inclusion

Time to include

More than one in four Canadians aged 15 and older, about 27% of the population, are living with a disability, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. That’s an increase from 22% in 2017, and the numbers are expected to continue rising as our population ages and mental health challenges become more prevalent.

This isn’t just a statistic. It’s a reality for more than eight million people. Yet, despite these numbers, many of us in the disability community still find ourselves on the margins of Canadian society – overlooked, underestimated and too-often excluded.

I am neurodiverse. I have a cognitive disability, and I am a self-advocate for the disability community. I speak from experience and from the heart because I know what it feels like to be left out.

One of my earliest and most painful memories happened nearly 30 years ago, but it still lingers. In elementary school, there was a class camping trip I’d looked forward to for weeks. I stayed up all night baking chocolate chip cookies to share with my tentmates. But, when I got to school, I learned no one wanted to share a tent with me. That night, I slept alone in a tent that flooded during a rainstorm. I was soaked, cold and humiliated.

It wasn’t an isolated experience. I remember birthdays where I was the only classmate not invited, weekends without playdates, and watching other kids plan sleepovers I was never part of. These moments left marks, not just as a child, but as an adult working to change things for others.

I share these stories not to seek sympathy, but to urge action, because these experiences are still happening. Many of us with disabilities face uncomfortable, unkind or dismissive attitudes simply because we are different.

While some people make a sincere effort to be open-minded and inclusive, others respond to our presence with unease or judgment. We are frequently excluded from mainstream media, social spaces and cultural narratives. When we are represented, it’s often through inaccurate, stereotypical or tokenizing portrayals. This must change.

We need a cultural shift in how Canada understands, engages with and includes people with disabilities. That starts with honest conversations and with listening. Are you assuming what we need instead of asking? Are you speaking for us rather than with us?

There’s a powerful phrase within the disability rights movement: “Nothing about us without us.” It means decisions that affect our lives must include our voices. That should be the standard in education, policy, health care, the arts, employment, everywhere.

The next time you interact with someone who is different, pause. Consider your assumptions. Choose empathy, choose respect and choose inclusion.

Remember: more than a quarter of Canadians have a disability. We are your neighbours, your co-workers, your classmates and your friends. We are part of Canadian culture. We belong.

Alison Klein is a self-advocate.

Locals part of first cohort

A first-of-its-kind program will give 30 Jewish social service professionals, including social workers, doctors and therapists, specialized training to better meet the psychosocial and emotional well-being of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. Among the participants will be two members of the local Jewish community: Harley Kushmier, a social worker in Kelowna, and Serach Aleria Sarra, a student in spiritual health at Surrey Memorial Hospital.

photo - Serach Aleria Sarra Harley Kushmier (below) are two of the 30 Jewish social service professionals who will participate in an inaugural JIMENA Sephardic Leaders Fellowship program — Serach Aleria Sarra Harley Kushmier (below) are two of the 30 Jewish social service professionals who will participate in an inaugural JIMENA Sephardic Leaders Fellowship program. *(photo from JIMENA)*

The program, part of JIMENA’s Sephardic Leaders Fellowship, is designed to deepen the professionals’ understanding of Sephardi and Mizrahi heritage and equip them to provide culturally responsive care. Chosen from a competitive applicant pool, fellows were accepted based on professional merit and a demonstrated commitment to serving diverse Jewish populations. JIMENA stands for Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa.

“In a post-Oct. 7 world – where so many Sephardi and Mizrahi Americans have been directly affected by events in Israel and the Middle East, and amid rising antisemitism and social strain – our research and community experience point to a clear demand for culturally responsive training for health professionals and social service providers working with Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews,” said Sarah Levin, executive director at JIMENA, in a press release. “This inaugural cohort – comprising therapists, counselors, crisis and trauma practitioners, providers for aging populations and at-risk youth, and clinical social workers – reflects that demand.”

photo - Harley Kushmier — Harley Kushmier *(photo from JIMENA)*

Over a series of sessions, the fellows in the social service providers cohort will explore a range of topics relevant to working with Sephardi, Mizrahi and other unique Jewish communities. These include mental health stigma in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures, intergenerational trauma in immigrant and refugee families from the Middle East and North Africa, and economic vulnerability. The cohort will also engage in discussions on trauma-informed care with a focus on sexual abuse, as well as traditional Sephardi perspectives on identity, belonging and community care. This will include a dedicated session on LGBTQ+ youth, led by JQY. Additionally, participants will receive a foundational overview of Sephardi Jewish history, context and key definitions. Sessions will be led by leading practitioners in their field.

* * *

On Aug. 21, JIMENA released the study Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States: Identities, Experiences and Communities. It offers recommendations for leaders and organizations that want to more deeply engage these communities. Among the findings are that Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the United States have higher rates of Jewish communal participation, a stronger connection to Israel and are more likely than Ashkenazi Jews to say that being Jewish is somewhat or very much a part of their daily life.

The research was directed by Dr. Mijal Bitton and based at the New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Research. As part of the research, scholars at the Cohen Centre for Modern Jewish Studies (CMJS) at Brandeis University conducted a review of existing quantitative data from national and community studies on Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the United States. Based on these figures, the study’s researchers estimate that approximately 10% of American Jews are Sephardi and/or Mizrahi.

The data also show that, compared to Ashkenazi Jews, American Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have the lowest intermarriage rates, and are more likely than Ashkenazi Jews to be born and/or raised outside the United States, to be politically moderate or conservative, and to be economically vulnerable.

Researchers examined four communities: the Syrian community in Brooklyn, NY; the Persian community in Los Angeles; the Bukharian community in Queens, NY; and the Latin Sephardi community of South Florida. Key findings include:

• While historically underrepresented in mainstream Jewish communal life, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have built strong, vibrant communities that maintain deep familial, religious and cultural traditions.

• Sephardi religious practice reflects a strong sense of traditionalism, combining respect for religious laws, customs, legitimations and authorities with more flexible personal and family religious observance.

