animals

Helping animals and people

Pets & Pickers producer Tyson Hepburn confers with Regional Animal Protection Society chief executive officer Eyal Lichtmann during the film shoot.

The Regional Animal Protection Society (RAPS) in Richmond operates a cat sanctuary, a fostering network, thrift stores and a full-service animal hospital, along with an adoption and education centre. RAPS has grown into one of Canada’s largest and most innovative nonprofit animal-serving organizations – and it will be featured in the TV show Pets & Pickers, the second season of which airs Saturdays at 5 p.m. Pacific on Animal Planet.

RAPS began in the 1980s as the Richmond Homeless Cats Society. Driven by a small team of volunteers, it housed countless feral, abandoned and surrendered cats. In 2005, the organization pivoted to become the Richmond Animal Protection Society, extending its standard of care and no-kill animal policy to all of Richmond’s animals. In 2017, it became the Regional Animal Protection Society to better reflect the geographic diversity of its patient base.

For Jewish community member Eyal Lichtmann, executive director and chief executive officer of RAPS, “pets are part of the family.”

Lichtmann joined RAPS in 2016. His resumé before RAPS included a stint as executive director of the Vancouver Hillel Foundation, where he helped raise $10 million to build the University of British Columbia’s current Hillel House. With proven capabilities in fundraising, he was asked to lead a fundraiser with RAPS, and eventually became their CEO.

Lichtmann is passionate about “taking nonprofit organizations to the next level.” At RAPS, he created a new mission and vision for the organization, centred around helping both animals and their owners. He contends that saving more animal lives can be accomplished by helping individuals overcome any financial obstacles they may encounter in caring for their pets.

Recognizing that many pet owners cannot afford quality animal care, Lichtmann has made affordability a core focus of RAPS: “we are the only clinic we know of that offers interest-free payment plans based on the person’s ability to pay,” he said. In addition to giving annual community subsidies amounting to $1 million, he said, RAPS still generates profits, directing them towards the cat sanctuary, which houses more than 500 cats at the moment.

“Everyone is entitled to have a pet as part of the family,” said Dr. Joseph Martinez, one of RAPS’s veterinary staff. Martinez has been with RAPS since Lichtmann joined in 2016. His passion lies in treating exotic animals, such as reptiles and small mammals, an area not many veterinarians are knowledgeable about.

Having grown up on a farm in the Negev Desert in Israel and being the son of a farmer from Sicily, Martinez developed a deep love for animals. He even became a vegetarian at the age of 10, despite his family’s meat-loving Italian culture. Animal care is second nature to him, he said, noting that “animal welfare started in the Bible,” and has only been enhanced by modern-day science and technology. When he moved to Vancouver 30 years ago, Martinez was drawn to RAPS by a drive to help the less fortunate – “the idea is to not leave anybody behind in terms of funding,” he said.

“Jewish values are definitely ingrained in all of us,” said Lichtmann about his staff, many of whom followed his transition from Hillel to RAPS. Lichtmann said he is “programmed” by tikkun olam and views himself as part of a “Jewish family” at RAPS – even though not all the staff are Jewish, they are growing familiar with Jewish values and culture, he said. Last year, for example, 60 staff members attended a Passover seder with the organization. Lichtmann added, “my mother is cooking for the staff all the time,” treating the team to home-made matzah ball soup, hamantashen, challah and more.

photo - Ayala Dafni is assistant manager at RAPS — Ayala Dafni is assistant manager at RAPS. (photo from RAPS)

In addition to its subsidy programs, RAPS partners with organizations such as Jewish Family Services Vancouver, Tikva Housing Society, women’s shelters, homeless shelters, and senior care facilities. Martinez said veterinarians “should be open to different cultures,” to build positive relationships with pet-owning families.

Ayala Dafni, an Israeli animal technician and assistant manager at RAPS, has been “working with animals since forever,” aspiring to be a vet since the age of 4 – “everything that was legal to keep as a pet, I had growing up.” After getting her bachelor in animal science at Hebrew University, she went on to study animal assistant therapy, and manage a chain of pet stores in Israel.

