Congregation Emanu-El

Community milestones … August 2025

Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan-Kaplan

Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan-Kaplan has been appointed the new dean of the ALEPH (Alliance for Jewish Renewal) Ordination Program (AOP). She will assume her role on Sept. 8.

Following the leadership of AOP’s retired founding dean Rabbi Marcia Prager, and two years of direction by Interim Dean Dr. Charles H. Silverstein, the AOP governors are pleased to welcome Duhan-Kaplan into this role.

A scholar, teacher and spiritual leader known for integrating mind and heart, Duhan-Kaplan brings decades of experience in Jewish studies, interfaith dialogue and rabbinic education. Most recently, she was professor of Jewish studies, director of inter-religious studies and interim academic dean at the Vancouver School of Theology. Ordained by ALEPH in 2005, she has served as AOP faculty,

a member of the Va’ad – the core administrative and organizational council that directs the seminary – and is rabbi emerita of Vancouver’s Or Shalom Synagogue.

Duhan-Kaplan’s many honours include the American Academy of Religion’s Katie Geneva Cannon Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Carnegie Foundation’s US Professor of the Year Award. A prolific author and editor, she has published 10 books, most recently Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals and The Infinity Inside: Jewish Spiritual Practice Through a Multi-faith Lens.

Born in New York City, Duhan-Kaplan is a dual Canadian-American citizen and lives in Vancouver with her spouse, musician and retired psychologist Charles Kaplan. For more information about the ALEPH Ordination Program, visit aop.aleph.org.

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photo - Rabbi Harry Brechner, who retires from Congregation Emanu-El this month, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York earlier this year — Rabbi Harry Brechner, who retires from Congregation Emanu-El this month, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York earlier this year.

After 24 years of service, Rabbi Harry Brechner retires this month and Rabbi Elisha (Eli) Herb is welcomed as the new rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El. Herb joins the Victoria community from Salem, Ore., where he has served as a congregational rabbi for nine years.

In 2024, Brechner received the King Charles III Coronation Medal for his significant contributions to interfaith connections, social justice and community dialogue in British Columbia. In 2025, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City for more than 25 years of distinguished service. A retirement party for him is planned for September and a formal installation ceremony for Herb will be held later this fall.

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photo - Shayna Goldberg — Shayna Goldberg

Shayna Goldberg is the new artistic managing director of the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre and the Chutzpah! Festival.

From Toronto, Goldberg has lived in Vancouver for almost 12 years. She has worked in the theatre and music industries, and been involved in the Jewish community, taking on roles within Moishe House, Axis Young Professionals and Na’amat Canada.

This year’s Chutzpah! Festival is scheduled for Nov. 13-23.

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The 2024 campaign of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver raised $13.17 million: $9.38 million through the annual campaign, $1.78 million in additional funding directed to special projects, $1.86 million to combat antisemitism and $150,000 in additional funding thanks to corporate partners.

With the theme “Power of Together,” the support came at a critical moment for our community. In the face of rising antisemitism and a deepening affordability crisis, community members chose to act – with tzedakah and with a commitment to collective impact.

Because of community donors, Jewish Federation and its partners can support families and individuals struggling with the rising cost of living; enhance community security at institutions and events across the region; counter antisemitism with strength and resolve; provide care and connection to Jewish seniors, Holocaust survivors, young families and those most vulnerable; and offer hope and aid to all those living in our partnership region in the Upper Galilee, most of whom were evacuated post-Oct. 7 and have only recently returned home.

For more information, visit jewishvancouver.com.

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On Aug. 7, Omatidio Media announced that production has begun in Vancouver on actor-turned-writer/director Elyse Levesque’s debut short film Hot Chocolate, which she wrote and is co-directing with Michael Driscoll.

photo - Jay Brazeau — Jay Brazeau *(photo from imdb.com)*

The film, shooting in Vancouver and Port Coquitlam, features a cast including multi-award- winning musician and actor Jann Arden, Clare McConnell (Star Trek: Discovery, Murdoch Mysteries), Paul Campbell (Battlestar Galactica), Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black), Leah Gibson (Jessica Jones), Jana Morrison (Astrid and Lilly Save the World), Alvin Sanders (Riverdale), Jay Brazeau (Day of the Dead), Luisa d’Oliveira (The 100) and Paula Giroday (Family Law).

Based on a true story, Hot Chocolate centres on Margot, who is on her way to a wedding with her boyfriend Cameron, when she finds herself the plus-one to a most unexpected event: his uncle’s assisted death.

