Emily Greenberg

Back to school, safely

Cautious optimism. That seems to be the consensus among Jewish school administrators as students and teachers prepare to return to classes in September.

One of the key lessons of the past year-and-a-half has been that things can change swiftly and the pandemic response requires resilience and adaptiveness.

“We’ve all learned that whatever is final is only final until it changes,” joked Russ Klein, King David High School’s head of school. Despite the circumstances, he said, the last academic year was a good one. He credits students, parents and teachers for working together, being flexible and making the best of the situation.

“It sounds strange to say, but, in terms of the context, we had a really good year,” he said. “People were incredibly positive, even with a few COVID cases here and there.”

The biggest challenges were wearing masks, cancelling extracurricular activities, including inter-school sports, and the cancellation of all school trips. Grade-specific cohorts were instituted, with staggered schedules to avoid interactions between groups.

As it stands now – unless changes are announced before classes starts Sept. 13 – cohorts will no longer be required. Klein hopes that some competitive sports will also be possible.

While hoping for a school year that is as normal as can be, Klein is also confident that the experience of last year has made the entire school community more sanguine about changes to routines.

Like Klein, Emily Greenberg, head of school at Vancouver Talmud Torah, gives kudos to students, parents and teachers.

“I would say the last year was all about being flexible and understanding that we couldn’t anticipate for sure how things were going to go,” she said. “It was really a team effort. We were really appreciative of our parents and staff and everybody as regulations shifted…. This was the ultimate team effort because it would not have gone as well as it had had we not all rolled up our sleeves and done the work we had to do to get through to where we are today.”

A big remaining question is how kids under 12, who have not yet been cleared for vaccinations, will be required to behave at school.

Some people use the term “new normal,” but Greenberg prefers “near-normal.”

“I am hopeful that our near-normal will be one that we can all live with and still appreciate the liberties that we are starting to gain back,” she said.

With about 500 students set to converge on the school this year, Greenberg is confident that students, parents and staff will step up again to do whatever it takes to learn safely.

“I think the most important piece is just understanding the team mentality,” she said. “The school can’t do it alone. No business can do it alone. Everybody has to play their role.”

Shalhevet Girls High School had a different experience than most. Because of its small student body – this year 11 students will be starting classes – there was no need to form cohorts. However, Ian Mills, incoming principal at Shalhevet, noted that the confluence of Jewish holidays coinciding with the start of the school year raises concerns about kids spreading the virus to siblings, parents and grandparents.

“We are going to encourage mask use, I think, no matter what happens,” said Mills. They will also continue to have the sanitization stations to which everyone has become accustomed and disinfecting protocols will also proceed.

“We’re just really excited,” he said of the new school year. “But, also, things can change. I’m not letting my guard off.”

Vancouver Hebrew Academy also benefited last year from its relatively smaller size, being able to accommodate more of its student body within the capacity limits that were set by the government. Outgoing head of school Rabbi Don Pacht told the Independent in a June interview, “I think schools have been doing a phenomenal job overall, but it’s easier when you only have two cohorts instead of eight cohorts.”

By the time of that interview, basically all of the VHA students had returned to the classroom. Unfortunately, the JI was unable to reach VHA’s new head of school, Rabbi Barak Cohen, for an update before we went to press.

Like all administrators, Sabrina Bhojani, the new principal at Richmond Jewish Day School, will be closely watching the edicts coming from the province’s ministry of education and public health officials.

“Until we have that information, we are hoping things are going to be normal,” she said. “Right now, it’s a waiting game and things are changing minute by minute.”

“I think people are hopeful,” she said. “There is always a little bit of anxiety as well. I think it’s mixed emotions [but] I think people are optimistic for a back-to-normal start.”

Teaching community’s kids

Congregation Beth Israel, children in costume, 1965. (photo from JMABC L.09778)

image - The Scribe book cover — The 2020/21 education-themed issue of The Scribe will be launched on Aug. 26.

The launch of the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia’s latest edition of The Scribe will be held virtually on Aug. 26, at 7 p.m. This year’s book features stories, photos and some almost-forgotten details about Jewish education in British Columbia. Join the Zoom to hear from local leaders in Jewish education both past and present who will give context to this significant subject.

