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An exploration of the shofar

Most shofars are made from a ram’s horn, reminding us of Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), which supposedly took place on Rosh Hashanah, since a ram was sacrificed in Yitzchak’s place. (photo by Len Radin / flickr)

Around the High Holidays, some young children receive colourful plastic shofars to blow. Are these shofars kosher? Could they be legitimately used during holiday prayers?

While their colour might hold the attention of the children and worshippers, the answer to the above two questions is no. Shofars that can be used ritually come from animals, including rams, antelopes and goats. The long spiral shofar used by Yemenite Jews, for example, comes from the greater kudu, a striped antelope common to some parts of Africa. But most shofars are made from a ram’s horn. In fact, the shofar is sometimes referred to as a “ram’s horn.” This type of horn reminds us of Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), which supposedly took place on Rosh Hashanah, since a ram was sacrificed in Yitzchak’s place.

A ram’s horn has a wide base surrounding a core bone, which connects to the animal’s head. Once the animal is dead, the horn is separated from the bone, resulting in a horn that is hollow in its wide part, but sealed at its narrow edge. Heat is applied to enable straightening part of the horn (though some rabbis think this should not be done), then it is polished on the outside and an air-passage hole is drilled in the narrow part, allowing it to produce a sound similar to a trumpet, a trombone or a didgeridoo.

According to Mahzor Lev Shalem, the shofar had a variety of uses in the Bible. It was used as a call to war (remember how it was used to miraculously tumble the walls of Jericho in Joshua, Chapter 6), as a call to assemble the community and, most significantly, to note G-d’s descent on Sinai. Later, it became associated with G-d’s call for Jews to repent.

From one specific shofar, a player can typically produce one sound, which depends on the horn’s length – the longer it is, the lower the sound produced by it, and players must use their lips to vibrate the air in the shofar exactly in the resonance frequency of the specific shofar. But Israeli trumpet player Amit Sofer takes the shofar beyond the tekiah, shevarim and teruah routines of the Jewish prayer book, and turns it into a musical instrument. Listen to Sofer’s trio presentation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (youtube.com/watch?v=lwaD92UcZME).

The shofar is well traveled. Its Greek cousin, the troumbeta or voukino, for instance, was once used all over Greece. Greek musicologist Fivos Anoyanakis, author of Greek Popular Musical Instruments, notes that this animal horn was used to announce field-wardens and postmen. It closely resembles the shofar.

According to Yad Vashem, during the Shoah, Rabbi Yitzhak Finkler, the Radoszyce rabbi, was incarcerated at Skarzysko-Kamienna, a forced labour camp. Getting hold of a ram’s horn required him to bribe a Polish guard – but the guard brought him an ox horn. It took a second bribe to get the right kind of horn. Then, the rabbi asked camp inmate Moshe Winterter (later Hebraized to Ben Dov), who worked in the camp’s metal shop, to make a shofar.

At first, Winterter refused. Preparing an item that was not an armament, or even carrying something considered contraband from the workshop to the barracks, carried with it a penalty of death. But he relented. So, in 1943, camp inmates heard the shofar blowing. The shofar traveled around wartorn Europe and the United States until Winterter made aliyah. In Israel, he donated the shofar to Yad Vashem.

A year after the Six Day War ended, archeologist Benjamin Mazer discovered the Trumpeting Place inscription (which was written in Hebrew, of course). He discovered the 1st century CE stone in his early excavations of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. It shows just two complete words carved above a wide depression cut into its inner face. The first is translated as “to the place” and the second word “of trumpeting” or “of blasting” or “of blowing.” Today, the stone is on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

photo - The Trumpeting Place inscription — The Trumpeting Place inscription is a stone from the 1st century CE discovered in 1968 by Benjamin Mazar in his excavations of the southern wall of the Temple Mount. The first word translates as “to the place” and the second as “of trumpeting” or “of blasting” or “of blowing.” *(Andrey Zeigarnik / wikipedia)*

What exactly is the mitzvah of the shofar – the hearing of it being blown or the blowing of it? The written source (Numbers 29:1) of the mitzvah is relatively vague, so the issue was debated by scholars. The verse simply says, “a day of sounding shall be for you.” But, in his Shulchan Aruch, Rabbi Yosef Karo (1488-1575) rules that we make the blessing “to listen to the sound of the shofar” and not “on the blowing of the shofar,” so subsequent halachic (relating to Jewish law) authorities have followed this ruling.

What does this mean for a person who has trouble hearing? In this age of hearing aids and cochlear implants, does one fulfil the mitzvah if one uses a hearing device?

As with many other issues dealing with the interpretation of halachah in modern times, there is a difference of opinion regarding electronic hearing aids. Anyone who is not completely deaf is obligated to hear the shofar, according to all opinions. Rabbi Yehuda Finchas, a worldwide expert, lecturer and author of Medical Halacha, opines that anyone who wears electronic hearing aids should ideally stand near the person blowing shofar and remove the aids when the shofar is sounded. However, according to Hacham Ovadia, if one cannot hear the shofar without such a device, one should wear them and fulfil the mitzvah.

A common custom is to start blowing shofar daily at the time of the morning service in the Hebrew month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar is blown at the time of the Torah reading service. Technically, this happens after the Torah and Haftorah have been read, but before the Torah is returned to the ark. On Yom Kippur, the shofar is blown after the final prayer service of Yom Kippur, Neilah.

Whether a person will hear the shofar being blown on Shabbat depends on the individual’s synagogue affiliation. In the Orthodox and Conservative movements, the shofar is not blown on Shabbat. It is blown, however, in Reform congregations.

Originally, the sages worried that, if shofar blowing was permitted on Shabbat, people might be tempted to violate Shabbat law by carrying a shofar. Rather than risk such a situation, they prohibited any shofar blowing on Shabbat. But, even in Jerusalem, where the shofar would have been blown when the Temple stood, and which has an eruv (a symbolic enclosure within whose borders carrying is permitted) around it, the shofar is not blown in Orthodox and Conservative synagogues.

