continuity

A religious pilgrimage

Bohras in prayer at the marble open-air mosque located on the grounds of Barzilai Medical Centre. (photo from Ron Lobel)

The Barzilai Medical Centre in Ashkelon, Israel, is known for treating victims of border skirmishes with Gaza. It is also the former home of a tomb where a Shi’a Muslim sect known as Dawoodi Bohras (or Bohras) still make pilgrimages. Bohras believe that the head of Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, was buried here in 680 AD, following his death in battle.

While many Shi’as believe that Husayn’s complete body was buried at Karbala, Iraq, others, like the Bohras, claim that his head was hidden in Ashkelon and then taken away centuries later to Egypt to prevent desecration by European Crusaders. Despite that its final resting place might be in Egypt, the location in Ashkelon continues to attract pilgrims.

Dawoodi Bohras number around one million adherents worldwide – though some estimates are as high as five million – and trace their ancestry to Egypt during the Fatimid Caliphate. They eventually migrated to India via Yemen after the Caliphate ended in 1171 AD. Today, Bohras live mostly in Western India, with smaller communities in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya and elsewhere.

Dr. Ron Lobel, former deputy director of the medical centre, has met with various pilgrims and described them as “very decent people who visit quietly and respectfully.” He continued, “You hardly notice when they’re here.”

Lobel said, wherever Bohras hail from, they converse in Lisan U Dawat, which is similar to Gujarati, with Arabic and Farsi influences, reflecting their Middle Eastern roots. Unlike the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, there is no specific time prescribed to visit Ashkelon. Therefore, pilgrims visit whenever they are able to do so.

Bohras are of the Ismaili Shi’a subdivision and have a centralized leadership, currently headed by the 53rd da’i al-mutlaq: Mufaddal Saifudeen. The Bohras’ leadership lineage can be traced directly to Prophet Mohammed. The Druze, who today live in Israel and the Levant, split off from Ismaili Shi’as in 1017 AD and now identify as a different religion altogether.

The pilgrimage site in Israel has had structures atop that were constantly demolished and rebuilt throughout history. The last standing one was a mosque named Mashhad al-Husayn, which was razed in 1950 by Moshe Dayan despite protests by Shmuel Yeivin, then director of the Department of Antiquities. The Barzilai Medical Centre was opened in 1961, and they contend that they “had no clue that the hill within the premises was a sacred site.”

Although pilgrims had visited prior to 1948, the first known group to visit after Israeli independence came in 1980, shortly after relations between Israel and Egypt were normalized. According to Aliasgher Zakir from Kenya, these pilgrims were Indian and Kenyan Bohras who had recently moved to Egypt for business purposes. Most pilgrims also visit Jerusalem, for its religious and historical significance.

In 2000, the 52nd dai, Mohammed Burhanuddin (the father of Da’i Al-mutlaq Mufaddal Saifudeen), visited during an excavation that uncovered remnants of historic structures barely a metre below the ground. Subsequently, a marble platform was installed, which now serves as an open-air mosque for pilgrims.

“Just like us Jews, they are very stubborn about keeping their old traditions, language and customs alive,” Lobel said with a chuckle. He added that, while Muslims from other sects have also visited, only Dawoodi Bohras show consistency in making pilgrimage as an organized community.

Avi Kumar is an historian and freelance writer. He has lived in six countries and speaks 10 languages. His work has been published in many countries, from his native Sri Lanka to Israel and Ireland, and he has written on a variety of topics, including history, wildlife and linguistics.

New foundation established

Mark Gurvis returns to Vancouver as head of the new Ronald Roadburg Foundation. (photo from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver)

Feb. 1 was Mark Gurvis’s first full day on the job as chief executive officer of the Ronald Roadburg Foundation. A newly established Vancouver-based organization, the foundation aims to bolster Jewish communities locally and internationally while developing innovative solutions to challenging societal issues.

A fixture in the community when he headed the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver from 2002 to 2013, Gurvis is excited to be back in town.

“I had a wonderful professional experience and my family had a wonderful life experience being part of the community,” he told the Independent. “We had a great run with the Federation. It is great to come back to a fresh opportunity. We are looking forward to getting involved again.”

At the outset, Gurvis will be busy doing many of the things needed to get a young foundation up and running: sorting out technical matters, getting the office organized, and reaching out to and reconnecting with people to determine the needs of the community.

“This is a complete start-up,” said Gurvis. “As with any new organization, an awful lot goes into the beginning to work out vision, goals and priorities. We have all of that ahead of us. We have a lot to learn about the current state of affairs in each area of focus we want to dive into and explore how we can best make a difference with the resources that will become available. There is a lot of organizational development stuff to tend to as well in starting up an organization from scratch.”