Dafni is driven by “mitzvot,” she said, especially helping the community and donating to certain causes. At RAPS, she said, this translates to being compassionate and committed to understanding different perspectives. Dafni emphasized that “empathy is most important in this job” and, despite years of experience in the veterinary field, she still finds herself emotionally invested in difficult cases.

Lichtmann attributed RAPS’s corporate culture as part of the reason that Pets & Pickers was attracted to feature them. The unscripted series follows animals, their owners and the veterinarians who care for them.

To learn more about RAPS, visit rapsbc.com and tune into Season 2 of Pets & Pickers, which is also on Animal Planet in the United States. Season 1 can be streamed on Crave.

Alisa Bressler is a fourth-year student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. She is an avid reader and writer, and the online director of the arts and culture publication MUSE Magazine. Bressler is a member of the Vancouver Jewish community, and the inaugural Baila Lazarus Jewish Journalism Intern.

Special visitors at Louis Brier

Loni the Percheron Horse comes in the entrance of the Louis Brier Home and Hospital. (photo from Louis Brier)

Loni the Percheron Horse and his side kick Beau the Shitzu visited the Louis Brier Home and Hospital the afternoon of Sept. 7. This was the third (and last) time this year that the pair visited the home.

photo - Loni the Percheron Horse's sidekick Beau the Shitzu at the Louis Brier — Loni the Percheron Horse’s sidekick Beau the Shitzu at the Louis Brier. *(photo from the Louis Brier)*

The program is designed to give residents the opportunity to have a personal experience with one of these beautiful, gentle giants – and not-so-giants – in the comfort of their own home. Horses evoke a sense of peace and tranquility, as do dogs. It is no secret that visiting with animals is therapeutic.

photo - Loni the Percheron Horse visit with residents of the Louis Brier — Loni the Percheron Horse visit with residents of the Louis Brier. *(photos from Louis Brier)*

Wolf & lamb find peace

In her new book, Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan Kaplan explores lessons for humans from the animal world.

Good things come in small packages. A thin volume by Vancouver rabbi, philosopher and academic Laura Duhan Kaplan packs ancient and modern wisdom into a delightful parcel.

Duhan Kaplan is director of inter-religious studies and professor of Jewish studies at Vancouver School of Theology, professor emerita of philosophy at University of North Carolina at Charlotte and rabbi emerita of Vancouver’s Or Shalom Synagogue. Her book Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals was released this year. To her resumé, you might add a sort of Dr. Doolittle role, as she returns frequently to her ability to “talk” to the animals.

“I did a little research into communication,” she writes. “Observe a creature’s form of life, discern its form of communication.… I didn’t look specifically for sound, gesture or expressions of feeling. Instead, I just watched animals interact. And, bit by bit, I began to learn their languages. Since then, I’ve conversed with cats by looking at things and then back at the cat. I’ve given information to wasps and hornets by making gestures. Spoken to crows with vocal clicks and clacks arranged in sentences. (Since I have a limited crow vocabulary, it’s a string of nonsense words, but they give me credit for trying.) And, oddest of all, I’ve befriended flies through telepathy. After all, sight, sound, thought and movement are all wavelengths on which communication happens. Different creatures favour different wavelengths. A good neighbour pays attention and meets others halfway.”

(Disclosure: In the book’s acknowledgements, Duhan Kaplan notes that I critiqued some of the earliest iterations of a couple of chapters.)

In the book, Duhan Kaplan explains that she uses four kabbalistic levels of analysis: peshat, plain literal meaning; derash, exposition of recurring ethical themes; remez, hints to allegorical meanings; and sod, secret allusions to God’s true nature.

She considers both the depictions of humans as sheep in God’s “flock,” and the intertwining of the lives of the ancient Israelites with their own flocks – “Take your sheep and cattle and go!” God tells the Israelites in Exodus.

She contemplates the multiple times where the ancient literature depicts a donkey as a spiritual guide. She weaves in personal stories, such as visit to a donkey refuge here in British Columbia.