During the Rosh Hashanah musaf (additional) service, there are three additional sections read: Malchiyot (Kingship), Zichronot (Remembrance) and Shofarot. The Shofarot section provides readers with verses from Exodus and Numbers, Psalms and the Prophets, in which the shofar is mentioned.

Have a meaningful holiday and a happy new year.

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

A new year, a new you?

If we want to improve our character traits, we need look no further than the latest issue we have in relationships. Do we get angry easily? Or impatient? (photo of universe.roboflow.com)

The Jewish New Year, 5786, is upon us. How can we be better? Life is always giving us opportunities to learn and to grow, and I believe one of the secrets to life-long learning about how to improve ourselves is to “be aware.”

Self-awareness or being mindful is a habit that is nurtured and practised every day. However, it isn’t about sitting quietly when we meditate, although certainly that is one of the ways we train our mind to observe and to be aware. Self-awareness is a process where we listen to our inner voice as well as listening to messages (whether we like them or not) from friends and family.

Paying attention to our reactions when we see someone who is less fortunate is a good place to start to look at our behaviours and character traits. Are you called to be generous or judgmental? Do you react with humility or arrogance when someone cuts in front of you when you are in line at the grocery store? Are you proud of how you respond, or do you think you could do better? Feelings of being unsettled when we leave a conversation may be a hint there is work to do on our inner self.

Awareness starts by watching our day-to-day actions and decisions, especially those where we find ourselves out of sync with friends, family and/or our “Higher Self.” Even those of us who may not have a direct or active connection to a Higher Self are connected to something – we all have a soul. According to the Torah (Genesis 1:27), we are made in the “image of G-d,” and thus we have the capacity to create relationships, show kindness and make the world a better place through being charitable.

If we want to improve our character traits, where do we look? Alan Morinis, author of Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar and the forthcoming book The Shabbat Effect, says we need look no further than the latest issue we have in relationships. Do we get angry easily? Or impatient? How is your generosity muscle working? These are character traits that, when out of balance, may be on the spiritual curriculum we have to work on in our lives.

Mussar teaches us to balance our character traits, not eliminate them. If patience (savlanut) is on your spiritual curriculum, the challenge is to watch for opportunities where you can practise “bearing the burden.” Once you identify a trait you want to work on, lo and behold, there are opportunities everywhere to do so.

A new year is an opportunity to take stock of how we are in this world, and how we can be better. It is also a time to be grateful for all our blessings. Sometimes our blessings may not be wrapped in a silver bow, the silver lining yet to be found. There is the concept of win/win – similarly, if one person loses, so too does the other person.

Use this time of year to make a list of where you might improve your everyday interactions, remind yourself of what you are grateful for. Take a moment to journal how you want to improve. Being a kind and generous friend only makes the world a better place. G-d knows we could all use more kindness.

Shelley Karrel is a registered clinical counselor in British Columbia and can be reached at [email protected].

Rosh Hashanah 5786 cartoon

What’s old is new again

“At a time when we are all wishing each other a Happy New Year we may well pause to consider what we mean by happiness and what we shall do to attain it. There is one thing that holds true of all of us: there is nothing that we think so much about, care so much for, aim so much at, as somehow to be happy. Yet happiness remains one of the most elusive objects in the world, and even when we stop chasing it long enough to think about it, we find ourselves confused as to what we mean by being happy, anyway.”

“Let us talk friendly with ourselves as we face the New Year,” continues Rabbi Samuel Cass, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Israel from 1933 to 1941, writing in the Jewish Western Bulletin’s Sept. 26, 1935, Rosh Hashanah edition. “What is it that we’re trying to overcome? Why does that call of renewal of vitality come as a refreshing sound to our ears?”

Cass contends that “many of us” in that day and age were in a “state of boredom,” despite the “many avenues of excitement that modern civilization has to offer to us for the enjoyment of our leisure hours.” Hours that “ancient man” – who, “when he did not toil, he slept” – did not have.

“Modern man, thanks to a machine civilization with its labor-saving device, enjoys a greater amount of leisure than man had ever enjoyed before, aside from the enforced leisure of unemployment. Yet our leisure hours are the most boring we enjoy. Just an endless round of movies, cards, games.”

Cass goes on to recount a display at the World’s Fair a couple of summers earlier: “the electric marvel of our age, Captain Televox, the mechanical man. This electrical mechanism, when addressed in the proper pitch, gives correct information, and executes various commands. It can start a vacuum cleaner, turn on the electric lights, sets the radio at the proper station.”

The engineer who created “Mr. Televox” predicted “the day when housewives will be able to be away from the house all day and manage the household duties in absentia, by merely calling up the mechanical man and giving it orders.”

Cass laments that life in the 1930s was “reduced to a mechanical existence” with alarm clocks, radios, cars – even newspapers! “Our music comes from the radio, our dramatic entertainment from the motion picture, our philosophy from newspapers,” he writes.

His solution for happiness?

“Find an ideal somewhere and let it life [sic] you above the mechanics of living, let it give you true freedom and stir within you new fountains of personality. We need not seek very far for it. We are living in a world teething with problems, teething with causes that demand to be taken up!”

He asks readers to “embrace some great human ideal in the New Year, and in it experience the blessedness of a Happy New Year.”

This Rosh Hashanah message – and most of those throughout the JWB/Jewish Independent’s 95-year history – hold up remarkably to the test of time. The language differs, of course, but the problems are variants on sadly consistent themes: war, economics, technology, assimilation, antisemitism, etc. And the “solutions” are also relatively consistent over the years: the need for Jewish education, a renewed embrace of Judaism’s ideals, unity, engagement, financial and physical support of community institutions, self-reflection. This year’s missive contains some of these same ideas.