The foundation will be active in examining and assessing the needs of the community. “It’s too early to be putting oars in the water and say this is where we are going,” Gurvis stressed. “I encourage everyone to be patient as we do all the things to get the focus of the organization in place and then see how we can have a positive impact on the community and the region.”

Gurvis has had a full schedule since leaving his job at the Jewish Federation. He was executive vice-president of Jewish Federations of North America through 2020. In 2021, he created Community Network Consulting, a venture that focused on the strategy of nonprofits, community planning and organizational development.

Upon learning of the new position opening up, however, it seemed like the right opportunity to return to Vancouver, he said.

The Ronald Roadburg Foundation was founded by Jack Bogdonov, Stephen Gaerber and Bernard Pinsky, all of whom serve on its board. Gurvis, as CEO of Federation, worked with Gaerber, who was chair of the Coast-to-Coast partnership with the Galilee Panhandle in Israel, and with Pinsky, who was involved with the Jewish Federations of Canada (JFC-UIA).

“We recognized Mark’s intellect, creativity, calm demeanor, and ability to build consensus among constituencies as second to none among all Jewish professionals we had encountered,” said Pinsky. “When Jack, Stephen and I looked for a CEO that could help us accomplish the transformational change we aim for, there was only one person we reached out to: Mark Gurvis.”

Pinksy added, “Our board agrees that we are very fortunate to have Mark join us and, in our view, Mark gives us a big leg up on other start-up foundations because of all of the qualities mentioned above, as well as Mark’s depth and breadth of knowledge of the Jewish community, in Vancouver, Canada, the United States, Israel and the world.”

Ronald Roadburg, the foundation’s namesake, was a local businessman who passed away in 2021. Born and raised in Vancouver, he learned business from his father, Al Roadburg, who also headed the family enterprise, Broadway Properties.

“Two things his father taught him that he especially took to heart were: own property that is where people immediately know its location; and try not to sell properties, ever. These two principles led to the Roadburgs’ great success in the property business. Ron’s will left most of his assets to charity, and the foundation named after him will carry out his intention,” Pinsky said.

To those who knew him, Ronald Roadburg stood out for his sense of humour and compassion. “He loved helping people and he loved animals. He loved art, supporting local artists, and he collected many whimsical and unusual pieces,” Pinsky recalled. “During the last 10 years of his life, he was a director and participated wholeheartedly in making donations to worthy causes through a foundation established by his father.”

Roadburg commissioned numerous murals, which still appear on buildings that he owned around town. He championed several causes to help the less privileged in society and was an unwavering supporter of Israel.

The Ronald Roadburg Foundation will be situated on West Broadway. Over the next few months, the leadership will be honing its focus on specific areas of philanthropic investment and establishing its grant-making policies and practices. To learn more about the foundation, visit roadburgfund.org.

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

Opening of Dayson Residences

The Dayson and Barnett families were on hand to celebrate the opening of Tikva Housing Society’s Ben and Esther Dayson Residences. (photo from Tikva Housing)

Although the weather was not ideal, almost 100 people attended the opening of Tikva Housing Society’s Ben and Esther Dayson Residences on Sept. 26.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event had to be held outside under tents. Rhonda Sacks, chair of Tikva, welcomed everyone and thanked the Ben and Esther Dayson Charitable Foundation and the Dayson and Barnett families for their ongoing generosity and support. She acknowledged the three generations of the Dayson and Barnett families who were present and the importance of the younger ones to witness this momentous occasion.

Sacks recognized the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver for understanding the immediate need for affordable housing in the Jewish community and thanked them for their leadership and advocacy. Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation, brought greetings and reiterated the importance of not only saying thank you but also showing the younger generation how, because of their great-grandparents, the community is taking care of those in need of affordable housing.

Philip Dayson spoke on behalf of the family and mentioned that it was the desire of his mother, Esther Dayson, to help those less fortunate and to have a lasting legacy, like these townhomes.

photo - The younger generation of the Dayson/Barnett family cut the ribbon at the opening of Tikva Housing Society’s Ben and Esther Dayson Residences — The younger generation of the Dayson/Barnett family cut the ribbon at the opening of Tikva Housing Society’s Ben and Esther Dayson Residences. *(photo from Tikva Housing)*

Many of the residents in attendance took the opportunity to personally thank the donors and their families.

Hannah Amar, one of the residents at the Dayson Residences, spoke on behalf of the 32 families who live there. She spoke of the importance of having safe and secure accommodation, especially during COVID, and how grateful she is to Tikva and to its donors for her beautiful home.

This housing development is part of a partnership of the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Community Land Trust; there were many donors and partners on the project.

More than 100 people live in the residences, including almost 60 children. As one of the residents said, “The sense of community and Jewish life is beyond what we could have imagined. We are so fortunate to be living here.”

