Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion speaks in Vancouver on June 9. (photo from CFHU)
Moshe Lion, mayor of Jerusalem, will be in Vancouver June 9 and Calgary June 11 for a special series of events organized by the Jerusalem Foundation of Canada in collaboration with the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University (CFHU). The visit marks an opportunity to strengthen ties between Jerusalem and Canadian communities, and to highlight the transformative work taking place in Israel’s capital through the power of education, innovation and philanthropy.
Lion was elected the 10th mayor of Jerusalem in 2018 and reelected for his second term in 2024. The city council under his leadership is a united coalition with no opposition – an unusual and uncommon achievement.
Lion has played a pivotal role in expanding Jerusalem’s infrastructure, cultural institutions and global partnerships. His visit here will offer guests the chance to hear firsthand about the city’s challenges, its remarkable diversity and its bold vision for the future.
Joining him will be Arik Grebelsky, president of the Jerusalem Foundation in Israel, and Canadian and Israeli leaders, including Joel Reitman, chair of the Jerusalem Foundation of Canada.
At the heart of this visit is the unique partnership between the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Foundation –two pillars of the city’s intellectual and civic life. Together, they are investing in projects that elevate academic excellence, empower underserved communities, and position Jerusalem as a global city of knowledge and inclusion.
The Vancouver and Calgary events will bring together philanthropists, community leaders and alumni to celebrate this shared mission. With Hebrew University celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, the visit underscores the enduring ties between Canada and Jerusalem – and the power of education to shape a brighter future. To register, go to cfhu.org/upcoming-events.
– Courtesy Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University
Dina Wachtel of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, and Ido Aharoni, a former top Israeli diplomat who now teaches at various universities. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Zionism is as popular now as it has ever been on North American campuses, according to a former top Israeli diplomat who now teaches at multiple American universities.
The bad news, he added, is that Zionism was never a hit on North American campuses.
“Zionism was never popular in academia,” said Ido Aharoni, speaking with the Independent during a trip to Vancouver as a guest of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University. “In fact, I would argue that … we’ve never had so many Zionists in North America as we have today.”
Protests on campuses and reports of professors inculcating anti-Israel ideas are disturbing, he said, but it’s not new.
“The people that are at the front of the effort, that spearhead the effort, are different,” he said, arguing that the vanguard now is comprised of foreign students and descendants of immigrants from societies where antisemitism is endemic. “But it’s the same thing, the same messaging that was designed by the Soviet Union.”
Aharoni is a 25-year veteran of Israel’s foreign service, a public diplomacy specialist, and founder of the Brand Israel program, which, since 2002, has sought to reposition Israel in the public mind globally. He served in the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles in the 1990s and was consul general of Israel in New York and the Tri-State Area from 2010 to 2016.
Since retiring from government in 2016, Aharoni has lectured and spoken at academic institutions including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Wharton and Berkeley on topics such as Israel’s foreign relations, mass media, the information revolution, public marketing, and nation branding. He has served as a professor of business at Touro University, as a professor of international relations at New York University and is the Murray Galinson Professor of International Relations at University of California in San Diego and San Diego State University’s business school.
In addition to teaching and lecturing, Aharoni provides advice to international companies to accessIsraeli innovation. He also helps businesses and agencies communicate with governments. His third focus is strategy and planning, particularly helping clients tell their story.
Aharoni contests widely held assumptions, including that Israel is unpopular in Western countries. Opinion polls say large majorities of respondents side with the Jewish state, he said. That does not necessarily translate, however, into family vacations in Israel or investments in Israeli enterprises. Changing that mindset could include convincing non-Israelis to consider differently the challenges the country faces.
“Think of terrorism the same way you think of crime in any major urban centre in North America,” he said. “If you only focus on attempts to carry out criminal acts, or the number of criminal acts carried out, then the picture can be very scary.”
If all anyone heard about Vancouver was crime statistics, he said, they might be reluctant to visit or invest. “That’s what happened in Israel,” said Aharoni. “We communicated our problems to the world. At one point, it became the only thing we communicated to the world. As a result, the world doesn’t see us beyond those problems.”
It’s hard to alter a narrative once it is set, he said. And yet, he added, Israel is no more dangerous a place to visit – and far more stable a place to invest – than many other spots in the world.
“You know how many inflammations of violence we have right now in the world taking place?” he asked. “People are talking about Israelis and Palestinians as if it’s the only conflict in the world and I think there’s something wrong about that.”
Early in his career, Aharoni was involved in the beginnings of the Oslo Peace Process. He was the policy assistant to Uri Savir, director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry under then-foreign minister Shimon Peres. “I was part of a very small group of people that knew about the secret negotiations and my job was mostly to prepare him for meetings,” he said.
Aharoni rejects the narrative that the entire process is a story of failure. What did fail was the assumption by Israelis and the broader diplomatic world that Yasser Arafat would confront the extremists on his side, get Hamas in hand, end incitement against Israelis and prepare his people to live in peaceful coexistence.
The Palestinians faced their Altalena moment, he said, citing a pivotal incident in the earliest Israeli history, when the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, ordered the nascent Israel Defence Forces to attack the Irgun ship Altalena, effectively ensuring there would be a single, unified military force in the country.
“If you ask me, this was the biggest mistake: the assumption that Arafat was of that calibre. But the truth is that Arafat was no Ben-Gurion,” said Aharoni. “Arafat was not of that calibre. He was in it way over his head. He didn’t have the skill or the character – nor the desire. To have the desire, you have to have some knowledge of history, you have to have some depth. He had none of that. He was in love with the position of a rebel, of a revolutionary. He thought he was Che Guevara and that was his historical reference. If you ask me, that was the biggest failure.
“Other than that,” he argued, “Oslo was a big success.”