In addition to holiday-related articles and editorials, Rosh Hashanah papers over the years have featured local and Israel year roundups, games and puzzles for kids, crosswords, recipes, reflective pieces, and more. The front covers generally gave some indication that the New Year’s issue would be special in some way – another tradition we continue to uphold.

ישראל ממשיכה לדעוך ונתניהו ממשיך לחגוג

כאשר גרתי בישראל צפיתי שהמדינה תלך למקומות לא נכונים והיא תעמוד מול סכנות הולכות וגוברות מכל הכיוונים. אחד מחברי הטובים טען אז שאני רואה שחורות, מגזים בפסימיות שלי ונבואותי הרעות לא יתגשמו. לאורך השנים האחרונות החבר שינה את דעתו לגבי נבואותי מקצה לקצה. ועכשיו הוא טוען שהמציאות הקשה בה ישראל נמצאת, היא הרבה יותר קשה ממה שחזיתי ולכן נבואותי היו אופטימיות מידי

אני יכול להבין את אלה שרוצים להיות אופטימיים, לראות את האור, לשמוח ולעסוק בדברים חיוביים. אך אסור לשכוח שמי שמתעלם מהמציאות הקשה ביותר בה ישראל נמצאת כיום, מאפשר לראש הממשלה המושחת, בנימין נתניהו, להמשיך בדרכו הגרועה תוך חיסול הדמוקרטיה. ההיסטוריה מלמדת אותנו שמנהיגים רעים הולכים ותופסים תאוצה כאשר אין כח גדול שעומד מולם ועוצר אותם. אזרחים שמעדיפים לעסוק בחיי היום יום ולהתעלם ממה שקורה בישראל, יתעוררו יום אחד ויראו שהדמוקרטיה נמוגה לחלוטין, שזכויותיהם נעלמו ואין להם יותר זכות בחירה. ישראל בשליטת נתניהו צועדת לכיוון המסוכן הזה במלוא העוצמה. כי כידוע נתניהו חושב רק על נתניהו ולא אכפת לו מאחרים, בהם המשפחות השכולות, משפחות החטופים, תושבי ישובי הספר ואחרים

כל עוד לא יתאגדו כל כוחות האופוזיציה בניסיון רציני להפיל את ממשלת נתניהו המסוכנת, כל עוד לא יצאו לרחובות מיליוני אזרחים להפגין נגדה ונגד המדיניות שלה, הרכבת שצועדת אל התהום האסוני הזה לא תיעצר. על תושבי ישראל לנקוט בכל הצעדים האפשריים לעצור את נתניהו וממשלתו הרעה ולמנות תחתם ממשלה שפוייה שתדאג לישראל ולא לעצמה. המלחמה בעזה מיותרת, עולה במחיר רב של חיילים שנופלים, החטופים לא משוחררים וגם פלסטינים רבים נהרגים ללא סיבה מוצדקת. לאור זאת, ישראל הפכה כיום להיות אחת המדינות המנודות והשנואות בעולם. ולא פלא שהאנטישימיות מרימה ראש, וישראלים ויהודים נפגעים כל הזמן פיזית מאלה ששונאים אותם. האנטישמיות צפויה להחמיר כל עוד צה”ל ממשיך לפעול בעזה ולפגוע ולהרוג אזרחים מקומיים שם

את הישראלים המתנגדים לנתניהו אפשר לחלק לשלוש קבוצות: הקבוצה הראשונה כוללת את אלה שיעשו כל מאמץ להילחם בו, להביא לפיטוריו ובעצם פיטורי כל הממשלה הנוראית הזו. הקבוצה השנייה כוללת את אלה שמבינים שישראל תמשיך להידרדר לתהומות עמוקים עוד יותר. ועל כן מבחינתם הפתרון היחידי האפשרי הוא לעזוב את המדינה. הקבוצה השלישית כוללת את החלשים והתבוסתנים המציינים כי אין מה לעשות אלה לקבל את גזרות נתניהו כמו שהן, ולקוות לטוב

בתור אחד שנולד וגדל בישראל עצוב לי לראות את תהליך הנסיגה הגדולה של המדינה וההידרדרות הבלתי נתפסת הזו. יש שטוענים שכל הרע החל מהשבעה באוקטובר, אך אני חושב שזה התחיל הרבה שנים קודם לכן. בחודשים האחרונים, חברו הטוב של נתניהו במשך שנים, הסופר איל מגד, התנתק ממנו והחל לבקר אותו בחריפות. מגד הוא דוגמא טובה לחברים ומעריצים מושבעים של נתניהו ומשפחתו, שיום אחד התעוררו והבינו שהוא אסון למדינה. אני כבר אמרתי זאת בסוף שנות השמונים. נתניהו תמיד היה נתניהו: נוכל, שקרן פתולוגי, אינטרסנט ומגלומן. טועה מגד ה מציין כי הוא הבחין בתכונותיו השליליות של נתניהו רק אחרי השבעה באוקטובר. מגד היה עד אז פשוט עיוור שהעריץ את נתניהו

אם לא יקומו הישראלים ברובם ויהפכו לאקטיביים כדי להעיף את שלטונו של נתניהו, ישראל תלך לאבדון. אם לא תקום ממשלה חדשה ושפויה בקרוב זה יהיה אסון. הנזק שנתניהו גורם כל יום הוא כבד מנשוא.

Campaign launch nears

Comedian Elon Gold will perform a full show of comedy at the launch of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign on Sept. 11. (photo by Limor Garfinkle)

Comedian Elon Gold helps the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver launch its annual fundraising campaign on Sept. 11.

The last time the Jewish Independent spoke with Gold, in 2019, he was driving from his home in Los Angeles to Las Vegas, with his family, for a Jewish National Fund event. This time, he had returned home from New York, where he performed gigs all over the East Coast, from DC to Jersey to the Catskills.

It’s a tradition for Gold and his family – wife Sasha and their four children – to spend summers in New York, though, this year, his oldest son, 24, has a job, so had to stay in Los Angeles.