The event also paid tribute to Susana Cogan, z’l, who was the driving force behind Tikva Housing from 2009 to 2017. Cogan was instrumental in developing these residences, as well as others that Tikva owns and/or operates. A commemorative bench in her memory sits adjacent to the children’s playground.

For more information about Tikva Housing, call the office at 778-998-4582.

– Courtesy Tikva Housing

A sapling grows in Jerusalem

A sapling seeded by Anne Frank’s horse-chestnut tree in Amsterdam is growing at Yad Vashem, near its International Institute for Holocaust Research. (photo by Gil Zohar)

treJerusalem and its environs have many historic trees, including the grove of gnarled olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, under which Jesus may have sheltered two millennia ago; the looming cypress planted by Godefroy de Bouillon, today the site of Hôpital Saint Louis, but where French knights camped in 1099 during the first Crusade; and the 700-year-old Kermes Oak that stands alone in Gush Etzion, south of the city. And now, there is another – a sapling seeded by Anne Frank’s white horse-chestnut tree in Amsterdam, which is growing at Yad Vashem, near its International Institute for Holocaust Research.

Initially, Yad Vashem was concerned that the chestnut tree would not acclimate to Jerusalem’s long, dry summers, but it is doing well.

For more than two years until her arrest on Aug. 4, 1944, Frank (1929-1945) hid in her family’s secret annex at Prinsengracht 263-265. Through a window in the attic that was not blacked out, she admired the chestnut tree, planted around 1850, that stood in the courtyard of a neighbouring residential block, at 188 Keizersgracht just north of the landmark Westerkerk. The tree was her only connection to the outside world and the changing seasons.

Frank wrote about the tree three times in her diary. On the last occasion, on May 13, 1944, she observed: “Our chestnut tree is in full bloom. It’s covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.”

A month earlier, on April 18, 1944, she wrote: “April is glorious, not too hot and not too cold, with occasional light showers. Our chestnut tree is in leaf, and here and there you can already see a few small blossoms.”

The first reference was on Feb. 23, 1944, when Frank noted: “The two of us [Peter van Pels and Frank] looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn’t speak.”

For decades, the storied tree was cared for by Amsterdam’s Pius Floris Tree Care at the behest of the city’s Central Borough Council. In 2005, it was determined that the tree was ailing, and valiant efforts were made to save it.

In the meantime, Anne Frank House asked permission of the tree’s owner to gather and germinate chestnuts. The saplings – grown and cared for by Bonte Hoek Nurseries – were donated to schools around the world named after Anne Frank, and other organizations. In 2009, 150 saplings of the tree were donated to Amsterdamse Bos woodland park.

A sapling was recently planted in Vienna’s 2nd district – a neigbourhood that had many Jewish residents before the Anschluss in 1938. Another was planted in Ajaccio, Corsica, to honour the Righteous Among the Nations there. And 11 chestnut trees are growing in the United States, including one at Manhattan’s Liberty Park commemorating 9/11, thanks to the sapling project of the New York-based Anne Frank Centre for Mutual Respect.

As for the original tree, in 2008, the Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation placed iron struts around it to prop it up, hoping the tree would remain standing for further decades. But it was already too rotten. During a violent rainstorm on Aug. 23, 2010, the tree collapsed together with the girders supporting it, leaving a one-metre high stump.

On its website, the Dutch-based Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation responds to the question, was the battle to save the tree all for nothing?

“The answer is a resounding no!” they say. “The tree and the struggle to preserve it … has fulfilled an important task in an extraordinary manner: the reawakening of the world’s collective memory of the Holocaust and a call for tolerance and mutual respect. The seedlings planted all over the world will continue to spread the message, a grand and dignified final stage in the life of this tree. This would not have happened were it not for the battle for its preservation.”

Gil Zohar is a journalist based in Jerusalem.

Importance of rite of passage

Our son, Nissim Shalom, recently became a bar mitzvah, and it is a living reminder for us of our family’s remarkable and ancient history. According to Jewish law, a Jewish boy reaching the age of 13 becomes a bar mitzvah and is responsible for assuming the mitzvot of Jewish adulthood. (A girl becomes a bat mitzvah at the age of 12.) Once a bar mitzvah, a person may be counted in a minyan (prayer quorum) and may lead religious services in the family and the community.

The bar mitzvah age was selected because it roughly coincides with physical puberty (Talmud Niddah, 45b). Prior to a child becoming a bar mitzvah, the child’s parents are responsible for the child’s actions, but b’nai mitzvah bear responsibility for their own actions with respect to Jewish ritual law, ethics and tradition and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life.