“Equines communicate well through touch. So, with my hand scratching his neck, we had a wordless conversation.” This segues into the Bible’s “most famous donkey,” that of Balaam, whose interaction with an angel sends Balaam on, so to speak, a different path.

Biblical writers, both Jewish and Christian, she writes, associate donkeys with “hope, divine guidance and messianic time.”

The blurry line between humans and other animals is a recurring theme, as is the transfiguration of one sort of creature into another. In the Book of Numbers, when Moses sends 12 scouts to tour the land of Canaan, they come back with stories of wonder and terror. Vineyards produce clusters of grapes so large that two people are needed to carry them but the farmers are gigantic – “Next to them, we feel like grasshoppers.” But, as the story unfolds, a short 40 years later, the Canaanites come to see the Israelites not as grasshoppers but as a powerful plague of locusts: “They will lick up everything around us!” declares the king.

Isaiah’s oracle about the wolf and the lamb living in peace is seen by many as a fable of human coexistence. Lambs, on the other hand, can represent defeated nations. But Duhan Kaplan flips power dynamics, noting that, in Isaiah’s oracle, the lambs control the land and exhibit a model for coexistence: “The lambs are peaceful; they govern without a policy of revenge. Graciously and with mercy, they allow the wolves to sojourn as guests.”

The book takes a surprising turn to the immediate present with a discussion of Indigenous-settler peace and friendship treaties and how they may apply to the reconciliation process our country is currently undergoing.

“The treaties are an expression, I might say, of people committed to an ethic like the one Isaiah describes,” writes Duhan Kaplan. “Like the wolf and the lamb, they resist conquest and revenge. They welcome one another as fellow residents. Like the lion and the ox, who share a food source, they rise to the opportunity for peace. And, like the bear and the cow, they understand that the relationship must be renewed in every generation.”

JNF gala features comic Gold

Elon Gold performs in Vancouver on April 14 at the JNF Negev Gala. (photo from elongold.com)

Comedian Elon Gold loves doing charity events, especially Jewish ones. The Independent caught him for a phone interview as he was on the road – with his family – to Las Vegas from Los Angeles to do gigs for the Adelson Education Campus and then the Israeli-American Coalition. On April 14, he will be in Vancouver to co-headline, with Ambassador Ron Prosor, the Jewish National Fund, Pacific Region, Negev Gala. The event raises funds for Sderot Animal-Assisted Therapy Centre.

“I feel like I’m doing a mitzvah by making my people laugh. And I’m also helping this cause that’s really important, and Israel is really important to me,” said Gold. “And we’re living in a highly antisemitic time, it’s dark out there, so anything I can do to bring light into our world and make my fellow Jew happy, I’m there for it.”

Gold’s resumé is impressive. He starred in the television series Stacked and In-Laws, had a recurring role on Bones and on The Dana Carvey Show. He guest starred just recently on HBO’s Crashing and, longer ago, on shows including Frasier and The Mentalist. He has appeared in films, his one-hour Netflix special, Elon Gold: Chosen and Taken, is available on Amazon and his show Elon Gold: Pro-Semite premièred at the Montreal Comedy Festival. He has made multiple appearances on The Tonight Show and his July 2018 segment on The Late Late Show With James Corden – how, like everyone else, Jews love sex, money and food, but just in a different order – has been watched and shared by countless people on the internet, as has his routine on why Jews shouldn’t have Christmas trees and so many others.

Despite all of his accomplishments and his years in the business, Gold still gets excited about his work, and he shared what he described as a “wow” moment, one of the best days of his life, almost immediately when talking with the JI.

“Yesterday,” he said, “I was filming a scene of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David…. It was really, truly a dream come true.”

But Gold didn’t take his being hired by David as a sign that he had “made it.”