“We all have really fun summers together because both of our families are from New York,” said Gold. All their oldest friends are also in New York, he added. “So, it’s like a summer of recharging, with our roots and our family and all that.”

Amid performing at various venues, working on a film, writing a TV series and creating a new comedy special, among other things, Gold gets great joy from doing shows for Jewish organizations.

“My motto is, ‘everything matters and nothing matters.’ That’s how you should look at life, and that’s how you should look at gigs,” he told the Independent.

The nothing matters isn’t about being “lackadaisical and lazy and dismissive,” he said, but more about reducing the stress level.

“It doesn’t really matter, it’s just a gig. If it doesn’t go well, I’ll have another one tomorrow, whatever, it’s fine. It takes the pressure off,” said Gold. “But everything matters is also a big part of it, because everything does matter, and every gig, to me, is important.

“It’s important for myriad reasons. The whole community is getting together and to let them down would be very upsetting, not just to them, but to me,” he said. “I always call these nights of community, unity and comedy. So, it does matter that you not just do well, but I try to hit it out of the park every time.”

photo - Elon Gold performs in Vancouver Sept. 11 — Elon Gold performs in Vancouver Sept. 11. *(photo by Limor Garfinkle)*

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel, community gatherings like the Federation’s campaign launch, are especially important, said Gold.

“We need these nights more than ever before,” he said. “We need these nights to forget that the world hates us, which also is perception, not reality…. The world doesn’t really hate us – there’s far too many people who do hate us, but the world as a whole?

“I was talking to my friend in Israel – I’m writing a TV series in Israel that we’re going to film there, hopefully in the spring – and he was saying he just went to Greece. All you see on social media is they hate the Israelis, [but] everyone we met said, ‘Oh, you’re Israeli? Wow, welcome,’ and gave us hugs.”

That being said, Gold acknowledged we’re living in a frightening time and antisemitism is prevalent.

“But it’s not omnipresent, it’s not everywhere,” he said. “It’s groups of people. There have always been groups of people who hate us, and I always say to Jews, don’t take it so personally. Usually, those groups hate other groups. It’s not just us that people hate. Racism doesn’t start and end with us, but, for some reason, we seem to be the favourite scapegoat of humanity and a lot of it is on us. And, again, I’m not dismissing antisemitism – it is so real.”

Referencing the Jewish man in Montreal who was beaten in front of his children, calling it “disgusting,” Gold said, “It’s really a constant, whether it’s Colorado or DC or wherever you look, there’s another attack, so that’s why we have to be strong and vigilant and stay safe, but also we can’t live our life through the prism of everybody hates us and everything’s terrible. The truth is, a lot of people have always hated us, and whether it’s, ‘they are drinking the blood of Christian children’ to ‘they’re starving Palestinian children,’ they’re blood libels. This is the latest iteration of a blood libel that gives the haters an excuse to hate.”

Gold pointed to inaccurate reporting by the media, including the New York Times’s use on its cover of a photo of a sick, emaciated child in Gaza, wrongly claiming the child was starving.

“It turns out it’s a genetic disease that he has,” said Gold, “and so many of the pictures have been falsified and misrepresented as starvation, when they are children with diseases, which is tragic in its own right, but to blame Israel … and to put that on the cover of the New York Times, that incites and emboldens the haters to hate us and attack us even more. So, it’s all based on lies. The only truth is that there is a war that Israel didn’t start or want and must fight to the end or there’ll be Oct. 7 every day until the last Jew standing. So, we shouldn’t apologize for defending ourselves ever again – but we do have to clarify all the mistruths out there that are representing the Jewish state, and thereby the Jewish people, in the worst light.”

After Oct. 7, Gold needed to step back from work. “For the first few weeks, I found no humour, I was in a state of shock and traumatized, like everybody,” he said. “I actually canceled gigs, I couldn’t do them.”

But one gig he wasn’t allowed to cancel was emceeing a Jewish Federation of Los Angeles event that happened in the shadow of Oct. 7.

“Steven Singer from the Federation in LA said, ‘No, no, we’re insisting that you do it, and that you do open with 10 minutes of comedy in a respectful way. We really need this and … even though we’re still mourning, we have to start healing…. It was the first time I went back on stage, almost a month in,” said Gold.

The terror attacks and the hostages are continually on his mind, he said, but he must pull himself back from those thoughts.

Fortunate to have had an “average to normal childhood,” with parents who “are amazing and brought us up in a loving, happy house … my comedy doesn’t come from pain,” he said. “And now, I’m in more pain emotionally than I’ve ever been with everything going on, but I push it away because, if I delve in too much for too long, I won’t be able to come out of it, I won’t be able to be the funny guy.

“And it’s not just my responsibility,” he said. “In life, I’m fulfilling my purpose by being light and fun and funny, and bringing that to other people, so I can’t get too into it because my rage for what happened and what’s happening and how the world is denying or excusing Oct. 7, the way the world’s demanding the end to the existence of our ancestral homeland – it’s so infuriating and so depressing. If I focus and harp on it too much, I won’t be able to deliver the goods.”

And delivering the goods is something he is compelled to do, by his very nature. When COVID-19 hit and the forecast was that it would last only a few weeks, Gold said his first thought was that he’d catch up on every TV streaming service, binge on shows he’d never been able to watch with four kids and a job that is pretty much 24/7. But, by Day 2 of the pandemic, he was doing a daily show on Instagram Live called My Funny Quarantine.

“Every day at 6:13, which is the number of mitzvahs in the Torah, I would do an 18-minute show, which is also, again, significant, 18 is chai [life],” he said. Most of Gold’s Instagram followers are Jewish, so the show had a lot of Jewish themes, though the guests were wide-ranging, including comedians from Jim Gaffigan to Bill Burr to Tiffany Haddish, Jay Leno and Michael Serra.