Upon a boy’s becoming a bar mitzvah, a celebration is made in his honour. The current scale of celebrations is much greater than it used to be in the mellah, or shtetl, of the old countries. In the past, this rite of passage was a joyous matter of course for every Jewish child without exception. In more recent times, however, this milestone is unfortunately not as absolute as it once was. Hence, we celebrate the occasion with more ostentation to highlight the cherished continuity of our heritage.

In the Moroccan community, we have many unique customs.

On the eve of the celebration, the bar mitzvah gets a haircut in the presence of his family and, as in every Moroccan celebration, traditional henna is put on his hand. On the celebratory day, it is customary for the family to help the bar mitzvah boy don tallit and tefillin, thereby showing him how dear this mitzvah is.

Many in the Moroccan community had the custom of taking the boy to a mikvah, stressing the idea of purity and holiness. Some had the custom of snatching the tefillin from the boy, so that the father would be obliged to redeem them with money, thereby demonstrating their importance.

When the bar mitzvah is called to the Torah, it is customary for the women to ululate “lulululu.” This custom originates from a kabbalistic source stating that, in every holy and happy occasion, the evil inclination (yetzer harah) is challenged to act. Thus, the women scream out in order to confuse and to chase away the yetzer harah.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the future of the Jewish people depends in large measure upon the bar (and bat) mitzvah event. Education, and particularly education of our young, has been and remains the means by which we continue to thrive, to exist, to ensure the future of Klal Israel. Is it any wonder that we celebrate with such gusto, as families and communities, this uniquely Jewish simchah by which we renew ourselves and our time in Jewish history?

Rabbi Ilan Acoca is a veteran rabbi and educator. He is the rabbi emeritus of Vancouver’s Congregation Beth Hamidrash and currently serves as the rabbi of the Sephardic Congregation of Fort Lee-Bet Yosef, in Fort Lee, N.J., and rav beit hasefer of Yeshivat Ben Porat Yosef, in Paramus, N.J. He is the writer of the book The Sephardic Book of Why and has written hundreds of articles on various topics for different publications.

Teach it to your children

You’re reading the weekly congregational email. Something radical seems to have happened. Within a week, everything has changed. Well, maybe the format seems the same, ready to lull you into “services this week, events, make a donation …” but then it hits you. It’s like a revolution happened. Instead of the regular schedule, where the adult service is happening at 8 p.m. Friday night, and davening starts at 9:30 Saturday morning, it’s all changed. Imagine this:

Come for our weekly great Kabbalat Shabbat service at 4:45! Join us for prayers, story time, snack, dancing and singing. The service ends by 5:45, followed by an Oneg Shabbat with fruit, veggies, cheese cubes, challah and grape juice.

Want to stay up later? Join us in the sanctuary for a summer camp-style sing-along of Shabbat music and study the Torah portion with the rabbi and your friends.

On Saturday morning, daven with us! Services begin at 8:45, with morning prayers, movement activities, another great story (with a picture book!) and three dances to help us learn new psalms. We’ll learn the Torah portion of the week, act out some of it, and end with a rousing Adon Olam. Let’s march around and pretend we’re playing in a band.

Services end by 10:30. We’ll provide a healthy Kiddush snack, including whole grain crackers, juice and water, lots of fruits and veggies, and more. (It’s a nut-free environment, but feel free to bring along dairy or pareve snacks to share.)

If the weather’s good, after snack, let’s play outside at the shul playground. If not, we’ll run in the shul gym so you can get tired before going home to have a big Shabbat lunch and nap.

In the evening, join us for Havdalah at the shul at 5! We’ll be serving pizza and salad, with cookies for dessert. (Click here for costs, to register and for the Jewish movie of the week.) After dinner, we’ll be showing a G or PG movie in the gym for families who want to stay out late.

Also there’s a Saturday evening study session. This week: Jewish advice for managing our busy modern family life, at 6:30 in the library. (Free.)

Note: If doing the rabbi’s Saturday evening study session, please be sure one parent or friend is in the gym to supervise your offspring and enjoy the movie together.

Reminders: On Sunday morning, the shul opens bright and early as usual for religious school, yoga for parents, coffee klatch and the usual lecture series after the morning minyan.

Our congregational soup kitchen, visit to the local Jewish seniors centre, nursing facilities and once-a-month cemetery clean-up all meet on Sunday afternoons. (Cemetery group, next week is our hike at the lake, so bring your boots and bathing suit and we’ll see you on the bus – we might let others attend if there is room! Click here to register.)

See you then!

* * *

OK, as you read this, you’re thinking, this is all well and good for those few young families out there. I mean, maybe my children or grandchildren might go sometimes? But, for me, well, I feel left out. This doesn’t seem like what I’m used to.

But consider the model some congregations still use: Join us for a family Shabbat dinner! (It happens only once or twice a year.) Services start by 5:30. Food is offered, one course at a time, starting after 7. There’s no finger food or even challah on the table. The kids’ food comes after the salad course. Parents who don’t want to create a scene take their children home long before dessert is served to avoid a train wreck…. And nobody wants to come back.