Before Oslo, he noted, Israel did not recognize the existence of the Palestinians and vice versa. The recognition and direct contact between the two sides, for whatever shortcomings that dialogue has had, allows Israel to coordinate anti-terror efforts with the Palestinian Authority.
“A lot of people don’t know that,” he said, “but the Palestinian Authority, which is the creation of the Oslo Accords … they have been very instrumental helping Israelis curb terrorism coming out of the West Bank.”
Oct. 7, 2023, or “10/7,” changed everything, he said.
“Before 10/7, there was this expectation on the part of Israelis that, somehow, we will be able to introduce peace in its full conceptual meaning.… I think, after 10/7, it’s very difficult for people to imagine that kind of peace.”
The best hope now, probably, is what Aharoni calls “a livable arrangement,” which would protect Israel’s security needs and deliver maximal Palestinian civil self-rule, while limiting the Palestinians’ military capabilities. Eliminating the antisemitism and genocidal incitement in the Palestinian and broader Arab education systems is another priority, he added.
Aharoni forcefully rejects the idea that support for Israel has become a partisan wedge issue in the United States, noting that a vote on an Israeli aid package passed the US Congress after 10/7 with 366 in favour, 58 against and seven abstentions.
“It’s true that we pay a lot of attention to the fringes,” he said, citing vocally anti-Israel representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who, he said, “represent a very marginalized and very narrow agenda.”
Aharoni was in Vancouver to meet with local supporters of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University. CFHU will host a public event next month, in which the mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, will be in conversation with Rabbi Jonathan Infeld. The event, titled Diversity as Strength During Challenging Times, takes place June 9, at 7:30 p.m. Register at cfhu.org/moshe-lion.
Canadian Paralympic athlete and wheelchair racer Rick Hansen, known for his work to break down barriers for people with disabilities, receives an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University from then-Hebrew U president Menahem Ben-Sasson. In December 2010, Hansen visited Hebrew U as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of his “Man in Motion” tour. (photo from Hebrew University)
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem turned 100 this month. Opening officially on April 1, 1925, the university preceded the birth of the state of Israel by more than two decades.
“There was no country yet,” said Dina Wachtel, vice-president, community affairs, for the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University. “It’s the first daughter that gave birth to her mother.”
The history of the campus on Mount Scopus has been tumultuous, like that of the country its alumni have helped shape.
During Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Mount Scopus became an isolated enclave, and the university was forced to relocate its main activities to facilities in West Jerusalem. In 1954, a new campus was established in the Givat Ram neighbourhood, followed by the creation of additional campuses, including at Ein Kerem, home to the institution’s medical sciences faculty, and, at Rehovot, where the agriculture department is headquartered.
Allan Bronfman, national president and founder of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, with Dr. Albert Einstein, honorary president of the Hebrew University, on Sept. 19, 1954, at a Princeton conference called by Einstein to launch a $30 million dollar capital building project for the university, which was in exile from its campus on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. (photo from Hebrew University)
After the 1967 Six Day War, Hebrew University regained access to Mount Scopus and began to restore and expand the original campus. Today, it is one of Israel’s leading research institutions, ranked among the top universities globally, and it remains a symbol of intellectual and cultural renewal in the country.
“Even the word ‘incredible’ is too small to describe the impact of the Hebrew University on the establishment of the state of Israel and on the state of Israel,” Wachtel said. “Most of the Supreme Court judges are graduates of the Hebrew University faculty of law, which was established in 1949. We have eight Nobel Prize laureates – all of them from 2000 and after.” A ninth laureate, Albert Einstein, a founder of the university, won the Nobel for physics in 1921.
The university was established by the intellectual giants of the last century, said Wachtel. These included Einstein, as well as Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who would become the first president of the state; philosopher Martin Buber; American Reform Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes, who served as the first chancellor and later president of the university; founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud; Ahad Ha’am, dubbed the father of cultural Zionism; poet Chaim Nachman Bialik; and Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner for Palestine, among many others.
Einstein, Wachtel noted, left his entire intellectual estate to the Hebrew U and the university is in the process of constructing a new Daniel Libeskind-designed archive for his fonds on Givat Ram’s Edmond J. Safra Campus, adjacent to the Knesset, the Supreme Court and the Israel Museum.
“I think it will be the next tourist attraction in the city of Jerusalem,” she said.
Celebratory events will take place in Israel in June, concurrent with the Hebrew University’s board of governors meeting in Jerusalem. Happenings will include a special event at the home of Israel’s president, a special show at the Tower of David Museum, and other ceremonies.
Gail Asper, left, a Hebrew University honorary doctorate recipient and a member of the executive of the board of governors of Hebrew U, with then-Hebrew U president Menahem Ben-Sasson and guest speaker Chelsea Clinton at the 2015 CFHU Einstein Legacy Awards in Toronto. (photo from Hebrew University)
The university has been a hub for groundbreaking research, reflecting the institution’s commitment to education, scientific advancement and societal impact.
Marking the centenary, Hebrew U’s current president, Prof. Asher Cohen, credited the thinkers who initiated the school, the groundbreaking for which began in 1918.
“They and many others founded a pioneering academic institution to cultivate future leaders in research, science, public service and society – for the benefit of Israel and all humanity,” Cohen said in a statement. “From the moment this vision became a reality, the university has upheld excellence in research and education as its highest priority. Today, it continues to be a hub of knowledge, innovation and groundbreaking research across diverse fields, nurturing generations of leaders, scholars and thinkers.”
Prof. Tamir Shafer, rector of the Hebrew University, contextualized the university in Israeli society.
NBA superstar Amar’e Stoudemire visited Hebrew University in 2013, meeting with students at the Rothberg International School, and with the then-president of Israel Shimon Peres. (photo from Hebrew University)
“As a leading research institution,” Shafer said in a statement, “the Hebrew University sees itself as responsible for educating future generations, conducting groundbreaking research across nearly all fields of study, fostering extensive international engagement in both research and teaching, building strong ties with advanced industries in Israel and abroad, nurturing a diverse academic community, and maintaining deep social involvement in Jerusalem and throughout Israel.”