Gold’s friend, screenwriter and director Jeremy Garelick, loved My Funny Quarantine and suggested Gold do a Jewish dating show every Saturday night.

The Bachor (bachor is Hebrew for young man, guy) ran for a couple of years. “I made two shidduchim [matches],” said Gold.

“It was a way for people to connect, and no one was doing anything, no one could go anywhere, and I had so many people watching live,” he said.

Gold also did Zoom stand-up shows and outdoor performances during the pandemic. More recently, he worked on the film The Badchan, spending a month in Israel for it. He’s been to Israel four times in the last two years, he said, doing shows.

“Badchan is like a wedding jester,” Gold explained. The film was written by Shuli Rand and Gidi Dar, who did the 2004 film Ushpizin (Guests) together.

“To me, every decade has a seminal cultural Jewish film, like Yentl or Fiddler or The Chosen or their Ushpizin,” said Gold. “And I think this is going to be that film of this decade. It’s going to come out in November, hopefully.”

Gold is currently developing a new hour-long comedy special, which will come out sometime near the end of next year perhaps.

“It’s really exciting,” said Gold, “because Chris Rock, one of my comedy mentors, he said every special should be like a thesis and I have the thesis for this one, and I already have been closing for 20 minutes with this thesis. And so, now I’m just building it out, and I think it’s going to be very fun and relatable, because I’m getting more personal in my comedy.”

He said, “The more you reveal, the more they relate.”

“Little arguments with the wife, little stories that happen, when you share them, I have not just men but women coming over to me going, oh my God, are you in my house? How do you know this happens? I’m like, because it happens to me…. The comedian’s job is to relate and connect, to have this shared experience where you’re taking observations about human behaviour … and laughing about it.”

As for Gold’s performance here on Sept. 11, it represents more than just a good many laughs.

“I think everyone should come out,” he said. “I think we all need nights like this event, and supporting your local community and your local Federation, that’s one of the best ways to help us all get through these tough, insane times where the world feels upside down. I’ll try to turn the world right side up for even just a little bit, even just for one night.”

For tickets ($36) to Gold’s show on Sept. 11, go to jewishvancouver.com/faco25.

The Oct. 7 attack on Holit

Adam Korbin, regional president, Metro Vancouver, for BGU Canada, left, with Jacqui and Yaron Vital, who visited Vancouver last month. On July 21, they shared the story of the murder of their daughter, Adi Vital-Kaploun, by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. (photo from BGU BC & Alberta)

One family’s tragic experiences during the Oct. 7 terror attacks were shared in an intimate, emotional gathering in a private Vancouver home recently.

Yaron and Jacqui Vital shared the story of the murder of their daughter Adi Vital-Kaploun. Jacqui, an Ottawa native who has lived in Israel for 50 years, and her husband, Yaron, who survived the invasion of Kibbutz Holit, told their stories July 21.

The evening was convened by Ben-Gurion University Canada. Adi studied at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at BGU’s Sde Boker campus and the university has set up a special scholarship fund in her memory.

For the Simchat Torah holiday in 2023, Yaron Vital joined daughter Adi and her partner, Adani, and their two kids, 4-year-old Negev and 4-month-old Eshel, at their home on Kibbutz Holit. They were joined by another daughter, Ayala, and her family, who live in another kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope area. For the first time since the COVID pandemic, Jacqui was visiting family in Ottawa and watched the confusing news from afar, with mounting alarm.

“We had a nice day on Friday,” Yaron recalled. “Adani and Adi made a nice supper, we played with the kids a little bit and then Ayala left and went back to the kibbutz.”

Because Adi was nursing the baby and would be up in the night, she suggested her father sleep in the nearby guest house.

“It’s an apartment that nobody uses most of the year and it doesn’t seem in such good shape, but it’s a place to sleep,” he said. “In the end, this apartment saved my life.”

At 6:29 a.m., he woke up to “a noise like thunder” and a changed world.

The sky was so bright from rockets that his eyes were seared and he could see the lights for days when he shut his eyes.

Yaron returned to the safe room in the guest house and called Adi, who told him to stay where he was. Adani had left the kibbutz earlier and, when the attacks began, Adi texted him not to return.

Yaron was in the army for 24 years, and served in a special unit in charge of the security along that very border. While the density of rockets overhead was unprecedented, he soon realized how different the scenario was from anything he, or the country, had seen before. Looking out a window, he saw terrorists running throughout the kibbutz. He heard screaming and shooting. From experience, he expected the military to respond almost instantaneously. He had no idea that there were more than 3,000 terrorists already in the country and that Holit was far from the only kibbutz under attack.

The safe room door in the guest house did not have a lock – they are created to protect from rockets and missiles, not from on-the-ground terrorist invasions – and so Yaron rigged up a rope to create a makeshift lock.

The rampaging terrorists skipped the guest house and Yaron had no idea why. Later, in piecing together some of the disparate threads from the day, it emerged that the invaders had detailed maps of the various kibbutzim, clearly based on intelligence from Gazans who had worked at or visited the border-adjacent communities – the maps indicated who lived where, which homes had dogs, where jewelry was kept. Presumably, the terrorists knew the guest house was usually vacant and so didn’t waste their time kicking in the door.

At 12:30 p.m. – six hours after the horrors began – Yaron received a text message from Adi.

“They’re breaking into my house,” she wrote.

“That was the last time she sent me a message,” Yaron said. “I tried to call her back after 10 minutes. She didn’t answer. I heard some shooting from her direction.”

He waited in silence all afternoon. After 11 hours, Yaron heard people in the house. He wouldn’t open the door, knowing it could be a trap. They hollered to see if anyone was in the building.

“I didn’t answer until they came close to the door of the safe room,” he recalled. “They said, ‘Is somebody inside? Is somebody here?’ It seemed like a Hebrew accent. I decided I couldn’t take it anymore, to tell you the truth, so I decided I’m going to answer them.”

Once he was freed, he went with the soldiers to Adi’s house across the street.

