history – Page 9

The Sussita’s short history

Sussita entrepreneur Itzhak Shubinsky driving a Sabra Sport car, from the newspaper Barkav, in the 1960s. (photo from Haifa City Museum)

For a trip down memory lane, cruise over to Haifa’s City Museum at 11 Ben-Gurion Blvd., in the German Colony, to see Sussita: The Exhibition. The display, which continues until May 25 (the opening was delayed by Hezbollah rocket fire from Lebanon), documents Israel’s failed automobile industry during the early decades of statehood.

Alas, the doorways of the museum’s 19th-century Templar building are too narrow to permit restored examples of the fibreglass shell cars to pass through. So, on hand is a stripped-down version of a Sussita, and a trove of fascinating documents and photos. Missing are full-size examples of the Carmel truck and Sabra Sport roadster that Autocars Co. Ltd. assembled at its Haifa workshop and then in the city of Tirat Carmel.

The exhibit was curated by Yifat Ashkenazi, together with filmmaker Avi Weissblei. The latter produced the 2020 documentary Desert Tested, which told the Sussita’s story.

Like Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car company, which went through almost $1 billion in venture capital before declaring bankruptcy in 2013, Israel’s ultimately insolvent auto industry never thrived.

image - A Sussita Autocars Co. Ltd. advertisement in the 1960s, featuring its “5 Road Champions!” — A Sussita Autocars Co. Ltd. advertisement in the 1960s, featuring its “5 Road Champions!” *(photo from Haifa City Museum)*

The Sabra’s aerodynamic curves evoke the glamour of early James Bond films. Nonetheless, even though they were jump-started by foreign firms, Haifa’s car business never quite managed to compete with Detroit.

Discussing Autocars’ 1966 Sussita at carsurvey.org, one classic car aficionado noted: “What things have gone wrong with the car?

Almost everything! It was a very cheap car made of a fibreglass body attached to a very simple welded pipes chassis, with a Triumph engine. The car was unstable, seriously dangerous, unreliable and very badly built.”

Folklore has it that camels liked to munch on the cars’ fibreglass body. But the relative paucity of dromedaries in 1960s Israel makes the truth of this story doubtful.

Founded in the mid-1950s with assistance from Britain’s Reliant Motor Co., Autocars initially assembled quirky but popular three-wheeled micro-cars. The first four-wheeled blue-and-white vehicle, the Sussita, was also designed by Reliant.

The Sussita, meaning mare in Aramaic, developed a reputation as a reliable workhorse. By 1960, Autocars was exporting the cheaply priced car – available in estate, van and pick-up models – to the United States and Canada. Rebranded as the Sabra – a genus of cactus originally from Mexico that had become a descriptor of native-born Israelis – the car sold poorly in North America due to its inferior quality.

That year, in 1960, Autocars’ owner Itzhak Shubinsky spotted the coupé Ashley GT at London’s Sports and Racing Car Show. Changing business strategy, he purchased the bodywork moulds and created the Sabra Sport, which made its debut at the 1961 New York Motor Show. The roadster car was also sold as a hardtop coupe. Fewer than 150 were exported to the United States, while a similar number were sold in Belgium.

Reliant also launched the car in Britain. Anglicizing its moniker to Sabre, the prickly cactus morphed into a swashbuckling sword.

image - Advertising for the Sussita: “You bought Sussita, you were not wrong” — Advertising for the Sussita: “You bought Sussita, you were not wrong.” *(photo from Haifa City Museum)*

Expanding production, in 1961, Autocars introduced the Carmel, named for the mountain that defines Haifa. The car featured a 1,200cc Ford Cortina engine mounted in a Reliant chassis.

By 1965, Autocars declared bankruptcy and was taken over by Britain’s Leyland-Triumph. Revamping the product line, the following year it introduced the Gilboa, a four-door version of the Carmel. In 1967, it produced an off-road, front-wheel drive utility called the Dragoon.

But the red ink continued to spill. In 1971, Leyland severed its ties with its Israeli subsidiary. Three years later, Autocars was bought by Rom Carmel Industries, which brought out its Gilboa-based Rom 1300.

Sputtering along, in 1978, the company was purchased by the Netanya-based foundry Urdan Industries. Restyled again, the Rom 1300 became the Rom 1301. But declining sales could not be reversed, going from a peak of manufacturing more than 3,000 cars annually during the 1960s to just 540 cars rolling off the assembly line in 1980, the last full year of production. In 1981, the plant shut its gates.

For more about the exhibit, visit hcm.org.il/eng/exhibitions/11128/sussita.

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

Na’amat – 100 years of service

From 1925 to today, Na’amat volunteers across Canada and the United States continue to empower women and children in Israel and abroad. (photo from Na’amat Canada)

At a time when charities are fighting to survive, an organization that’s been helping women and children in Israel and North America is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Na’amat Canada and Na’amat USA, which began as a North American chapter in 1925, will mark the centenary at a gala conference in Toronto in May with delegates from across Canada and the United States.

“It’s a huge deal. It’s a milestone,” said Vivian Reisler, executive vice-president of Na’amat Canada. “We’ve come a long way from Golda Meir sending a message that we need $100 to build X, Y, Z.”

The forerunner of Na’amat was founded in 1921, in what would later become the modern state of Israel, to empower women, including providing vocational training and advocating for improved working conditions and equal pay.

Four years later, a North American branch was born and Na’amat chapters were formed across Canada and the United States over the ensuing decades. Today, thousands of volunteers are continuing to empower women and children in Israel and abroad.

“The success of the organization is due to the dedication of the members, volunteers and donors – because, without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” said Reisler.

Na’amat Canada president Susan Inhaber, a member of the organization for 25 years, agrees.

“We just want to keep building, get our name out there, build the membership and thank all the donors, supporters and members who are making everything possible,” she said. “This is an exciting time for us to be together. It’s nice that we have an organization that’s lasted so long.”

While the North American branch of Na’amat (a Hebrew acronym for “Movement of Working Women and Volunteers”) began in 1925, Na’amat Canada and Na’amat USA became two autonomous divisions in 1965.

“We were together, we split, and now we’re back together (informally, at the Toronto conference) celebrating 100 years,” said Reisler.

