education – Page 40

Instilling responsibility

Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school Cathy Lowenstein Lowenstein addresses those gathered for the closing of this year’s Mitzvah of Valuing Philanthropy program. (photo by Jennifer Shecter-Balin)

On June 15, Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah celebrated the close of the year’s Mitzvah of Valuing Philanthropy (MVP) program. Started by the late Sari Zack Weintraub Greenberg nine years ago, MVP integrates a curriculum of tikkun olam (repairing the world), rooted in traditional Jewish teachings, into the students’ educational experience.

Head of school Cathy Lowenstein said Greenberg’s work “revolutionized the school’s tikkun olam curriculum.” Greenberg encouraged the students to “lovingly expand their universe of obligation,” said Lowenstein. The program is something that the kids look forward to in their Grade 7 year, she continued, noting that “tikkun olam is a cornerstone of the school.”

Since its inception, the MVP program has raised a total of $220,000. This year’s 39 Grade 7 students raised an impressive $27,000. On top of this fundraising record, this year’s Tzedakah Project has also contributed $10,000 as a grant to “motivate and inspire” the kids to develop their passion for tzedakah (charity/justice) and chesed (loving kindness).

photo - VTT MVP Ariel Lewinski and Judy Boxer of Chimp — VTT MVP Ariel Lewinski and Judy Boxer of Chimp. (photo by Jennifer Shecter-Balin)

The MVP group expressed thanks to Cambridge Uniforms for their ongoing support of the program. This year also saw the involvement of Chimp representatives Judy Boxer and Ariel Lewinski, who offered support via the company to this generation of philanthropists. Boxer and Lewinski gave gift cards totaling $10,000 out to the members of the audience on June 15. Each card could be used to donate $100 to a charity of the recipient’s choice.

The MVP program is support by the Irma Zack MVP Endowment Fund, established by Dr. David Zack – Greenberg’s father – in memory of his late wife, and the original seed funding was donated by Sylvia and the late Lorne Cristall. It is through these funds that the school has been able to run MVP and other such initiatives.

The MVP students followed a careful process of selection of charities to support. They picked ethical commandments to work with, such as healing the sick, helping others in difficulty, or feeding the hungry. They researched the agencies that satisfied these criteria and found contacts with whom to work. Having interviewed these contacts, the kids then had 20 minutes to convince their class to contribute to their agencies, turning classrooms into boardrooms for allocation meetings.

Funds were donated to 24 different organizations this year, including household names like UNICEF and Magen David Adom, and local beneficiaries like the Vancouver Aquarium and Big Sisters. Students also selected Down Syndrome Research and CEASE, an agency that supports women victims of sexual exploitation and domestic violence.

Several students offered their perspectives on the MVP initiative to the Jewish Independent.

Asher Teperson described how “we assumed the roles of principal researchers, primary investigators, bankers and lawyers to assess the needs in our community and respond to them in concrete ways.” For the MVP students, this was a rite of passage. “We had a taste of what it means to become an adult in the eyes of the Jewish community,” said Asher.

Estie Kallner echoed these sentiments: “How often are 12- and 13-year-olds asked to make phone calls to strangers, conduct interviews in corporate offices, request clarification on financial matters and pester agency executives on their overhead costs?”

Julia Huber closed the program remarks with a reflection on how much they had grown through the experience. She described a group of “restless, nervous and confused” kids at the start of the program. However, she said, “with support and encouragement, not only did we embrace the challenge, but we exceeded even our own ambitious goals.”

As another student, Isabella Leipsic, observed, the program left them with a profound sense of their own “strength” in “moral decision-making.” She added, with thanks to the program, “our lives will never be the same.”

Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com.

Shalhevet celebrates its 10th

Shalhevet Girls High School founding board members, left to right: Rabbi Yosef Wosk, Terrance Bloom, Vivian Claman, Tannis Boxer and Marie Doduck. (photo from Shalhevet)

On March 16, Shalhevet Girls High School celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a gala at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. The event paid tribute to the many accomplishments that this small school has made in the last decade.

Shalhevet works to educate and prepare their students in both Judaic and general studies as strong, grounded and proud Jewish women. The students are taught a sense of community activism and encouraged from Grade 8 to take an active role in their Jewish community. With these tools, the alumni of Shalhevet will be able to create Jewish homes and communities where there is an appreciation of the value of Torah, community and education.