“The truth is, I have been a guy with lucky breaks and hard breaks for the last 20 years,” said Gold. “This is another achievement, and one that’s beyond anything I would dream of…. I’m gratified in the sense that I finally feel like I’m in a place, not where I’ve made it, but where I actually have fans, and my clips are viral and people are sharing my bits on Facebook, WhatsApp or whatever. I did the James Corden show and, again, that doesn’t mean I’ve arrived … but what’s cool to me is that I did that set and then everyone’s sharing it, especially Jews. My biggest fans are my people.”

It’s been a 25-year journey, said Gold of his career, “with all sorts of great highs, like yesterday, and huge lows, like having a sitcom that you pitched and created and started get canceled. There are so many lows, and then there is the daily rejection that is show business. And that’s why I’m so glad I’m a comedian and an actor. I get rejected all day in Hollywood at auditions, but then, at night, I’ll go to the Laugh Factory comedy club and I’ll have 300 people roaring, and that will validate [me] – I knew they were wrong! I knew I could do this. See, I’m funny. These people think so, at least.”

Gold said his resilience, his ability to keep trying, likely comes from stand-up. “Because stand-up is all about bombing and killing, and the killing is so worth it that even the terrible, dejected feeling of bombing [is manageable].”

As far as his career, he said, “I have no other choice. I don’t love doing anything else and I’m not good at anything else.”

Known for his impressions, he said, “I used to impersonate my teachers in eighth grade.” His goal wasn’t to ridicule people, he said, but to make even the teachers laugh.

He enjoyed making people laugh, and writing comedy. One of the first things he wrote, he said, was a Purim shpiel. “And I’ll never forget the feeling of having the entire high school laughing, and thinking, there has never been anything more gratifying than what I just did, I want to do this more. Everybody says it’s like a drug…. It’s so addictive. Once you get a taste of it, that’s it, you’re hooked. And very little can discourage a comedian [so much that they get] out of comedy; certainly not a bad set, because we all know that we all have them.”

A combination of things drives him.

“It’s probably disingenuous to say that I do this because I love to make others laugh,” he admitted. There is a selfish aspect to it, he said. While making people happy is a “key component” of why he does comedy, he said, “I also love everything about it… I love the process of having an observation and then writing it and tinkering with it and working on it. I love doing it and I love the fact that I have so much freedom in my days because I don’t have that nine-to-five job most people have…. I’m always working. At the same time, I’m always on vacation.”

Gold loves getting the laughs, and said that’s probably 70% of the reason he does comedy; the other 30% is making people happy.

“There is so much misery in the world,” he said, “to make people happy is a great thing, but it’s only a part of it.”

On the acting side, Gold said his favourite kind of acting is for sitcoms “with a live studio audience because you’re still getting the laugh but now you’re not looking at the audience and talking to them, you’re looking at your fellow actor … and, peripherally, you hear and see these people cracking up.”

Ultimately, he said, “I just love performing.”

The only “grueling part,” he said, is the memorizing “and the pressure of 200 people staring at you, saying, ‘You better know your lines, pal, because we’re all here and we all want to go home…. Acting is challenging, but it’s also just fun…. It’s fun to get into a character and just play.”

Gold, who is from the Bronx originally, recalled his first open-mic night at the Comic Strip Live in Manhattan; he was 16 years old. “Fortunately, I had beginner’s luck because I was doing impressions – my early act was all impressions – and impressions are like magic tricks, they just wow the audience.”

Despite being a touring comedian by university (he got a bachelor’s in economics at Boston U), it took years, he said, to develop his own voice, to figure out what he wanted to talk about and how to talk about it.

“I’m obsessed with Jewish stuff because I live such a Jewish life,” he said. “I’m an observant Jew, I keep Shabbos and all that stuff, keep kosher. So much of my life is in the Jewish world, I can’t help myself but to come up with observations about our traditions, our holidays, our rituals. A lot of what I talk about is what I live…. The other part of my life is being married, being a dad, so I talk about that.”

Gold and his wife, Sasha, have four kids, two sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 9 to 18. The couple is coming up to their 25th anniversary in June.