Should Jewish life be all about young families? Well, no. We shouldn’t give up traditional services or customs, but the V’ahavta says “we should teach it [Judaism] to our children.” How do you do that better, so there will be Jews a generation from now? Should your congregation include positive experiences for younger people? Does that create a plan for the future?

Based on a random sampling of kids’ events in my Jewish community (Winnipeg) over the last six years, here’s a generic sampling of what I’ve seen.

If a shul schedules a Tot Shabbat irregularly – although kids thrive on routine – it happens during kid dinnertime or even at bedtime. If your preschooler eats dinner at 5:30 and is in bed at 7:30, how does that service at 6:15 work for you? Hear any angry screaming in that sanctuary?

How about the big kid events scheduled for 1-3 p.m.? Many kids are grouchy creatures around then. We love naps. If we’re skipping them, well, the activity had better be fabulous … and tolerant of crying, hitting and screaming.

Many congregations do a great job of integrating families into their activities and planning. Instead of having kids’ events as an afterthought once a year, most events are designed with whole families in mind … and preschool activities meet the needs of families with babies and small kids.

Teenagers and adults have relevant events. People of all ages have good family programming, too. Sometimes, this is all the same service. Can kids have roles in the service, like saying the Shema or leading a song? Can kids’ restless behaviour be tolerated at the same level as we tolerate adults’ conversation and restless behaviour?

How about making registration accessible and online? Include active learning as part of all events, so Judaism remains relevant?

The kicker – somebody always says: It can’t be done. This isn’t the way we do it here. It’ll be expensive. It’s not possible.

I say: dream bigger.

Joanne Seiff, a regular columnist for Winnipeg’s Jewish Post and News, is the author of a new book, From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016. This collection of essays is available for digital download, or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her on joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

The future of Jewish learning

A picture from Smart Money, a study intended to help the Jewish community navigate the high-tech world. (photo by Lewis Kassel courtesy of Moishe House)

By day, Liora Brosbe is the family engagement officer for the Jewish Federation of the East Bay in Berkeley, Calif., where she reaches out to the community with a menu of opportunities for “connecting to Jewish life and each other.” But when she’s not at work, Brosbe’s main job is raising three kids, ages 2, 6 and 8. Their home? A laboratory for Jewish learning strategies.

“Yes, they’re little Petri dishes,” their mom, who is also a psychotherapist, said with a laugh. “Like most families, screen time is a huge issue at our house, both for time and content, but I tell families it’s also an amazing opportunity for low-barrier Jewish engagement.”

With the avalanche of new technologies – many of them being tapped for Jewish learning – educators, funders and parents are often befuddled about where to invest their money and their kids’ or students’ time. A recent report on the implications of the wave of educational technology and digital engagement is designed to guide the Jewish community through this complex space.

Sponsored by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the William Davidson Foundation, Smart Money: Recommendations for an Educational Technology and Digital Engagement Investment Strategy examines many of these innovations and provides suggestions for navigating the high-tech world. The study’s recommendations include using virtual and augmented reality (a user could, for example, experience the splitting of the Red Sea); creating games based on alternative scenarios for “Jewish futures,” such as rebuilding Jewish life after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple; offering opportunities for students to learn coding and other technological skills, which can foster connectedness among Jewish youths and introduce them to Israeli high-tech companies; and increasingly using video, music, podcasting and other platforms.

The report is garnering far more attention than expected, according to the sponsors.

“We did not originally intend for this to be a public report,” said Barry Finestone, president and chief executive officer of the Jim Joseph Foundation, “but the substance of the findings and recommendations really challenge us, as funders, to think strategically, creatively and collaboratively about how we can utilize educational technology and digital engagement to advance our Jewish educational missions.”

For the report, Lewis J. Bernstein and Associates interviewed 50 experts, investors and educators from both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds to create the recommendations.

“It’s a huge media marketplace out there and most Jews are exposed to the same information as the rest of the world,” said Lewis J. Bernstein, a former producer of Sesame Street and the report’s lead researcher. “Parents and educators have difficult choices to make, and Jewish learning and wisdom compete with the secular world.”

Grodzka Gate Lublin reunion

A photo from Lublin: Faces of a Nonexistent City, likely taken by taken by Abram Zylberberg. (photo from Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre)

From July 3-7, the Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre in Lublin (Osrodek Brama Grodzka – Teatr NN), Poland, will host the Lubliner Reunion – the first international meeting of Jewish inhabitants of the city and their descendants in 70 years.

Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre is an organization run by non-Jews dedicated to preserving Jewish memory. It has been actively pursuing this mission for 25 years, and its program includes meetings, discussions, sightseeing tours, commemorations and artistic events. The reunion will constitute an important element of the celebrations, which mark 700 years since the founding of the city of Lublin, and is designed to emphasize the significance of the Jewish community for the history of the city.

The history of Jews has been intertwined with that of Lublin for several hundred years, and has helped shape its identity. The story of Lublin has been enriched with, among other things, the presence of a well-known yeshivah (Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin), the meetings of the Council of Four Lands (Vaad Arba Aratzot), the activities of local rabbis and social organizations and the work of writer and Nobel-laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Just before the Second World War broke out, the 43,000 Jewish citizens of Lublin constituted one-third of the city’s population. The majority of Lublin’s Jewish inhabitants were murdered during the Holocaust and one of the German death camps, Majdanek, was located on the outskirts of Lublin. The story of Lublin cannot be told without the stories of its Jewish inhabitants, which is why, during the festivities organized to celebrate the 700-year-long history of the city in 2017, the presence of their descendants is vital and symbolic.

“The Lubliner Reunion is a way to build a bridge across time,” said Tomasz Pietrasiewicz, founder and director of Grodzka Gate. “It’s meant as a meeting in which both the people and their stories are important. Grodzka Gate is engaged in protecting the ‘memory of the place.’ We want to preserve what is left of Lublin’s Jewish community. The Lubliner Reunion will allow us to share knowledge and fill the blank spaces in the stories about Lublin and its inhabitants.”

photo - Grodzka Gate in Lublin, Poland — Grodzka Gate in Lublin, Poland. *(photo from Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre )*

The program of the reunion covers meetings devoted to the history and culture of Jewish Lublin, workshops in genealogy, walks along tourist trails, commemorations and a variety of artistic events. One of the central features of the reunion will be presentations of Lubliner family stories. Guests will have a chance to get to know both historical and contemporary Lublin, visit the former Jewish district and meet non-Jews working to preserve the memory of the Jews of Lublin for generations to come.

Apart from sightseeing within Lublin, Grodzka Gate is also planning tours of the region – Zamosc, Kazimierz Dolny, Belzec and Wlodawa, among other places. Apart from these excursions, all events are free of charge for participants. The inauguration of the reunion will take place on July 3 in the Museum at the Lublin Castle.

“We want to get in touch with and invite all those whose families come from Lublin,” underlined reunion coordinator Monika Tarajko. “We already have participants coming from Israel, the United States, France, Belgium and Great Britain. However, we are still striving to reach as many prospective participants as possible and inform them about the reunion. We are expecting more than 100 people to visit Lublin as part of this special event. Feel welcome to join us!”

For reunion registration and information, visit lubliners2017.teatrnn.pl or contact Tarajko (48-606-687-367, [email protected]) or the American ambassador to Grodzka Gate, Leora Tec (1-781-862-4976, [email protected]).

Grodzka Gate’s other projects include Lublin: Memory of the Holocaust, a trail commemorating the Jewish inhabitants of Lublin who perished in the Holocaust; The Mysteries of Memory, an artistic happening involving a piece of the city with its specific topography, history and technical infrastructure; and Henio Zytomirski: The “Letters to Henio” Project, where, on April 19 (Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland) every year, citizens of Lublin send letters to Henio Zytomirski, a Jewish boy who was born in 1933 in Lublin and was murdered by the Nazis in a gas chamber, probably in November 1942.

Grodzka Gate’s Lublin: Memory of the Place Exhibition is dedicated to Lublin before the war. A considerable part of the former Jewish district today has been covered with concrete, under which the foundations of Jewish buildings and the memory of those who once lived there are buried. Over the years, Grodzka Gate has become a place where old photographs, documents and testimonies can be preserved for posterity.

As well, there is Lublin: Faces of a Nonexistent City. In May 2012, Grodzka Gate received a collection of 2,700 glass plate negatives found in the attic of the house at Rynek 4 by workmen doing repairs. The photographs were taken between 1914 and 1939 and were, based on Grodzka Gate’s research and recent findings, taken by Abram Zylberberg.

Grodzka Gate’s website is teatrnn.pl/en.

Mixing of cultures, religions

Helen Kim and Noah Leavitt, authors of JewAsian, will be at the Jewish Book Festival on Nov. 28. (photo by Matthew Zimmerman Banderas)

The recently published book JewAsian: Race, Religion and Identity for America’s Newest Jews by Helen Kim and Noah Leavitt was crafted out of a seven-year study of 39 mixed couples, as well as their own successful marriage. The couple will be in Vancouver later this month to share their findings at the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival.

For Kim, who was born a few years after her parents moved from Korea to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s, finding a Korean guy to date was a virtual mission impossible, so looking outside the community was accepted.