• Community members want to make new lives for themselves in America, while still preferring ethnic connections, especially marriage with other community members and their own cultural traditions, and they maintain abiding connections to their Mediterranean, North African and Middle Eastern cultures.

• Most community members exhibit a notable resistance to language that frames race as their primary identity, categorizes them as Jews of colour or positions them as a minority group in need of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“The research is more than just insights and data; there’s a roadmap here that we hope will be a catalyst for change,” said Levin. “Jewish communal leaders and educators can include Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews – and our history, traditions and current customs – in meaningful, equal ways that reflect the diversity of the Jewish people.”

The report’s specific recommendations are informed by five recommended frameworks to approach diversity work in the Jewish community:

• Avoid viewing Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews only through the lens of exclusion, marginalization and victimhood narratives. Recognize that strong Sephardi and Mizrahi communal identities exist even as barriers and biases exist within Ashkenazi-majority institutional frameworks.

• Avoid centring Judaism exclusively around European Jewish experiences and Ashkenazi cultural norms as the dominant narrative (i.e. Yiddish as the primary language of Jewish tradition and denominational structures as the only legitimate form of Jewish identity).

• Avoid creating inclusion projects that assume everyone agrees with a single set of values (e.g., liberal values) or tools for inclusion (DEI frameworks). Create inclusion projects that allow for diverse viewpoints, values, multiple religious perspectives and norms, and a plurality of political views.

• Avoid viewing diversity in Jewish spaces solely through North American racial and ethnic categories. Jewish diversity should recognize the central role of family origins and communal networks in shaping Jewish identity; the complex intersections of ancestry, ethnicity, religion and culture; and the migration patterns and geopolitical histories that shape identities, perspectives and communal structures.

• Avoid assuming that universal frameworks and solutions for inclusion will be effective for all and that shared priorities exist across all Jewish communities.

For the full report, go to sephardicstudy.org.

– Courtesy JIMENA

Library a rare public space

Samuel Elkind, head librarian at Vancouver’s Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library, will be joining the team at Richmond Public Library later this month. (photo by Anne Lerner)

As head librarian at Vancouver’s Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library, Samuel Elkind oversees everything from daily operations to long-term planning – curating collections, developing programs and building systems designed to serve the community. He put it plainly: “If I were hit by a bus tomorrow, I want the library to run without a hitch.” His core belief is that a library should be resilient, community-rooted and built to thrive beyond any one person.

Elkind’s approach leaves the Waldman in a secure place, as he soon moves on to Richmond Public Library. He will remain on the on-call list for the Waldman and assist through volunteering when he can, he said, in keeping with his “goals of guaranteeing the long-term continuity and stewardship of the Isaac Waldman Library.”

“It is my intention to stay on long enough to train my successor,” Elkind told the Independent. This is something that he, his boss, Hila Olyan, senior director of programs at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, and Eldad Goldfarb, the JCC’s executive director, planned from the beginning, he said.

“I want to make sure that whoever replaces me receives training comparable to that which they would receive in a larger system, which I was so fortunate to have,” he said of his start at the Waldman this past January. “The master’s of library and information studies prepares you very well for the job, but there are some things that can only be learned in the field.”

Elkind didn’t begin his career in a library, but he built one, even before becoming a librarian.

At a summer arts camp in New Jersey, he came across a neglected shelf labeled “library.”

“It wasn’t a library,” he recalled. “So, I built shelves, gathered books and set up a simple lending system. I had no idea what I was doing, but the kids needed stories – and that was enough.”

Even as his career moved in other directions, the idea of building spaces for stories stayed with him. Years later, while working in university admissions, he began to question his path. “I couldn’t figure out why I felt off,” he said. “But, after talking with colleagues and friends, I realized I was drawn to information access and protection, especially the preservation of stories that define who we are.”

That clarity led him to the University of British Columbia, where he completed a dual master’s degree in archival studies, and library and information studies. When the opportunity to lead the Waldman Library arose, he was ready. “I went to JCC camp. I taught at synagogues. It just felt like everything was falling into place,” he said.

Elkind came to the Waldman from Vancouver Public Library, where he worked a contract position as a children’s librarian. At the Waldman, he modernized the space – digitizing decades of program data, updating signage, rethinking the floor plan, and overhauling internal workflows. He also expanded the library’s public-facing programming, from weekly storytimes to Sunday Lego Stay and Play sessions, which align with the JCC’s activity schedule. “What do you do before or after swim lessons?” he asked. “Go to the library!”

“Our library is a bustling place, and has been becoming busier,” confirmed Olyan. “The library tends to service older adults and young children during the daytime hours but, come 3:30 in the afternoon, it is packed with school-age children reading books, playing games, doing crafts and checking out the computer. Sundays are busy with families and creative young people who take part in our weekly Lego club.”

To Elkind, these aren’t side projects – they’re core to what makes a library matter. His philosophy is grounded in third place theory – the idea that, beyond home and work, people need a third space to simply be. “Libraries are one of the last third spaces,” he said. “There aren’t many places left where you can just exist without spending money.”

That value is embedded in the library. “We’re providing space – quiet corners, conversation, presence – and those things are deeply needed,” he said.

Elkind’s inclusive lens extends beyond the JCC. He sits on the board of Out on the Shelves, Vancouver’s oldest queer library, established in 1983. He is also the founder of Gaming Without Othering the Self (GWOOTS), a tabletop RPG (role-playing game) initiative fostering queer community through collaborative storytelling.

“Role-playing games are group storytelling. More than just role play, it’s one of the most ancient human experiences. It’s about identity, imagination and connection,” he said.

GWOOTS runs weekly drop-in sessions across Vancouver with a focus on accessibility and community. “It started because I just wanted to run games for other grad students,” he said. “But I saw how many people were using RPGs to process experiences, explore identity and build relationships.”