Na’amat is the largest women’s organization in Israel. It provides a wide variety of services, including a daycare network for thousands of children, legal aid centres, technological high schools for students who have trouble succeeding in other classroom settings, boarding schools for underprivileged students, and the Na’amat Canada Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention.

photo - Na’amat Canada members at the Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention — Na’amat Canada members at the Glickman Centre for Family Violence Prevention. *(photo from Na’amat Canada)*

Established in 1993 in Tel Aviv, the Glickman Centre was the first women’s shelter in Israel. It has three distinct sections: the shelter, a counseling and treatment area, and the Rhodie Blanshay Benaroch Children’s Centre wing, a haven for children living in the shelter.

The Rhodie Blanshay Benaroch Children’s Centre houses a computer room, baby nursery, kindergarten, audiovisual education corner, library, learning centre and outdoor playground, named in honour of Rhodie’s granddaughter, Rho Schneiderman. A musical playground was built in honour of Rhodie’s two granddaughters. Blanshay Benaroch was a dynamic third-generation Na’amat member who was committed to building a safe, loving environment for children who needed it most.

Recently, Na’amat Canada was instrumental in building a new middle school at Kanot Youth Village. More than 300 students will now have a state-of-the-art school to enhance their education.

In the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war, Israel needs Na’amat’s help as much – or even more – than it did a century ago, said Doris Wexler-Charow, past national president of Na’amat Canada.

“I think that Oct. 7 changed everything,” she said of the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust.

Everyone in Israel is suffering from PTSD, said Wexler-Charow, a retired social worker. “Everybody’s been traumatized,” she said, explaining that Na’amat is providing more counseling services than ever. “Israel needs us. It’s important for us to keep going. The cause is a good one and I think we need our young people to continue where we leave off.”

– Courtesy Na’amat Canada

Hebron key to conflict

The White Rock/South Surrey Jewish Community Centre hosted Yardena Schwartz, author of Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine that Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict, on Feb. 23.

photo - Left to right: Gay Cohen, organizer of the White Rock/South Surrey Jewish Community Centre Book Club; Helen Mann of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver; author and journalist Yardena Schwartz; and WRSS JCC president Adele Ritch — Left to right: Gay Cohen, organizer of the White Rock/South Surrey Jewish Community Centre Book Club; Helen Mann of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver; author and journalist Yardena Schwartz; and WRSS JCC president Adele Ritch. (photo by Chloe Heuchert)

At the event, held in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, Schwartz – an award-winning producer and journalist – spoke about her book and then answered some questions from the audience.

Schwartz has worked for NBC, among other organizations, and reported for many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Foreign Policy. She lived in Israel from 2013 to 2023.

While working as a freelance journalist in Tel Aviv, Schwartz was introduced to a family from Memphis, Tenn., who had a box of letters written by their late uncle, David Shainberg, who was one of the 70 Jews killed by some of the Arab residents of Hebron during the massacre in 1929. He had sailed to Palestine in 1928, and studied at Hebron Yeshivah; he wrote hundreds of letters to his family about how Jews and Arabs were living together, coexisting, peacefully. Schwartz spoke about those letters, and the massacre and how it relates to Oct. 7.

Helen Mann, who works with the Jewish Federation and is also a part of the White Rock/South Surrey Jewish community, told the Independent that reading Schwartz’s book amid growing antisemitism was empowering, that “it felt more important than ever to spread the historical truth of our people and this contentious and tiny piece of land, especially in such a tiny Jewish community we are in, of White Rock/South Surrey.”

Mann said there is so much misinformation being disseminated, on social media in particular.

“Yardena has meticulously delved through and cited sources to do the work for us, and weave that history into a page-turner,” she said. “While I hope this book gets into the hands of anyone who wishes to speak on the current conflict and politics, it’s of high priority that we as a Jewish community are educated on our own history; to know who we are in order to know where we are going.”

The Jewish Independent spoke with Schwartz after the event.

JI: What types of research did you do for the book?

YS: My research started with interviews in Hebron with Palestinians and Israelis living there. And then, from there, I focused on the period of history that preceded the massacre, so 1928 and 1929. That involved looking at archival newspaper articles in places like the Palestine Post and the New York Times, and Arabic press… There’s an archive in Hebron that I spent a lot of time in, archives in Jerusalem, and Hagana Archives in Tel Aviv. This was during COVID, so I couldn’t go to the London archives, but some other authors who had been there and got materials were kind enough to share them with me.

It was a lot of archival research, a lot of interviews: hundreds of hours of interviews with Israelis and Palestinians in Hebron between 2019 and 2023.

I also read as many books as I could that were focused on that period. There were two books that were really helpful in my research. One was Hillel Cohen’s Year Zero of the Arab Israeli Conflict, which tells the story not just of the Hebron massacre, but of the riots of 1929. And it’s very succinct, it just focuses on the riots, like none of the history before or after. Then, a book by Orin Kessler, Palestine 1936, which focused on the Great Arab Revolt from 1936 to 1939.

JI: During your research, did you find any information that surprised you in a way?

YS: Well, the letters that David Shainberg wrote to his family were really eye-opening for me in painting a picture of what Hebron was like before the massacre and what Hebron was like during the British Mandate before the massacre…. I had never known that Jews and Muslims had lived side by side in peace in Hebron and owned businesses and drank coffee together. That was really surprising to me, given what Hebron is today.

But I think what shocked me most during my research was what I discovered about the mufti, the grand mufti, Amin al-Husseini, who was the first leader of the Palestinian people, and, specifically, his role during the Holocaust, his affiliation with the Nazis, his role as a Nazi, and his role in recruiting tens of thousands of Muslims to fight for the Nazis – and the fact that he lived the rest of his life out in the open. I mean, he was wanted for Nazi war crimes and yet he didn’t have to live out the rest of his life in hiding, like so many Nazis did…. He was never arrested, never was prosecuted or put on trial for his crimes.

JI: Since this is your first book, how was the overall experience, and what challenged you the most?