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Over the past months, there have been updates about the what, when and where of JWest, but one important question remained: Who are the people behind this project?

JWest was born from a shared vision between the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC), Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver (JFGV) and King David High School (KDHS). Several years ago, leaders from these organizations came together with the idea to not just to update the existing JCC, but to completely reimagine the space as a multi-use Jewish campus. Since then, a broad network of people has been working to bring this vision to life.

The JWest Foundation Board, the JWest Development Corp board and several volunteer committees, together with leadership from the JCC, Federation and KDHS, have been guiding the project.

JWest Foundation: Responsible for the oversight of campus development and management of future revenue. Chair: Alex Cristall. Directors: Diane Friedman, Martin Gerber, Hodie Kahn, Lana Marks Pulver, Diane Switzer and Alvin Wasserman.

JWest Development Corp: Responsible for the management of campus construction. Chair: David Porte. Vice-chair: Joe Khalifa. Directors: Andrew Abramowich, Chris Andison, Michael Berkson, Alfonso Ergas, Phil Gertsman, Geoff Glotman, Mark Gurvis, Lana Marks Pulver and Lawrence Zimmering.

The JWest staff team supports volunteers and partner organizations in delivering the day-to-day operations:

• Executive director: Emily Pritchard, who led fundraising efforts over the last four years, raising – with the efforts of the campaign cabinet – $147 million, completing the first phase of the campaign. Pritchard stepped into the ED role in July, expanding her leadership beyond fundraising to overseeing the full scope of the project.

• Director of finance: Roni Greif, who brings a strategic financial lens to the team, shaped by years of professional experience and community involvement through KDHS and Congregation Beth Israel. Greif is instrumental in building the financial systems and structures that will support JWest not only through construction, but well into the future. She is helping lay the financial foundation for this project’s long-term success.

• Vice-president, development: Maurice Ouellette. With a background in architecture and a track record in real estate development, Ouellette plays a key role in shaping and delivering the physical campus. He works closely with Acton Ostry Architects and liaises with the City of Vancouver to make sure that planning, approvals and design meet (and exceed) expectations, from sustainability to architectural excellence.

• Development manager: Hayden Kremer, who is involved across all areas of project development and operations for JWest Development Corp. Whether he’s reviewing Oakridge Energy’s proposal for the JCC’s future energy needs, working with Grosvenor on temporary parking during construction, or negotiating rezoning conditions with the City of Vancouver, he is solving problems, managing logistics and keeping everything moving forward.

To learn more about the project and explore the community of donors helping bring it to life, visit JWestNow.com and follow JWest on Instagram and Facebook.

Klezcadia a June highlight

Veretski Pass – Joshua Horowitz, left, Cookie Segelstein and Stuart Brotman – will be joined by clarinetist Joel Rubin to present the world première of music from their new album, Makonovetsky’s Scion. (photo from Klezcadia)

Victoria will host Klezcadia, a hybrid klezmer and Yiddish culture festival showcasing a West Coast lineup of musical mastery and mavenry. Running June 4-9 in-person and online, there is no charge to attend.

According to festival director Laura Rosenberg, Klezcadia intends to position Victoria as a focal point for klezmer and Yiddish cultural tourism. In conjunction with the music, the six-day event will present classes, workshops, lectures, demonstrations and open rehearsals conducted by artists, language faculty and other guests.

“Klezcadia’s audiences can expect cutting-edge performances – including three world premières – by some of the world’s leading klezmer artists. Additionally, participants at any level of experience will have opportunities to attend classes, workshops and presentations by these same artists and their Yiddish-language colleagues,” Rosenberg told the Independent.

“Our guiding principle is to make the safe in-person attendance experience and the virtual attendance experience as equivalent and rich as current technology allows, as well as to give the same level of respect to all attendees,” she said.

Some of the featured artists will be Veretski Pass, a Bay Area trio that will perform with clarinetist Joel Rubin; Vancouver musician Geoff Berner; and Jeanette Lewicki in her new show as Pepi Litman, an early 20th-century Yiddish theatre drag star.

Comprised of Cookie Segelstein (violin), Joshua Horowitz (19th-century button accordion) and Stuart Brotman (bass), Veretski Pass offers a wide mix of East European influences. Reuniting with Rubin, they will present the world première of music from Makonovetsky’s Scion, their new album for the Borscht Beat label.