Shalhevet alumni have been leaving their mark worldwide. In Israel, New York, France, Toronto, San Diego and here in Vancouver, these graduates are active members of their Jewish communities. As they continue their higher education in the universities of their choice, they are finding places to make kiddush Hashem (glorification of G-d’s name), making Shalhevet, along with the Greater Vancouver Jewish community, proud.

At the gala, the five founding board members of Shalhevet were honoured. These remarkable individuals are Rabbi Yosef Wosk, Marie Doduck, Vivian Claman, Terrance Bloom and Tannis Boxer. This group came together and made their dream of creating Shalhevet a reality – a flourishing place of academia and growth. They created yesh me’Ayin, something concrete from the imagined, and it is because of their hard work and dedication that Shalhevet can celebrate 10 successful years.

Shalhevet is excited for what the future holds, as the school continues to grow and add depth and diversity to their program. The board, staff, students, parents and other school supporters are all looking forward to many more years of service to the Vancouver Jewish community.

Don’t “helicopter parent”

King David High School students with Teaching for Tomorrow keynote speaker Julie Lythcott-Haims, who spoke on the topic How to Raise an Adult. (photo by Jocelyne Hallé)

Our kids are not bonsai trees that need to be clipped and sheared! That was the message Julie Lythcott-Haims delivered to a packed audience at Congregation Beth Israel in her May 17 talk, How to Raise an Adult.

The keynote speaker at King David High School’s Teaching for Tomorrow evening, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Lythcott-Haims was previously dean of freshmen at the University of Stanford for 10 years. There, she said, she saw a lot of “helicopter parenting.”

“My freshmen students seemed to be like drones in their own lives, driven by someone else and constantly tethered to home and parents by their phones, the world’s longest umbilical cord,” she reflected.

Lythcott-Haims described how parents would email asking for their children’s passwords so they could register them for classes, parents calling her “unhappy with the grade a professor gave their child” and parents wanting to know where their kids were at all times. “I would rail against this absurdity,” she said. “I’d give a speech to parents each year, telling them, ‘Trust your child, they have what it takes to thrive. Trust us at the university. And now, please leave!’”

A mother of teens herself, Lythcott-Haims realized that it’s impossible for parents to let go of their 18-year-old freshmen unless they started relinquishing their helicopter-parenting tendencies years earlier. “We love our children fiercely and we’re fearful about what the world has in store for them. But we make the mistake of thinking we must cloak them in our arms instead of preparing them to be strong out there. So, we end up being overprotective, over-directive and doing excessive handholding with our kids, being like a concierge in their lives. We treat our precious kids like bonsai trees – we plant them in a pot, but we won’t let them grow.”

Lythcott-Haims peppered her talk with anecdotes about her personal adventures parenting. She described her desire to give her kids independence and trying to balance that with the over-protectiveness of their friends’ parents. She and her husband chose a house in a particular neighbourhood, she admitted, because she wanted her kids in the “right” preschools and schools, so they would have better chances of getting into the “right” universities.

Along the way, she realized she was misguided. Her son did not tick the boxes required by the “right” universities. She saw that she was inadvertently pushing him so hard to succeed, she was losing him in the process, robbing him of happiness.

What’s at the root of this tendency to overparent? “Love and fear motivates our actions, but also ego,” Lythcott-Haims stated. “We fear being judged. Our measure of worth is saying what our kids are doing. We want to brag about them because it makes us feel we’ve succeeded as parents and in life.”

A hushed, sobered silence descended over the large synagogue auditorium as Lythcott-Haims delivered an emotional talk about her own parenting mistakes and what she learned.

“Our children are not investments, they’re humans and they deserve to know they’re loved – and not because they got a particular grade. For kids, their knees go unskinned if we catch them before they fall. When we hover over every bit of play, we get short-term wins, but the long-term cost is to their sense of self and their ability to self-advocate. They emerge chronologically as adults but they’re still kids inside.”

There are serious consequences to overparenting, she continued. “When we over-direct them and lift them to the outcomes we desire for them, it leads to higher rates of anxiety and depression. They emerge as university students who are failure-deprived and who want to have a parent tell them what to do, how to feel. Though they might look beautiful on paper, when something bad happens, they don’t have the internal sense of self that says, I’ll be OK.”

Lythcott-Haims’ message to parents was a warning to back off, particularly if they want their kids to enter the world as fierce warriors, “strong individuals who are loving of themselves and feel capable and able to keep going when things go wrong.”

