Dan Moskovitz – Page 2

Ready to welcome refugees

As of Nov. 24, the Government of Canada was processing 4,511 applications for privately sponsored Syrian refugees (not including Quebec, which has its own procedure). The map shows communities where private sponsors have submitted an application. (image from cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/welcome)

Vancouver’s Jewish community is mobilizing to welcome refugees from Syria. The federal government has announced that 25,000 Syrian refugees will come to Canada before the end of February. While most of those will be government-sponsored, groups of Canadians, including many in the Jewish community, are leaping at the opportunity to be a part of the resettlement project.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Anglican church to streamline the process. The federal government has a number of sponsorship agreement holders, which are established, experienced groups that are engaged in aiding refugees on an ongoing basis. To expedite the process, the Jewish community is primarily working through the partnership with the Anglican Church of Canada so that synagogues and other Jewish groups that may want to sponsor can do so efficiently.

“The Anglican diocese, rather than setting up a separate relationship with each of the synagogues, proposed that there be one memorandum of understanding with the Jewish community,” said Shelley Rivkin, Federation’s vice-president for planning, allocations and community affairs. “We will be the holder of the memorandum of understanding so the synagogues will raise the funds and issue a tax receipt. The funds will then come to us and be in a restricted account and, as those funds are distributed, they will go directly through us so that the diocese is not having to deal with multiple parties.”

Or Shalom Synagogue has already raised two-thirds of the funds necessary to sponsor three families. Natalie Grunberg, a member of the Or Shalom Syrian Refugees Initiative, said they are expecting their sponsored refugees as early as January. The group has launched a series of events, including a concert of Syrian music, to raise awareness and money for the project. The federal government estimates the cost of sponsoring a refugee family for a year to be about $30,000, but Vancouverites involved in the process are working on an assumption of about $40,000, based on housing costs here.

Or Shalom is working through existing partnerships they have built over the years. Rather than going through the Anglican church, they are working with the United Church of Canada. Grunberg acknowledged that some in the Jewish community have differences with the United Church’s stand toward Israel, but the priority was to expedite the refugee sponsorship process and they believed working through existing relationships would be most effective.

Grunberg is noticeably proud of her congregation’s efforts so far.

“We’re a very small synagogue and we’re sponsoring three families,” she said.

Through existing relationships with the Syrian community here, Or Shalom will focus their sponsorship efforts on reunifying families that already have some members in Metro Vancouver and also on members of the LGBT community.

Temple Sholom is also rallying for refugees. Almost immediately after announcing the idea during the High Holidays, the synagogue raised enough money to sponsor one family.

“We’ve now decided to sponsor a second family,” said Rabbi Dan Moskovitz.

He acknowledges that there have been some anxieties among his congregation about bringing Syrian refugees here.

“I met with every person that voiced that concern to me,” he said. “I met with them personally. We talked about it. We talked about the people that we are bringing in – they were concerned about terrorists coming across – we talked about the difference between private sponsorship, as we are doing, and what we’ve been seeing in Europe with refugees flooding across borders … that we were sponsoring families with young children, that our sponsorships were family reunification, so they would have real roots here in B.C., particularly in Vancouver. We acknowledge the fears but at the same time we also recognize that this is a crisis and that the Jewish tradition teaches us quite clearly to love the stranger. Israel is doing things for refugees on the Syrian border right now with their hospitals and we had to do our part.”

Moskovitz cites Torah as the basis for his enthusiasm.

“Thirty-six times in the Torah, in the Bible, it says to love the stranger because you were once strangers in the land,” he said. “The Jews were once refugees ourselves and this goes all the way back to the land of Egypt and the slavery of the Israelites under Pharaoh, where we were running for our lives; in that case from the famine, according to the biblical story, and the Egyptian people welcomed the Jewish people, welcomed us in and gave us food and shelter and we lived there for 435 years, according to the Bible. From that and so many other times in the Bible, the most often-repeated commandment in all of Jewish tradition is to love the stranger, to love the immigrant; love the stranger, because that was you once.”

More modern Jewish history is also a factor, he added.

“We are largely still here even though throughout our history people have tried to destroy us because at critical times in our history some people took us in,” said Moskovitz. “We like to think we did it all by ourselves and there is no doubt that there is a tremendous resiliency of the Jewish people but, at the same time, we have been the beneficiary of others sheltering us at times of mortal danger.”

Congregation Beth Israel has created a task force to look into possibly sponsoring a Kurdish Syrian refugee family. Executive director Shannon Etkin said the group will analyze the resources available within the congregation community to provide for a family beyond the minimum requirements set out by the federal government.

