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Tag: Diamond Foundation

StandWithUs Canada course

StandWithUs Canada course

Hussein Mansour Aboubakr (PR photo)

After an almost three-year hiatus due to the pandemic, StandWithUs Canada is again holding events. On May 15, StandWithUs Canada and the Diamond Foundation are presenting the crash course Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Today: What to Expect on Campus.

The course is a chance for high school (grades 11 and 12) and first-year university students to attend interactive sessions, hear from speakers, meet like-minded students and enjoy a free kosher dinner. Students who register and attend can also receive community service hours and a gift card.

image - Minority of One book coverSpeakers include Penina Edery, high school director, StandWithUs Canada, and Aviv Attia, StandWithUs educator and Israeli speaker. Special guest speaker Hussein Mansour Aboubakr was a dissident imprisoned in his home of Cairo, Egypt, for the crime of wanting to learn more about the country and the people he was raised to hate – Israel and Jews. One of the course sessions will be Aboubakr speaking about his journey. Other sessions will include a panel of students speaking about their experiences with antisemitism and anti-Zionism in high school and university.

The Diamond Foundation is sponsoring this crash course to reach out to Vancouver high school students and their families, to help them learn the skills, get the knowledge and find out about the resources available to support Israel and fight antisemitism. Also involved in presenting the event with StandWithUs Canada are Camp Hatikvah, Masa Israel Journey, King David High School and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

The May 15 crash course will take place at KDHS from 4 to 8 p.m. Registration is required to attend. Students can register at forms.gle/hPncontVmAC4Jfor6.

– Courtesy StandWithUs Canada

Format ImagePosted on May 6, 2022May 4, 2022Author StandWithUs CanadaCategories LocalTags anti-Zionism, antisemitism, Camp Hatikvah, Diamond Foundation, education, Hussein Mansour Aboubakr, Israel, Jewish Federation, KDHS, King David High School, Masa Israel Journey, StandWithUs
King David is set to expand

King David is set to expand

An illustration of the proposed King David High School expansion, as designed by Acton Ostry Architects Inc.

King David High School is slated for a whole new home in the redeveloped Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver campus. However, that move could be eight, 10 or even a dozen years away. In the meantime, the continually growing student body needs more space – and that is why a new component is now being added, with intended completion this coming September.

Russ Klein, King David’s head of school, said the existing building, which opened in 2005, is at near-total capacity.

“Our room utilization rate is 98% for our regular classrooms,” he said. “There is zero wiggle room. Typically, a school’s utilization rate would be around 80%.”

This means that the school cannot increase course offerings, such as new Judaic studies programs or electives. The trend in secondary education is to offer a diversity of options to encourage students to explore their interests and passions. In addition, education is increasingly moving away from large group class lessons toward collaborations between pairs or small groups of students. That demands a greater number of more flexible spaces.

The new structure is a “modular unit addition,” Klein said, rejecting the term “portables.” The difference, he said, is that portables were inflexible, prefabricated buildings, while the new modular options can be adapted to whatever configuration an institution requires.

In King David’s case, it is expected to feature four classrooms, a small teachers’ work room, student changing rooms and a physical education office. In all, it will add about 3,500 square feet of space to the 40,000-square-foot school. The new building will be located at the east end of the property, adjacent the new Oakridge redevelopment, where a grassy hill now exists. Although this will result in a loss of that outdoor area, Klein said the hill is a nice place for kids to hang out in September and for a couple of months in the spring, but, for most of the year, it is not really usable space.

In addition to the changing expectations driven by educational trends, the school has been on a steady trajectory of growth. Enrolment is now at 240, up from 139 students 11 years ago.

The modular nature of the new facility slashes the time from conception to completion. It will take two or three months to prepare the site and another five or six months to construct the building. Acton Ostry, an architecture firm that has done many developments in the Jewish community, including KDHS, is leading the project.

While Klein acknowledges that the new building is a “stopgap” intended to allow the school to function adequately as they await the development of its new home in the JCC complex across the street, he adds that this is no chump-change endeavour.

“It’s an almost $3 million project,” he said. The funding is coming from the Diamond Foundation.