Just before receiving a standing ovation, she said, “It takes humility to be a good parent. The ego has to come out of it.”

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Yom Hashoah at KDHS

The Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School Grade 11 history class for which King David High School teacher Anna-Mae Wiesenthal (middle row, second from the right), did a presentation on the Holocaust. Their teacher, Bonnie Burnell, is to Wiesenthal’s left. (photo from Anna-Mae Wiesenthal)

“They were in awe of the Holocaust survivor,” said Bonnie Burnell, a teacher at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary, describing the reaction of her students to survivor Robbie Waisman’s talk at a Yom Hashoah assembly at King David High School (KDHS) on April 24. “Looking at him as he spoke at the podium, they could scarcely imagine him on the inside of a Nazi concentration camp.”

Students from Prince of Wales Secondary School and, of course, from KDHS also joined the assembly, which was organized by KDHS teachers Anna-Mae Wiesenthal and Aron Rosenberg, and included Cantor Yaakov Orzech chanting El Malei Rachamim.

The multi-school initiative was led by Wiesenthal, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Holocaust and genocide studies. Last year, she went to Austria and Poland with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre of Toronto. In addition to teaching about the Holocaust at KDHS, she has been giving presentations at various public schools. She told the Jewish Independent that students have been very engaged and have asked many questions. This outreach led to the recent assembly at KDHS, where other schools’ students were invited to attend.

photo - Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman addresses the assembly for Yom Hashoah at King David High School on April 24 — Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman addresses the assembly for Yom Hashoah at King David High School on April 24. *(photo from Anna-Mae Wiesenthal)*

“My students, in general, were impressed with the ceremony and glad that they had made the decision to come,” Burnell said. “We have had a real focus on racism in our curriculum this year, and this visit definitely adds something of central importance to that subject.”

Wiesenthal, who has taught at KDHS since 2006, became interested in focusing more on Holocaust education after attending an educators seminar at Yad Vashem in 2012.

“I feel Holocaust education is about giving voice to the millions of victims who were murdered simply because of who they were, and honouring their legacy and our history,” explained Wiesenthal. “It is about remembering the vibrancy of Jewish life both before and after the war. It is about preserving memory for future generations and across cultures. It is about taking the knowledge of unprecedented horrors, and keeping them in front of us so that we remain vigilant about our humanity in the face of genocides today.”

Wiesenthal also admitted to being inspired by a possible kinship with renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Her great-grandfather, Mattityahu Wiesenthal, was a Russian boy saved from forced conscription in the Russian army by being “thrown across the river” from Russia into the town of Skala in Austria-Hungary, as many boys were at that time. As an orphan in Skala, he was taken in by Moshe Efroyim Wiesenthal, who supported many such refugee orphans, and the young boy took the family name Wiesenthal to honour his patron. Wiesenthal does not know if Moshe Efroyim was directly related to Simon Wiesenthal, but the latter remains one of her heroes, and she has been in touch with his granddaughter, Racheli Kreisberg.

Wiesenthal also recently initiated a pilot project at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC), in which KDHS students trained as docents (museum guides) lead other students through the exhibit.

Another project was an art exhibit at KDHS, where her Jewish History 11 class viewed a video of a Holocaust survivor’s testimony, chose an aspect of the testimony that stood out for them and then created a work of art based on that aspect. Each work was accompanied by an artist’s statement, a picture of the survivor and why the student chose the testimony they did. Contributions included painting, sculpture, writing and music. “The quality of expression was very moving,” said Wiesenthal.

Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of Judaic studies at KDHS, said he is thrilled with the work Wiesenthal has been doing.

“She shares her passion with her students and fulfils the talmudic dictum, ‘Words that leave from the heart, penetrate the heart,’” he said. “Our school and students benefit immeasurably by having her as a teacher of history and Holocaust studies.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

HIPPY ventures into Asia

HIPPY, developed in 1969, is being used by some 20,000 families in various countries. (photo from HIPPY International)

For the first time ever, HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents and Preschool Youngsters) will be setting up offices in Southeast Asia.

HIPPY is an early learning program developed by researchers in 1969. It is already being used by 20,000 families in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, Liberia, New Zealand and the United States.