Berner, a singer, songwriter, accordionist, novelist and political activist, will stage the première of Second Fleet, the Yiddish song cycle he recently co-wrote with Canadian writer Michael Wex, author of the bestseller Born to Kvetch, a humorous and scholarly look at the Yiddish language.

Lewicki will transmit the spirit of Litman, the original “drag king” of Yiddish theatre, in another première. The Pepi Litman Project will examine the time when a groundbreaking performer literally “wore the pants,” led her own touring troupe, turned taverns into theatres, and tested societal boundaries with her satire. Litman toured Europe and reportedly North America, too, singing, in male garb, at spas, inns and private homes in small towns and large cities alike.

Some of the talks and workshops on offer at the festival are The Barry Sisters: America’s Yiddish Swingsters, with Andy Muchin, the host of the Sounds Jewish radio show on PRX; Yiddish Through Song Lyrics, with Seattle-based Marianne Tatom, a Yiddish teacher and klezmer musician; and Yiddish Through Conversation, with Sasha Berenstein, a multi-instrument musician and fellow with the Yiddish Book Centre’s Yiddish Pedagogy Program.

On June 5, Christina Crowder of the Klezmer Institute will speak about the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project, an international endeavour connecting participants with the work of important klezmer musicians from the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

The festival will take a walk on the vilde side on June 8 with what organizers describe as “musical mash-ups, klezmer-adjacent adventures, song parodies, unusual instruments” and offering the forecast “you never know what will pop up in this clearing in the klezmer/Yiddish jungle.” The evening will feature Seattle neo-vaudevillian Mai Li Pittard, as well as local klezmer bands Kvells Angels and the Klezbians. A new klezmer ensemble, Kvells Angels, gave a concert last fall at the University of Victoria in which they performed works previously unavailable to musicians. The Klezbians, meanwhile, are a well-known band of “chutzpah-licious” musicians, and the group goes back many a year.

Victoria’s Congregation Emanu-El, under whose auspices Klezcadia is being produced, will host the finale concert at the Cameron Bandshell, located in Beacon Hill Park. The closing concert will be a gift to the city in celebration of the congregation’s 160th anniversary.

Festival organizers have made a concentrated effort to ensure that all participants enjoy a safe experience. The hybrid environment, they stress, will prioritize the well-being of immunocompromised and high-risk participants, for both those onstage and in the audience. Indoor activities will include protective protocols, such as supplemental air purification, required masking and daily onsite COVID testing.

“Klezcadia was inspired by deep listening to an online meeting of immunocompromised and high-risk musicians and Yiddish-language enthusiasts in early 2023,” Rosenberg said. “During the first two years of the pandemic, they had finally felt included in the klezmer/Yiddish community, since everyone’s only option was to gather online.”

The same groups felt marginalized again when most festivals returned to unmasked, in-person formats. Through dialogue with these groups, Rosenberg realized, Victoria had a chance “to become a host community for an inclusive form of cultural tourism.”

Rosenberg said her 45-year arts administration career came in handy when building a music festival from the ground up; she had already done so with two other festivals. It has been a year’s worth of full-time work to plan the format, bring in the artists and teachers, scout venues, initiate community engagement and, importantly, raise the money.

Locals seem eager for the festival to start. “I am optimistic based on expressions of pride I have heard from Victoria residents, on how quickly Klezcadia’s in-person registration reached capacity and on the eagerness of local tourism-sector businesses to be included in our visitors’ guide,” Rosenberg said.

People from more than a dozen countries have signed up to view events streamed online.

For more information, visit klezcadia.org.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

אתגרי הביטחון

לאור אתגרי הביטחון השונים הג’ואיש פדריישן של אזור מטרו ונקובר מינתה לאחרונה את דניאל היידנריך, לתפקיד מנהל הביטחון של הארגון. (צילום: jewishvancouver.com)

אנטישמיות בקנדה: גם בית כנסת בוויקטוריה קיבל מכתב שנאה

לרשימת בתי הכנסת ברחבי קנדה שקיבלו מכתבי שנאה מצטרף גם בית הכנסת קהילת עמנואל בוויקטוריה. לפי הערכה למעלה מאחד עשר בתי כנסת ברחבי קנדה קיבלו עד כה את מכתבי השנאה האנונימיים המדוברים. מחלקות פשעי שנאה של משטרות קנדה בערים השונות, פתחו בחקירה לבדוק את זהות שולחי מכתבי השנאה לבית כנסת ברחבי המדינה בחודש האחרון. עד כה ידוע שהמכתבים נשלחו למוסדות היהודים בערים הבאות: טורונטו (ארבעה בתי כנסת), מונטריאול (שני בתי כנסת), אוטווה, המילטון, קינגסטון, קלגרי, אדמונטון (שני בתי כנסת) וכן כאמור ויקטוריה.