The Diamond Foundation – a family foundation directed by Leslie and Gordon Diamond and daughters Jill Diamond and Lori Glotman – purchased the land where the school is located and spearheaded construction of the building. The school pays rent to the foundation and then the foundation donates that money back to the school each year.

“I always think everybody should just recognize how generous the Diamonds are in everything they’re doing,” said Klein.

Examples of some of the new initiatives the space might accommodate are an expanded robotics program, as well as applied design and coding courses. Rabbi Stephen Berger, King David’s head of Judaic studies, would like to see more text-based education, where students can engage in chavruta-style learning, traditional, intense small group talmudic study, said Klein.

Comparative religions and other courses geared toward social action initiatives that inspire many students are other things Klein can envision growing thanks to the new space.

All of this is taking place as the JCC, in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and their constituent partners, proceed full-steam-ahead on the biggest capital project ever undertaken by British Columbia’s Jewish community. The two-phase redevelopment will see a 200,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art, multigenerational community centre constructed where the existing JCC parking lot is located. This will include expanded childcare, seniors’ services, arts and cultural spaces and amenities for all Vancouver residents, as well as becoming the home for more than 15 not-for-profit organizations, including a theatre and more space for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Once that is completed, a second phase will commence on the site of the existing JCC building. This will include mixed-use rental housing, with units expected to be offered at or below market value and open to everyone. Beneath these residential floors, at street level, will be a “podium,” where the high school will be located.

Plans foresee a 60,000-square-foot school, which is a 25 to 30% increase over the existing structure – but Klein stresses those numbers don’t tell the entire story.

“The JCC is going to be built with two gymnasiums,” he said. “One of them will be dedicated to King David’s use, so we can use it whenever we want to, and then the JCC will be able to use it when we are not using it.” This is a reversal, of sorts, from the existing situation, where the high school can use the JCC’s gym when it is not otherwise occupied.

“That probably is as exciting to us as the extra learning spaces,” said Klein. “The other lovely thing for us is there going to be a small field, which is [currently] a real problem for King David.”

The field will be constructed behind the building, where the property juts out with an asymmetrical wedge at its southwest corner. The field will not be legal size, and so will not be suitable for competitive games, but will allow the school to hold practices at any time, unlike at present, where they have to rent fields, which are expensive and much in demand.

The redevelopment project has received $25 million commitments from each of the federal and British Columbia governments but a massive fundraising campaign is required to complete the project. When the school will be able to move into its new digs depends on a large number of variables.

“I’d say, best case scenario in my mind – and everyone will give you a different case – I think the best case is eight years,” said Klein. “Probably 10 to 12 is more realistic.”

Format ImagePosted on December 10, 2021December 8, 2021Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags Acton Ostry, Diamond Foundation, education, KDHS, King David High School, redevelopment
xwƛ̓əpicən’s fall open house

xwƛ̓əpicən’s fall open house

Anat Gogo, manager of programs and donor relations, Tikva Housing Society, leads a tour at the xwƛ̓əpicən (Arbutus Centre) open house Nov. 21. (photo from Tikva Housing)

Tikva Housing Society held an open house at the Arbutus Centre – xwƛ̓əpicən, pronounced “hook la’pitzen”) – on Nov. 21. The name in the Musqueam language means “Hollow,” which represents safety and warmth. Showcased last month were some of the 37 new one-bedroom and studio suites that Tikva Housing operates, providing homes to people in the Jewish community who need affordable, safe and stable housing.

The project is the result of a collaboration between the City of Vancouver, the YWCA, Association of Neighbourhood Houses and Tikva Housing. The building as a whole has 125 new units of affordable homes.

The open house, hosted by Tikva board members and staff, greeted more than 40 people, at various times, to accommodate the COVID-19 protocols. By all accounts, those who participated in the day-long event were “blown away” by the quality and attention to detail of the units, which all include washer and dryers; some are totally accessible for mobility devices such as wheelchairs. There is an amenities room for community gatherings, a central courtyard shared by all tenants and a rooftop patio.

After a process of identifying people who qualified, and then help with “move-ins” over the past two months, all the Tikva units are filled. The society is grateful to the many donors who make its work possible and especially to the Diamond Foundation, who gave Tikva the initial donation to assist with rent subsidies for new tenants, for the first five years.