Anne Andrew, past principal of Temple Sholom Hebrew School, and Emily Greenberg, current head of school at Vancouver Talmud Torah, will lead the discussion. Andrew will focus on her long involvement with the Jewish education scene in Vancouver and Greenberg will share her perspectives on where Jewish education is headed. Considering the impact teachers, educational institutions and curricula have on the continuity and cohesion of a community, both this panel discussion and this issue of The Scribe speak to important issues.

photo - Story time, conducted by Gamliel Aharon, Beth Hamidrash B’nai Jacob, 1976 — Story time, conducted by Gamliel Aharon, Beth Hamidrash B’nai Jacob, 1976. *(photo from JMABC L.00155)*

The 2020/21 Scribe features information from the community archives about Jewish education around the province, spanning some 100 years. In addition, there are oral history excerpts from dozens of community members about various programs that have been offered over those years. Even in the very early days of the Jewish community in British Columbia, no matter where Jews settled in the province, there were all kinds of arrangements for the transmission of Jewish knowledge, culture and identity.

Zoom attendees will hear about iconic educators who instilled a love of Judaism and community spirit. Those who attended Jewish school here will take a trip down memory lane, being reintroduced to teachers from their past.

For more information or to register for the free online book launch event or to get your own copy of The Scribe, visit jewishmuseum.ca/publications/the-scribe or call the museum office at 604-257-5199.

– Courtesy Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia

Hands-on learning at farm

Syd Belzberg talks with Vancouver Talmud Torah kids at Stable Harvest Farm. (photo by Shira Sachs)

“The children loved to take their harvest home to share with their families. Many children helped to prepare the family meals, including washing, chopping and plating their meals. There was so much to learn – how healthy food can taste so yummy, how I can help my family make dinner, how the food can make my body feel good.”

“This is from some cute kid, and I see his picture in front of me,” Syd Belzberg told the Jewish Independent in a recent phone interview. “That’s heart-warming. That’s where it’s all at. That’s beautiful.”

photo - Vancouver Talmud Torah Grade 1 students have a plot on Syd Belzberg’s farm, where they grew scallions and other vegetables — Vancouver Talmud Torah Grade 1 students have a plot on Syd Belzberg’s farm, where they grew scallions and other vegetables. *(photo by Jessie Claudio)*

The note came after Vancouver Talmud Torah Grade 1 students visited Belzberg’s Stable Harvest Farm in Langley last month.

Belzberg got the idea for the farm about a half dozen years ago. He read a newspaper article about Vancouver Sun reporters who had started a breakfast program for schoolchildren in the 1980s. “I got in touch with them and got involved a bit, supporting some of the schools with money,” said Belzberg.

But he wanted to have more of an impact and, after he retired a couple of years ago, he decided to reinvent his Langley acreage, which had been home to his many horses several decades ago, but had laid empty for some 17 years. He based his concept on that of Coastal Roots Farm, “a nonprofit Jewish community farm and education centre” located near the home he has in California. “They do a lot of wonderful things,” said Belzberg, “and I thought this would be a heck of a thing to try and copy in a way.”

He hired Kristjan Johannson to manage the farm and the first crop was planted in January 2020. Despite flooding on the property, they gave away about 90,000 pounds of organic vegetables to a half-dozen food banks, as well as to community meals programs.

“This year, we decided to try and double it,” said Belzberg. And they more than doubled it, giving away an estimated 250,000 pounds of food, while continuing to work on the property.

Belzberg established the Stable Harvest Farm Society, he said, “to make this a legacy for my family.” Of his five kids, only one lives in Vancouver, and that daughter, Tammi Kerzner, “has been a massive help to me to build this,” he said.

“There are many facets to what I want to do,” said Belzberg, “but I wanted to get the food thing right because I didn’t know what we’d have to go through to be successful.”

Belzberg’s approach with this project has been similar to that which he has taken with his other endeavours.

“When I started in the car business [Budget Rent a Car] in ’62, I had trucks and other things in mind, but I wanted to rent cars and learn about that first,” he said. “It’s the same thing here. I wanted to prove we can get the vegetables right before I started to do anything else.”

Educational programming is a main component of the farm. “David Bogoch had a lot to do with teaming up with TT. He is such a supporter of it,” said Belzberg about collaborating with the school. “And my children went there. I have a great-granddaughter now who goes there. So it was a natural [fit]. The part that really put us over the top was Emily [Greenberg], because she’s fantastic. She’s so on top of it, and she’s got Jessica [Claudio] there, who goes to another level.”

