Vancouver hosted the largest convention in the city’s history over the weekend. About 50,000 members of Alcoholics Anonymous descended on the convention centre and BC Place stadium. Among the throngs was a booth representing Jewish Addiction Community Services – JACS Vancouver.
Rabbi Joshua Corber, the organization’s recently appointed director of addictions and mental health services, wanted the group to have a presence at the massive international confab. The booth shared information about JACS’s work, as well as literature from partner agencies in other cities.
For Elana Epstein, who attended the booth and greeted passersby, the experience was transformative – but not for the reasons she expected.
Epstein and her family have shared their journey with addiction and recovery openly, including in these pages (jewishindependent.ca/family-hopes-to-save-lives). She and husband David Bogdonov and their son Noah Bogdonov have become some of the most familiar faces in this community speaking about and advocating for awareness around addiction and recovery.
At a public event at King David High School last fall, the family shared the path they have been on since Noah began his recovery journey two years ago. The entire family has become engaged with this cause. Noah and Elana have both become professionals in the field – Noah recently moved to Calgary to launch a new recovery centre and Elana was credentialized and recently hired to lead JACS’s new family group, which began earlier this week.
But it was not recovery – or, at least, not recovery in the sense she anticipated – that uplifted her at the AA convention. It was the outpouring of empathy and words of encouragement she received from passersby to her as a Jew, and to the Jewish community more broadly.
A steady stream of people dropped by to peruse the information at the booth, but Epstein was deeply moved by the number who just expressed a few words of support for the situation Jewish people find themselves facing in today’s world.
This sort of acknowledgement is something that has been glaringly absent among her non-Jewish circles in Vancouver, she said.
“I personally needed it,” she said. “I haven’t felt that kind of outreach since the war started.” In one of her local circles, her experience has been quite the opposite.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, at the latest, most Jews have probably, consciously or unconsciously, at different times and in different spheres, become aware of dangers and vulnerabilities when we identify ourselves in public. Any reservations Epstein had quickly evaporated, leaving her “completely surprised.”
“Tears,” she said of her response. “Overwhelming gratitude. I really didn’t expect this and it is a beautiful thing. A really beautiful, heartfelt thing.”
There were other surprises – a lot of non-Jews subscribed to stereotypes that addiction did not exist in the Jewish community. For Epstein, though, it was the few words from a stream of strangers that raised her spirits.
Why did it take strangers from other cities to say the words she needed to hear? Maybe it is easier to speak with people you don’t know. By putting herself out there as a visible Jew in a primarily non-Jewish environment, she attracted the goodwill of people who wanted to share expressions of kindness. Are people who deal in addiction and recovery more sensitive to the pain of others? Is there some other explanation?
We would like to imagine this was an indication that the world is kinder than some recent evidence would suggest.
For one thing, there is a simple phenomenon: haters are loud. The chanters who march through the streets condemning Israel (and often Jews) are few but extremely vocal. Their stickers, spray-paint and graffiti might suggest numbers greater than they represent.
Empathy is quiet. Seeing a Jewish individual standing invitingly at a booth presents an opportunity for a few quiet words that maybe some people have been waiting to express.
It may be rare enough that it bears highlighting. It is still, though, a reminder that compassion abounds, often in places we least expect it. This is a small example – and just one – that modest acts of kindness have profound ripples.
As we enjoy the full bloom of summer, with its (hopefully) bright days and reinvigorating outdoor activities, we thought it was worth sharing that the world can be a more welcoming place than it sometimes seems.
We naturally share with friends our moments of disappointment and distress, seeking commiseration when the world lets us down. Remember also to share your moments of uplift, as this one individual chose to do. We need them.