Diversity is a cornerstone of the institution’s success, according to Prof. Mona Khoury-Kassabri, vice-president of strategy and diversity.
“At the Hebrew University, we believe that diversity is not a substitute for excellence but a driving force that enhances it,” she said. “Our commitment to inclusion ensures that students and researchers from all backgrounds have equal opportunities to thrive, contribute and shape the future of society. By fostering a multicultural environment, we enrich both scholarship and community, proving that true innovation emerges when different voices are heard and valued.”
The centenary will also be celebrated with special events in Canada, some of which will be announced soon. Check cfhu.org for updates.
Among the activities in which Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Dr. Shiran Reichenberg, left, took part while she was in Vancouver was a lunch and learn at Lawson Lundell LLP, hosted by Peter Tolensky. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)
Dr. Shiran Reichenberg, executive director of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem law faculty’s Clinical Legal Education Centre, was in Vancouver recently, as part of a professorship exchange with the University of British Columbia.
The exchange program started in 2010, with funding from Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and members of the local legal profession and judiciary. From 2013 to 2019, it was named in honour of Mitchell Gropper, QC, and, since 2021, in recognition of the Koffman family’s financial support, it has been formally called the Morley Koffman Memorial Allard School of Law UBC and Hebrew University Law Faculty Professor Exchange Program.
Koffman was an alum of UBC law school in 1952. He practised at Freeman, Freeman, Silvers and Koffman, and was awarded Queen’s Counsel in 1986. His firm, Koffman Kalef, was established in 1993.
One of the founders of the exchange program was Bruce Cohen, whose career has included, among other things, almost three decades as a BC Supreme Court justice. In the CFHU and UBC announcements of the Koffman family’s donation, Cohen says, “Given the high level of respect and regard for Morley’s reputation in the legal, university, Jewish and general communities as a wise counsel and recognized leader it is perfectly appropriate for the program to be named in his honour as a reflection of the importance placed by him and his family on scholarship, professionalism and tikkun olam.”
On the CFHU website, Cohen notes, “The ability of the program to operate in the initial few years of its existence was due in large measure to Morley’s assistance.”
The CFHU Vancouver organizing committee for the exchange program consisted of Cohen, Sam Hanson, Peter Hotz, Shawn Lewis, Randy Milner, Phil Switzer, Peter Tolensky, Dina Wachtel and the late Allen Zysblat. The annual exchange even operated during the pandemic, albeit virtually.
Dr. Shiran Reichenberg, left, visits Temple Sholom’s Oct. 7 memorial with the synagogue’s Associate Rabbi Carey Brown. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)
Reichenberg’s February-March visit to Vancouver was for just over two weeks, during which time she taught a course at UBC and spoke to various groups, including at Lawson Lundell LLP for a lunch and learn hosted by Peter Tolensky and at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, as well as at Temple Sholom for a lunch and learn organized by the Sisterhood, said Wachtel, vice-president, community affairs, at CFHU.
While Reichenberg regularly attends international conferences and lectures, this was her first time in Vancouver and, she said, “It was a very, very different experience to teach an intensive course for two weeks, each class three hours.”
Reichenberg, who is also the director of the Clinical Legal Education Centre’s Children and Youth Rights Clinic, said the course she gave here focused on the development of children’s rights and covered international documents, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other agreements, like the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.
“We got very deep into several aspects of the convention and main principles, mainly best interest [of the child] and the right to participation. We talked about youth at risk, in criminal proceedings, in care proceedings,” she said.
Reichenberg graduated with her bachelor and her master of laws from the Hebrew University. She also studied in London, England, having received the Leonard Sainer Chevening Scholarship for LLM studies at University College London. She became interested in children’s rights law when she was a second-year student and participated in the Clinical Legal Education Centre’s Street Law Program, which is still part of the Children and Youth Rights Clinic she now directs.
“Each of us was put in a different residential care facility for youth at risk,” said Reichenberg, who was placed with a locked facility in Jerusalem. “When we entered this place and got an explanation about the girls and their life and what happened to them, it changed the course of my life. I stayed and I did another legal clinic in my third year of law school: representation of children’s rights, of children in court proceedings.”
In doing her PhD, Reichenberg focused on the right of youth at risk to participate in care proceedings, and her research included interviews with some of the girls from the Jerusalem care facility.
Children’s rights have their origin in labour law, Reichenberg said.
“Children, from the beginning of humanity until maybe the Industrial Revolution … died a lot, so parents didn’t get attached to them that much,” she explained. “And they were also considered as property of their parents, mostly their fathers, so they were sold, they were used to work, they were part of supporting the family; they weren’t what we consider them today. There is evidence that, in ancient times, children weren’t even given names, just numbers, because they died so much.”
But when children came to be working in mines and in factories, for example, “legislation gave them rights, to work only 12 hours a day and sleep at night, and things like that,” said Reichenberg, adding that the invention of the printing press, which meant that people needed to learn how to read, was an impetus for the establishment of schools.
The first child-related labour laws were English laws, passed in the early 1800s. The first youth court took place in the United States in 1874, and it involved the first case reported of child abuse, said Reichenberg. “[Mary Ellen McCormack] was abused by her stepmom and when the people wanted to help her, there was no law that protected children, so they used the law that protected animals from abuse.”
The Children and Youth Rights Clinic is one of nine offered by the Clinical Legal Education Centre. There are also clinics on climate change and environmental law; human rights in cyberspace; multiculturalism and diversity; representation of marginalized population groups; criminal justice; international human rights; the rights of people with disabilities; and wrongful convictions.
The centre can take a maximum of 140 students, with each clinic having, on average, 16 to 20 students.