For Elkind, GWOOTS and the Waldman are two different expressions of the same purpose. “At Waldman, I want to create space for the Jewish community. At GWOOTS, I want to create space for the queer community. But you don’t have to be Jewish or queer to feel welcome.”

Elkind’s commitment to belonging is shaped by lived experience. The day after the 2016 US election, he was sitting alone in a pizza shop near where he lived in California when two men entered wearing swastikas and began to spew antisemitic threats loudly. A waiter, sensing the danger, calmly ushered him out the back door.

“That’s one end of the spectrum,” Elkind said. “But I’ve also experienced radical acceptance in places I never expected.”

He gave the example of walking into a game store in Maryland and spotting a sign that read, “This is a radically inclusive space. If you have a problem with that, leave.”

His version of inclusion is not passive. “Tolerance implies I’m gritting my teeth and allowing it,” he explained. “I don’t grit my teeth for anything. I believe in acceptance.”

Storytelling, in every form, is central to Elkind’s work. “Whether you’re building a library, running a game or telling a story, you’re shaping memory,” he said. “And that’s sacred work.”

When asked what he’d say to someone who’s never stepped foot in the Waldman Library or joined a GWOOTS game, he doesn’t hesitate. “Come,” he said. “We want you here. We want you to feel accepted and loved. We want you to be part of something.”

“Our librarian ensures a safe, welcoming space for everyone,” said Olyan, who has started reviewing applications to fill the vacancy made by Elkind’s departure. She said the JCC is looking for someone who has both “the professional qualifications and experience to service our community to the highest standards. And, we’re looking for someone who holds the same cultural and community values of the JCC.

“So, what we mean is that a strong candidate ideally holds a master’s degree in library sciences and experience working in a community or school library. They also have a strong sense of community, responsibility and excellence. They love helping people (especially children and older adults) and they are knowledgeable about Jewish culture and/or literature.”

The Waldman is the only Jewish public library on Canada’s West Coast, said Olyan. “It brings people together and connects them with Jewish history, culture and tradition. The library hosts a collection of approximately 17,000 books, mostly by Jewish authors and relating to Jewish topics, including a vast number of Hebrew books. It offers computers, iPads, space to read and work, games and toys.”

The library opened in 1994, “thanks to the dedication of local community members and volunteers,” she said. “Its name honours the late Isaac M. Waldman, who worked as a structural and civil engineer, and was an ardent volunteer and generous supporter of local Israeli and Jewish nonprofit groups. Mrs. Sophie Waldman donated the funds that enabled the library to open, in memory of her husband.”

The library is run by the head librarian with a small team of library technicians, cataloguers and dedicated volunteers, said Olyan. “We’re always looking for volunteers who can support everyday operations, run special programs (including for children and older adults), and people willing to join our planning committee.”

For his part, Elkind said he has “absolutely cherished” his time at the JCC.

“I cannot recall a time that I have ever felt so appreciated in a position, or where I have been so able to see the positive results of my work,” he said.

“Over my time here, I have been fortunate to gain rare experience in library management, and have quickly become practically acquainted with aspects of the library field well outside of children’s and teen services, some of which might have otherwise taken decades for me to encounter. I make the move to RPL comfortable in my ability to operate in libraries of all sizes, and in any number of roles therein.”

At Richmond Public Library, Elkind will be working as a librarian on the children’s team, a role that includes providing information service and patron assistance to library-goers of all ages. When asked what he was most looking forward to at RPL, he said, “Is it weird to say that I am looking forward to receiving a performance review? I am still early in my career and have a lot of growth and learning ahead of me. It is important to seek that out in many forms.

“I have definitely grown in my current position, as a librarian and as an administrator, and I am so lucky to have had this opportunity – I do not wish to sell that short by any means. Having another librarian to supervise me allows for a different type of growth, and an opportunity to learn the things that I do not know that I do not know.”

Uriel Presman Chikiar is a student at Queen’s University and serves as executive vice-president of external relations at Hillel Queen’s.

Klezcadia set to return

Bay Area klezmer trio Veretski Pass returns to Klezcadia, which runs in-person and online June 10-15. (photo from Klezcadia)

Klezcadia, a festival of klezmer music and Yiddish culture, is back for a second year. The June 10-15 event can be experienced in-person in Victoria or virtually from around the world.

The 2025 festival, free for all who register, features author and playwright Michael Wex, who will be offering a two-part webinar titled Jews, Germans and Jive: Yiddish as a Language of Resistance.

Wex, the author of the bestseller Born to Kvetch and Just Say Nu, will be delivering the talks from his home in Toronto. No stranger to Vancouver audiences, his play, The Last Night at the Cabaret Yitesh (Di Letste Nakht Baym Yitesh), in which he also performed, closed the 2024 Chutzpah! Festival.

Laura Rosenberg, the director and driving force behind Klezcadia, said Wex “is arguably the most famous person to interpret the public impact of the Yiddish language on the English language.”

She told the Independent that the festival’s mission, operating principles and format will be the same as they were in its inaugural season. “The performance and workshop content, on the other hand, will be completely new for 2025, though obviously within the same klezmer music and Yiddish culture arena as last year, and involving many of the same artists and faculty members,” she said.

Between in-person and virtual attendees, Klezcadia had more than 500 participants from 21 countries in 2024 and the 2025 registration looks to be at least on par with those data, according to Rosenberg.

“Everything from concerts to workshops to open rehearsals is designed to equalize as much as possible the experience of in-person and virtual participants,” she said. “And, thanks to our generous donors, registration is once again free.”

Other notable appearances this year include returning Bay Area klezmer trio Veretski Pass, who will appear on both the concert and workshop rosters. Members Cookie Segelstein (violin), Joshua Horowitz (19th-century button accordion) and Stuart Brotman (bass) play a wide variety of East European numbers. This year, they will offer “band-to-band master classes” with two Victoria-based klezmer ensembles.