YS: I think what challenged me the most was giving birth to two children during the course of writing this book. I honestly still have no idea how I wrote a book while raising two kids – my kids are now 2 and 4-and-a-half. I was pregnant with my first child when I started this research … and it was really difficult to write about such a depressing, heavy subject while bringing new life into this world. It was really difficult.

It had always been a dream of mine to write a book. I’d been a journalist for years, but I don’t think I could grasp, until writing this book, just how difficult writing a book is, especially something that covers 100 years of history. So, it was … a tremendous undertaking. Sometimes, it was torturous, but other times it was really fulfilling and especially now that it’s out there in the world, and hearing from readers is just like an incomparable experience…. I feel really blessed that I was entrusted with these letters by these families. Without them, this book wouldn’t have come to fruition, basically.

JI: What key message do you want readers to take from the book?

YS: I think my key message is that we will never be able to resolve this conflict if we can’t agree on the facts that drive it and the history that precedes this tragic moment we’re in. And, I think, to anyone who wants to see peace in Israel, peace between Israel and Palestinians, I hope they’ll read this book. I hope they’ll learn the lessons of history, so that we can stop repeating the mistakes of the past.

Chloe Heuchert is an historian specializing in Canadian Jewish history. During her master’s program at Trinity Western University, she focused on Jewish internment in Quebec during the Second World War.

Determined to help others

Photos from the book include Joy Karp speaking to a group of people at a Terry Fox Run in Whitehorse. (photo from Rick Karp)

Creating a Lasting Impact: The Amazing Life of Joy Esther Karp was recently published.

Written by Rick Karp, who was married to Joy for 49 years – many of them spent in the Yukon – the account tells of her determination to make a difference and how she made numerous contributions to society, while having to overcome life-threatening issues every few years.

Joy Karp died in 2017.

“I promised Joy a few weeks before she passed that I would ‘tell her story,’ and that is what I have done. People need to know who she was, what she accomplished throughout her life, how caring and supportive she was for others,” Rick Karp told the Independent.

Two of the setbacks Joy Karp faced were a heart attack, after giving birth to twins in her early 20s, and a car accident, in which she was thrown from the vehicle onto a frozen Lake Ontario, smashing the bones in her left foot; she had to wear specially made shoes thereafter.

In 1986, the Karps moved from Ottawa to Whitehorse, where they brought the first McDonald’s to the North and were deeply involved in the economic, social and cultural fabric of the Yukon. But this didn’t protect the couple from life’s vicissitudes.

Joy was kidnapped in 1992 and buried in her car for close to 17 hours. The kidnappers shackled her wrists and ankles, blindfolded her, put a bag over her head and left her there without needed medication, despite knowing she had heart issues.

“After the kidnapping, Joy suffered horribly for years from PTSD and, a couple of years later, her heart gave out and she had to have a quadruple bypass operation,” Rick Karp said.

In addition, Joy’s foot was severely damaged after the kidnapping, and doctors considered amputation. The Karps, though, demanded that the doctors pursue another course, which allowed her to keep her foot.

A few years later, Joy had her first case of cancer and required operations, chemotherapy and radiation. The cancer returned after several years and proved incurable.

“The doctors thought it was a heart issue and all that Joy needed was a pacemaker,” Karp said. “The X-rays that they did to determine the positioning of the pacemaker showed that the issue was a cancerous growth that had developed in her right lung and had reached out and attached to her heart.

photo - Rick Karp’s book about his wife, Joy, was recently released — Rick Karp’s book about his wife, Joy, was recently released. (photo from Rick Karp)

“They said that it was inoperable and that Joy only had about three months left, but she survived for close to 11 months.”

Despite all these adversities, Joy had an innate ability to understand and see the potential in others, to learn what they needed, and then make things happen for them, said Karp. People were always drawn to her, he said.

“This was one of the amazing things about Joy. She thought of others. She was a great listener. As a student, she helped her fellow students with assignments, and she had the ability to resolve issues.”

One of Joy Karp’s legacies is the McDonald’s Hands-On Business Training Program. The story begins in Ontario in the 1970s, with a job she had helping an owner-operator grow to five stores, and managing the head office. Confronted with a high turnover rate in some towns, the owner approached Joy for a solution.

She created a training program in 1978 and implemented it at local McDonald’s restaurants. By the early 1980s, according to Karp, the program was used throughout the fast-food chain.

“This is a three-year program that takes employees, or others that apply, through training and development that solidifies their knowledge of all of the stations in McDonald’s, training in customer service, and all aspects of how the restaurant operates,” he said.

“Then, to the right people, the program offers the chance to rise from crew person to crew trainer, to swing manager, to assistant manager and to manager – it offers career opportunities. Also, embedded in the program is the concept of ‘promote from within,’ which has been adopted by businesses, well, everywhere.”

Among other accomplishments, Joy organized service and customer satisfaction workshops for the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce when the city played host to the Canada Winter Games in 2007. Her efforts, Karp said, were recognized by the event’s organizers.

Additionally, she played a key role in bringing the Special Olympics to Whitehorse, helped arrange for an outdoor play area and training computers at the Yukon Child Development Centre, and was pivotal in obtaining funding to make the Yukon Arts Centre wheelchair accessible. In 2013, she wrote The Power of Service: Service Through the Eyes of Customers, a book that emphasizes the importance for businesses to develop relationships and trust with those they serve.

Creating a Lasting Impact can be purchased on the Bookstore page at rwkarp.ca. A signed copy can be ordered by emailing Karp at [email protected].

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

Unique Cochin rituals

Cochin Jews at the 450th year celebration of the Paradesi synagogue, December 2017. (photo by Shalva Weil)

A study on the Purim traditions of the Cochin Jewish community by Prof. Shalva Weil of Hebrew University was published in the Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. It examines the historical and cultural significance of effigies in Purim celebrations among Cochin Jews, tracing their evolution from the 16th century to the modern day.

The Cochin Jewish community, numbering no more than 2,400 at its peak in 1948, lived in harmony with their Hindu, Christian and Muslim neighbours. Unlike other Jewish communities, they never experienced antisemitism in India, except during the Portuguese conquest of the 16th century. Their unique Purim celebrations featured role reversals that symbolically challenged societal hierarchies based on caste, religion and gender. This inversion of power structures was most vividly expressed through the construction and destruction of effigies representing adversaries, a practice embedded in the communal and ritualistic fabric of Cochin Jewry.