“We have many more people who want to enrol than the places that we can give,” said Reichenberg, explaining that the clinics must be kept relatively small, given that they are working on legal cases.
“Each clinic is taught by a lawyer and there is a maximum number of cases that one person can handle, so we can’t have too many students,” she said. “Also, it allows us to have in-depth discussions in our classes with our students. And we always sit in a circle and there’s always dialogue, and it’s something that can be accomplished only in small groups.”
The Clinical Legal Education Centre takes a three-pronged approach. It handles upwards of 1,000 cases a year, providing legal aid and representation to individuals from marginalized groups. It also works for policy change, through test cases and position papers, for example, and offers public lectures and workshops to raise awareness, increase knowledge and promote discussion.
Since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the centre has taken on an increased role in teaching and advocating for human rights. It has represented groups like the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in front of different United Nations bodies, for example, and has been operating Hamal Hevrati (War Room), a Facebook page providing legal aid to vulnerable populations, which has handled about 100 inquiries to date.
As well, the centre serves diverse clients and has a multicultural staff and student body, all of which include members of the Palestinian minority.
“We are not in war with the entire Palestinian people, we are in war with Hamas, and there is a difference,” said Reichenberg.
“So, we help those who need our help. And we work together, we study together,” she said.
It’s been hard, she admitted. “But we have to believe in working together and living together because none of us is going anywhere and we have to live together and work together for a long time … we have to find a way to do that and this is what we do.”
Reichenberg is proud of how the centre has adapted to the situation.
“In class, we have students who came from military reserves, still with their uniforms and their weapons. We have Arab students who have family in Gaza, which they haven’t heard from,” she said. “We have students who lost people they loved on the 7th of October and since. I personally have a student who I loved deeply and he died in the war, in his military reserve [service] in Gaza. And, also, in the staff, as I said, we’re a mixed staff and a lot of emotions came out on the 7th of October and we did a lot of preparation for staff, how to work with the students in this environment.”
While it’s not perfect, Reichenberg said, “it is certainly an amazing thing to see how everyone is sitting together, learning together, doing legal work together, for the same goal.”
At the Sept. 26 event Bridging Hope, which takes place at King David High School, Noah Bogdonov, left, and his parents, David Bogdonov and Elana Epstein, will speak about their family’s experience with addiction. (photo from Bogdonov-Epsteins)
“We want to share our experience, strength and hope with addiction,” said David Bogdonov about what he and his wife, Elana Epstein, and their son, Noah Bogdonov, will talk about on Sept. 26 at Bridging Hope: Science and Testimonial in the Fight Against Addiction.
The Independent spoke with the Bogdonov-Epsteins recently, to get to know them a bit before the event, which is being presented by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, King David High School and Vancouver Talmud Torah.
David is an engineer and works for a company that builds waterparks, while Elana, who has a social work background, has been a yoga teacher for about 20 years and a wellness/spiritual coach for about 15 years. “Currently, I am supporting a ton of moms in the addiction community,” she said.
The couple has three sons. “Boys R Us” quipped David. “Noah is the firstborn, at 28 years old; Tal is our second, at 24; and Benjamin is our youngest, at 22.”
It was in October 2022 that they became sure that Noah was struggling with addiction. “Before that,” said Elana, “about three or four months before the ‘awakened moment,’ we knew that he had been struggling but he was telling us he had gotten it under control, not to worry, then it went downhill, crashing very fast.
“He started in high school – not unlike the vast majority of kids in high school – using weed and alcohol,” she said. “We didn’t like it, but we assumed it was part of his teenage years and that he would grow out of it and come to his own realization of how to find balance in life and, sadly, that never happened.”
Initially, it was Noah’s friends who tried to help.
“They held an informal intervention and asked him to get it under control,” said David. “That was in May of ’22, and that’s when we became aware of it, but he pulled the wool over our eyes and convinced us that he had it all under control. That’s when we started to make sense of all the red flags we had seen for a long time.”
Months later, when David and Elana were in Whistler, Noah was slower than usual to respond to a text message. “I woke up one morning and said that we need to go home, something is not right. He was staying at my brother’s apartment, who was away, and we knew. I said, we need to go, and we went, and we found him, and he was in dire straits,” said Elana. “But, he said, ‘I don’t want to live like this anymore.’ We asked, ‘Does that mean treatment?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ We got the ball rolling, and he went right in, no hesitation, no more denial. He was ready, we were ready, and that was the beginning of the rest of his life.”
It’s been almost two years since Noah has been in treatment. He spent about 100 days at the Last Door Addiction Recovery Treatment Centre, in New Westminster, then was in transition housing, where he had a relapse that lasted two months, said David. It’s been 16 months since Noah’s relapse.
“David and I never stopped going to the weekly meetings, doing our own work,” said Elana, even while Noah was relapsing. The Last Door has family group meetings, which they’ve been attending regularly since Noah was two weeks into treatment, said David, calling their participation in the group a “very key element” of their own recovery.
Noah is working at Maintain Recovery, a sober living house, which he manages. “It’s a common story for many recovering addicts to get immersed in the life of recovery,” said David. “They often start to work in the organizations and so on. It’s part of what keeps them clean and keeps them on the path, which is really wonderful to watch.”
David and Elana are being so open about their family’s experiences because, said David, “We take quite seriously that part of the overdose crisis is caused by the stigma surrounding drug addition and we subscribe to the notion that addiction is a disease and should be treated like any other disease. You don’t shame someone for having cancer, you shouldn’t shame someone for having the disease of addiction. So, we are both passionate about that.”
“For me,” added Elana, “it goes beyond the stigma…. I really feel like if there were more language, more community, more education, more connection around this, you know, if I had had someone … approach me and say, listen, this is what addiction looks like, your son seems to be starting down a path that gets worse before it gets better…. In Noah’s life, we had no knowledge of addiction, we did not know what it looked like, we were totally blindsided,” she said.