“They tried to open the door and it was locked, so I had a feeling maybe there was a chance,” he said. “The commander kicked the door, they jumped inside, disappeared for a few seconds and then they came to me and said, ‘Listen, we saw a dead body in the kitchen.’ When they said that, I lost my … I almost fell down. But, they said right away, ‘Don’t worry, it’s a man.’”

It was evident almost immediately that the body was that of a terrorist. There was no sign of the kids and, while the safe room was a shamble, there was no sign of Adi either. There were hundreds of bullet casings on the floor of the living room.

“I called Adani and I told him that there is nobody in the house. Don’t worry, she’s hiding someplace,” he recalled Adani telling him.

Dead dogs were scattered throughout the kibbutz. Doors to most of the houses were open and Yaron could see bodies inside. Late in the day, he got in his severely damaged car and began to drive home to Jerusalem. On the way, he received news that his grandchildren were safe and comparatively healthy.

Al Jazeera was on site with the terrorists and had footage of the two boys being abducted. Negev had been shot in the foot and a terrorist was bandaging his wound while another terrorist had Eshel on his shoulders and rocked him in a carriage.

In a scene broadcast on Anderson Cooper’s CNN program on Monday, Oct. 9, the terrorists set the boys free right around the Gaza border. The footage showed Negev and Eshel returning with a woman toward the kibbutz. The Vitals believe this was a propaganda move to show the humanity of the terrorists, who were depicted as kindly releasing a mother and her (presumed) children. Around midnight, Adani was reunited with his sons.

After four days battling the terrorists, Holit was finally secured and a special unit came to the kibbutz and started to clear the bodies.

“One of the soldiers bent down and suddenly saw a hand sticking out from under the sofa,” Yaron said. They took a picture of the hand with a wedding ring and that is how the family learned that Adi had not been kidnapped but killed.

It would turn out that she had courageously fended off the terrorists for some time with the gun Adani had in the house – killing one of the terrorists, the body the soldiers discovered in the home. Eventually, though, she was murdered in front of her children. The kids were taken by the terrorists and handed over to a neighbour, who was the woman pictured on CNN.

Jacqui spoke of the unbearable anxiety of not knowing the fate of her daughter.

“I only had three days of not knowing where she was and I couldn’t touch my neck because I was so tense just thinking about what they might be doing to her,” she said. “And there are still 50 families that can’t touch their neck.”

Of their late daughter, Jacqui said: “We know where she is, she’s in a safe place.”

This sentiment has caused some controversy in Israel. On the 10th day after Oct. 7, Adani was on TV saying he was relieved that Adi had been murdered and not kidnapped because, he assumed, death was the preferable alternative. At the time, probably no one imagined that dozens of hostages would still be in captivity in Gaza almost 700 days later.

According to David Berson, executive director of Ben-Gurion University Canada, British Columbia and Alberta, 118 people from the Ben-Gurion University community have been killed on or since Oct. 7, most of them during the 10/7 terror attacks and others in the ensuing war. These include faculty, students and staff.

Tolerating intolerance

It was mayhem outside the BC Provincial Court, near Main and Hastings, Aug. 20, as anti-Israel protesters screamed, chanted and shouted into megaphones to drown out the words of Dallas Brodie, member of the BC Legislature for Vancouver-Quilchena and leader of the upstart OneBC party.

Brodie attempted a media conference outside the courthouse before filing a “private prosecution” against Charlotte Kates, the Vancouver woman who is international coordinator for Samidoun, a group the government of Canada has designated a terrorist entity.

Kates was arrested by Vancouver police in April 2024 under suspicion of public incitement of hatred and wilful promotion of hatred, a criminal offence in Canada, after a public rally where she led a crowd in a chant of “Long live Oct. 7,” called the Hamas attack “heroic and brave” and described designated terrorists as “heroes.”

She was released on condition that she refrain from participating in any protest activities. Those conditions expired Oct. 8, 2024, when the BC Prosecution Service and the assistant deputy attorney general had not approved the charges recommended by police. It was a week later that her organization, Samidoun, was officially designated as a terrorist entity by the government of Canada.

Brodie’s prosecution – an obscure legal move similar to a citizen’s arrest – is unlikely to have a direct impact on the case, though it might refocus the spotlight on the failure of authorities to follow through on a criminal prosecution.

In a statement, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs noted that a report to Crown counsel has been sitting on the desks of relevant officials for more than a year.

“Every day they do not press charges,” said CIJA’s Pacific region vice-president Nico Slobinsky in a statement, “she acts with increasing impunity, including by flying to Iran to receive a ‘human rights’ award from its government and attending the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon. Our legal system must send a clear message: antisemitism and hate have no place in British Columbia or anywhere else in Canada. Charges must be pressed without delay.”

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, observed that more than two-thirds of the BC Jewish community have reported experiencing an antisemitic hate incident.

“Individuals and organizations like Charlotte Kates and Samidoun have exacerbated this dramatic wave of antisemitism, which is why our community has been calling for accountability since her despicable remarks on April 26, 2024, on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery,” Shanken said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

We wrote in this space recently about an incident at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver that clearly violated existing laws banning political protests at locations where official school functions are taking place. Police did not recommend charges in that instance.

The inner workings of the Crown prosecutors’ office and other components of the judicial process are not entirely transparent, the sensitivity of the issues they address necessitating a degree of privacy. However, some observers have suggested that there is a systemic problem up the ladder of the process. Police often do not pursue instances of apparent offences because they have seen prosecutors decline to charge. Prosecutors are said to hesitate to lay charges because they have seen courts throw out cases they presented.

There has been a great deal of hand-wringing about a massive spike in antisemitism, including violent incidents. There are many remediative and preventive opportunities that do not involve criminal charges – public awareness campaigns and restorative justice and diversion programs among them. But, at some point, the laws on the books to prevent the spreading of hatred and incitement to violence must be tested. If they do not stand up in court, then we as a society need a dialogue about what we will tolerate.