By the 20th century, Cochin Jews increasingly aligned themselves with the global Jewish community. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the majority of Cochin Jews made aliyah by 1954, leaving behind only a small number of Paradesi and Malabar Jews scattered across the state of Kerala. The once-thriving Cochin Jewish community on the Malabar Coast is nearly extinct, and traditional Purim celebrations have all but disappeared. With only one Paradesi Jew remaining there and a handful in other former Cochin Jewish locations, synagogue services now rely on visiting Jewish tourists.

In stark contrast, in Israel, where an estimated 15,000 descendants of Cochin Jews now reside, Purim is celebrated in ways that reflect broader Jewish and Western cultural traditions. Children dress up as superheroes, soldiers and biblical figures; they participate in school parties and exchange hamantashen. Observant Jews continue to read the Book of Esther in synagogue and hold festive meals, incorporating their heritage into mainstream Jewish customs.

Weil, who has been awarded this year’s Yakir Yerushalayim honour as a distinguished citizen of Jerusalem due to her lifelong research into ethnicity and gender, highlights in her research the transition of Cochin Jewry from a localized, community-bound identity to an integrated and globalized Jewish experience. While their presence in India has nearly vanished, the legacy of Cochin Jews continues to thrive in Israel and beyond.

– Courtesy Hebrew University

The roots of antisemitism

For decades, conversations about antisemitism and racism have been running on separate tracks, Prof. Magda Teter told the Independent. But there is a connection, she said, and, in her March 4 talk at Congregation Beth Israel, she will explain that link.

photo - Prof. Magda Teter, author of the forthcoming book Blood Libels, Hostile Archives: Reclaiming Interrupted Jewish Lives, speaks at Congregation Beth Israel on March 4 — Prof. Magda Teter, author of the forthcoming book Blood Libels, Hostile Archives: Reclaiming Interrupted Jewish Lives, speaks at Congregation Beth Israel on March 4, 7:30 p.m. *(photo by Chuck Fishman)*

The lecture, called Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism, is co-presented by the synagogue and the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Teter, a professor of history and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies at Fordham University, is president of the American Academy of Jewish Research. She is the author of several books, most recently Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism (2023). Her book Blood Libel: On the Trail of An Antisemitic Myth (2020) won several awards, including the 2020 National Jewish Book Award. Other publications include Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation (2011), Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland (2006) and many articles (in English, Hebrew, Italian and Polish).

Teter has a new book coming out soon, called Blood Libels, Hostile Archives: Reclaiming Interrupted Jewish Lives, which, according to the summary, “explores two places: Trent, in northern Italy, and Sandomierz, in eastern Poland … both had been sites of anti-Jewish libels falsely accusing Jews of killing Christian children, Trent in 1475 and Sandomierz twice – in 1698 and 1710; in both, the instigators of the Jews’ persecution left unique and extensive archives, both towns have physical remnants of these deadly affairs, and, finally, neither town has an existing Jewish population. Yet, centuries later, these anti-Jewish libels have not been relegated to the past; in both towns, their legacies still reverberate today.”

“There has been a lot of scholarship about blood libels – the false accusations against Jews that emerged in the Middle Ages, charging them with killing Christian children,” said Teter. “Scholars, including myself, have analyzed the trials, the rhetoric, iconography and anti-Jewish works to understand how these anti-Jewish ideas emerged and spread. What is largely missing from this scholarship is the real, not the imagined, Jews – those Jews whose lives were destroyed by these accusations. So, what this book is trying to do is to recover the lives of Jews who were subjects of these accusations and tell us about them, how they lived, rather than how they were imagined by their accusers. The tricky part of this is how you recover their lives from documents that were created for the purpose of showing Jews’ guilt and how cruel, heinous and hateful Jews were. So, this book is trying to do just that: to peel through the layers of hostility for the glimpses of lives that were destroyed. It matters. This allows us to wrest the story away from the Jews’ accusers.”

Teter, who isn’t Jewish, grew up in communist Poland where, she said, “Jewish topics were a taboo.” Nonetheless, Poland is “a country whose history is so tightly intertwined with Jewish history, so I was very conscious of Poland’s Jewish past,” she said. “I wanted to learn more.”

This led Teter to Columbia University, where she earned a PhD.

“One of the inspirations for me in taking on difficult topics is the arduous path of Jewish-Catholic dialogue and reconciliation in the aftermath of World War II,” she explained. “It was a process of hard and honest conversations. What these conversations and subsequent documents that emerged show is that hard truths don’t have to tear groups apart but can bring people closer together. But, I think, in the last several years, we have been losing the ability to talk to one another on difficult topics. We, as a society, tend to look for affirmation or we walk away, block or dismiss. We closed ourselves in comfortable bubbles.

“My last book picks up threads that may have been left unexamined in the history of antisemitism – the questions of power and domination,” she continued, referring to Christian Supremacy. “As for the responses, in general, people are initially taken aback by the book’s title … but then, if they are willing to read or listen, they become appreciative of my pointing to something that they had not noticed before. That’s my goal in teaching and writing – I am not looking for affirmation, I hope readers or listeners will leave with a few ‘new thoughts.’ I also hope to learn from the readers and listeners. Their questions often help me clarify my thoughts as well and often inspire ‘new thoughts,’ too.”

Teter, who became a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research in 2016, has served on the executive board and, at one point, as treasurer of the academy. She was elected president in 2022 for a two-year term, and is currently in her second and last term.

“It is the oldest organization of scholars in Jewish studies in North America,” she said of the academy, which was founded in 1920.

“While at the beginning it focused on amplifying the scholarship of the fellows,” she said, “since the beginning of this century, the academy has been focused on programs intended to cultivate the next generation of scholars. For example, the academy awards the annual Salo Baron Prize for the best first book in Judaic studies, runs the biennial summer graduate student workshop and the early career workshop for untenured faculty and, with the increasingly diminishing opportunities for graduate student research, the academy offers dissertation research grants.”