“We don’t have trauma, there was no story he was hiding and trying to make peace with,” added Elana. “He was a boy who got caught up in using recreational drugs, like everyone else, [but] he was the one who was the addict who couldn’t stop. The moment when, with Noah’s permission, it became clear that we had a role to play in our community, where there’s a lot of shame and we don’t talk about it, so the kid dies. That’s not, on my watch, ever going to happen. If I can touch one family’s life because of our story, I will continue to do this till the day I die.”
Bridging Hope takes place at King David High School. Discussing the science of addiction will be Dr. Yaron Finkelstein, a professor of pediatrics, pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Toronto and a staff physician at the Hospital for Sick Children (known as SickKids); Dr. Yonatan Kupchik, senior lecturer and director, department of medical neurobiology, Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC), Centre for Addiction Research (ICARe), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Dr. Rami Yaka, head of HU’s School of Pharmacy. For tickets to the event ($18), visit register.cfhu.org/bridginghope.
Every year, more Canadian teenagers die by suicide than by all medical diseases combined, including cancer, diabetes, asthma and infections.
Dr. Yaron Finkelstein, a professor of pediatrics, pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Toronto and a staff physician at the Hospital for Sick Children (known as SickKids), shared this fact with the Jewish Independent in advance of Bridging Hope: Science and Testimonial in the Fight Against Addiction. Presented by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, King David High School (KDHS) and Vancouver Talmud Torah (VTT), the Sept. 26 event at KDHS will also feature Dr. Yonatan Kupchik, senior lecturer, department of medical neurobiology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU), and Dr. Rami Yaka, head of the School of Pharmacy at HU, discussing the science of addiction. The testimonial part of the gathering will be shared by members of the Epstein-Bogdonov family. In this issue of the Independent, we talk to the doctors. Next issue, we will meet Elana Epstein and David Bogdonov, who, with their son, Noah Bogdonov, will speak in September about their family’s experience with addiction.
“Drug overdose, led by the opioids crisis, is an immense public health problem in BC, Canada and globally,” Finkelstein said. “Effectively addressing the loss of so many people for overdose daily, a largely preventable condition, must be a national priority. Indeed, youths are also highly affected, and we see them in the emergency departments, in clinics and, sadly, on the streets. Further, some youths use overdose as a common means of self-harm and suicide attempt.”
Finkelstein added that “most medications administered to children, particularly in hospitals (up to 85% in some acute care settings) have not been properly studied and approved in this population. Rather, we ‘borrow’ them from our experience in adults, scale the dose down to the child’s weight and hope to achieve the same effects and outcomes. However, we know this is not always the case, sometimes the outcomes are unwarranted, and I have personally noticed that repeatedly over the years. The goal of my research program is to work hard and close this knowledge gap – find the safest and most effective medications for children, and tailor their dosing regimens to the pediatric needs.”
Dr. Yaron Finkelstein (photo from Sickkids website)
At Bridging Hope, Finkelstein will discuss “the impacts of cannabis legalization on pediatric poisonings – trends and severity (for example, many do not appreciate that edible cannabis products can kill a child) – and on mental health, including addiction and the risk of developing schizophrenia in youths and adults.”
Canada became the second country to legalize cannabis for recreational use in 2018, he said. “This ‘natural experiment’ has led to numerous unanticipated outcomes, many have negative impacts on public health, and particularly on children.”
Finkelstein’s main research is centred on pediatric therapeutics in acute-care settings, with the long-term goal of optimizing drug safety.
“During my clinical clerkship in medical school, my passion to help children grew tremendously, and I was inspired by my mentors,” he shared. “Children have immense resilience, and their recovery is often fast and remarkable, and provides hope. I was always fascinated by the mechanistic actions of drugs on the human body, and combining those passions felt natural.”
“From the early beginning of my studies, I was thrilled to understand how the brain functions,” said Yaka, who not just heads HU’s School of Pharmacy but conducts research as well. “The brain reward circuitry is the most important system in any living creature, since it is responsible for our survival and reproduction, therefore, our existence. My main research is focused on synaptic function in health and disease.”
Dr. Rami Yaka (photo from HU website)
Yaka joined the School of Pharmacy in 2003 and has served in many capacities. “Since I feel that the School of Pharmacy is like my second home and I really care about its future, and since I have all the necessary experience to take this mission, I volunteered to head the school,” he said. “Maintaining the right balance between the administrative duties and the research (my main cause of being here) is challenging. I work harder and try to pay the same attention to both tasks without reducing any effort for either.”
On Sept. 26, Yaka will talk about “‘out of the box’ research to battle drug addiction.”
“Since addiction to drugs, screens, food, etc., is very common and spreads all over the world very easily, this subject is very popular among laypeople,” he said. “Therefore, for me, it’s easy to adopt lay language to explain in simple words what the problem is and what we can do to avoid having it. I think that a huge part of the problem is the lack of knowledge among users (mainly young) about the adverse effects and negative impact that drugs have on the brain.”
With respect to educating youth and engaging them more broadly in science, Kupchik sees his role as a principal investigator at a leading university as “not only to generate new knowledge that may lead the world forward but also to plant the seeds for the next generation of principal investigators.”
“In Israel,” said Kupchik, “there are several programs that select the top high school students in the country and expose them to academia at their early age. This is excellent, but … there are many excellent students that we may be missing as a society just because they live in underprivileged places. Therefore, we try in the lab to specifically target those populations of students, and we do it in various ways. For example … [we] started an initiative that invites local high school students to scientific conferences taking place in their vicinity. For many students, this is the first interaction with science and many of them reported later that it induced interest in the scientific world. We also invite high school students to our laboratory and provide an interactive experience in which they learn about the brain and how scientific research is performed.”