As explained on the HIPPY Canada website, the program “delivers a curriculum based on the needs of children to become school-ready; recognizes role-play as the method of teaching the skills needed to implement the child-centred curriculum; and features a peer home visitor system that enables mothers, who may be hard to reach due to social isolation, poverty, language or other cultural issues, to feel comfortable participating in the program.”

“HIPPY has the same core program across the world. In each country, it is adapted to the cultural and linguistic context,” Miriam Westheimer, director of HIPPY International, told the Independent.

In addition to its Southeast Asia offices, other HIPPY news includes a major expansion in Argentina, progress with the program’s digitization and the development of a HIPPY app.

As well, HIPPY’s program in Liberia continues to grow and is now a part of the government’s early childhood strategic plan. The program was originally funded by Friends of Liberia, a group comprised of former Peace Corps volunteers. For the past three years, it has been funded through the Open Society Foundation and is now a ministry of education program.

In Korea and China, HIPPY will introduce a fee for the program, creating a revenue stream Westheimer hopes will allow for more programs in developing countries.

“Typically, once we start a pilot program in a new country, we can then attract policy-makers and funders to help sustain and grow the program,” she said. “What’s interesting is that the models in Korea and China are the first programs working with a higher-education parent population and the pilot project starting there sells the program to upper-middle-income families who can purchase it.”

It’s HIPPY’s first for-profit venture. Typically, the program is free-of-charge and relies on volunteers and community participation, but the agencies and organizations in Korea and China that approached HIPPY wanted to do this as an entrepreneurial project.

“We see it as an opportunity to raise some money so we can do this in countries where we haven’t been able to work yet, developing countries,” said Westheimer. “There are several African countries very interested and we don’t have the start-up [funds] to be able to start working there. We’re looking at this as a model for how we can benefit from the sale of the program, if it does indeed take off, to raise funds to support other new countries in the network.”

“We just started a pilot in Asia,” said Westheimer. “We started with 60 families. Now, we are working with 120 families. We hope to double or triple this next year, but it’s growing slowly. The idea is that it could become part of the ministry of education’s plan and we’re laying the groundwork for it to become a national program.

“We started the same way in Argentina. We started in a few shantytowns in Buenos Aires. It started in a Jewish community, through AMIA, the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, and then, several other groups, childcare centres, built in these shantytowns around Buenos Aires.

Because of its success, the federal government has given a grant to expand to six provinces. They started 100 families in each of the six provinces.”

The model is also working well in a few European countries, such as Austria and Germany, where they have something they call “HIPPY-inspired programs.” For these programs, they take the basic concept of working with parents in the home, with home visits or group meetings, but not using the HIPPY-developed curriculum.

“They have their own curriculum,” said Westheimer. “So, we have HIPPY-inspired programs in Finland, Sweden, Turkey and Holland. The Turkey program is … the most remotely connected to the HIPPY network. The other ones are really part of our international network.”

The program in Turkey has been running for about 30 years, she said. While it began as a small HIPPY program, it has evolved into an independent one with really no connection to HIPPY.

For more information about HIPPY Canada, visit hippycanada.ca or call its office in Vancouver at 604-676-8250.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Student vote result different

More than 170,000 elementary and high school students participated in CIVIX’s Student Vote program for the 2017 B.C. provincial election. (image from CIVIX)

More than 170,000 elementary and high school students participated in the Student Vote program for the 2017 B.C. provincial election, including students from King David High School and Richmond Jewish Day School.

After learning about the electoral process, researching the parties and platforms, and debating the future of British Columbia, students cast ballots for the official candidates running in their local electoral district.

As of 4:15 p.m. on election day, May 9, 1,092 schools had reported their election results, representing all 87 electoral districts in the province. In total, 170,238 ballots were cast by student participants; 163,923 valid votes and 6,315 rejected votes.

Students elected John Horgan and the B.C. NDP to form government with 60 out of 87 seats and 39.0% of the vote. Horgan won in his electoral district of Langford-Juan de Fuca with 55.7% of the vote.

Andrew Weaver and the B.C. Greens took 14 seats and would form the official opposition, receiving 28.5% of the popular vote. Weaver won in his electoral district of Oak Bay-Gordon Head with 48.9% of the vote.

Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals won 12 seats and received 25.4% of the vote. She was defeated in her district of Kelowna West by NDP candidate Shelley Cook; Clark receiving 32.1% of votes cast, compared to Cook’s 35.8%.

Students also elected independent candidate Nicholas Wong in Delta South. Wong defeated Liberal candidate Ian Paton by 10 votes.