We may find that we need new laws that courts will uphold, so that Crown prosecutors will be empowered to lay charges, so that police will know that enforcement is not a waste of energy, and so that Canadians will recognize what is acceptable and what is not in our country.

What is not tolerable is doing nothing.

Almost 700 days of waiting

Almost every Sunday since the first days after Oct. 7, Daphna Kedem has led a vigil for the hostages. People have gathered in solidarity and to hear from a diverse array of speakers, first outside the Vancouver Art Gallery and now at Vancouver City Hall. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Almost 700 days have passed since the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, and the holding of Israeli hostages in the tunnels of Gaza.

In Vancouver, as in cities worldwide, Jews and their allies gather frequently to mourn the lost, stand in solidarity with Israelis and remind the families whose loved ones are still in captivity that there are people across the planet who hold them in their thoughts.

Almost every Sunday since the first days after Oct. 7, Daphna Kedem has led a vigil for the hostages – first outside the Vancouver Art Gallery and now at Vancouver City Hall. Missing only a few weeks due to Jewish or statutory holidays or, like this month, because police security was stretched thin with the Pride Parade, a stalwart group gathers at 12th and Cambie in solidarity and to hear from a diverse array of speakers.

Another regular gathering also takes place, with the group Vancouver Stands With Israel organizing marches across the Burrard Street Bridge and back, waving Canadian and Israeli flags. This past Sunday, scores of participants were greeted with a few hostile catcalls, an exponentially larger number of supportive messages, and a great deal of nonchalance and curiosity. Joining the parade were members of the Persian- and Indian-Canadian communities, carrying their respective flags.

photo - Jews and allies assemble near Burrard Street Bridge in a march last Sunday, Aug. 24 — Jews and allies assemble near Burrard Street Bridge in a march last Sunday, Aug. 24. *(photo by Pat Johnson)*

Over the summer, the group Vancouver Friends of Standing Together began holding weekly vigils, also at Vancouver City Hall. (See jewishindependent.ca/encouraging-another-way.)

The competing events reflect divisions in the community. At a rally earlier this month, Kedem acknowledged that she has received “a lot of backlash” from people who believe she and some of her speakers are “too political.” Kedem calls for an immediate end to the war, which she views as the most likely path to get the remaining live hostages home safely.

“If this is too political, then I’m probably very political,” she said.

Over the course of almost two years, the Sunday rallies organized by Kedem have featured diverse voices, both hawkish and dovish, with many speakers expressing personal reflections that cannot be pegged on a political spectrum. Christian pastors have spoken and sung. First Nations representatives have taken part. Rabbis are usually in attendance, including Rabbi Philip Bregman, who, most weeks, leads the group in national anthems.

Kedem begins the events by reading excerpts from the previous evening’s rallies in Tel Aviv, usually voices of family members of those held hostage.

Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi of Temple Sholom and a fellow of the Rabbinic Leadership Institute of Shalom Hartman Institute, spoke this past Sunday of the significance of the month of Elul, which began the night before.

“It’s the time that we as a people and as individuals begin our journey of self-reflection and soul-searching as we prepare for the new year,” she said. “It is a month that whispers to us: return, reflect, renew.”

photo - Rabbi Carey Brown speaks at the Aug. 24 vigil for the hostages, which took place at Vancouver City Hall — Rabbi Carey Brown speaks at the Aug. 24 vigil for the hostages, which took place at Vancouver City Hall. (photo by Pat Johnson)

When she is asked how to live more Jewishly, Brown suggests people let the Jewish calendar guide them.

“It’s a map,” she said. “It’s a heartbeat. It’s the soul’s clock. We measure time in many sacred ways. In Judaism, we count days, months, years … a reminder of the holiness in time, and even our grief and our longing are measured in time. Today is Day 688 … of the captivity of still 50 hostages, living and dead. We count because we care. We count because they matter. We count because time is sacred and their time has been stolen. Think of all the time that has passed: 688 days of missed holidays, 688 days without their families, 688 days of fear, torment and waiting. And now, here we are again, standing on the threshold of Elul, preparing once more for Rosh Hashanah, for Yom Kippur. This time, time feels different. It feels heavy.”

Toby Rubin, local chapter president of Canadian Hadassah-WIZO, urged attendees to stand firm until all the hostages are returned.

“We ask that all of you continue to support, to advocate, to push and to ask your allies and your political leaders to continue to do what they need to do to get every one of those 50 home,” she said. “And, again, whether they’re dead or alive, we want them back.”

Earlier in August, on Tu b’Av, community activist and leader David Berson blew the shofar and reflected on the date, which is a commemoration of love and unity.

“The shofar isn’t only a High Holiday symbol, it’s also a biblical emblem of revelation and covenant,” he said. “As I blow the shofar today, let this be a clarion call to rebuilding the wholeness of our people, of listening and understanding, of hearing what is troubling the other and taking that into consideration, of opening our hearts and being curious about what is hurting. We have all been through so much since Oct. 7 and, while we cannot put the genie back in the bottle, we must stand together and embrace that which does bind us in an eternal bond of community, of belonging and embracing our humanity and the humanity of others.”

That same day featured Karen James, a past board chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and current chair of the local partnership council for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. She is also on the board of governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

James reflected on her experiences as a competitive swimmer, including participating in the Maccabiah Games in Jerusalem in 1965, which connected her more deeply not only to her Jewishness and to Israel, but to the branch of her family that had made its way to Palestine in the era when her grandfather settled in Canada.

She shared another personal story that affected her connection to her identity and to Israel.

In 1972, James was on Canada’s Olympic swim team. She and teammates were out celebrating after their competitions were over, watching the Canada-Russia hockey series. As they walked back to the Olympic Village in the wee hours of the morning, they saw four men with a big duffle bag. The four men clambered over the fence to get into the Olympic Village and the Canadians did likewise.