Dr. Yonatan Kupchik (photo from HU website)
What most intrigues Kupchik about neurobiology “is how a biological organ, composed of billions of neurons that communicate with each other, generates such complex phenomena as behaviour, emotion, thoughts, etc.” His lab at HU researches the changes occurring in single neurons or in brain circuits in drug addiction or obesity. Among other things, they are currently collaborating with two neighbouring labs.
“One is with the laboratory of Dr. Shai Sabbah, an expert in the neurobiology of light processing in the eye. It is known that exposure to light can affect mood and the neural activity in brain areas related to emotions. We are investigating in this collaboration whether light exposure could also affect drug-seeking behaviour.
“Another collaboration is with the laboratory of Dr. Danny Ben-Zvi, an endocrinologist and expert of the bariatric surgery. As bariatric surgery decreases the craving for rewarding foods, we are now investigating together whether the bariatric surgery drives permanent changes in the reward system of the brain and whether it could affect the craving for other, non-food, rewards.”
Kupchik said, “We believe that there are many similarities between behaviours that may reflect addiction, such as drug dependence, overeating, gambling, hoarding, computer gaming, social media use and so on, and hope that understanding the neurobiological mechanisms in one kind of addiction could hint about the mechanisms of other addictions. We chose to focus on drug addiction and on obesity both because these are two main global health challenges that remain unsolved and because these are conditions that can be modeled in laboratory animals.”
At King David High School, Kupchik “will try to show some of the permanent changes we found that occur in the reward system after using cocaine, and after withdrawal.”
People can report misinformation and hateful material at FakeReporter.net.
In a world where misinformation and disinformation are coming at us in unprecedented volumes, an Israeli organization is working literally around-the-clock to flag, correct and eliminate online falsehoods – and they depend on ordinary people to inform them of lies that need addressing.
Achiya Schatz, co-founder and chief executive officer of the group FakeReporter, spoke virtually at a Nov. 2 event organized by Canadian Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Congregation Beth Israel.
“We try to leverage crowd wisdom in order to make the internet a safer place,” said Schatz.
The challenge goes far beyond reducing misleading information online, he said. The very survival of democratic societies is at stake.
“If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false,” he said, “then, by definition, the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work and, by definition, our democracy doesn’t work.”
FakeReporter’s work is painstaking. An on-call team of thousands of volunteers are connected by WhatsApp and other communication tools. When a report of unverified information comes in, it is channeled to an appropriate individual or team to investigate. They will contact government officials, military spokespeople or others who might be able to confirm or debunk the information. They post their findings on social media, disseminate it to conventional media outlets, especially those that may have spread the falsehoods, and report it to the social media or other platforms where it appears.
While the “fog of war” around the conflict between Israel and Gaza is an obvious source of fake news that keeps FakeReporter teams hopping, equally insidious efforts are fomenting internal strife in Israel.
“Arab citizens of Israel have been heavily attacked,” Schatz said of anti-Arab propaganda targeting citizens of Israel online. Posts have aimed to make Jewish Israelis believe that Arab Israelis are a threat. Photos of Arabs allegedly stalking Jewish homes and businesses turned out to be, after investigations by FakeReporter, tradespeople scoping a roofing project and municipal workers going about their business, for example. The messages, from unidentified sources, have the potential to create civil unrest inside the country amid ongoing conflicts with external terrorist groups on multiple fronts.
On the global level, FakeReporter is responding to a barrage of war-related and more routine anti-Israel material online. In response, taking the nomenclature and vision of Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system, Schatz said, his group is creating what strives to be an invincible defence against online incitement.
“We created a Digital Dome,” he said. “It’s an operation that, in one place, anyone can report hate speech, [content] glorifying terror, Hamas supporters and, generally, violence online on Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok.”
The form for people to fill out is at DigitalDome.io, and the organization’s website is FakeReporter.net.
While there is an unlimited number of comparatively minor falsehoods, Schatz said his group is dedicated to confronting some specific and convoluted conspiracy theories that are going viral. Like the fantastical theories that emerged after the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, the Oct. 7 attacks have spawned what Schatz calls the “traitors among us” conspiracies, in which Israeli security agencies are alleged to have masterminded, or at least participated in, the attacks, as a cover to attack Gaza.
While his organization is busy assessing and confronting the mass of misinformation and disinformation, individuals can do their part by consuming information critically, Schatz said.
To spot fake news, he said, several questions can narrow the field.
“Can I trust the person who wrote and distributed the news?” he said. “Is what I’m reading an opinion or a fact? Does what I’m reading make me feel rage? This question will help you understand that you are seeing something that maybe you should question.” If the “news” you saw in one place is not reported anywhere else, be very suspicious, he said.
The spread of false information is exacerbated by unwitting individuals who share what they find online.
“Before you spread anything forward, you should just breathe for a moment, look at it again with critical thinking and that would do half the job,” he said. “Don’t just spread news through WhatsApp groups and Telegram groups.”
If you find something that glorifies or promotes violence, that is racist, antisemitic or likely untrue, don’t send it to friends, send it DigitalDome.io, he said.
There are other things to consider in determining whether an item might be fake news.
“Many times, information is real but it’s not in the context,” said Schatz. A photo of a bombed building may be real, as opposed to Photoshopped. But what is purported to be in Gaza is often discovered to be from wars in Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere.
The FakeReporter team uses multiple strategies to assess the veracity of photos.
“We can recognize the vehicle,” he said, “we can geo-locate the area, understanding where it is in the world, and we can look for the information online and see, [was it] maybe published before?”
The problem is global and Schatz said governments and social media platforms must work together – or, as in the case of European legislation, governments can impose severe financial penalties on companies that do not speedily react to reports of false or dangerous information on their sites.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act makes it the responsibility of large online information companies to police and remove hate speech, disinformation and cyberbullying, as well as unsafe or illegal retail products, such as sham or life-threatening pharmaceuticals. Other countries could replicate Europe’s legislation, said Schatz.