Last month, in an interview with The New York Review of Books – for which she has written – Teter was asked what responsibility historians have to be guided by what’s happening in the present. She cautioned, “We must allow the past to speak on its own terms, even when asking questions that are pertinent to the present.”

“We are all shaped by our own experiences and contexts,” Teter told the Independent. “We often ask questions that are relevant to our own lives. But these may be questions that people of the past did not ask. We have to try to understand their lives on their own terms. They did not know what we now know. They did not hold the same values we do. So, it’s OK to ask about how women or non-binary people were treated in the past, or how people thought about the environment, or how they responded to pandemics, but we should not try to make them feminists or environmentalists.

“Let me give you another example, the world is now animated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and many ask questions about how these different peoples engaged with each other historically, how they thought about one another – if they thought of one another. To find answers, we go to historical sources, but we have to read these historical sources on their own terms, not look only for examples that confirm what we already believe. We need to let them speak in the language and the values of the time in which they were created, not through the lens of now.”

There are other lenses too, and ways of connecting the past with the present. In a 2023 interview with JTA, Teter said, “Understanding Jews’ place in history and society, on their own terms but also on the terms imposed on them from the outside, holds much relevance today.”

“There are two vantage points from which Jews’ place in history can be seen: from the outside, and how Jews experienced their own lives,” she told the Independent. “The 2023 interview took place before Oct. 7 in the context of a recognition by the New York Jewish Week of my role in giving Jewish life in the Bronx more visibility, a borough that has now one of the smallest Jewish populations in New York but one that was, in the mid-20th century, proportionally, the most Jewish borough in New York, with nearly 50% of the population being Jewish.

“But that sentence from 2023 can be illustrated in 2025 in another way. Today, we are still reeling from the aftermath of Oct. 7. One of the main topics that concerns Jewish communities around the world is the rise of antisemitism. But when we talk or write about the history of antisemitism, we typically talk about what antisemites think or do – that is, we discuss it in terms ‘imposed’ from the outside, but what I am asking us to do is to also pay attention to Jews’ lived experiences, and not to refract that experience solely through the external lens. It is something that my forthcoming book is trying to do.”

When asked whether she was, in this moment, hopeful, despondent about or resigned to what humanity is capable of, Teter said, “We live in very dark times. I am very depressed when I look at the ruling elites, whether political or corporate. I am also despondent about the role social media is playing in our society – robbing us of our ability to talk to one another, to argue and reason with one another. I am most hopeful when I am with my students, when we have time to spend together and patiently wrestle with difficult topics or texts. When humans take that time to stop, read, think and talk, things can become better. Social media and the current commercial media environment push us to react without discernment.

Prof. Magda Teter’s talk at Beth Israel is a free event, but registration is required at bethisrael.ca.

Growth and change is Torah

In middle school, we studied the 1920s in English and social studies. It was a period ripe with new slang. I remember the long list of phrases we had to learn and interpret. The surprise was that I knew some of the expressions because my family still used them! Phrases like, “Aren’t you just the bee’s knees?” or “He thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas!” This weird phenomenon came to mind when I happened upon an ancient rabbinic discussion in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 62a.

Rabbi Zakkai taught a Baraita (an early teaching that was left out of the Mishnah, codified around 200 CE) in Rabbi Yohanan’s presence. It said that, when one did, in a lapse of awareness, a whole series of inappropriate things deemed idol worship, one was only obligated to bring one sin-offering sacrifice to wipe the slate clean.

Rabbi Yohanan responded with “Go out and teach outside.” It was the ancient equivalent of “Get out of town!” or “Get out!” This is the laughing or indignant response somebody makes when you say something unbelievable or surprising.

One can read this text in many ways. It’s possible that Yohanan earnestly thought Zakkai was teaching nonsense and that he shouldn’t teach that inside the house of study, because every action deserved its own separate offering to repent for these mistakes.

However, as the page continues, the importance of context reveals itself. Imagine a time when idol worship was everywhere. A person could inadvertently look like they were worshipping an idol or a person when they were just bowing respectfully as a custom or doing what they had to do to get along. If surrounded by idol worship, a person may do things that everyone else does, automatically and without reflection.

We still do this. Think about the phrases “knock on wood” or “crossing one’s fingers and toes.” These aren’t Jewish concepts, but many say them anyhow, just as we might use phrases from other religions in conversation. They’re part of the culture around us.

I was thinking about these cultural shifts recently because we had our own big moment a few weeks ago. We were driving home after middle school. I remarked that I’d taken the dog on the river trail for an amazing walk at lunch time. (In Winnipeg, our rivers freeze, allowing several kilometres of walking, skiing and skating trails, along with art installations and events on the ice. It’s like a pop-up provincial park in winter.) One of my kids complained that he hadn’t gotten enough skating in yet. The weather that day was perfect but a cold snap was coming. I suggested that they head out right away onto the ice on their own.

My kids seemed astounded by the offer, but they took me up on it. We live a block from the river and there’s a convenient ramp down the riverbank. Before we could reconsider, they were off with skates, helmets, snowpants and the loan of my cellphone so they could reach me. I told them to be back in an hour. This bought me more time to make Shabbat dinner, too.

Just before 5:30 p.m., the phone rang. My responsible kids called from the ice, saying, “We got a little too far away, we’re getting tired, but we’re coming back now. We’ll be a little late.” When they got inside, both kids were wobbly, legs rubbery from exhaustion. I had to help them get off their parkas and snowpants, but they were full of triumph. They had taken off on their own and had an adventure. At dinner, they described bumping into a classmate who was out with his mom and younger siblings. While the classmate was a better skater than them, my 13-year-olds seemed puffed up with pride that they were allowed out by themselves.

Times change. As a Gen Xer, when I was 13, I babysat for two siblings on my own. I took the Washington, DC, metro by myself. I was a latchkey kid of longstanding. As the oldest child in my family and “mature,” I had a lot of leeway, as well as responsibility. Was it always good for me? I don’t think so, but it’s just the way things were.

My kids have had a longer stretch of childhood, with more supervision. While they have always had household chores and other responsibilities, these maiden voyages of independence now happen one after the next. Since the skating experience, they’ve been on their own for a Saturday night while we went out to a neighbour’s house. They take the dog walk on their own. This week, they’re headed off to a winter camp sleepaway experience with their school.