Vancouver singer/songwriter Geoff Berner, joined by Segelstein, will perform songs from his upcoming album – Berner’s first to be completely in Yiddish. Over the past 25 years, Berner has toured in 17 countries, opened for rock stars in stadiums and, the Klezcadia notes state, “played nearly every dirty little café bar in Western Europe.”

Klezcadia 2025 will see the Victoria debut of Jordan Wax, a rising star on the Yiddish singer/songwriter scene, who will share music from his newly released album, The Heart Deciphers, on the Borscht Beat label. The New Mexico musician blends many influences, from the Missouri Ozarks to the Indo-Hispanic world and the entire Ashkenazic diaspora.

Christina Crowder, director of the Klezmer Institute, based in Yonkers, NY, will be on hand to perform century-old music rediscovered in Ukraine’s Vernadsky Library, which recently was published for global use via the Kiselgof-Makonovetsky Digital Manuscript Project.

As it did in 2024, this year’s festival will conclude with the entire Klezcadia cohort performing a finale concert at the Stage in the Park (Cameron Bandshell) in Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park.

Billing itself as “A Safer Shtetl,” Klezcadia’s hybrid environment prioritizes the safe experience of immunocompromised and high-risk participants, for the performers, crew and volunteers, and for attendees. Indoor activities feature the use of protective protocols such as supplemental air purification, required masking and daily onsite COVID testing.

“We learned from our inaugural-season experience that our fully hybrid format was extremely valuable, both to our immunocompromised and high-risk participants, but also to a vast number of people who, for geographic or financial reasons, were unable to attend in person,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg gives credit to other members of the Klezcadia team for helping with the various technical tools needed to put together a hybrid festival. She said some of the evolving challenges faced in viral safety and communal safety, and the current cross-border political situation, have provided added appreciation to how much a hybrid design can be adapted at short notice, if needed.

People who were not able to attend a live event in 2024 have expressed their thanks to Rosenberg in the lead-up to this year’s festival.

“One of my greatest delights in the intervening year since our inaugural season has been hearing what a difference Klezcadia made to our immunocompromised and high-risk attendees,” she said. “Whether local or halfway across the world, many of these people have felt shut out of their communities, including their Jewish cultural communities, and they expressed in heartfelt terms how life-changing it was for them to be able to participate in a cultural festival that prioritized their safety but was open to everyone.”

All Klezcadia events will take place within a 10-minute drive from downtown Victoria. Specific venue information will be provided only after registration, and only to in-person participants. For more information, visit klezcadia.org.

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

Reviving civil discourse

Heterodox Academy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting viewpoint diversity, open inquiry and constructive debate in higher education. It works to counter ideological conformity on campuses by providing research, resources and programming that foster an environment where diverse perspectives are welcomed and critically examined.

If that sounds like what a university is intended to be, says one local professor, it’s a commentary on the state of contemporary campuses that such an organization is necessary to encourage the academy to live up to its principles.

Dr. Rachel Altman, associate professor in the statistics and actuarial science department at Simon Fraser University, is one of the campus co-chairs of the Heterodox Academy chapter at SFU.

“Heterodox Academy is an organization that fosters free, open inquiry and free discussion even about controversial issues,” she said. “It’s not just about freedom of speech. It’s also about our conduct, the way we have these conversations. I think that’s what really distinguishes it from the general free speech advocacy groups.”

photo - Dr. Rachel Altman is one of the campus co-chairs of the Heterodox Academy chapter at Simon Fraser University — Dr. Rachel Altman is one of the campus co-chairs of the Heterodox Academy chapter at Simon Fraser University. *(photo from SFU)*

Heterodox Academy provides guidelines that urge interlocutors to present their case with evidence, bring data when possible, assume the best of one’s opponent and be intellectually humble, among other principles.

HxA, as it is shorthanded, offers events, conferences, resources and other materials that “try to teach our society, especially within academia, how to interact in a productive and civilized way, even when we disagree,” she said.

These tools are intended to help bridge the divide between the ideal of a university and the reality of creating a dynamic marketplace of ideas.

“Just because we have it in our head that in the academy we should be able to discuss anything in a civilized way doesn’t mean we actually know how to do it,” she said. “They provide tools and modeling of those tools to actually teach people how to be civilized.”

The HxA chapter at SFU emerged after a group of scholars got together because they were concerned about the state of academic freedom at the university. They founded the SFU Academic Freedom Group.

Within a few months of that group’s founding, Heterodox Academy launched its Campus Community Program, recognizing chapters on individual campuses. Some SFU professors applied and were accepted among the first chapters chartered.

“We hosted a so-called Heterodox Conversation event this past September,” she said. “That’s a model developed by HxA where you invite two people who have different views on a topic and they sit down and have a conversation with the model [called] the Heterodox Way and then the audience gets involved and we have a group discussion.”

The topic of that dialogue was “The purpose of today’s Canadian universities.”

“The timing was perfect because, just the previous week, our president had issued a statement on institutional neutrality,” she said, referring to an announcement by SFU’s president, Joy Johnson, on maintaining an environment where scholarly inquiry remains unbiased by partisan agendas. “For me, I was celebrating like crazy, but there were others on campus who were very unhappy.”

Altman can’t say whether the Heterodox Academy chapter or the SFU Academic Freedom Group deserve credit for the president’s statement or for other recent developments she and her colleagues view as positive.

“I’m a statistician, so I rarely claim causation,” she said wryly. “I’m very conservative that way. But I think so.”

The groups are comparatively small, but they may be having an outsized impact.

“Everybody knows about us,” she said. “The administration clearly knows and it’s just been so gratifying to see the change in the whole tenor of the administration’s approaches over the last couple of years. It’s a clear change.”

Numbers may remain relatively small, Altman suspects, because of a false perception of their group.

“We are consistently being cast as this right-wing, conservative group and it’s not true,” she said. “We have people across the political spectrum in the group. It is a nonpartisan group.”

The idea that academic freedom and institutional neutrality are right-wing positions, she said, is belied, for example, by the gay rights movement, which emerged in the 1960s, in part thanks to the viewpoint diversity of campuses.