“What is beautiful about the EU is that they have had a few countries come together and they used their power against big tech [in ways] small countries cannot,” he said. “Israel cannot do anything about it.… Even if we do pass a law, why would Facebook or Twitter care about the law that we passed? They don’t care. That’s a huge problem. What I think Canada and other countries should do is adopt what is happening in the Digital Services Act in Europe and then it’s much easier for the tech companies and for the country, because it’s just replicating what they already can do.”
All the examples Schatz used to this point were addressing the source of misinformation and disinformation. Societies also must sensitize the targets of this content by giving individuals the tools to assess what they see and hear.
“Finland, for example, understood the disinformation coming from Russia is a national threat to them,” he said. “So, they created programs, first for kids and then grown-ups, in digital literacy and information literacy and they are teaching … how to consume information.”
Dina Wachtel, Western region executive director of Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, opened the online event. Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel introduced Schatz and offered reflections on the topic.
Schatz warned that disinformation is at an inflection point, likely headed for an exponential increase thanks to artificial intelligence, while global responses to the problem are embryonic.
“We’re still learning,” he said. “We’re still adapting. Digital and information literacy is something that is still in its baby steps.”
The Jerusalem Business Development Centre (MATI) helps people create or expand businesses in Jerusalem. Two leaders of the Israeli organization visit Vancouver on May 11 as part of a Canadian tour. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)
Every year, the Jerusalem Business Development Centre, known in Hebrew by the acronym MATI, helps thousands of people create or expand businesses in Jerusalem. It does this through a range of services – from personal mentoring to training in various fields to the granting of loans – focusing its efforts on new immigrants, the ultra-Orthodox and residents of East Jerusalem.
On May 11, as part of a Canadian tour, Michal Shaul Vulej, deputy chief executive officer of MATI, and Reham Abu Snineh, MATI’s East Jerusalem manager, will be in Vancouver for “a conversation about shared living in Jerusalem, about mentoring and creating entrepreneurial opportunities for women and promoting diversity as strength.”
Abu Snineh joined MATI in 2011, as a project coordinator for a program to promote women’s entrepreneurship in East Jerusalem. Today, she heads the East Jerusalem branch, leading a team of seven employees.
“The beginning was challenging,” she told the Independent. “The decision to join an Israeli organization was inconceivable. I was afraid of the reactions and criticism of those around me. It also took me awhile to get comfortable with the staff. In addition, I did not speak Hebrew. I grew up in East Jerusalem and studied for my law degree and, later, further degrees in Jordan. All of my studies were in Arabic and I had never considered working with an Israeli organization. I realized that, if I ever wanted to really be able to help my community, I had to find a way to move forward and, over time, things settled down and today I feel completely part of the team.”
For Abu Snineh, it’s the social impact of MATI that most excites her – “The feeling that I am helping people in a difficult socioeconomic situation; helping individuals, families and women to improve their economic situation in general.”
For Shaul Vulej, it’s the “combination of social welfare and the entrepreneurship and business development – the stories of the women who manage to start a business, make a living and be financially independent, and even employ other women.”
MATI measures success by the number of participants, the number of businesses that develop, the number of businesses that expand and the number of new jobs that are created in Jerusalem because of its activities. All MATI’s programs include participant feedback, an annual review and an evaluation process.
Abu Snineh and Shaul Vulej shared one of MATI’s success stories with the Independent, that of Hiba, a fashion design instructor. They said Hiba, 36, grew up in East Jerusalem in a traditional Muslim family and was married at age 16. Despite various factors hindering her progress, she studied fashion design and proceeded to hold several jobs. She wanted to establish a sewing and fashion design school, so she joined some of MATI’s programs: the business establishment and management course, a digital marketing workshop and, recently, a program for import/export from Turkey, which will allow her to import fabrics herself. Together with her artisan husband, she rented an apartment and currently trains several groups, as part of a professional training project for teenagers, and promotes her business.
About 60% of MATI’s clientele are women, who have a range of educational backgrounds. The organization focuses on residents of East Jerusalem who are looking for employment, people who want to start a business, and existing business owners who need assistance to take the next step.
Abu Snineh described some of the challenges people living in East Jerusalem face. Difficulty communicating in Hebrew contributes to a “difficulty in being able to develop entrepreneurship and businesses that can be relevant also in Western Jerusalem, a barrier in the ability to market and sell goods and services to the Hebrew-speaking public, a barrier in dialogue with institutions and authorities in the business framework.”
A lack of trust in the Israeli government system, which does not recognize many of the East Jerusalem businesses as legal entities, has “created a situation where legal business owners in the country received grants, [while] many of the businesses in East Jerusalem (mainly small and medium-sized ones) were left without the financial security granted to others,” said Abu Snineh.
Other factors include the political and security situation, digital barriers that make it difficult to market outside of East Jerusalem or online, insufficient knowledge about business laws, “which blocks the ability to make the business legal and granting rights alongside obligations,” and “a lack of domestic and foreign tourism.”
When asked how Vancouverites could help or participate in MATI, Abu Snineh and Shaul Vulej said, “To help us establish the first hub in East Jerusalem…. A hub would provide the appropriate and technology atmosphere similar to other areas in the world.”
Also needed, they said, is support for “all the ongoing programs that provide for the progress of Arab society in East Jerusalem” and for “a program for the advancement of women in East Jerusalem.”
The May 11 event is presented by the Jerusalem Foundation in partnership with Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, and it is sponsored by the Asper Foundation, as well as the Canadian Memorial United Church. It takes place at the Canadian Memorial Centre for Peace, 1825 West 16th Ave., starting at 7 p.m. To reserve a spot, visit cfhu.org/upcoming-events or call 604-257-5133.