This is the fourth provincial-level Student Vote project conducted in British Columbia. In the 2013 provincial election, 101,627 students participated from 766 schools.

Student Vote is the flagship program of CIVIX, a national civic education charity. CIVIX provides learning opportunities to help young Canadians practise their rights and responsibilities as citizens and connect with their democratic institutions. Its programming focuses on the themes of elections, government budgets and elected representatives.

The Student Vote project for the 2017 B.C. provincial election was conducted in partnership with Elections BC and with support from the Vancouver Foundation, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the Government of Canada.

Preschool at the JCC

In the JCCGV’s program for 2-year-olds, there are only a few spots left for September 2017. (photo from Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver)

Hidden at the end of the hall on the garden level of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver there is a preschool program for 2-year-olds with just a few spots left for September 2017.

Shalom Aleph and Shabbat Shalom are small classes especially designed to be a child’s first introduction to school, a chance to learn through play with other children in an environment rich with materials to spark creativity and critical thinking skills.

Children are welcomed by early childhood educators and invited to choose what learning centres they want to spend time in. There is a place to glue things together, paint and play with play dough. There are blocks for constructing, a toy house for imaginative play, books to look at and enjoy, as well as sand and water for sensory exploration. Songs, stories and conversation fill the room, as children begin to learn how to be together in a group, how to take turns and how to negotiate and share, with kindness and compassion.

This preschool program and all the licensed early childhood programs at the JCCGV’s Simkin Family Child Development Centre are inspired by research from the preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and guided by the B.C. Early Learning Framework from the Ministry of Education. The Child Development Centre is a Sheva cornerstone community and a designated lab school community – Sheva is the Jewish early learning framework of the Jewish Community Centre Association of North America, which celebrates children as competent, capable and curious.

Director Susan Hoppenfeld would be delighted to take interested parents on a tour and share more details about the preschool program. She can be reached at 604-257-5162.

Value in mentorship

T-Jex after-school supplementary program is a partnership between Schara Tzedeck Synagogue and Shalhevet Girls High School, where the older students mentor the younger. (photo from Shalhevet)

When friends approached Gila Ross several years ago to start a new Hebrew school in Vancouver, Ross turned for inspiration to a program she had previously run in Calgary for college students, refitting it for children.

The program, T-Jex – the Jewish Experience – is built around mentorship and is based out of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. Vancouver’s Orthodox Shalhevet Girls High School (grades 8 to 12) sends carefully selected mentor volunteers to T-Jex to work one-on-one with students or in groups of two or three. The mentors work predominantly on building Hebrew-language skills with the children. Children also learn as a class with Ross, who is the main teacher and program director, and takes the lead teaching Jewish values, holidays and Torah study.

T-Jex, now in its fifth year, involves about 10 students a year. “It is an amazing opportunity,” Rivka Abramchik, principal of Shalhevet, told the Jewish Independent. “A big part of the Shalhevet curriculum, and the goals we set for our students during the five years they are with us, is to stand up and take leadership. This is an opportunity to take responsibility, to learn the concept of giving back to the community.”

She added, “The girls get to really see how one person can make a meaningful impact. T-Jex so beautifully intertwines with the desire the girls have to be part of Jewish continuity and gives them a chance to give in a way which also gives to the girls themselves. It’s a big commitment – to give up 90 to 130 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon is give up a lot of time for these girls. You would think teenagers would be reluctant but, actually, the idea of teaching a child, students get more inspired than you might think. We have repeats every year.”

Ross gives a presentation at Shalhevet annually to introduce the program to the school’s new students. The importance of committing for a whole year is stressed, as is the importance of engagement, motivation and responsibility.

“I really enjoy working with the kids at T-Jex,” said Grade 11 student Hadassa Estrin. “The gratifying feeling you get when you see them learning about their heritage is so special … like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.”

“Most of our students have been coming from word of mouth, from all over Vancouver and from across the Jewish spectrum,” said Ross. “They have heard from others that kids enjoy coming.”

Ross started a Facebook group for Jewish moms a year or so ago, which has become a virtual community. The group has also helped spread word about the Hebrew school.

Ross, who has six kids of her own, is the youth director at Schara Tzedeck, where she has spearheaded the synagogue’s Families That Give social action projects. She also teaches at Torah High, an after-school program, and works with her husband, Rabbi Samuel Ross, the director of Vancouver National Conference of Synagogue Youth.