“I went to my dorm, slept for a little bit, but then was woken up to all the commotion in the village,” James recalled. She became a firsthand witness to the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Games.

“I watched the negotiations happen between [the terrorists] and the Germans and, in the evening, I saw when the Israeli team members were led out onto a bus with their hands bound and they were blindfolded,” she said. “Later that night, we’d heard that they were safe and alive, that they’d been freed. But that was wrong. They made a mistake. I don’t know how that got out there because, in fact, the Germans tried to storm the planes and the Palestinians threw grenades and shot the remaining Israeli hostages.”

James went on to describe a more intimate experience with antisemitism. In a consultation with a medical specialist, the doctor repeated the words “It could be worse” twice. On the second occasion, James asked the doctor what she meant by noting that “it could be worse.”

“And she said, ‘Look at what’s happening in Gaza,’” James recalled the doctor telling her. “It was so inappropriate to say that to me.”

Antisemitism is growing, said James. “The main thing that keeps me going is community,” she said. “All of you. All of my community.”

BGU rebuilds after much loss

Jeff Kaye, vice-president for public affairs and resource development at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, was in Vancouver earlier this month. (photo from BGU)

A couple of years ago, many Israelis were beginning to think the country’s legendary solidarity was fraying, that people were less caring, that a split between Israelis and diaspora Jews was growing and that young Israelis had lost some of the fervour of earlier generations. Oct. 7 changed everything. The chasm between Israelis and diaspora Jews evaporated, according to one Israeli who visited Vancouver recently.

“We really are in this together and we are a much stronger Jewish people, both in Israel and outside of Israel,” said Jeff Kaye, a vice-president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who spoke with the Independent Aug. 7.

Older Israelis who thought younger people took the country for granted have had their assumptions upended, he said.

“They were the TikTok generation,” Kaye characterized the stereotypes about young Israelis. “All they wanted to do was earn some money, take care of themselves. And what Oct. 7 taught us is, underneath this, we had raised a generation of young people who have purpose, who care deeply about the country, who care deeply about values and, without being told, they took responsibility.”

Kaye saw this attitude in action at the university. Administrators were struggling to come to terms with the changed reality and students themselves instantly set up a babysitting initiative, food collections and volunteer teams.

Kaye, BGU’s vice-president for public affairs and resource development, made aliyah from Scotland in 1981, then spent a decade in special needs education before joining the philanthropic sector. He spent four years as emissary to the Jewish Federation of Detroit and then more than a decade in a senior leadership position at the Jewish Agency for Israel, during which time he helped create the Fund for Victims of Terror. Before joining BGU, he served for five years as executive vice-president and director-general of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

Kaye was in Vancouver at the invitation of BGU Canada, one of about a dozen national and regional affiliates of BGU, that include chapters in Argentina, Belgium, France, South Africa, Switzerland and a global chapter for Russian speakers.

“My role is to find people throughout the world and say, this is what we do. This is who we are. This is why we do what we do,” he explained.

With a team of about 35, Kaye helps connect people with projects that meet their objectives and those of the university, whether recruiting people to serve on the board, run activities, sponsor projects, build a building or provide a scholarship.

Oct. 7 and the months since have affected the university profoundly, as they have every aspect of Israeli life. About 118 BGU students, faculty and staff were killed that day or in the war. Of BGU’s approximately 20,000 students, about one-third of them were called up for military service just as the academic year would have been starting in 2023.

“Obviously, universities couldn’t open and we were still under attack,” Kaye said. The first semester after Oct. 7 was delayed to Dec. 31.

Kaye credits the university’s president, Daniel Chamovitz, with ensuring a flexibility that allowed students to access as much education as possible around their military and other responsibilities.

In addition to the semester that began Dec. 31, another semester began a month later for soldiers who had returned in the interim. The university had multiple semesters running concurrently and, like many organizations that adopted new technologies, also offered recorded classes so students did not need to be on campus.

Because Israelis routinely start university after military service, many BGU students are not living at their parents’ homes, and may even have kids of their own. That created economic challenges for many who had lost not only class time but part-time or full-time income and saw spouses away on military duty. The university had to provide laptop computers for people whose homes were destroyed and psychological assistance for students who had witnessed or experienced horrific things.

On June 19 this year, during the war with Iran, a ballistic missile hit the university-affiliated Soroka Medical Centre, destroying a major part of the facility.

“Our labs – teaching labs, research labs, pathology labs – were all entirely destroyed,” Kaye said.

Miraculously, there were no fatalities. In an act of prescience, administrators had moved surgeries into a basement, fearing just such an attack. Kaye said the move – a day before the bombing – may have saved scores or hundreds of lives.

Another blast damaged a university gym. After the formal ceasefire, but when Iran continued sending missiles, an off-campus residence was struck, leaving 50 or more students and faculty homeless.

In Israel, a portion of property taxes are allocated to a fund to restore private property damaged or destroyed by terrorism or war. If your seven-year-old car is hit by a rocket, the fund will reimburse you the value of a seven-year-old car, Kaye said. “But if it’s a microscope that costs $800,000 and it’s 12 years old, you get money for a 12-year-old microscope,” he said. “But there’s no secondhand microscopes out there. So, you have to find the money to buy a new microscope.”

This is one of an incalculable number of examples of expenses incurred as a result of the war in this one university alone.

Kaye is grateful for donors worldwide who have stepped up to assist BGU in its time of challenge, but he noted that almost every organization in Israel faces variations on the same challenge – and diaspora communities have been called upon over the past two years to support umbrella emergency campaigns.

Amid all this, Kaye finds both optimism and hope.

What’s the difference?

“Hope is, you sit by and pray, wonder, hope that something’s good is going to happen,” he said. “Optimism is when you make it happen. I’m an optimist who is actively involved in bringing hope – and that’s incredibly easy to do in our university because we get up every day and we say, how can we make it happen?”