Other synagogues, organizations and individuals who may not have the resources to directly sponsor a refugee or family are being encouraged to support on-the-ground efforts by the Joint Distribution Committee, which is aiding refugees in Turkey and Hungary. This support is being organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

“They’re doing a lot of direct aid for women and children and also doing some work with frontline responders,” Rivkin said.

Comparing refugee response

While American political discourse around whether to accept Syrian refugees smolders under the embers of xenophobia, Canadians have been opening their hearts and their wallets to bring in Syrian refugees.

Canada is one of the only countries with a private sponsorship option, which means that groups of ordinary citizens can provide funds and demonstrate their intention to provide emotional and logistical support to refugee families for one year, thus enabling the absorption of refugees whom the government might not otherwise have been able to afford.

Like many faith and neighborhood communities, Jewish communities, especially through synagogues, are on the frontlines of this effort.

It’s not often that a rabbi’s sermon gets reprinted in the daily newspaper of a major city, but such was the case for Rabbi Lisa Grushcow of Montreal’s Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom. “For too long, we have thought of religion in passive terms, counting how many people are sitting in the pews or paying dues,” she wrote. “All this is necessary but not sufficient. I want us to count how many lives we change, how many people we help, how many hearts we touch.” Her synagogue is sponsoring at least one refugee family.

Meanwhile, a sermon delivered on Kol Nidre this year by Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom in Vancouver helped capture the hearts and minds of his congregants. “Tonight, I want to ask you to do something great. I want to ask you to save a life, the life of a stranger – because we were once strangers in the land, because we are human beings and that is the only similarity that we really need.” It didn’t take long for the congregation to come up with the $40,000 necessary to sponsor a refugee family. They are now fundraising to bring a second. Other synagogues across the city – including the Jewish Renewal Or Shalom, which is sponsoring three families – have followed suit. (See story, page 1.)

In Toronto, Jewish Immigrant Aid Services, one of nearly 100 organizations across the country that enjoys sponsorship agreement holder rights, has been flooded with sponsoring requests.

I spoke to Ryan Friedman of Darchei Noam and to Pippa Feinstein of First Narayever Congregation, two Toronto-based synagogues that are sponsoring refugees. Feinstein in particular noted that, while wanting to “ensure a safe place for any refugee family who is looking to come to Canada,” her congregation is aiming to launch “parallel awareness-raising activities” around the plight of persecuted minorities in the region.

Among those minorities are the Yazidi people of Iraq, who are being faced with a genocide – in the words of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – at the hands of ISIS. In collaboration with other faith groups, Winnipeg’s Jewish community has spearheaded an effort to sponsor multiple Yazidi refugees. As Belle Jarniewski described it, “When I saw the article about the mass grave [of the Yazidis], I really responded to it viscerally. It reminded me that we keep talking every year “never again” and, as Jews, we talk about this all the time, how important it is … and what are we doing about it?”

In my own city of Ottawa, Lori Rosove and Dara Lithwick of Temple Israel launched a community-wide effort to sponsor a refugee family. As Rosove explained it, “It’s the human thing to do.”

I, too, have helped launch a cross-denominational grassroots sponsoring effort, working through both Jewish Family Services of Ottawa and the United Church of Canada. Since a handful of us gathered in a neighbor’s living room in early September, we now number 250 participants and have raised $150,000 so far, enabling us to sponsor six families. So as to provide the suggested “soft-landing” that settlement agencies advise, each family will live with a neighborhood host for the first couple of months.

And what of pushback from community members? Moskovitz explained that, while 95% of his congregants have been enthusiastic, a few were not. “I met with each individual or group who registered a concern,” explaining the “rigorous UN screening and the Canadian screening [process].”

For their part, American Jewish groups have been doing what they can. There was the statement of moral clarity issued by 10 Jewish organizations. And there is a rabbis’ letter drafted by HIAS, urging their elected officials to “welcome the stranger.” In addition to lobbying Congress to accept refugees and supporting local resettlement agencies in their efforts, the U.S.-based Religious Action Centre of Reform Judaism has taken the initiative to help American congregations partner with Canadian ones in order to support their neighbors’ efforts. As RAC head Rabbi Jonah Pesner told me: “To sit at our [Passover] seder tables every year and [tell] the story, [starting with] ‘my father was a wandering Aramean,’ and to live through 5,000 years as a community of refugees, not to model for the world what it means to welcome the stranger would be an abdication of our legacy.”