As he stopped to fill up his car with gas on the way to Vegas, he told the JI about why he likes performing at Jewish events, while simultaneously directing his kids to be quick about heading into the gas station, as they were running late.

“There are not a lot of comedians out there that will go that deep into the Jewish experience and, for me, there are not a lot of audiences I can share my Jewish experiences with,” he said. “I can’t do lulav and etrog jokes on James Corden…. At the same time, we’re raising money, we’re raising awareness for incredible organizations…. It’s all win-win for me – I’m raising money, I’m making money, I’m getting laughs, I’m getting to do material I don’t do anywhere else…. And I love Jewish audiences; I love connecting on more than just a human level…. We’re connecting about a shared experience that is almost indescribable to anyone else.”

For tickets to the JNF Pacific Region evening event on April 14, which will be held at Schara Tzedeck, call 604-257-5155.

Height of celebration

Feeding time for the giraffes in Ramat Gan Safari Park on June 21, which was World Giraffe Day. (photo from Ashernet)

It is no coincidence that the day to raise public awareness of the tallest animal on earth takes place on the longest day of the year, at least in the northern hemisphere. In the world, there are nine sub-species of giraffes, all of which are categorized as endangered. Seven giraffes live in the Safari Park: Denisa, Daniela, Dikla, Diana, Dedi, Anton and Dadon. This year, Denisa, the Dutch-born giraffe who came to the safari when she was just 2 years old, broke a record when she passed the age of 28, becoming the oldest giraffe in any zoo.

Does God love dogs and cats?

As a boy growing up in the foothills of Berkeley, my parents encouraged me to have pets. From guinea pigs to parakeets to even a pet chicken named Fwedwika, my home was full of little critters throughout most of my childhood. By encouraging me to be a caretaker for my pets, my parents taught me the meaning of responsibility, consistency and perhaps even love. So, I’ve often wondered if the Jewish religious scriptures supports animal activism and what exactly God would say if I posed the question, “Do You love dogs?”

Dogs are the only animals in the Torah that receive a reward for their actions. When the Jewish slaves flee Egypt, it states, “not one dog barked.” (Exodus 11:7) As a reward for that refrain, God said, “… and flesh torn in the field you shall not eat; you shall throw it to the dog[s].” (Exodus 22:30; Mechilta) However, God’s affection for animals doesn’t end with affable companions such as dogs. This affection even extends to insects. King David had to learn this lesson when he questioned the purpose of such “vile creatures” as spiders. Subsequently, God created an event whereupon a spider’s web saved his life, thereby impressing upon Judaism’s mightiest king that every creature has purpose (Midrash Alpha Beta Acheres d’Ben Sira 9).

The Talmud teaches that the reason the Almighty created animals before humans on the sixth day of creation was to teach humans humility, so much that “even a lowly gnat” may be more deserving of life (Sanhedrin 38a).

So, one may infer from here that God does indeed love dogs … and all the rest of His creatures, too. But does this manifest itself into practical animal activism or does it remain a more generalized and undefined value in Judaism?

Jewish law is replete with requirements for the caring of animals. Examples include laws prohibiting inflicting pain on animals (Kesef Mishneh, Hilkhot Rotzeah 13:9), requiring one to feed animals in a loving manner (Igg’rot Moshe, Even haEzer 4:92) and protecting animals from being overworked (Hoshen Mishpat 307:13). We see from these and more, the extensive lengths to which the Torah goes in order to ensure the proper care of animals. Even when one must slaughter an animal to feed one’s family, there are numerous Jewish laws set in place to guarantee that the animal’s death is quick and painless (Guide to the Perplexed III:48).

One insight we can glean from the Torah about why God may have made animals is that they were created to express the “glory of the Creator.” (Pirkei Avos 6:11) The sheer diversity and beauty of animals leads one to appreciate the Creator even more, thereby leading one to proclaim, “How great is Your work, O Lord.” (Psalm 92:5) One might also say that the Creator has placed us, the descendants of Adam and Eve, in His beautiful garden to be the “caretaker” of “God’s garden” and all the animals therein (Genesis 2:19-20).