It is not a coincidence, Altman believes, that several HxA members, including herself, are Jewish.

“Jews have a long tradition of arguing and debating in a civilized way, the whole ‘two Jews, three opinions’ thing,” she said. “Jews are just a natural fit with the HxA model.”

In contrast, the equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) model that has become increasingly prevalent on North American campuses in recent years is antithetical both to the academic ideal and to Jews, she argued.

“For some Jews like myself, I realized very early on that the EDI ideology that’s become so predominant in academia and elsewhere, that it was terrible for Jews,” she said. “This model of the oppressed and the oppressor, it didn’t work. Jews did not fit into that mold.”

EDI is the opposite of what it claims to be, said Altman.

“I think it’s exclusionary, it discriminates against groups,” she said. “It’s antithetical to everything I believe in because I truly believe in inclusion and anti-discrimination.… I was very unhappy about the rise of the EDI ideology and, in my groups of people who are also similarly concerned about that ideology, I think Jews are overrepresented. That would suggest I’m not the only Jewish person who sees the fundamental conflict, the contradictions in the EDI ideology.”

Altman said few people would openly admit they oppose academic freedom.

“Really, it becomes about the definition of academic freedom,” she said. “When I say I support academic freedom, that’s the end of my sentence. What I look for when I’m talking to people is the ‘but’ that can follow. ‘Of course, I support academic freedom, but … there are limits.’ Things like that.”

In some cases, Altman thinks, this equivocation comes from a lack of understanding around the core principles of academic freedom.

“But then, there are some people who truly want to change the foundation of the term, the concept,” she said. “They truly believe that we should have limits on both our academic freedom and our freedom of expression more generally.”

In addition to the SFU branch, Heterodox Academy has a chapter at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. While there are some HxA members at the Vancouver campus of UBC, Altman said, there is not yet an official chapter there.

For more information, visit heterodoxacademy.org.

Inclusion, but not for Jews

Simon Fraser University assistant professor Dr. Lilach Marom gave a lecture May 27 called Where is Antisemitism in EDI Discourses in Canadian Higher Education? How Did We Get Here, And How Can We Move Forward?

Prevailing trends in equity, diversity and inclusion on campuses and elsewhere often exclude Jewish people and discount antisemitism, according to a Simon Fraser University academic.

Despite extensive policies around racism, discrimination and related topics, many universities and academic organizations have no explicit references in policy to antisemitism, says Dr. Lilach Marom, an assistant professor at SFU, who focuses on anti-racism and inclusion in education with a focus on structural and institutional barriers to access.

“When we look at references to antisemitism and Jewish identity across EDI policies and action plans, we see that there is not much reference,” she said during a lecture May 27 that was part of Diverse Approaches to Research in Education, a seminar series co-hosted by Faculty of Education’s Research Hub and the Research Advisory Working Group. For example, resources from the Canadian Association of University Teachers include a self-identification survey, but under the category of race and ethnicity, there is no option to select “Jewish.”

In addition to Jewish identity, the experiences of Jewish people with antisemitism are often not specifically addressed. “Sometimes, it is not named when there are other forms of oppression and racism that are named,” she said.

EDI stands for equity, diversity and inclusion (in the United States, Marom noted, it is reordered as DEI). Equity, she said, is the removal of systemic barriers and enabling all individuals to have equitable opportunity and access to benefit from higher education. Diversity is about the variety of unique dimensions, identities, qualities and characteristics individuals possess along with other identity factors. Inclusion is defined as the practice of ensuring that all individuals are valued and respected for their contributions and are supported equitably.

EDI has become the prevalent framework to address issues of social justice and equity in Canadian higher education, said Marom. Fully 90% of higher educational institutions in Canada reference EDI in their strategic planning and 91% have an EDI task force or are developing one, according to a Universities Canada survey of members in 2022.

photo - Dr. Lilach Marom — Dr. Lilach Marom *(photo courtesy)*

Marom sees a number of reasons why antisemitism is excluded. Antisemitism is often categorized as religious-based discrimination, which reclassifies it outside the realm of anti-racism.

“Jewish people see themselves as a people, which means they have shared culture, language, history, religious texts and rituals,” said Marom. “But, within the North American context, Jewishness is conceptualized as a form of religion.”

This is specifically the case in Canadian law, where antisemitism is categorized under religious discrimination and reported under hate crimes motivated by religion.

This creates a disconnect when it comes to EDI, said Marom. “In most cases, EDI typically does not centre on religious-based discrimination,” she said. “So those things are on the margins, they’re not core to the EDI discourses.”

Settler-colonialism and decolonization are core concepts in EDI discourse, which presents challenges around the way Israel and Palestine are considered.

“I’m worried about the new antisemitism that emerges at the intersection of anti-racism and settler-colonial discourses,” she said. “Both those discourses are insufficient and incomplete to understand Jewishness, the Jewish condition or the situation in Israel-Palestine.… They create this forced binary between Jewish people as the embodiment of white privilege and colonial oppression, and Palestinians as racialized and indigenous. I think this binary is not only inaccurate, it also feeds into new forms of antisemitism.”

Settler-colonialism is a leading framework for analyzing Canadian history, said Marom. Applying that framework to Zionism and the formation of Israel in a simplistic way overlooks the long and complex history of that land and creates a false dichotomy between Jewish people as the embodiment of oppression and Palestinians as indigenous, she said.

These constructions fail to acknowledge the historical, cultural and religious ties of Jews to the land dating back millennia. They also don’t acknowledge that there could be places in which there are coexisting claims to indigeneity in Israel-Palestine.

Meanwhile, the construction of Jews as white and privileged, she said, reflects a “legal and cultural whitening of Jews in North America.”