So, while the U.S. Congress wrings its hands over whether to accept a meagre 10,000 souls, Canada (one-tenth the population) has pledged to receive 25,000 Syrian refugees by February, of which 10,000 are expected to be sponsored privately. When private citizens are empowered to help people from across the globe, the bluster and rhetoric can be bypassed while the real work of saving lives and opening hearts can take place.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.

Torah writing unifies

Torah scribe Rabbi Moshe Druin writes one of the scroll’s final letters with the help of a Temple Sholom family, who won the honor by lottery with five others. Rabbi Dan Moskovitz uses his cellphone to allow the rest of the congregation to witness the writing. (photos by Cynthia Ramsay)

On Sunday, May 3, Temple Sholom completed a new Torah in honor of its 50th anniversary. Florida-based sofer (scribe) Rabbi Moshe Druin was assisted by more than 1,000 hands in writing the scroll and there were so many people who contributed to the project that Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Moskovitz noted at the siyum hasefer that the congregation had also written “a new Torah of volunteerism.”

photo - Rabbi Dan Moskovitz raises the newly completed Torah as, left to right, Cantor Naomi Taussig, Rabbi Carey Brown and Rabbi Moshe Druin look on. — Rabbi Dan Moskovitz raises the newly completed Torah as, left to right, Cantor Naomi Taussig, Rabbi Carey Brown and Rabbi Moshe Druin look on.

Gratitude and community were the words of the afternoon, as the combined blast of several shofarot brought the excited crowd to order. Project co-chairs Anne Andrew and Jerry Lampert offered their thank you’s to all those who helped with the project that began in October 2014, including more than 100 volunteers working more than 1,200 volunteer hours. Siyum co-chairs Kevin Keystone and Marnie Greenwald added their appreciations, while also explaining the logistics of the upcoming parade of the Torah, to be headed by the band Balkan Shmalkan.

photo - At each table, there were photos of those who inscribed a letter in the Torah — At each table, there were photos of those who inscribed a letter in the Torah.

Alex Konyves led two groups of kids in song, Rabbi Carey Brown told a short story about letters as prayer, and synagogue president David Schwartz spoke of the many impacts of the project on the congregation. “I am very pleased to report,” he added, “that we have raised to today over $336,000. We’d love to make our double-chai goal of $360,000.” A scroll of dedication will be created and those who make a dedication before June 1 will be included on it.

Schwartz also announced that Moskovitz’s contract had been renewed to June 30, 2021, at the last board meeting. The congregation applauded, cheered and rose to their feet before Schwartz could conclude, “with great joy and without hesitation, he accepted our offer.”

The klei kodesh – Moskovitz, Brown, Cantor Naomi Taussig, Rabbi Philip Bregman, emeritus, and Cantor Arthur Guttman, emeritus – then joined the congregation in a responsive reading.

Prior to the ceremony, Moskovitz and Druin, who had just arrived in Vancouver, went to the Louis Brier Home and Hospital to scribe the Torah with the congregation’s most senior members. Moskovitz also shared that the Torah’s rollers, its mantle and wimple were created by congregation members Michael Kliman, Leni Freed and Julia Bennett, respectively. “This Torah belongs to all of us, on so many levels,” he said.

Druin expressed his hope that the Torah would provide reassurance “that you are all part of this community through this Torah … [and] that God is here with you, with this Torah, for you, for your children….”

photo - During the parade, led by the Balkan Shmalkan band, the Torah was carried by many different congregation members. In this photo, Henry Grayman is holding it. — During the parade, led by the Balkan Shmalkan band, the Torah was carried by many different congregation members. In this photo, Henry Grayman is holding it.

Just as there was a lottery for the first six letters of the Torah, there was a draw for the last six – each representing a decade of the synagogue and one for the next generations, explained Moskovitz. After the Torah was completed, it was dressed and paraded north along Oak to 54th, east for a bit, then a “legal U-turn,” as per Keystone’s instructions, back the synagogue to take its place in the aron kodesh.

For more about the project, visit templesholom.ca/were-writing-a-torah.

Scouting returns in full force

Sholom Cubs leaders Laura Tuan and Isaac Kool with their troops. (photo from Temple Sholom)

Sholom Scouts celebrated their first milestone when they conducted their first investiture ceremony earlier this month at Temple Sholom.

The ceremony is a central part of Scouts Canada, when new members become invested as scouts. New scouts make the Scout Promise to the Scouts leader and, in response, the Scouts troop leader pledges to help the scout do their best to uphold the promise, setting up a bond between them.

