Iran war

Israel fighting for its existence

Pat Johnson, left, interviews Jonathan Conricus at the Friends of JNF Pacific Negev Event on June 7. (photo by Galit Lewinski)

On June 7, a full sanctuary at Beth Israel Synagogue gathered for the annual Friends of JNF Pacific Negev Event.

Howard Jampolsky, vice-president of Friends of JNF Canada Pacific Region, emceed. He spoke of the rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, including in Canada, “a country that many Jews believed was among the safest and most tolerant countries in the world,” yet where Jewish schools have been shot at, synagogues vandalized, Jewish students intimidated, and Jewish businesses and individuals targeted.

“Antizionism that denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination is antisemitism,” he said. “Israel is not an abstract political issue to us. Israel is family. Israel is history. Israel is survival…. For 2,000 years, we have said, we have prayed, l’shana haba b’Yerushalayim, next year in Jerusalem. Today, there is a Jerusalem. Today, there is a Jewish state – and we will never apologize for defending it.”

Funds raised by this year’s Negev event will support the Beit Elkana Centre for Holistic Therapy, in the Lakhish region of Israel’s Negev. Established by Galit Wiesel in memory of her late husband, Elkana Wiesel, a reserve combat officer who was killed in battle in 2024, the centre will offer care to those suffering trauma-related conditions.

“Projects like Beit Elkana are about more than buildings,” said Jampolsky. “They are about resilience. They are about healing. They’re about ensuring that Israelis living in the south of Israel know that they are not alone – that Jewish communities around the world stand beside them and with them. That’s what Zionism looks like. Not slogans, not hashtags, certainly not hatred, but building, planting, healing, supporting, creating hope…. Because our answer to hatred cannot be silence. Our answer must be courage. Our answer must be pride, and our answer must be action. We must support Jewish institutions. We must educate the next generation.”

In that vein, Friends of JNF Canada presented Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of Judaic studies at King David High School, with its Education Award, “recognizing his tremendous contribution to Jewish learning, Jewish dignity, a Jewish identity, and the strength of our community.” The honour was presented by two of Jampolsky’s children, Elise and Jake.

Berger started his work in the community with NCSY more than 20 years ago, moving to KDHS about 18 years ago. He considers himself a resource for the Jewish community, not just the high school, and half-joked that he’d been teaching the same one idea in 25 different ways.

“The idea, very simply, is that we are souls…. We are spiritual in nature. We are not just super-smart animals…. [Rabbi Israel] Salanter says the big problem with the world is we’re always worried about our own physical needs and everybody else’s spiritual growth, [and] if we just flip that, if we could just worry about our own spiritual growth and everybody else’s physical needs, then the world will be a much better place.”

photo - Rabbi Stephen Berger holds the Friends of JNF Canada, Pacific Region, Education Award, presented to him by siblings Jake and Elise Jampolsky, whose father, Howard Jampolsky, emceed the event — Rabbi Stephen Berger holds the Friends of JNF Canada, Pacific Region, Education Award, presented to him by siblings Jake and Elise Jampolsky, whose father, Howard Jampolsky, emceed the event. *(photo by Galit Lewinski)*

Pat Johnson, who writes for and serves on the editorial board of the Jewish Independent, in addition to being the founder of Upstanders Canada, among other things, spoke about one of the main things he has learned in his 30-plus years of “hanging around” the Jewish community: “the depths of connection between Jewish people in Canada and the land, the state and the people of Israel.”

Engaged in political activism and progressive causes for decades, Johnson said that, during the Second Intifada, his communities diverged.

“Ostensibly, we were asked to choose to side either with Palestinians or with Israelis,” he said. “The real choice we faced, though, was between coexistence, peace and a negotiated settlement to conflict as characterized by the Oslo process, or supporting chauvinistic fanaticism, violence and the eradication from the Middle East of its only oasis of pluralism, democracy and equality.

“Why did I, and why did you, face that choice and make the right one, when so many others faced the same choice and opted to betray the values we thought we shared? Perhaps because we know Jewish history.