“The most wonderful thing to see,” said Ross, “is the students wanting to be here and having fun. To see them take joy in learning and Jewish activities is what it’s all about.”

For more information, visit scharatzedeck.com/education-learning/t-jex-2.

B.C. NDP leader talks with JI

B.C. NDP leader John Horgan (photo from B.C. NDP)

Horgan says he likes how British Columbians have come together across racial and religious differences during recent times of strife. In a wide-ranging interview with the Independent, the New Democratic party leader also promised to restore the B.C. Human Rights Commission, said he would like to see religious studies in the school curriculum, expressed opposition to boycotts against Israel and said ethnocultural groups play an important role in the delivery of social services.

Horgan, the provincial opposition leader who hopes to be premier of British Columbia after the May 9 election, said that public reactions to antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents recently have been encouraging.

“What I’ve been seeing … is an unprecedented coming together of diverse groups – ethnic and people of faith – to support each other, whether it be [after] the horrific shootings in Quebec City or the threats of bombings here in the Lower Mainland,” he said. “I’ve seen people crossing traditional faith boundaries to embrace one another and that gives me great hope and optimism for the future here in B.C. When I look south of the border to the rise of hatred, antisemitism, Islamophobia – and without it being brought into check by the leadership, at least the executive branch of the United States – I’m absolutely concerned about that. But I think the advantage for us here in Canada and in B.C. is it gives us an opportunity to reaffirm our tolerance. I’ve been quite moved by it.”

Leaders, he said, have a role not only in legislating but in expressing attitudes that should exemplify the values of the community they serve. “The broader public often criticize politicians for participating in ethnic celebrations or ceremonies,” he said. But he believes it sends a crucial message about respect for multicultural and faith communities, so he attends Chanukah menorah lightings at the legislature and Kristallnacht commemorations, as well as events of many other communities.

Horgan said there must be a means for people who believe their human rights have been violated to seek redress and a body to spearhead education about human rights. An NDP government, he said, would re-establish the Human Rights Commission that the B.C. Liberals dismantled in 2002.

“Every other jurisdiction in the country has a commission for educational purposes, for bringing forward examples of human rights abuses, and I don’t know why British Columbia wouldn’t have that opportunity,” he said.

Also on the education front, Horgan said he would like to discuss with stakeholders the potential for adding religious studies to the B.C. school curriculum.

“I’m a student of history, I have a master’s degree in history and I look back as much as I look forward in terms of shaping my personal views,” he said. “I would see some benefit to having part of the curriculum have a religious studies component in the middle school or high school curriculum.” It might not be a mandatory course and he would seek consultation with school boards, teachers, parent advisory committees and others, but, he said, the idea has come up repeatedly in conversations with members of different religious communities.

Governments partner with community agencies to ensure culturally sensitive and appropriate delivery of services such as addiction, settlement and immigration and seniors’ programs, and this is something Horgan strongly favours.

“It’s not just ethnocultural and faith-based organizations,” he said, “it’s community organizations. In my world, the role of government is to try to unite and bring people together whenever possible and foster understanding and tolerance. You don’t do that by not having discussions or relationships with various organizations, you do that by stimulating that participation.”

Providing culturally appropriate foods for patients in the medical system is a small example of accommodation, Horgan said, but one that has been made more difficult by the outsourcing of food services in the health-care system.

On the security front, Horgan supports the $100,000 the province recently announced in funding for Jewish community security, though he would have done it differently had he been premier, he said.

“Anytime we can improve security for any community, I would support that,” he said. “I don’t want to take shots of the government in this interview but, for me, I would have reached across the floor and said to my counterparts, were I in the premier’s office, this is something that we’re going to do, can we have a resolution of the legislature to make this cross partisan lines, rather than making it a statement of, ‘the Liberals are doing this and the NDP or Greens or Conservatives are not.’ But, beyond that, I support it, absolutely.”

Horgan said he personally opposes the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, but he’ll let party members have their own opinions.

“On these issues, as a provincial leader, what I try to do is allow people to have their point of view. I don’t necessarily have to agree with them,” he said, adding that foreign affairs is a federal matter. “I hold fast to the hope that our federal government, which has diplomatic responsibility for these issues, will show leadership that divestment and sanctions are not a solution.”