המכתבים כוללים ציור של צלב קרס על מגן דוד צהוב עם דם נוטף, בצרוף הסלוגן “היהודים חייבים במיתה” גן כן עם דף נוטף. בשלב זה לא ברור האם קמפיין השנאה היה קשור לחג החנוכה שחל באותם ימים, או להכרזתו החד צדדית של נשיא ארה”ב דונלד טראמפ, כי ירושלים היא בירת ישראל, או שמדובר בפעילות אנטשימית “רגילה”.

ראש ממשלת קנדה, ג’סטין טרודו, אמר בתגובה לפרשה החמורה: “למעשי שנאה ואנטישמיות אלה אין מקום במדינתנו ואנו לא נסבול זאת”. לפי נתוני הלשכה המרכזית לסטטיסטיקה מכלל פשעי השנאה ברחבי קנדה כשלושה עשר אחוז מתבצעים כנגד הקהילה היהודית המקומית.

בבני ברית קנדה מציינים כי בשנת 2016 נרשמה עלייה משמעותית בהיקף של עשרים ושישה אחוז בפשעי שנאה נגד יהודים במדינה (1728 מקרים בסך הכל), לעומת השנה החולפת (2015). בבני ברית מוסיפים עוד כי 2016 הוותה שנת שיא בפעולות האנטישמיות מתוך 35 השנים האחרונות, שבהן הארגון מנהל רשום בנושא.

מכחישת שואה קנדית נעצרה בגרמניה

משטרת גרמניה עצרה לפני מספר ימים את מוניקה שייפר, מכחישת השואה שגרה בעיירה גא’ספר שבאלברטה. המשטרה המקומית חוקרת את שייפר לאור טענותיה שהשואה לא התקיימה – דבר הנחשב לעבירה פלילית בגרמניה. שייפר הגיעה למינכן כדי לתמוך במכחישת שואה אחרת סילביה סטולץ, שמשפטה מתנהל בימים אלה. סטולץ שימשה בעברה עורכת דין הורשעה כבר על הכחשת השואה. לטענת שייפר (שהיא בת להורים מגרמניה) השואה היא השקר העיקש ביותר בתולדות העולם. היא מציינת כי לא נהרגו בשואה שישה מיליון יהודים והיא אומרת בפשטות כי זהו שקר השישה מיליון.

לראשונה: מנהל ביטחון בפרדציה היהודית של ונקובר

לאור אתגרי הביטחון השונים הג’ואיש פדריישן של אזור מטרו ונקובר מינתה לאחרונה את דניאל היידנריך, לתפקיד מנהל הביטחון של הארגון. בתוכנית של עדיפויות אסטרטגיות ל-2020 נקבע כי יש צורך למנות מנהל מיוחד לעניניי ביטחון.

היידנריך שמכהן בתפקיד מאז חודש אוקטובר האחרון, הספיק להיפגש עם ראשי למעלה מעשרים ארגונים שונים שפועלים בקהילה, כדי לעמוד מקרוב על צרכי הביטחון שלהם, שיבואו לידי ביטוי בבקשותיהם לקבלת תקציבים כספיים מהממשלה הפדרלית. במקביל נעשה מאמץ לחזק את הקשר בין הארגונים לבין כוחות הביטחון המקומיים.

בתפקידו בפדרציה היידנריך מתמקד בשלושה תחומים עיקריים: אבטחה שוטפת של הקהילה היהודית והמוסדות השונים המסונפים אליה, קיום סדנאות מקצועיות כדי לסייע ולהדריך את הארגונים היהודים בנושא רמת הביטחון הנדרשת לאבטחתם, הפעלת רשת מתנדבי ביטחון לסייע למערך הביטחון של הארגונים השוינם ובעיקר באירועים.

היידנריך שירת במשך כעשרים שנה בצבא הבריטי. לאחר מכן שימש במשך כשלוש עשרה שנים יועץ לענייני ביטחון בארגונים שונים בעולם (בהם בעיראק ואפגניסטן, קפריסין ודרום אפריקה). בוונקובר הוא שימש בין היתר ראש האבטחה של קניון אוקרידג’ ולאחר מכן מנהל הביטחון של מלון הדירות טראמפ ונקובר.