“People asked, ‘Could we be right and, seemingly, the entire world be wrong?’ Jewish history, for everything else it teaches us, reveals that the entire world can indeed be wrong – again and again,” said Johnson, who spoke about the inextricable links between Jews and Israel. He held up a JNF Blue Box, pushka, calling it “a tangible symbol of that bond.”

“In Jewish homes in Montreal and Minsk, in Vancouver and Vilnius, in Casablanca and Krakow, parents and grandparents dropped coins into boxes like this, demonstrating from generation to generation the centrality of this eternal connection.”

With Israel reestablished, the Zionist dream today, said Johnson, is “an Israel that is safe and indestructible. An Israel that exists in a changed region, where peace prevails. An Israel that is respected in a world without hatred.”

Jonathan Conricus believes Israel will have to continue fighting for its existence.

A retired lieutenant-colonel in the Israel Defence Forces, Conricus is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, where he provides analysis and insight on Israel, the Middle East, and the challenges facing democratic societies worldwide. His Vancouver talk was part of a cross-country tour with Friends of JNF Canada.

Significant progress has been made in Gaza and Hamas has been diminished, Conricus said. “In terms of long-range weapons, far less, almost nothing; in terms of capital, far less, almost nothing; in terms of senior terrorists with decades of experience, almost nothing; and, in terms of an ability to project force and to threaten Israeli civilians, almost nothing. But you’ll notice that I said almost in each and every sentence – and almost is a temporary situation. The nucleus of Hamas remains.

“Nobody has disarmed,” he said. And anyone who thinks they will “see a jihadi fighter lay down their weapons, doesn’t know what a jihadi fighter is.”

Laying down weapons “is not in their DNA – they cannot do it,” he said, adding that, if they did, “they are dead men walking … not necessarily because Israel will kill them all … but because there are long lists of grievances within the population in Gaza with most of the thugs and terrorists of Hamas.”

Gaza will continue to challenge Israel, said Conricus, as the IDF continues to fight in Lebanon, “clearing away the last remains of Hezbollah: storage facilities, bunkers, sniper positions and many other things that Hezbollah had built underneath and within civilian homes in Lebanon.”

The goal is to create a cleared area, “where there’s no infrastructure that Hezbollah can use in order to attack Israeli civilians along the border,” he said.

“I believe that, currently, we’re in the best position that we’ve ever been … [to] help our neighbours to the north in being a sovereign state for the first time in their history,” Conricus said. “The Lebanese state was granted sovereignty in 1946 from the French colonial powers [when foreign troops finally left the country], and they haven’t enjoyed a day of sovereignty in their whole lives.”

On the Iranian front, the IDF is ready “to get going against Iran again, with the purpose of dealing much more severe blows against targets that, up until now, have not been engaged by the IDF,” said Conricus, but the Israeli government is holding back.

“Up until now, Israel has decided not to do so, whether independently or together with the US, mostly thinking about the future of the Iranian people and wanting to leave intact infrastructure for the people of Iran to continue with their lives.”

Before Oct. 7, Conricus said, “We were responding, but we weren’t really fighting strategically back.” Now, however, “all the Iranian proxies that the Iranian regime spent billions and billions of dollars building, arming, training and equipping – none of those are even half as strong as they were before Oct. 7. Most have been dealt significant blows by Israel. And Iran itself, the Islamic Republic, is the weakest that it has ever been in its 47 years of existence.”

While concerned about “the looming threat of an imperialistic Türkiye” and about unity within Israel and between Israeli and diaspora Jews, Conricus said people should take everything they see in international media “with many grains of salt.”

“Please know that the situation in Israel is much happier, stronger, more resolute, united, and better than it is portrayed in international media. Please know that Am Yisrael, in Israel, is strong, committed to prosperity, to life, to creation, to peace, to beautiful things, and that, despite two-and-a-half years, almost three years, of relentless attacks against the very basic legitimacy of the state of Israel to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people, we’re here, we’re fighting and, much to everybody else’s disapproval, we’re going to continue to be so.”

