe-harbour). And Chutzpah! artist-in-residence Idan Cohen (Ne. Sans opera and dance) presents the world première of Hourglass. Closing out the festival are Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini (click here for story), who will be live-streaming from Brooklyn, joined by yet-to-be-announced local comedians performing at the Rothstein.

The lineup is a fraction of what it would have been if not for COVID, but Gutteridge thought it important to proceed with the event.

“Well, for starters, I’m stubborn and I like a challenge!” she said of the decision. “I also knew that we were well-positioned with staff and support to execute a creative and fulfilling festival, even though it would not look much like past festivals. In talking to colleagues inside and outside the JCC, and hearing from our community via a survey in July, I understood that there was a lot of enthusiasm to keep experiencing the kind of performing arts presentations that Chutzpah! has offered for 20 years now. And, looking ahead to dark November nights, I think we can offer a communal experience that will bring some much-needed joy.”

In addition to focusing on quality entertainment, health and safety has been at the forefront of the planning.

“We have worked carefully with health and performing arts sector experts to make sure that we are providing the safest possible experiences for audiences, staff and artists, including at our physically distanced, intimate live events at the Rothstein Theatre,” said Gutteridge. “I’m also very impressed by how our artists have risen to the challenge. Rokhl Kafrissen, the playwright of Shtumer Shabes, has been working with her cast via Zoom since April, when they presented a workshop of the play in lieu of the debut performance they were scheduled to have at LABA in New York. Our audiences will have a chance to meet the artists and see excerpts from the play, with context about the work’s meaning and creation, all performed from the artists’ individual locations. It’s a special opportunity for our audiences to peek inside the creative process.

“Idan Cohen’s Hourglass, a new dance piece with live piano accompaniment, is being created this fall at the Rothstein Theatre as part of our creative residency program. With 318 seats and a large stage, the theatre is large enough for physical distancing, and Idan is working with a skeleton crew – often just himself and the two dancers at work. The dancers, Brandon Lee Alley and Racheal Prince, are partners offstage as well as on, so they are already in a household bubble. The other dance piece, Ella Rothschild’s Pigulim, comes to us from the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, where the performance was previously recorded in a studio theatre, so that health and safety protocols could be observed and the dancers could form their own bubble.”

Tickets for the festival start at $18 and are available online at chutzpahfestival.com or by phone at 604-257-5145.

B.C. election reflection

It will take about two weeks to verify and count the mail-in ballots from Saturday’s B.C. provincial election. The province saw a 7,200% increase in voting by mail this year, a result of the pandemic and educational efforts to make people aware of what was perhaps the safest option for casting a ballot.

There is no doubt about the overall outcome. The New Democratic Party, under returning Premier John Horgan, won a majority government handily. The NDP increased its vote share in every part of the province and the opposition Liberals, under Andrew Wilkinson, who resigned in the aftermath, had its worst showing in almost three decades. The mail-in ballots will determine the outcome in a small number of close races, but it will not alter the big picture.

Some are complaining that two weeks is a long time for the elections branch to complete the process. However, we do not know the level of complexity involved in validating and counting the vast number of mailed votes. But it seems reasonable to take time to ensure such important work is done properly, rather than quickly.

What we should not lose sight of, regardless of what party we supported, is the small miracle of the election itself. Many or most of our ancestors came from places where free and fair elections followed by a peaceful and orderly transition of power were unfulfilled dreams. Startlingly, in what had been viewed globally as the bedrock model of democracy itself – the United States – we are bracing for one of the most uncertain moments in political history next Tuesday. Polls show that the incumbent president is headed for defeat. But polls were deeply wrong about this candidate four years ago. More importantly, there are concerns about his willingness to leave office if defeated – and even about potential intimidation of voters at the polls and violence in the aftermath of the election.

As Canadians, we should feel fortunate and grateful. As earthlings, we should wish and work for a world where all people are as free as we are to choose those who govern us and to do so with confidence, knowing that we will be physically safe and our elected officials will respect our choices.

Khartoum changes tune

The latest Arab country to normalize relations with Israel is Sudan. It is the third Arab country in recent months to initiate bilateral relations with the Jewish state – and only the fifth in history.

In addition to the practical realities of the new relationship, there is also something symbolic about the announcement of mutual relations. It was in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, that the Arab League met after the 1967 war and issued the “three nos” – no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.

After trouncing its invading neighbours in six days of war, Israel extended an olive branch, offering land for peace. In exchange for the Arab world’s recognition of Israel and its right to exist, Israel would return the land it obtained in the war to Egypt and Jordan. The response was the triple negative. The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began that year and could have ended that year, but Arab states were more opposed to any recognition of a Jewish state than they were concerned with the fate of the land Israel occupied or the people who lived there.

The seemingly sudden about-face by, first, the United Arab Emirates, then Bahrain and now Sudan has as much to do with regional geopolitics as it does with any Arab admiration for Israel. There is also the fact of the U.S. election in the timing of these announcements, and other international financial and defence features of these deals that are less clear in intent. In history, all things happen for a range of reasons – the end of apartheid, the collapse of the Soviet bloc, for example – but these various inputs do not distract from or diminish the larger outcome.

More than a half-century after the Arab world said no, no, no, so far in this year we have heard yes, yes, yes. And the rumours now are that Saudi Arabia will follow soon. This would be the most potentially significant development yet in this regard, even as there should be major questions about allying with another despotic regime.

What’s true is that the opening of relations with Israel represents an end to the effective Palestinian veto over Arab relations with Israel. And the radical departure of Arab states from the diplomatic status quo will likely alter the position of Palestinian leaders, as they realize their diminished standing in the Arab world’s regional calculation. That could result in the most substantial change of all.