“Mr. Belzberg has been a very generous supporter of VTT,” said Greenberg, who met Belzberg for the first time when he first saw the school’s rooftop soccer pitch that he funded. That was in her second week as head of school, she said.

“And we’ve had close relationships with David Bogoch, who is quite close to Mr. Belzberg, and he kept talking to me about this farm that Mr. Belzberg was creating … that Mr. Belzberg had a dream to make this farm a centre for Jewish education and Jewish values and the Jewish community and that he would love to see children using this farm, in addition to how it supports the needy in Vancouver.”

Belzberg eventually invited Greenberg for a visit and they spoke about his vision and she “went away and thought about how we could make that happen from our end and, ultimately, bring kids out there.”

The first thing that happened, said Greenberg, was that Johannson came to the school and helped the kids plant seedlings. “Then we had, basically, a little nursery there at the school and watched them grow and supported them.” The plan was for the kids to plant the adolescent seedlings in April at the farm but COVID restrictions had increased, “so we weren’t able to bring the kids to Langley because it was cross-boundary.” But the planting was filmed and a multi-series educational video was made.

“Thankfully, the regulations changed again and we were able to go in the third week of June and send all of our Grade 1 kids out there,” said Greenberg. “They were able to help reap the harvest and they each brought home a bag of veggies from Mr. Belzberg’s farm and made the most amazing salads and soups and all sorts of things and we’ve got some great pictures of what they made that night. We had parents who were ecstatic, watching their kids eat raw vegetables – including scallions.”

The kids had grown the scallions, as well as lettuce and radishes, and their bags were supplemented with some other vegetables from the farm, such as tomatoes and carrots.

On their visit, the kids also got to see the part of the property that will become a bird sanctuary – “there’s a hundred and some odd different types of birds and owls that feed there and it became a natural habitat,” said Belzberg.

Another aspect of Stable Harvest is bees. Belzberg works with beekeeper Carolyn Essaunce, who owns the Honest to Goodness Farm Co. Essaunce also made a trip to VTT and spoke to each senior kindergarten class.

photo - Beekeeper Carolyn Essaunce speaks to VTT senior kindergarteners about bees and honey — Beekeeper Carolyn Essaunce speaks to VTT senior kindergarteners about bees and honey. *(photo from VTT)*

“She brought a whole honeycomb with live bees,” said Greenberg. “She helped them understand how, when you take a honeycomb and you put it in a machine and spin it, how you get the honey out…. They understood what it was to produce honey and then they all went home with some of Mr. Belzberg’s honey…. That is definitely something we hope to repeat yearly.”

Experiential learning is the future of education, said Greenberg. “For us, we want to prioritize learning through nature and to exposure to nature, but also, of course, finding ways to make sure that Jewish values are part of that…. So this has been a tremendous opportunity for us. It’s only the beginning – we look forward to bringing many more of our grades out to Stable Harvest Farm next year. There’s obviously a science aspect but we also want our kids to be shomrei adamai, guardians of the earth, and understand the power of nature. There’s an empowerment that happens when they’re part of growing a plant and the excitement that happens. And the understanding of the life cycle and how that eventually nourishes us and nourishes those in need – it’s a tremendous marriage of all of the values we have as educators, but also as a Jewish day school.”

VTT has invested a lot of time in iSTEAM over the last two years, she said, “integrating the innovations that have been coming out of Israel and using that as the platform from which to explore science, technology, engineering, art and math. A great example that you have at Mr. Belzberg’s farm is drip irrigation, which is an Israeli innovation…. We love the fact that our kids can be proud of a technology that’s come out of Israel and understand how innovation can revolutionize an entire industry and, ultimately, help people live a better, healthier life.”

photo - All the workers show off the produce reaped during the VTT schoolchildren’s visit to Stable Harvest Farm — All the workers show off the produce reaped during the VTT schoolchildren’s visit to Stable Harvest Farm. *(photo by Galit Lewinski)*

Greenberg’s goal is to get all of the VTT students out to the farm at least once over a two-year span. “We have a lot of ideas,” she said, “and Mr. Belzberg, thankfully, is very flexible. He just says, ‘Tell me what works for you and we’ll make it happen.’ He always says that: ‘We’ll make it happen.’”

And there is lots that Belzberg plans to make happen. Next year, for example, he hopes to build a large kitchen on the farm for cooking classes, education and other activities. Already, the farm has had its first stand, on June 19, and joined its first farmer’s market, in White Rock, on June 20.