“My mother was totally fine with it, in large part because she’d thrown away her expectations that I marry somebody Korean a long, long time ago,” said Kim of her marriage with Leavitt. “I think, in part, because I grew up in a community that was predominantly white with very few people of color, I think she quickly realized that, demographically speaking, it was probably going to be unlikely I’d meet, date and eventually marry someone of the same ethnic background as me.”

Leavitt, who is of American Jewish origin, said, “My mom was super-excited about the fact I had met somebody I was so smitten with. She and Helen, early on, established a great rapport that has continued ever since. I think my mom just had an expectation that I’d settle down with somebody I really loved, who I was challenged and inspired by, and saw that in Helen … so she was excited.”

Leavitt grew up in a household that was somewhere between the Reform and Conservative denominations. He went to a Jewish community Sunday school growing up that was housed at Cornell University and he had his bar mitzvah at Ithaca College through their Hillel.

Kim and Leavitt met in 1997 and both were drawn to the complexity of their Jewish-Asian mix, an interest that increased with the births of their children.

“This was the era where, I think, we started to see a lot of interracial pairings, dating and marriages,” said Kim. “And it was also right before the U.S. census gave multiracial individuals the option of choosing more than one race on the census … really, an interesting time, demographically speaking, where the context around us was contributing to our thinking about how common are pairings like ours and maybe other interracial or Jewish-not Jewish pairings.”

Leavitt and Kim contacted a number of universities that were repositories of large-scale demographic studies. They were aware that the study of intermarriage to that time had been focused on interfaith marriage, but had not delved into how interracial marriage factored into the larger picture.

The couple reached out to the Institute for Jewish and Community Research. Through this connection, they were able to do an initial recruiting of couples with whom to speak for their book. In the end, their study included 39 couples from the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Orange County, and from the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas.

“We focused there, in part, because of the high percentages of individuals who identified as Jewish and Asian,” said Kim. “Then, there was the likelihood and demographic reality that interracial marriages are taking place predominantly in those areas … with the West Coast having, by far, the highest rates of interracial marriages.”

“We had a lot of people volunteer to be part of the survey and what we made a decision to do was to try to find the most expansive look at Jewish-Asian combination that we could,” said Leavitt.

Within the 39 couples, one was gay and three were lesbian, with the remainder being heterosexual. The study also included a second set of interviewees who were young adults that were children of Jewish-Asian households.

“The first thing by far that I think was quite surprising that we found was that, for the couples as well as the adult kids, they are definitely Jewish – not just in terms of the self-identification perspective, but in terms of some strikingly traditional religious practices,” said Kim. “So, the couples we interviewed were in the midst of or had created homes where there was a lot of traditional Jewish religious practice – everything from observing Shabbat consistently, to consistent synagogue attendance, to kids becoming bar or bat mitzvah, to children going to Jewish day schools.

“Then, for the adult kids we interviewed, they affirmatively claimed they were Jewish. But, they also talked about having been raised in traditionally religious households and communities that, to a great extent, mirrored what we were finding with the couples we interviewed.”

While only six of the racially Asian individuals had converted to Judaism, the overwhelming majority of couples celebrated Jewish religious events and cultural tradition alongside Asian ethnic traditions.

“There was neither a conflict of religion nor a blending of religions,” said Kim. “It was more of a cultural hybrid, but steeped in Judaism as the religion of the household.”

“I would go broader and say that, for the most part … we didn’t really hear too many stories about conflicts related to religion overall,” added Leavitt. “There were a few examples where the non-Jewish partner had a religious or spiritual practice that they adhered to, but it was something they did on their own and didn’t bring into the household.”

Both Kim and Leavitt said the findings were representative of their own Jewish-Asian mix. “Judaism, for me, is a religion and a cultural tradition that is easier for me to instil in my family,” said Kim. “I, as a second-generation child of an immigrant family, did not grow up with a lot of Korean ethnic and cultural traditions.

“Through the adult kids [in the study], it was reinforced repeatedly that you have to expose [them to the culture], no matter what your comfort level as a parent, no matter your knowledge as a parent. The kids really appreciated when the parents went all out in terms of trying to expose them to a particular culture or ethnicity, though they themselves as parents were afraid they might not do it right.

“So, I think just hearing from the kids and imagining my own kids in 10 to 15 years was kind of affirming to me, [that I just need to] try as much as I possibly can. The kids will end up picking up things here and there and will then, on their own, become curious and want to learn on their own. That was reassuring for me.”

“I had a lot of the same reactions,” said Leavitt. “For me, when Helen and I decided to make a commitment to this project, it was fairly close in time to when we were also starting to think about having our own family. When we got this investigation underway, our son Ari arrived. As a first-time parent, I had a lot of worry and anxiety about a household that seemed to combine so many different kinds of traditions, cultural heritage markers and, to some extent, religious differences. I think I had a lot of worry about the ability of all those things to be in a household together … in part, because I didn’t have an upbringing where there were lots of differences within the household. So, I had a lot of fear about that.