“This is not to ignore the fact that Jews definitely have gained some privileges from their ability to assimilate and integrate in this mainstream North American culture and those possibilities were not open to members of other racialized groups,” she said. “Jews have definitely gained some privileges from this ability. However, this also feeds into some antisemitic tropes or stereotypes – Jews as a ‘model minority’ or ‘super powerful’ – and have put them in a position that is not really in and not really out. These in-between spaces [mean] they can be targeted on one hand by conspiracies from the right like the Great Replacement Theory, but also pushed against from the left as an embodiment of white privilege.”

The construction of Jews as white overlooks the self-identification of Jewish people, she said, and it doesn’t recognize the diversity of Jewish people. While in North America many Jewish people are Ashkenazi, in places like Israel, the majority of people are from Asian, Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds.

“In critical discourses, we don’t talk about race as skin pigmentation nor as biological constructs,” Marom said. “We talk about it as a form of social construct. If you think about race as a social construct, looking at the history of Jewish people with marginalization, exclusion and genocide, they cannot be put aside from anti-racism discourses and be absorbed into whiteness.”

It is not useful, she said, to participate in “any form of oppression Olympics. But I think we need to acknowledge that antisemitism is not following the typical path of other racialized groups, where hopefully there is less exclusion and more integration with time,” she said. “With Jewish people, many times when they thought they were most integrated and most included, this is when they faced the most extreme forms of exclusion and marginalization.”

Marom clarified that discussion about antisemitism and the protection and safety of Jewish people should not be confused with “protection” from challenging ideas.

“We need to be willing to step into risky discussions,” she said. “But I think what EDI does is really talk about impact. It talks about how can we be engaging in those difficult spaces while still feeling that we are being seen as human, that we are included, that we have space. I speak only on my behalf [but] I think this is the case with many Jewish faculty that I know. I don’t think that this is the way many of us [have felt] since Oct. 7.”

There is a balance to be found between academic freedom and protection of minority communities, said Marom – but the approach to this balance when it comes to Jews and antisemitism seems different than in other cases.

“I just find it very peculiar that a lot of my colleagues who usually are very sensitive toward issues of inclusion and belonging all of a sudden become the strongest supporters of academic freedom when it comes to the issues of antisemitism,” said Marom. “Not that academic freedom is not important – it is really important – I’m just curious to hear how come it becomes so important now when the people in question are Jewish people.”

She also cited a seminar on antisemitism and anti-Zionism that was sponsored by about 40 organizations, most of them Muslim and Middle Eastern academic groups.

“This we would never see on other issues, in which people from the outside explained to people on the inside what they need to know about themselves,” she said. There were some Jewish speakers at the event, she noted, but they came from a very specific ideological perspective.

“I’m not saying that they are not legitimate,” she said. “I’m not even saying that they’re not important and I don’t think that we need to define who is in and who is out to speak on behalf of the Jewish people – there is enough space in the world to speak. But I am worried for the tendencies in progressive circles to adopt those voices and put them in and check the inclusion box, because that is not how we do inclusion in any other circles.”

The principle of “nothing about us without us,” the idea that no approach toward a group should be adopted without the full and direct participation of the affected people, should not be overlooked when it comes to antisemitism, she said.

A video of Marom’s full presentation is available at youtu.be/FQbGiySUetM.

Not-so-accessible city

Lenard Stanga as Hugh and Cadence Rush Quibell as Shiloh in Realwheels Theatre’s Disability Tour Bus podcast, which will be released July 17. (photo by Rashi Sethi)

On July 17, Realwheels Theatre releases its new production, Disability Tour Bus, as a radio play podcast available for streaming at realwheels.ca.

Written for podcast platforms by Amy Amantea and Jewish community member Rena Cohen, Disability Tour Bus follows Shiloh, a young wheelchair-user, as they navigate their first day as a guide for Funcouver Bus Tours. Working alongside longtime employee and relentless dad-joker Hugh, Shiloh struggles to stick to the Funcouver script when so much of “Canada’s most wheelchair-accessible city” is still so inaccessible. People and politics collide until a new passenger, Tess, comes aboard and offers common ground. The tour must go on! Because there’s someone special waiting for Tess at the end. At least she hopes there is.

The role of Hugh is played by Lenard Stanga, Jewish community member Cadence Rush Quibell plays Shiloh, and co-writer Amantea is Tess. The cast is rounded out by Mack Gordon, Caitlyn Bairstow, Ian Hanlin and Lauren Jackson playing multiple parts.

“As a wheelchair-user, I’ve heard that whole ‘most accessible city’ line a lot,” said Realwheels co-artistic director Adam Grant Warren. “It’s a big part of the reason I moved to Vancouver from the other side of the country. I’ve been here for 16 years now. After hundreds of busted elevators, torn-up sidewalks and too-full buses, I know Vancouver has a lot of work to do. Access-wise it means well, but it’s a mess sometimes. For me, that’s one of the most interesting tensions in this project: the attempt to create access when no one thought to ask what those of us who are looking for it actually need.”

– Courtesy Realwheels Theatre

Going beyond numbers

Jews of Colour Initiative chief executive officer Ilana Kaufman speaks at Or Shalom on June 6. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

On June 6 at Or Shalom, Jews of Colour Initiative chief executive officer Ilana Kaufman spoke about Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Colour. She said JoCI commissioned the survey to find out how many Jews of Colour there are in the United States, “what are our experiences, what are our perspectives, what are our beliefs, and then, how do you parlay that information into making the Jewish community, quite frankly, less racist, more inclusive.”

Kaufman was in Vancouver from Berkeley, Calif., where she is based, to share the survey results with “congregational rabbis, agency professionals, educators, board members, Jewish Federation staff, community members of colour and allies,” said Shelley Rivkin, vice-president of local and global engagement at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, which organized and funded the series of meetings. “Jewish Federation had been in conversation with Ilana about the work of the JoCI for over a year,” she said.

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner introduced Kaufman at the shul talk, and Kaufman dove into the data.