He added: “I believe in a two-state solution to the challenges in the Middle East and that’s a personal view and I’ll share that with anyone who asks me. But I try in my interactions with various community members to focus on how do we provide unity here in British Columbia. I look at, just as an example, the sanctions on Cuba. They’re not comparable, I appreciate that, but it is an attempt to have a state outcome in another jurisdiction based on economic pressure, and all that’s happened as a result of that is increased poverty and a lack of understanding. I think we want to reduce poverty wherever possible and increase understanding and, by cutting ties, severing relationships, you’re never going to achieve that. My approach, personally, is always to engage rather than disengage, so I think the BDS movement is not something I support, but people have their own personal will. They can choose to invest their resources wherever they want to.… My own personal view … is that reducing interactions never leads to a better understanding, it leads to less understanding.”

Horgan noted he has met with several organizations in the Jewish community on issues around economic cooperation and trade with Israel.

“I’m excited about the prospects of increasing our ability in British Columbia to take advantage of the cultural linkages we have to grow stronger economic linkages,” he said.

As British Columbians ponder their electoral choices, Horgan said he wants Jewish voters to know that “what they want for themselves and their community I want for them as well.”

“That’s a tenet of social democracy,” he said, paraphrasing J.S. Woodsworth, an early leader of the Canadian left, who said, “What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all.”

“That is a tenet of the Jewish faith and that is something that I think those who have not looked to the NDP in the past may want to do so in the coming election campaign,” he said. “I want growth and prosperity for our communities, I want tolerance and peace and understanding – and those are the issues that I think most British Columbians want, regardless of their faith. I believe that if we focus on the mainstream values that unite us, rather than the issues that divide us, we’ll all be better off here.… My answer is to lead by example and to highlight always tolerance and welcoming and cooperation over intolerance, hate and division.”

The Jewish Independent’s provincial election coverage continues with interviews with other candidates in future issues.

Note: This article has been edited to reflect that the B.C. government allocated $100,000 for security measures in the Jewish community.

Adding meaning to life

When a group of eight couples in their 40s and 50s meet once a month to discuss different Jewish topics with Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman, co-director of Chabad of Richmond, no subject is off limits. The program is called Toward a Meaningful Life.

“I set the agenda for discussion each month, but if there are other subjects the group is interested in exploring, they’ll send me their questions ahead of time and we can have a meaningful, focused discussion when we meet together as a group,” said Baitelman.

The group of friends meets in the privacy of their homes, and rotates houses from month to month. The rabbi is open to any subject on which he can offer an insightful Jewish perspective. So far, topics discussed have included discovering your personal mission statement; marriage, love and intimacy; home and family; and purpose in life. Upcoming topics will include work; charity and wealth; pain, loss and anxiety; and religion and faith.

Jill Topp, a member of the couples group, values these sessions with the rabbi.

“He’s not judgmental at all, and we’re not even members of Chabad,” she said. “I love his style of guided learning, and what’s important to me is that he allows us to be the Jews that we are, and want to be.” She said they discuss issues related to being in healthy relationships of all sorts, from a Jewish perspective.

Debbie Aarons, another participant, said, “Our group is mixed, we’re not all Orthodox Jews, but we’re like-minded Jews and lifelong learners. Being part of this couples learning group sends a good message to our kids. It tells them that being Jewish is not just about going to shul once a week or a few times a year. It’s about continuing our Jewish learning and having meaningful conversations.”

Shay Keil, who also attends the group, finds it interesting to see how the other couples, who are his friends, respond to discussions about relationships from a religious perspective.

“It’s not something we talk about when we socialize, so it’s fascinating to hear their points of view on these topics,” said Keil. He commented that he finds it beneficial that they’re friends coming together, because it adds that social element to it. “I also like that our kids see us going on a Sunday night to a class that’s connecting us to Judaism, and that it’s not just about going to shul,” he added.

“As Jews, we struggle with all sorts of religious and other issues,” said Baitelman. “We’re a people that questions everything and wants to know why – or why not. Life is about purpose and meaning, and people want to understand their role in the world. So, during these couples classes, we explore all kinds of Jewish subjects and everyone has a chance to contribute. Hopefully, by the end of each meeting, couples have a better insight and understanding of Jewish topics, both personally and as part of the Jewish people.”

Anyone interested in joining this group, or starting one of their own, should contact Baitelman at 604-277-6427 or [email protected]. This informal program is open to all Jewish couples, regardless of age or religious affiliation.