The Jerusalem Business Development Centre (known in Hebrew by the acronym MATI) makes a direct contribution to shared living, and two leaders of the Israeli organization will visit British Columbia next month. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)
Shared living in Jerusalem takes many forms and, even during periods of unrest and tension, shared living continues for many people in the city. In the public spaces of Jerusalem, you will find Arabs and Jews and many others. They share the same spaces but they rarely have meaningful interactions and they often don’t even share the same language for communication.
The challenge of building bridges, trust and communication between diverse population groups has been one of the mandates of the Jerusalem Foundation since its establishment. For many years, it has created new community centres, cultural venues and parks and schools for all neighbourhoods across the city, working to ensure that equal access to services and leisure could be achieved.
The foundation supports programs for learning Arabic in Jewish schools and Hebrew in Arabic-speaking schools, assisting Jewish and Arab women in creating art together, in increasing their skills and employment opportunities, in finding ways for Jewish and Arab children to learn together, to play together, to understand what they have in common and not what makes them different.
Jerusalem is home to the Hebrew University which, like the city, encompasses students from a mosaic of religions, languages, ethnicities, cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds. The university leadership understands that this rich diversity is a precondition for academic excellence, critical examination, intellectual stimulation and the cultivation of the next generation of Israeli and regional leaders. Over the past decade, Hebrew University has devoted considerable efforts and resources to social and academic inclusion, as well as support of traditionally underrepresented populations.
The Israeli public elementary and high school system is separated for Arab and Jewish youth, as well as for religious and secular Jews and many places of residence are homogenous. Campuses, therefore, have great potential for shaping students’ perceptions and views regarding fairness, diversity and inclusion. Indeed, a positive campus experience will motivate university graduates from all groups in society to work alongside those from other groups in the workforce and to function as agents of change in their communities.
There are many challenges to shared living in Jerusalem, yet both the Jerusalem Foundation and Hebrew University believe that the diversity of Jerusalem is the city’s greatest asset and creates the resilience and strength needed to face all challenges for living together.
The Jerusalem Business Development Centre (known in Hebrew by the acronym MATI), which was founded by the Jerusalem Foundation in 1991 to strengthen and develop small businesses and entrepreneurship in the city, makes a direct contribution to shared living. The centre focuses on the city’s weakest economic populations: new immigrants, the ultra-Orthodox and East Jerusalem residents. Each year, MATI Jerusalem helps thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners create or expand businesses in the city, thus aiding in the creation of thousands of new jobs and advancing the city’s overall economic development.
A joint project of Hebrew U and the Asper Innovation Centre, together with the Jerusalem Foundation and MATI, sponsored microloans for women in East Jerusalem and led to the establishment of a full-time MATI centre in East Jerusalem.
Hebrew U established the Al-Bashair Program for Excellence in East Jerusalem, with the Jerusalem Municipality, as a leadership program for excelling students at the university from East Jerusalem. They attend a two-year program that includes leadership skills, internships, tours and career support. Al-Bashair for High Schools aims to prepare excellent high school students (grades 10-12) for higher education.
On Oct. 27 and 30, the Jerusalem Foundation of Canada and Canadian Friends of Hebrew University will bring the women leaders from MATI to Victoria then Vancouver, to tell their story and, through them, the story of Jerusalem. Michal Shaul Vulej, deputy chief executive officer, and Reham Abu Snineh, East Jerusalem manager, will speak about their experiences in East and West Jerusalem, and working to help empower and support underserved communities in workforce development and business opportunities. Their visit across Canada is sponsored by the Asper Foundation. In Vancouver, the visit is organized in partnership with the Jerusalem Foundation, CFHU and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
In announcing the results of the 2021 Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver annual campaign, campaign chair Lana Marks Pulver expressed deep gratitude for the generosity of donors. Acknowledging the ongoing impacts of the pandemic, she said, “Yet, we have also seen some impressive achievements. Organizations have innovated faster and better. Volunteers have dedicated countless hours, pitching in wherever they are needed. And donors have given more generously than ever before.
“Together, we have generated $11.16 million for our community!”
The annual campaign raised $9.52 million, while $1.64 million was raised for additional support, which includes additional support for special projects, community recovery, emergency relief and donors’ multi-year commitments to Federation’s international partners.
In addition, the community raised more than $388,000 for B.C. flood relief during the campaign period. And the community has come together to generate more than $850,000 so far for Ukraine relief.
“We can all take pride in this remarkable achievement, which reflects our collective commitment to our Jewish values of tzedakah and tikkun olam (repairing the world), and our responsibility to one another,” said Marks Pulver.
“From the start of the pandemic, Jewish Federation took the lead in getting our community through to a brighter future. A successful annual campaign is a big part of our ability to do that and, as chair of the campaign, I am deeply grateful for your support.”
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The Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University is pleased to announce a major gift of more than $5 million dollars from the estate of a Vancouver resident, to establish the Institute for Medical Research, Israel-Canada (IMRIC) Hub for Addiction Research at Hebrew University.
Prof. Rami Aqeilan, chair of IMRIC (photo from CFHU)
The mission of the IMRIC Hub for Addiction Research is to bring about wiser policies, better care and new treatment avenues for those struggling with addiction. This new program will focus on medical research relating to addiction, providing insights into the physical and chemical aspects of addiction, its prevention and treatment.
A silent addiction epidemic affects nearly 11% of adults (more than 615,000) in Israel. In any given year, one in five Canadians experiences a mental illness or addiction problem. Addiction can include both substance addiction (alcohol, drugs and other substances) and compulsive sexual behaviour, problematic use of pornography and problematic use of the internet. Moreover, addiction and mental health issues go hand in hand and must be addressed in tandem. Each year, addiction costs the Israeli economy approximately seven billion NIS and causes untold peripheral damage to families and communities.
“As a result of this generous gift, we at IMRIC are able to engage our best researchers in several specific research projects with diverse perspectives on addiction,” said Prof. Rami Aqeilan, chair of IMRIC. “Additionally, the hub will promote national and international interaction and foster collaboration with Canadian researchers.”