“Depending on the age range you’re thinking about … between eight to 20% of the U.S. Jewish community are community of colour,” with the higher numbers being in the younger age groups, she said. “Every day in the U.S., the number of Jews of Colour is increasing, not decreasing. In terms of the data for multiracial families … 20% of U.S. Jewish families identify as multiracial. You may not see the family members of colour, but we’re there. And, if you’re on the coast, that number goes up to 25%, or one in four families. And that number, of course, is getting bigger every day, too.”

Kaufman is working with colleagues to figure out how many Jews of Colour there will be about 20 years from now. By 2042 or 2043, she said, “depending on immigration patterns, the U.S. will become half People of Colour. The majority of those folks will be multiracial and, in the U.S. Jewish community, we don’t know the date [that will happen], but those patterns map onto the U.S. Jewish community as well.”

While Beyond the Count is not a truly representative survey, as that would have cost about a million dollars, which was beyond JoCI’s capacity, the organization “cast the net as far as we could from the Jews of Colour Initiative perch,” said Kaufman. “We were able to have 1,118 qualified survey respondents in our study. It’s the largest dataset of Jews of Colour in the U.S., maybe anywhere in the world, and it’s not representative at all.” The interviewees over-represented in many areas, such as level of education attained and engagement in Jewish activities.

Regarding the methodology, Kaufman said the survey “is unapologetically framed with Critical Race Theory.”

“From our perspective,” she said, “we can’t do this work without framing it in a context where racism is real, and the effects of racism are real. And it doesn’t implicate white people, it doesn’t marginalize People of Colour, it just reveals the infrastructural truth that allows us then to leverage that truth to make change.”

Feminist pedagogy also informed the work, said Kaufman, and “we used a counter-storytelling approach, which means, instead of white folks saying, People of Colour, tell me your story … we had Jews of Colour, our community, centre the conversation and the work to create shape around that.”

JoCI doesn’t define the term “Jews of Colour,” both because race is a social construct and because identity “has to be owned and carried by the self and so we don’t want to be in the business of telling people how to self-identify,” said Kaufman. The organization uses “Jews of Colour” as an admittedly imperfect conceptual framework, she said, pointing out that, while race may be a fiction, racialization is real, and JoCI operates from that space. For those who self-identify as Jews of Colour, JoCI wants to be a space for resources and support.

Kaufman spoke about “whiteness,” also a social construct. Citing historian Karen Brodkin, Kaufman said the G.I. Bill – which offered home loans, college loans and other benefits to veterans after the Second World War – was one of the moments “when European Jews became white.” Instead of rejecting the benefits until their “black and brown family members in uniform” were offered the same opportunities, “there were moments of passive acceptance of the tools of upward mobility that were offered to Jews of European background that were not offered to People of Colour in the United States at that time,” said Kaufman. “And that’s one of the ways that Jews moved into whiteness, from being a highly ethnicized people in the United States.”

But it is a conditional whiteness, she said, and Jews who had lived with a passive acceptance of privilege had that comfort destroyed in 2016 with Charlottesville, “when white supremacists and neo-Nazis reminded Jews who had enjoyed the benefits of whiteness that they’re not safe…. And, in fact, that white identity is not seen as white in the eyes of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.”

Kaufman said one of the ways we can have a more dynamic and thoughtful conversation is to recognize the extent to which racism harms white people. “Even the concept of whiteness is such a flattened idea of who we’re talking about,” she said. “And so, when you think about Jewish ethnicity and you think just about Jewish European ethnicity, it is vast and it is diverse and, at least in the United States, it’s been boiled down to bagels … this caricature of who the Jewish people are.” When we celebrate diversity and grapple with intercultural dynamics, she said, “white folks have a stake in the conversation that’s not about being the target of opposition, but a collaborative part of the conversation” and, to do that, “we certainly have to recognize the privilege that comes with whiteness or being perceived as white…. When we get past our understanding of privilege, we need to get into who we are as ethnic, racial beings, and everybody has an equal stake in that conversation,” she said.

Almost half of survey respondents (45%) selected two or more racial categories. “And that’s the fastest growing population of People of Colour in the U.S., multiracial people, and that also maps onto the Jewish community,” said Kaufman.

One finding of the survey was that most JoCs feel more comfortable in an environment that’s multiracial. “Jews of Colour feel a tremendous amount of stress when [they’re] the only one in a situation…. We have to help people feel welcome without [them] feeling like we’re singling them out,” she said.

Respondents participated in a wide variety of Jewish activities and organizations, including formal Jewish education, attending synagogue, being part of a Jewish youth group and traveling to Israel: 63% of respondents participated in two or more Jewish activities. Yet most JoCs report having had a range of negative experiences in Jewish communal settings. At the top, 75% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Others have made assumptions about me based on my skin tone,” and 74% with the statement, “I have felt burdened with explaining myself/my identity.” At the lower end, 60% agreed or strongly agreed that “I have felt tokenized” and 58% that “I have been treated as if I don’t belong.”

“A tip on that,” said Kaufman. “Of course, we want to welcome Jews of Colour into our committees to do things that matter…. If we’re reaching for someone because of what we think they look like, we have to stop ourselves. We just have say, we’d love to have you on our committee, but we want to know what you want to be on our committee for, instead of telling them … what we want them on our committee for.”

As an example, when she was asked to be on board, she made it a condition that she not have to talk about diversity. “And so,” she said, “how do you bring people in for why they want to be there, what they’re good at, how they want to grow? You just ask, how do you want to grow professionally, personally? Maybe I can give you that community opportunity if you join us, which is way better than saying, I don’t know you, I don’t know what you like, but I want you on my committee because of how I think you look.”

Overwhelmingly, survey respondents did not feel that American Jewish leaders are adequately addressing “the specific needs of members/participants who are Jews of Colour,” “the need for greater racial/ethnic diversity in Jewish organizational leadership” or “racism/white supremacy within the American Jewish community.” The numbers improve with regards to how these leaders are addressing “racism/white supremacy outside of the American Jewish community.”