Generational shifts often lead us to believe that things are altogether different than they used to be. Yet, when I realized that I used 1920s slang as a kid, it reminded me that, while things change, some things stay the same. We no longer do sin offerings when we’ve made a mistake as part of Jewish practice. We don’t live in a culture surrounded by physical idols and their worship. However, we still make mistakes and seek absolution. Our kids still learn and grow through graduated steps towards independence, complete with worry and insecurity. One rabbi’s “Go and teach outside” becomes “Get out of town!” – after 2,000 years, the inference isn’t that different.

For each generation, something old becomes new again, or seems new, at least. For every parent, those amazing first moments of change in their kids are important. I burst with pride, telling others about the skating adventure. I revel in being able to go out socially (down the street), while my kids put themselves to bed. These ages and stages happen for everyone, but, each time, we’re still ecstatic with the individual circumstance.

My kids told me later that they had read until 8:40 or 9 o’clock when we were out, but, when we got back, their room was silent, lights were off, with the dog on guard. It was a moment of success. I nodded, feeling impressed. Inside, I was thinking, “Get out of town! Look what we accomplished here!” “Rabbi,” I wanted to say, “check these big bar mitzvah boys out! Look at this growth! That, too, is Torah.”

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Taxes, tariffs for Jewish life

In December, our federal government offered a hastily assembled tax break that lasted until mid-February. The most memorable part of it was that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) chose to exempt “Hanukkah trees or bushes” from taxes. Your reaction might be like my twins’ outcry when I picked them up from junior high. We discussed it on the way home.

“Did they talk to an actual Jewish person?” they wondered. “Couldn’t they have exempted Hanukkah menorahs and candles? Judaica?

“Don’t they realize,” my kids added, “that anybody who is buying a tree is not doing a Jewish thing?”

I had similar thoughts. There are Jews who, for various reasons, decorate with Christmas items, but it’s not a Jewish thing.

I often write about how Jewish traditions, laws and texts apply to us, as Canadian Jews. This time, I reflected on how Canadian law applies to us, instead. The Hanukkah bush incident on its own wouldn’t have resulted in more than momentary annoyance or a wry chuckle if it had been a one-off mistake.

I thought of this while considering the recent US hoopla around eradicating DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies. Canadians consider diversity part of our strength. Of course, there are efforts to uphold our strength in diversity amid the new US presidential activity. Historically, I’ve been a fan of DEI. It uplifts minorities who deserve a fair chance in a world that touts itself as a meritocracy but, in truth, privileges some far above others.

After Oct. 7, 2023, it became clear that Canadian DEI does nothing to support Jewish people, although we’re a minority in Canada. More than once, my husband, a professor, was forced to point out surveys, embraced by his university, that left no way to identify as Jewish. In one human resources gaffe, the survey told Jews to identify as “white European.” My husband, whose father was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1946, had no intention of pretending his murdered and displaced ancestors were considered equal or “white” citizens in Europe.

There are more anecdotes that one could share. Jews are a minority in Canada. The current DEI narrative doesn’t match who we are.

All this came up when reading the newly released tariff proposal compiled by the Canadian government. You could get bogged down in the definitions of “offal,” “margarine” and other details. I skimmed quickly, wondering how this would affect our Passover grocery shopping. Then I got stuck on the following entries in the backgrounder that was proposed to go into effect Feb. 4 and then was quickly postponed for 30 days.

Specifically, I got lost in item numbers 6117.10.10, 6117.90.10, 6214.10.10, 6214.20.10 and 6214.30.10. All these objects, associated with shawls, stoles, scarves and mantillas, and parts thereof, specifically list “prayer shawls.” These numbers relate to whether the garment is made, in whole or in part, of wool, silk or synthetics, and knitted or crocheted.

In recent years, it’s true that some older Christian women, usually in church groups, have knit shawls while praying. They gift these “prayer shawls” to those they pray for in their community. There isn’t much cross-border trade in these items. These works of prayer are gifts and are rarely for sale.

It’s easier to jump to the other definition. Tallits, tallesim, tallis, tallitot – however you call it, Jewish garments with tzitzit, made of wool, silk or synthetics, are called prayer shawls in English. Having recently searched for these for my twins’ b’nai mitzvah, many of the biggest Judaica shops that sell these are in the United States. Of course, one can also buy beautiful tallits from Israel. Due to the exchange rate, slow postage times and difficulty of shopping online, we bought our kids’ tallits locally at the synagogue gift shop, but some of those items came from US suppliers.

I wove my tallit for my bat mitzvah. I’m capable of weaving others, but because my kids haven’t grown to their adult sizes, our family decided not to invest too much time and money into their current tallits. What fits now at age 13 won’t work for them as adults. However, the new tariffs indicate that, although Jews are only 1% of the Canadian population, our ritual prayer items apparently deserve “special mention” and tariff fees. Note that, if you can locate a cotton tallit, it might not fit in the tariff schedule yet, but this list and its timeline are open to revision.

Where does this leave us? I’m wondering who compiled the two-month tax break and the tariff list. Someone on these task forces feels the need to single out and “include” Jews without consulting any Jews. The effort towards “inclusion” feels downright uncomfortable. It leaves Jewish Canadians feeling othered. We’re the small minority specifically allowed to purchase “Hanukkah bushes” without tax. Our tallits are mentioned five times in the cross-border tariff battles.

While we dangle in this awkward space, it brings up other issues. How many “Hanukkah bushes” or tallits do the CRA and tariff writers think we buy each year? As a small minority, even if we all bought these items every year (which we don’t), it would amount to nothing much. Something smacks of bias. The notion that we have outsized purchasing power or large numbers is part of a greater set of antisemitic tropes.

Earlier this week, I attended an online panel on antisemitism that included MP Ben Carr, Manitoba MLA Mike Moroz, Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, and Avrom Charach, a longtime Winnipeg Jewish leader and activist who has been cleaning up antisemitic graffiti. Everyone on the panel concluded that education and outreach to non-Jewish Canadians helps, because eradicating ignorant hate takes education and allies. The panel also suggested that appropriate federal and provincial legislation could help bring change.