It’s the first time since the 1940s that a Jewish Scouts troop has existed in Western Canada. The rise of Sholom Scouts can be attributed to the vision of Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Moskovitz.

“I moved here to Vancouver 18 months ago and was blown away by the nature beauty and resources of our surroundings,” he told the Independent. “I wanted to experience them with my children but didn’t want to head out camping or hiking on my own. I was a scout briefly as a child and thought it would be a good organization to explore the outdoors with my children.”

So, approximately a year ago, he went to the Scouts Canada house on Broadway and spoke with one of their representatives about how to start a troop. “I explained my desire and also that I was a rabbi and had access to a building to meet in and a network of other Jewish parents that might want the same experience for their children. He said they had been trying to start a Jewish Scouts group in Vancouver for more than 15 years but didn’t know where to begin, so it was bashert. They started helping right away with open house meetings for parents and kids and we got the word out through social media,” he said.

The boy troop now consists of eight beavers (5- to 7-year-olds) and eight cubs (8- to 10-year-olds) with members from across the Jewish religious spectrum. The children meet biweekly, even though, according to Moskovitz, they will be shifting to a traditional weekly program next year. The children have a bimonthly outdoor event, hiking, camping or another such activity. In May, Sholom Scouts will participate in an area-wide family campout with other Scouts groups from the Lower Mainland.

All Sholom Scouts activities are in line with kashrut observance, with a kosher kitchen on site, and are shomer Shabbat, including services as part of the campground experience.

Before the March 5 investiture ceremony, Moskovitz gave a tour of the synagogue to help another troop, Ryerson, obtain their religion and spirituality badge. There was a falafel dinner, at which the rabbi received an appreciation award from Scouts Canada, followed by Cub Car and Beaver Cubby Racing. The investiture concluded the evening.

In his remarks, Moskovitz explained the symbolism of having the first investiture ceremony in the sanctuary. “Though we have members of our Beavers and Cubs from many different synagogues and parts of the larger Jewish community, the synagogue sanctuary is the sacred place in all of Judaism where the Torah is kept and read, where the community gathers, where the eternal light is kept burning. It’s a place where children celebrate through bar and bat mitzvah their entry into adulthood and, tonight, where we celebrate their preparation for adulthood.”

The ceremony was important for other reasons, as well.

Raphy Tischler, Sholom Scouts Beaver leader, linked it to Jewish holidays such as Sukkot and the Zionist value of “Ahavat Haaretz.” “Living on the West Coast, it is only a natural connection to combine scouting and Judaism. I want the Jewish community to recognize the potential of outdoor programming as part of a well-rounded Jewish experience,” he said.

photo - Left to right: Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Mozkovitz, Ryerson Cubs leader Lawrence Harris, Pacific Spirit Area commissioner Michael Palmer and Pacific Coast Council commissioner Brandon Jonathan Ma. — Left to right: Temple Sholom Rabbi Dan Mozkovitz, Ryerson Cubs leader Lawrence Harris, Pacific Spirit Area commissioner Michael Palmer and Pacific Coast Council commissioner Brandon Jonathan Ma. (photo from Temple Sholom)

And scouting is a great way to reinforce the values of tikkun olam, according to Isaac Kool, Sholom Scouts Cub leader. “We need to start with our own community, including with the natural world.”

Brandon Ma, Pacific Coast Council commissioner for Scouts Canada, pointed out the parent volunteer aspect. “It is one of the only programs that I know of that parents are involved in the programming with their children at the same time, living, working, growing, having fun….”

Sholom Scouts are currently in need of more volunteers. Becoming a volunteer is a multi-step process that includes a personal interview, provision of three personal references and a police record check. Afterward, there is an online training session and mentoring with a local scout leader, where you learn about programming for youth.

Moskovitz believes it is a great way to bring Jewish parents together with their children. “Ninety percent of your Jewish life is lived outside of the synagogue. Scouts helps raise you in the world as a Jew and in the surroundings. It uses the quote, ‘Don’t separate yourself from the community’ … be a part [of it] but be a Jew,” he said.

“I think it will be amazing for our kids and for the hundreds of non-Jewish scouters and families who will join us and perhaps be exposed to outwardly Jewish kids for the first time,” said Moskovitz. “Our people camped in the desert for 40 years, I think we should be able to handle a weekend.”

Gil Lavie is a freelance correspondent, with articles published in the Jerusalem Post, Shalom Toronto and Tazpit News Agency. He has a master’s of global affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.