“There’s deep comfort in helping those people outside,” said Kaufman. “What happens when those people are in all of us? And how do we collectively adopt a ‘those people’ identity so that we can actually dissolve this barrier between us and them?”

The study focused on racism, not antisemitism, said Kaufman. “Historically, when the U.S. has talked about antisemitism, they haven’t been including Jews of Colour in that conversation. And so, generally, when you hear about who’s being supported by the organizations fighting antisemitism in the U.S., you never see Jews of Colour included in that conversation.”

JoCI has had to be very careful, she said, so that the survey doesn’t become a tool to fight antisemitism among People of Colour. “The Jewish community and our colleague organizations who deal with antisemitism in the U.S. often use a dynamic of anti-Black racism to create support to fight antisemitism, and this has split People of Colour from Jewish people who [are] white.” She talked about the importance of taking on white supremacy. “Inside of white supremacy is both racism and antisemitism,” she said. “And I think it’s incumbent upon the U.S. Jewish community to look at racism and antisemitism side by side and, in our context, the container that holds that is white supremacy. So, I’m very interested in fighting antisemitism, I’m very interested in fighting racism and, I have to say that, in my family’s life and the lives of a million Jews of Colour in the United States, is for us to talk about white supremacy and to target racism and antisemitism in the same breath, at the same time. Because the piece is, we need to be in a relationship with our Muslim brothers and sisters, our Christian brothers and sisters, our family members all in between, because we’re all under threat from the white supremacists…. I’m very interested in fighting antisemitism but I’m not interested in fighting antisemitism if it only means we’re fighting for white, Jewish people.”

Beyond the Count makes four recommendations: support organizations and initiatives led by and serving Jews of Colour; shift organizational leadership to more accurately reflect the diversity of American Jews; prioritize creating spaces and places for discourse and dialogue with and among Jews of Colour; and promote further research by and about Jews of Colour.

Kaufman “helped us better understand the nuances and diversity of the JoC community and how systems of inequality are perpetuated in our own community,” said Rivkin in an email to the Independent. “The issues identified in Beyond the Count must be taken seriously, we can’t offer token solutions. We have to be intentional and first engage Jews of Colour to find out what they see as the key priorities and what path should be taken going forward.”

To do that, Rivkin said, “A key role of Jewish Federation is to bring stakeholders from across the community together to address critical issues and facilitate discussions…. One of our next steps is to explore the feasibility of conducting either a B.C. or Canada wide survey to gain a better understanding of the local JoC perspective.”

To read the full text of Beyond the Count, visit jewsofcolorinitiative.org.

First Jewish Prom a success

Rachel Gerber and Judah Moskovitz, regional co-presidents of BBYO Vancouver, at the first annual Jewish Prom on May 6. (photo from BBYO & JCC Teens)

BBYO, in partnership with the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC), held its first annual Jewish Prom on May 6. Organized by BBYO’s regional teen board, this inaugural event brought Grade 11 and 12 students together for an evening of celebration and connection. From the decorations to the music, the celebration not only exceeded expectations but also established itself as an annual event within Vancouver’s Jewish teen community.

From its inception to its execution, the planning process embraced BBYO’s core principles of youth empowerment and involvement – the event was planned by the teens, for the teens. The prom was held at Heritage Hall on Main Street, and the venue was transformed. It was a red-carpet theme for the occasion, complete with lights, balloons, confetti and Oscars-themed centrepieces. Teens enjoyed a snack bar, dessert bar, beverages and popcorn. There was a photobooth on site, along with carnival games, and a live DJ kept the energy up. The décor and set-up provided the perfect backdrop for the evening’s festivities.

With more than 125 students in attendance, the atmosphere was electric from the start. The DJ played a mix of popular hits and classic dance tunes. Students from various schools came together, forging new friendships and rekindling old ones as they danced, socialized and had fun.

The BBYO Teen Regional Board worked hard to ensure that the event was both safe and enjoyable for everyone. The planning process brought together teen committees, professional staff, philanthropists and other community leaders who provided guidance and raised money in support of this initiative. Staff, volunteers and professional security were on site during the event, which was alcohol- and drug-free.

“We are thrilled with the success of our first-ever BBYO prom,” said Rachel Gerber and Judah Moskovitz, BBYO’s regional board co-presidents. “Our goal was to provide an opportunity for Jewish teens completing high school to come together and reconnect, for a fun evening, and we definitely achieved that. We want to thank everyone who attended and helped make the event such a success.”

BBYO Vancouver’s Prom is anticipated to become a highlight of the annual social calendar, bringing together Jewish teens throughout the Lower Mainland, Sea-to-Sky Corridor and Vancouver Island. BBYO Vancouver is looking forward to next year’s prom, which promises to build on this year’s event. The regional board is already brainstorming ideas for new decorations, themes and activities.

In addition to prom, BBYO holds weekly teen meetings at the JCC, regular social events in Vancouver, as well as in Langley and on the North Shore. Within just a year, the regional board has engaged more than 300 Jewish teens from various Metro Vancouver high schools, an accomplishment that began with a cohort of fewer than 20 teens, primarily from King David High School.

As the regional board continues to grow, with seven emerging leaders and increasing interest in leadership roles from more teens, BBYO’s local impact expands further – notably, Moskovitz’s election to BBYO’s AZA international board as grand aleph shaliach. Working alongside a teen counterpart from Spain, Moskovitz will assume responsibility for all Judaic content and teen programming for BBYO internationally.

BBYO is a leading global, pluralistic, Jewish teen movement aspiring to involve more Jewish teens in more meaningful Jewish experiences. BBYO welcomes Jewish teens of all backgrounds, denominational affiliation, gender, race, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status, including those with a range of intellectual, emotional and physical abilities.

With a network of hundreds of chapters across North America and in 62 countries around the world, BBYO reaches nearly 70,000 teens annually. For more information about BBYO Vancouver and its teen-led board, contact Efrat Gal-Or, regional director, at [email protected].

– Courtesy BBYO & JCC Teens