Mentioning these strange tax cuts and tariff proposals could help educate Canadian government officials. Their efforts to single out the Jewish community have backfired. Let’s hope that future legislation doesn’t create other fake Jewish rituals or charge special tariffs on Jewish ritual items. Such actions aren’t supportive of Canadian diversity. Canada can do better.

The Holocaust in Hungary

Dr. Peter Suedfeld speaks at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the Bayit. (photo by Pat Johnson)

As a child in Budapest, Dr. Peter Suedfeld’s family spoke Hungarian in the home and considered themselves Hungarians first and Jews second.

“If you asked us, ‘What are you? Who are you?’ The answer would be Hungarians,” he said. “Interestingly, we thought that that’s what the people around us thought also, that that’s what we were – Hungarians. It turned out a little later that we were mistaken.”

Suedfeld shared his family’s Holocaust story and his survival Jan. 26 at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration (IHRD) at the Bayit synagogue in Richmond.

Miklós Horthy, the regent of Hungary during most of the war, did not share Hitler’s determination to destroy the Jewish people, Suedfeld said. As a result, the status of Jews in the country was not markedly worse than that of other Hungarians during the early war years.

“By 1944, things were very different,” Suedfeld said. “It was increasingly likely that Germany, contrary to all expectations, was not going to win the war.”

The Soviets had pushed back the German advance on the Eastern Front and the Western Allies were close enough to bomb Budapest routinely. Food was scarce, as resources were being pilfered and transported to Germany.

Realizing that the Hungarians had chosen the wrong side in this war, as they had at other times in history, Horthy went on the radio and announced that his country was surrendering, Suedfeld explained, whereupon Hitler directly occupied Hungary for the first time. Horthy’s government was replaced with an overtly fascist regime, the Arrow Cross.

“They took it upon themselves to carry out the full Nuremberg Laws and all the persecution that had happened in Germany and Poland,” said Suedfeld. “It came later to us than it had many other countries in Europe but, when it came, they were determined to catch up.”

Adolf Eichmann himself, mastermind of the “Final Solution,” was sent to oversee operations in Hungary. Jews were forced to wear the yellow star for the first time and executions of Jews began in earnest.

Jews were taken to the banks of the Danube, where they were lined up in groups of three, tied together, their shoes removed, and then the middle person in the trio was shot. When the middle person fell into the river, the other two were dragged down and drowned, accomplishing the objective with one bullet rather than three. Suedfeld said 30,000 are estimated to have been murdered in this fashion.

Suedfeld’s paternal grandfather, a hero from the First World War, had died a few years earlier. He had assumed that his military accomplishments would shield his family from whatever antisemitic legislation was passed.

“He died before he found out that he was wrong,” said Suedfeld, whose paternal grandmother astonishingly survived the Holocaust. His mother’s parents entered the ghetto, where they soon died from the privations there.

Young Peter’s own story of survival was improbable. His mother was taken from their home while 8-year-old Peter watched, not knowing it would be the final time he saw her. She was taken to a holding camp in Hungary and from there to Auschwitz.

His father was drafted into forced labour and later experienced a death march and incarceration at Mauthausen, “one of the worst of those cruel, vicious camps.”

“But he survived,” Suedfeld recounted. “After the war, he was given a job, because he spoke English, interrogating suspected war criminals and SS officers captured in the vicinity. He enjoyed it.”

Young Peter survived after his mother was arrested because his aunt discovered him alone at home. She took him and decided, with his grandparents, that he should be hidden.

“They somehow found out that the International Red Cross had some orphanages started around the city. They were for war orphans but they smuggled a few Jews in when they thought they could get away with it,” he said. “I was a good candidate for hiding because I was blond and had blue eyes so I could get away with pretending I wasn’t Jewish.”

Like many survivors, Suedfeld’s existence is a result of an incalculable number of close calls and lucky chances. In just one instance, near the end of the war, the group of orphans he was with were being transported from one location to another. They were lining up to cross over a little fence when some soldiers saw them and may have assumed they were enemy forces. Machine gun fire burst forth.

“Shots were fired and the kid on my left was hit,” said Suedfeld. “And the kid on my right was hit. But when it was pointing at me was the time that the next cartridge was being fed into the gun and so there was no shot. Pure dumb luck.”

Peter and his father fled Hungary when the communists took power. Suedfeld made his way to the United States in 1948, served in the US Army, eventually received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1963 and taught at American universities before moving to Vancouver. He was appointed professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in 1972. His work and research are concerned with how human beings adapt and cope with challenge, stress and resilience.

At the commemoration, the Bayit’s Rabbi Levi Varnai reflected on the word zachor, remember.

“We are obligated to remember, today, tomorrow and really every single day,” he said. “Zachor is always important but it feels like today it’s even more important than ever before.”

He acknowledged the nine Holocaust survivors in attendance and expressed regret that, after their childhoods were stolen, their golden years are now tarnished by witnessing a new surge of antisemitism.

“As much as we want to focus on the future and as much as we want to continue to build and not always think about our dark past, the only way to ensure a proper future is by remembering the atrocities, the hardships of the past,” the rabbi said. “We are lucky that we still live in an age that we can come into a room to witness survivors and share their testimonies. It is our obligation to take these stories and make sure that they will never ever be forgotten.”

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, noted the significance of the presence of elected representatives at the event.

“If only our ancestors had public officials showing up like this and talking about how we have to create a safer space,” said Shanken, who said that people have asked him how bad antisemitism needs to get in Canada before Jews consider leaving the country.

“When do we get out of here?” he asked. “We get out of here when the government starts making laws against us.” Governments in Canada of all parties, he said, “have been steadfast in trying to voice the need for safety and security for the Jewish people and for all people across our country, our province, our cities. I want to thank them for spending time with us tonight.”

Michael Sachs, director for Western Canada of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre and a past president of the Bayit, who initiated the annual Holocaust remembrance event six years ago, noted that the commemoration was taking place “amidst the worst, most sustained amount of antisemitism that Canadian Jews have ever experienced.”