Mankind is created last in the days of Creation because humans are the pinnacle of Creation; we are the beings created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). When we use our free will responsibly, acting with compassion and sensitivity, we become like God, as it says, “Just as He is compassionate, so should you be compassionate. Just as He is righteous, so should you be righteous.” (Midrash Sifre Deuteronomy 49) When we develop ourselves to be spiritually refined, we fully realize the title of “caretakers of the world,” of God’s beautiful world and all the animals in it.

Imagine what message it sends a child when parents teach that God wants all our animals to be fed before we feed ourselves (Talmud, Brachot 40a). Imagine what message it sends our child when parents teach that God watches us to see if we are being compassionate to the animals in our midst (Talmud, Bava Metzia 85a). And imagine what message we bequeath to our children when we say that to become truly righteous and spiritually fulfilled, we must cultivate a sensitivity towards animals, as it says “A righteous person knows the needs of the animal.” (Proverbs 12:10)

Perhaps this is why God specifically made Noah build an ark to save all the animals during the Flood. After all, God could have easily made a miracle where the animals were saved without Noah needing to slave away for 40 days and nights meticulously tending to the care of each animal in the ark and even sharing his own table with them (Malbim, Genesis 6:21). One could answer that this was precisely to highlight that the concept of being the “caretakers of the garden” didn’t end with Adam and Eve but is an essential responsibility of mankind for all time.

Additionally, one can also say that the way we treat animals is a reflection of the way we treat people. In the Torah, we observe the repeating story of how a loving shepherd is chosen by God to lead the spiritual flock of the Jewish people after previously demonstrating his dedication to a flock of sheep (Midrash, Shemot Rabah 2:2). A barometer for one’s sensitivity towards other people can be seen in how we treat the animals in our midst. This emphasis on caring for animals can be a way to further those feelings of sensitivity that may eventually lead to goodwill for all mankind.

There is a final fascinating perspective that the Torah is teaching us. Animals can serve as our teachers. There are God-given qualities inherent in the instinctual habits and mannerisms of the animals around us that can serve to inspire humans to achieve greater heights of spiritual fulfilment. For example, the very first law in the Code of Jewish Laws is, “Rabbi Yehuda ben Taima said, ‘Be as bold as a leopard, light as an eagle, swift as a deer and strong as a lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven.’” (Avot 5:20) Poignantly, this is placed as the first law in a book of Jewish legalities. This idea is most evident in the statement of Rabbi Yochanan: “If the Torah had not been given, we could have learned modesty from the cat, honesty from the ant, chastity from the dove and good manners from the rooster.” (Talmud, Eiruvin 100b) Perhaps we could also learn from a dog the power of devotion, loyalty and even having a positive attitude.

I will conclude with a teaching about man’s best friend, the dog. The notable 16th-century Jewish leader, the Maharsha, says that a dog is a creature of love. Hence, the Hebrew name for a dog is kelev, which is etymologically derived from the words kulo lev, or all heart (Rabbi Shmuel Eidels, Chidushei Aggadot, Sanhedrin 97a). Remember that Adam and Eve were instructed by God to give all the animals of the world their Hebrew names (Genesis 2:19-20). When they made this personal connection with the beasts of the world, the names they chose were prophetically accurate so as to encapsulate the essence of each animal into a name that truly revealed its soul (Bereishit Rabbah 17:4). Thus, one may extrapolate from this that the Hebrew name for a dog was precisely chosen to be indicative of the loving soul of this marvelous creature.

So, yes, God loves dogs. And we should, too.

Rabbi Levi Welton is a writer and educator raised in Berkeley, Calif. A member of the Rabbinical Council of America, he graduated from the Machon Ariel Rabbinical Institute in 2005 and from Bellevue University in 2008 with an MA in education. Having served Jewish communities in San Francisco, Sydney and Montreal, he currently resides in New York and specializes in working with youth and young adults. This article was originally published by Aish Hatorah Resources and is distributed by Kaddish Connection Network.