“One of the things I’ve been liberated by, in working on this project and having two children arrive, is there is a lot of flexibility and resilience in households. Where even something may seem like a long list of differences, the people inside that household are able to find ways where things can come from different directions, but meet at the same point.”

Kim is excited about coming to Vancouver, especially to have the opportunity to speak with a non-American audience, “to understand how it is that they think about these different dimensions of identity, tradition, culture and religion, as a way of getting out of our predominantly U.S.-focused lens. I’m really looking forward to that comparative perspective.”

Leavitt said, “I think the chance to be in as diverse, global and multicultural a city as Vancouver … maybe there are lots of households coming together with this mix of Jewish-Asian backgrounds in Vancouver. I think this may propel us to continue researching more in this international comparative way.

“Helen and I feel very fortunate to have been working on this project at a time in the U.S. when the exploration about the diversity of the Jewish community in our country is really something that is front of mind for so many congregations, synagogues. We aren’t the same people we were years ago.”

“If we are acknowledging that this is what American Judaism looks like,” added Kim, “what then is the responsibility we have in regards to action based on the changes in the demographic and how do we act based on how we’ve changed?”

Kim and Leavitt are on a panel with Daniel Kalla on Nov. 28, 6 p.m., at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. For more information, visit jccgv.com/content/jewish-book-fest.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Determination key to continuity

“The power above is set in motion by the impulse from below, even as vapor ascends to form the cloud. If the community of Israel did not first give the impulse, the One above would not move to meet her, for yearning below makes completion above.” – Zohar, Genesis 35a

I have always believed the secret of Jewish survival is exemplified in the life of my grandmother, of blessed memory, who I never met. She died when my mother – the second youngest of 11 children – was only 7 years old. Young as she was, my mother, Sarah Rebecca Opas, never forgot her mother, or the spirit of Yiddishkeit she left behind.

My grandmother’s name was Mila and she was betrothed to my grandfather David from the age of 3, when her parents in Plotsk, Poland, called her in from playing to tell her that, when she grew up, she was to marry the little boy next door. This was back in the early 1800s when betrothals were arranged by parents as a matter of course.

It was the time of pogroms in Europe and, when he reached the age of 17, David informed his parents he was leaving for the New World and had secured a job on a ship. “What about Mila?” he was asked. “I will send for her when I get settled,” he assured them. “No you won’t, you’ll take her with you.” So, Mila, then 16, and David were married by the rabbi before sailing to the New World, which David believed to be America, but was in fact Australia.

The ship took six months to reach Port Adelaide in Australia. David was hired to be a handy man on the vessel, and his first job was to look after the food. As there was no refrigeration then, the whole supply of meat was lowered on cables into the ocean, where the salt water would preserve it. However, he failed to secure it properly, and it all sank to the bottom of the sea – no meat for the crew for the entire trip. His next job on board was to sew any sails that had been torn in the strong winds. He had no idea how to sew, so his young wife did it for him, as well as keeping the captain and crew’s clothing repaired.

Before they reached Australian shores, Mila was already expecting her first child.

Both having come from Orthodox homes, it was a terrible shock to them when they landed. No synagogues, no kosher butchers, no established Jewish communities. They settled in a little country town, Bombala, near the border between Victoria and New South Wales. David opened a store to provide fodder and dry goods to the farmers in the surrounding districts and, gradually, as they learned English, the business prospered enough to give the family a comfortable lifestyle.

But Mila’s heart was always sad, because she did not know how to keep her family Jewish, as there were no other Jews for them to meet and marry. So, she made a plan.

Mila had heard that there was a small Jewish community in the city of Sydney. As each of her older children turned 18, she would travel to Sydney and stay there until she found a Jewish boy or girl willing to go back with her to Bombala and marry one of her children, sight unseen. Her love of her Jewish heritage was such that achieving this became the most important part of her life, and she was amazingly successful. Of the 11 children, only one of them married a non-Jew; there were no divorces. Sadly, Mila died of scarlet fever still relatively young, before the penicillin was invented that would have saved her life.

My mother and her little brother were raised by their older sisters, who by then were all married. They never let her forget her mother and the importance of remaining Jewish even in near-impossible situations where Jewish rituals are almost nonexistent.

In retelling my grandmother’s story to me so many years later, my mother always stressed that the Jewish soul is unquenchable. No matter how far one strays from observance, the spark remains and it is something precious that must be cherished and passed on from generation to generation. By making my home in Israel, becoming an observant Jewish woman, and being blessed with 18 Israeli grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren here, I hope my mother and grandmother can be at rest.

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.