For more information about Tikva Housing Society, visit tikvahousing.org.

– Courtesy Tikva Housing Society

Format ImagePosted on December 10, 2021December 8, 2021Author Tikva Housing SocietyCategories LocalTags affordable housing, Arbutus Centre, Diamond Foundation, Tikva Housing, xwƛ̓əpicən
Funds for Jewish studies

Funds for Jewish studies

Prof. Gregg Gardner has held the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at the University of British Columbia since 2011. (photo from UBC Media Relations)

Gregg Gardner conveys an infectious exuberance when speaking of the $1 million donation from the Diamond Foundation to the University of British Columbia this September.

“None of this would have been possible in terms of Jewish studies at UBC without the Diamond family,” Gardner, an associate UBC professor, told the Independent. “Their sense of giving is felt not just here but throughout the broader community.”

The Diamond Foundation’s most recent gift to the school will build on achievements of the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at UBC to date, with a particular focus on the expansion of Jewish studies programming both in the classroom and beyond the UBC campus.

“The gift is part of a larger initiative which will really go a long way in helping to create and augment programming, assist in having students travel to Israel, bring in new speakers and assist in new research,” said Gardner, current holder of the Diamond Chair.

He plans to invite an array of speakers during the 2020 and 2021 academic years.

“The money from the Diamonds can be used to bring in authorities in various aspects of Jewish research to Vancouver. Once here, they can speak at the university as well as at synagogues, retirement homes or cultural centres in town,” he said.

Gardner also hopes the new funds can serve as a stepping stone towards such things as creating a centre for Jewish studies at UBC and, ultimately, bringing the field of Jewish research at the institution to a level commensurate with that of other universities in North America.

Students at UBC, he said, have shown a widespread interest in Jewish studies, and this interest extends well beyond their own personal background.

The Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics was established in 2001. Gardner has held the position since 2011, with his research concentrating largely on the history of Jewish thought. At UBC, his classes focus on the history of religions, together with exploring Jewish history, texts and traditions.

In 2018, he teamed up with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to lead a group of UBC students in an archeological field school at Horvat Midras in Israel, a site that may have been developed by King Herod. There, they helped excavate a pyramid that marked a tomb from the first century and an elaborate underground system of tunnels and caves that served as hideouts for Jewish rebels against Rome in the second century.

The Diamond gift will additionally allow Gardner himself to present more lectures locally and internationally. Heretofore, he has given has public talks at Hillel BC (UBC) and academic lectures at Oxford, Cambridge and Yale universities.

Gardner has authored several academic papers and books, including The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (Cambridge University Press, 2015), which examines foundational rabbinic texts and places their discourses on giving within their historical – second- and third-century – contexts.

The Diamonds are equally enthusiastic about the results their donations have brought and will bring.

“We wanted to enhance the current chair and enable Dr. Gardner to play a pivotal role in generating sophisticated research and understanding of Jews and Judaism,” said Leslie Diamond. “He has inspired students and the community by enriching their knowledge of Judaism through his courses, public talks and events with visiting scholars.”

She added, “I am very proud with what our funding of the Jewish Chair in Ethics and Jewish Law has accomplished.”

The Diamond Foundation has long played a pivotal and prominent role in Vancouver philanthropy. Created by Jack, z’l, and Gordon Diamond in 1984, its mission is to improve the quality of life for people in the communities in which the Diamonds live and do business. It donates to organizations throughout the Greater Vancouver area, including schools, hospitals and numerous Jewish organizations. The foundation seeks investments in organizations and issues that strengthen Jewish community life throughout the city and its environs. At age 25, family members are invited to become directors of the foundation.

Jack Diamond arrived in British Columbia as a near-penniless refugee from Poland in 1927 and went on to create the province’s largest meat-packing firm, Pacific Meats. He is credited with setting up Vancouver’s first kosher butcher shop and was instrumental in building the Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, among countless other endeavours.

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

Format ImagePosted on December 20, 2019December 18, 2019Author Sam MargolisCategories LocalTags Diamond Foundation, education, Gregg Gardner, Jewish studies, philanthropy, UBC, University of British Columbia
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