“Survivors are a constant source of inspiration and wisdom for us,” he said. “No one can speak with a greater authority on what can happen when hate is left unchallenged than these survivors. For them, having witnessed firsthand and paid a dear price for society not standing up to the worst impulses of humanity, this is not academic.”

He asked everyone in attendance to redouble their efforts toward education about the Holocaust and about modern-day manifestations of antisemitism.

“Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone, nor should we – not if we want a better society for all,” said Sachs. “The light of education shall lead our way.”

Steveston-Richmond East Member of Parliament Parm Bains represented the federal government and read greetings from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Kelly Greene, MLA for Richmond Steveston and minister of emergency management and climate readiness, brought greetings from Premier David Eby. All three of Richmond’s other MLAs – Teresa Wat (Richmond-Bridgeport), Steve Kooner (Richmond-Queensborough) and Hon Chan (Richmond Centre) – were present. Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brody read a city proclamation and was joined by councilors Bill McNulty, Andy Hobbs and Alexa Loo. Richmond RCMP chief superintendent Dave Chouhan was also in attendance. Bayit president Keith Liedtke emceed.

Nine Holocaust survivors lit candles. Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim. Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, associate director of programs and community relations at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, introduced Suedfeld.

The event was co-sponsored by the Bayit, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and Kehila Society of Richmond.

Enduring horrors together

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Richard Lowy shared his father Leo’s story at Congregation Schara Tzedeck. (photo © Silvester Law)

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Richard Lowy stood in the spot where his late father, Leopold Lowy, davened and kibitzed for decades after arriving in Vancouver as a young man who had survived some of the most grotesque inhumanity history has known. Leo Lowy was a “Mengele twin” and a survivor of Auschwitz.

“This is where my father sat in synagogue,” Lowy said Jan. 27 to a packed audience at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, beginning a unique and emotional commemoration that doubled as the launch of Kalman and Leopold, Lowy’s book about his father’s survival.

Leo Lowy was just one of many survivors who joined Schara Tzedeck after their arrival on the West Coast in the late 1940s and 1950s. They didn’t burden others with their stories of survival, the son told the audience.

Wearing his father’s tallit and carrying his siddur, Richard Lowy shared a little of his father’s story. The complete narrative of Leopold’s survival in Auschwitz – and the relationship the 16-year-old developed with a 14-year-old boy named Kalman Braun – is detailed in the book, which took Richard Lowy years of work to complete.

As twins, Leopold and his sister Miriam, as well as Kalman and his sister Judith, were of special interest to physician Josef Mengele, known to his victims and to history as Dr. Death.

“My father was a boy when he arrived in Auschwitz,” said Lowy. “He and his twin sister Miriam were sent to the twin barracks, torn apart from the rest of their family.” Leo and Miriam’s parents, grandparents, eldest sister and the sister’s baby were murdered on arrival. His three other sisters were taken to a forced labour camp.

Leopold and Kalman were recruited as servants in the guard barracks.

“In that unimaginable darkness, they became brothers, bound by a hope to survive,” Lowy recounted. “In Auschwitz, my father became Kalman’s protector, not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice. Kalman was a naïve, religious boy. He was dangerously unaware of the brutal reality they faced. His innocence threatened to draw the attention of the SS guards. Leopold knew that even the smallest misstep could lead to a beating or worse. Leo, my father, wanted to be invisible. When there was a roll call, he would go to the back of the line. He didn’t want to draw attention. He refused to make friends. He was unwilling to endure the anguish of getting to know someone and then they would end up on the pile. He buried his emotions deep, forcing himself to see the heap of bodies as nothing more than lumber. Yet, despite his efforts to remain detached, he was now compelled to guide Kalman, shielding him as a means of survival. What began as a necessity slowly evolved into a bond of friendship. Together, they endured the horrors of the SS guards and Mengele’s experiments.”

When the camp was liberated, the survivors parted with little fanfare. Kalman and Leopold assumed they would never see each other again.

In 2000, Richard Lowy produced a documentary film, Leo’s Journey, about Leopold’s survival. A year later, it aired on Israeli television.

Reading from his book, Lowy described the moment that Kalman Bar On (né Braun), by now an elderly Israeli, was stunned to see a photo of the young Leo on his TV. There was not a doubt in Bar On’s mind that this was the boy whose protection and friendship had saved his life.

A few months later, Richard reunited the two.

“Their reunion was a moment beyond words,” he recalled. “Two men, now in their 70s, embraced as if no time had passed at all, as if the decades of separation had simply melted away. In that instant, they were no longer old men. They were boys again, transported back in time to when their survival depended on each other.

“For the first time in over 50 years, they stood face-to-face with someone who truly understood the horrors that each of them went through and endured. In each other, they found more than the shared memories,” said Lowy. “They rediscovered the unshakable bond of two souls who had witnessed, experienced and survived the unimaginable together.”

Leo Lowy was a collector of cantorial recordings, which Richard Lowy entrusted to Vancouver Cantor Yaacov Orzech, who chanted El Moleh Rachamim at the book launch. Also at the event, Lowy presented to Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt a 78 RPM recording of the rabbi’s great-grandfather, the renowned Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt.

Speaking to the audience, Rosenblatt reflected on the amount of desensitization that has to happen to get to the pinnacle of evil that Leo Lowy experienced.

“Our presence here tonight is our attempt to ensure that our culture does not approach even the distant horizon of the periphery of such atrocities,” he said.

Peter Meiszner, Vancouver city councilor and acting mayor, brought greetings from the city.

“May we work together to ensure that the tragedies of the past are never repeated and that the principles of justice and equity guide our way forward together,” he said.

Selina Robinson, former BC cabinet minister and author of the recently published book Truth Be Told, introduced Lowy.

“Richard’s work is a call to action,” Robinson said. “It challenges each and every one of us to remember, to teach and to prevent hatred and antisemitism from taking root. That’s incumbent on all of us as we bear witness. It reminds Jews of our ability to overcome these hatreds. In sharing Kalman and Leopold’s journey, their memory lives on, guiding us to build a more compassionate and tolerant world.”

The book is available at kalmanandleopold.com, where the video of Leo’s Journey can also be viewed.