“It’s a helluva way to give back and it fills a vast need and I can afford to do it,” said Belzberg when asked why the farm is important to him. “It’ll hopefully continue forever,” he said.

“When I sat there with the TT kids, and they’re coming up to me and shaking my hand, and when I see the letters that are coming back, the salads, the fact that these kids are into food, I give TT all the credit in the world,” said Belzberg. “It was one of the 10 happiest moments of my life when I sat there a week or so back and watched the kids being in the ground, getting their hands dirty. What could be better than that? And the smiles on their faces.”

Indigenous children mourned

The bodies of 215 children were recently discovered buried adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. (photo from flickr.com/photos/bcgovphotos)

Jody Wilson-Raybould, member of Parliament for Vancouver-Granville and a member of the We Wai Kai Nation, told students at Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School last week that most of her family members attended residential schools and she spoke of the tragic legacy of that project, which devastated Indigenous communities for generations.

“Residential schools, these institutions, are a very dark part of our history,” she said, speaking directly to students at a ceremony organized to mourn the 215 children whose bodies were recently discovered buried adjacent to a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. Most of the city’s rabbis were also in attendance.

“They were in existence for over 100 years in Canada, from the 1870s to 1996, when the last one closed in Saskatchewan. The last one closed in British Columbia in 1984,” said Wilson-Raybould of the residential schools. “These institutions were created by the law of Canada and run by churches. There were 139 residential schools across the country and it’s estimated that 150,00 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children attended the schools, forcibly removed from their homes, compelled to attend, and the purpose of residential schools, as stated by the first prime minister of this country, was to remove the Indian from the child, to get rid of the ‘Indian problem’ in this country.”

She added: “People have asked me, as I know they’ve asked many Indigenous peoples, how do you feel? I feel angry. I feel frustrated. And I feel a deep sense of sadness, because this is not an isolated incident. There will be more that will be revealed and we have to recognize that every Indigenous person in this country has a connection to residential schools and the harmful legacies that still exist. But I am still optimistic. Optimistic that, through young people like you … that we can make a change in this country.”

Speaking of her family’s experiences, Wilson-Raybould singled out her grandmother, who she has frequently cited as her hero, and talked of the courage and resilience her grandmother exhibited.

“Most of my relatives went to residential schools,” she said. “My grandmother, Pugladee, was taken away from her home when she was a very young girl and forced to go to the Indian residential school St. Michael’s, in Alert Bay. She faced terrible violence at that school, but she escaped from that school and she made it home and she is the knowledge keeper in my nation.”

Emily Greenberg, Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school, welcomed guests in person and online, expressing empathy for Indigenous Canadians, faced again with the reminder of this country’s past.

“Their wounds have been reopened once again and their suffering renewed,” she said. “Today, our community gathers to grieve with them and open our hearts to their struggles.”

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom contrasted the lives of the children buried in Kamloops with the lives and educational experiences of the Talmud Torah students attending the ceremony, who, he said, “are immersed in their own language and culture and traditions” – the very things Canada’s residential schools system was designed to extinguish in Indigenous young people.

“Our hearts break today not only for the loss of life,” said Moskovitz. “They break for the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of joy, of play, of family, of heritage that was stolen from those children by the misguided aims of our nation. It was a different era. It was a different time, but if our people, the Jewish people, have learned anything from our history of trauma and persecution, it is these words: that those who do not study history are bound to repeat it. Echoed by the warning of the Jewish people from the Holocaust, from the Shoah – never again – we have learned, and we know in our souls, that the greatest tribute we can offer these children and their families is not words of condolence, but acts of conscience. The purpose of prayer is to lead us to action, to make our prayer real, not in heaven but here on earth.”

Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel said that “the children who we are remembering today were forced to go to schools and to a specific school that ripped away their culture, attempted to take away from them their language, attempted to take them literally away from their families.” Addressing the students, he emphasized the message Moskovitz shared: “Today, we are remembering children who had the exact opposite of the opportunities that you have.”

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner expressed the unity of Jewish, Indigenous and all peoples. “We share a destiny as co-inhabitants of this land and because we are of the same holy stuff, the same flesh and blood and the same God-breath,” she said, encouraging members of the Jewish community to “respond not just in our sentiments but through ongoing engagement service and grace.”

Dresner said: “Justice is what love looks like in the public sphere. Loving our neighbours, our fellows, as ourselves. And so, we stand with Indigenous fellows in love, for justice, for the actualization of recovered records and supportive measures for holistic, multifaceted healing and reparation.”

Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of Congregation Schara Tzedeck spoke of the Jewish concept that one who extinguishes even a single life is considered to have destroyed an entire world. “Today, we remember, at a minimum, the destruction of 215 worlds,” he said. “A significant portion of these children died while trying to escape to reunite with their families. They died of exposure in the cold, the frost, simply trying to do one thing that every human being would … simply trying to return to their own families.”

Carrie Plotkin, a Grade 5 student, read the poem “You hold me up,” by Monique Gray Smith. “It was written to encourage us young people, our care providers and our educators to talk about reconciliation and the importance of the connections children make with our friends, classmates and families,” she said.

Rabbi Shlomo Gabay of Beth Hamidrash read a 1936 poem from Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Carlebach of Hamburg, Germany. Cantor Yaacov Orzech sang Psalm 23.

The 215 bodies were discovered using ground-penetrating radar. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that 4,100 children died at residential schools from abuse, neglect, diseases and accidents. Many were never repatriated to their families and communities and, in many cases, deaths were sloppily recorded using just a given name or a surname and sometimes even completely anonymously. Advocates are calling on the government to commit to identifying more remains and to releasing archival documentation on the schools that has remained sealed.

Community endeavour

Emily Greenberg is Vancouver Talmud Torah’s new head of school. (photo from VTT)

After 17 years of leadership under Cathy Lowenstein, Vancouver Talmud Torah will have a new head of school.

Starting in September this year, Emily Greenberg will be joining the staff from her position as a vice-principal at Bialik Hebrew Day School in Toronto. Greenberg is currently responsible for the elementary division’s 350 students.

Josh Pekarsky was the chair of the VTT head of school search committee. “We were looking for someone with operational strengths, but also a strong educational leader who is engaging, dynamic and transparent,” Pekarsky told the Independent.

This they found in Greenberg, whom Pekarsky described as “very positive, yet very grounded; she sets high standards for herself and her team.”

Originally from Toronto, Greenberg is the daughter of an Israeli father and an American-born mother.

Together, they have devoted their working lives to education, music and their spiritual community at Temple Emanu-El in the city’s North York neighbourhood. Greenberg’s mother served as the synagogue’s music director for more than 25 years.

Born and raised in Canada, Greenberg has sought out positions in schools in Colombia, Thailand and Paraguay. Her educational philosophy rests on the notions of tikkun olam (repair of the world, social justice), chesed (kindness) and tzedakah (justice, charity). These were guiding tenets of her upbringing at Temple Emanu-El, a Reform congregation.

Greenberg’s concept of education is as a community endeavour. For her, education grows from a partnership between students and their educators, be they teachers in a school or adults in the wider community.

The seven-member search committee – four of whom are VTT graduates themselves – brought a wealth of professional expertise to the search process. In addition, the group’s previous work with numerous Jewish organizations, school accreditation and the spiritual community kept them focused on candidates’ qualities as leaders of children. The committee’s first priority was to find a group of candidates who represented “the diverse school community and had the educational expertise, institutional knowledge and sechel (common sense)” for the task, said Pekarsky.

Rather than starting with a profile of the perfect candidate, the group began their search with questions not only about what they sought in a head of school, but also about the search process itself. They recognized the value of stakeholder engagement in this process, and worked hard to invite the perspectives of as many individuals and groups as possible. These included school faculty, donors, parents, alumni, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver members and community rabbis.

Throughout the search, interested parties were given opportunities – both in-person and via correspondence – to express their values and dreams for the future of the school’s leadership. Participants were asked questions like, “What do you think are VTT’s biggest challenges in the years ahead?” and “What skills and attributes are most important in our next head of school?”

Pekarsky said he was impressed by the amount of input the committee received from the community. “The majority of people went out of their way to say, I support whatever the school decides,” he said. “That was really gratifying. There was confidence in the process and support for the school.”

The committee also reached out for guidance across the border, working closely with Prizmah: Centre for Jewish Day Schools. Their input and insights helped the VTT committee weigh their priorities – while founded on Jewish principles, students at VTT must also meet the requirements of the provincial curriculum – and refine their search tool. Ultimately, the 12 applications came from as far away as Israel but also included candidates from California, Illinois and Quebec.

Greenberg and her husband, Daniel – a special needs educator – have three children, all of whom will be starting at VTT in the fall.

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