In the conversation between Johnson and Conricus that followed, several topics were covered. One of the last questions was about Malmo, Sweden, where Conricus, who was born in Jerusalem, partly grew up.

“For a lot of us, the word Malmo … is shorthand for European multiculturalism gone wrong,” said Johnson. “Is there something from that experience you would want Canadians to know?”

Malmo is “a cautionary tale,” said Conricus, noting that most young Jews have left the city.

“There’s not really a future,” he said. “Within a generation and a half, I think that the Jewish community won’t exist there.”

He encouraged the community to focus on Jewish education and fostering Jewish identity, “how we love each other, how we nurture the bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish state.”

During the event, David Greaves, executive director of Friends of JNF Western region, and Lance Davis, the organization’s chief executive officer, also offered remarks, and Ilene-Jo Bellas, board member and event chair, thanked the speakers.

Deal strengthens Iran

Many American Jews have given up on the Democratic Party. Seeing intractable opponents of Israel within its congressional ranks, many Jewish and pro-Israel voters decided that their best or only hope was within the Republican Party.

This trend was based partly on the seemingly knee-jerk antizionism of a chunk of the Democrats’ congressional caucus and by the oft-repeated idea that Donald Trump is the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.

There are myriad problems with these assumptions.

First, abandoning one party in a two-party system is a high-risk strategy. Putting all eggs in one basket is not a wise approach in any scenario.

It is especially unwise in a scenario where the egg basket is controlled by a mercurial figure who has demonstrated no consistent loyalty to any person or idea, and whose fits of rage are directed at ostensible allies as often as they are at enemies.

The US-Israeli war with Iran earlier this year held the potential for a complete reshaping of the Middle East region. The defeat of the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran would have tectonically altered the course of the region’s history, eliminating the greatest source of state-sponsored terror, massively (and further) reducing the capacity of Israel’s nearest enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Based at least partly on the idea that regime change must come from within Iran, the United States in particular (but Israel as a partner in the war) stopped short of pursuing regime change.

The resolution to that war – the memorandum of understanding and ongoing talks aimed at a lasting cessation of violence – is apparently intended to prevent Iran’s drive toward nuclear military capacity. Perhaps it will.

At the same time, however, although concrete details are suspiciously sketchy, indications suggest that Iran is likely to come out of the war not chastened, but strengthened.

What is known about the apparent accord drafted by the United States and Iran is that it will deluge the Islamic regime in hundreds of billions of dollars in “reconstruction and development” funds. Time was that the defeated in a war paid reparations. Under the Trump doctrine, it seems, the historical penance is reversed. The defeated now apparently receive unprecedented windfalls. And this reputed $300 billion avalanche of cash does not include the freeing up another colossal sum of currently frozen Iranian assets.

Many commentators had suggested that a debilitated and humiliated Iran, economically devastated by the war, would be weakened to the point where the Iranian people would be able to rise up and overthrow their oppressors.

Instead, it appears that the regime will see itself in an erstwhile unimagined place of wealth and triumph.

The widespread idea that a weakened Iranian regime would lead the populace to revolution based on continued and worsening daily economic realities seems likely to be averted by a cash bonanza that will allow the ayatollahs to bribe their populace into complacency.

Worse for everyone, the flush regime will be able to rearm Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and its broader network of evildoers.

What several weeks ago looked like the potential for the greatest realignment for the better in regional history now appears like the worst possible outcome. Iran seems to be given a free hand to pursue its darkest agendas, bankrolled by the “peace agreement” improbably crafted by the author of the 1980s bestseller The Art of the Deal.

If there is a single lesson here for Canadians and citizens in other democracies, it is that we must not allow the well-being of the bilateral relationship with Israel to become politicized. Party regulars in challenging environments must remain and fight, rather than abandon the traditional multipartisan approach to Israeli security.

There can be no denying that, at present, one party in Canada has a near-monopoly on pro-Israel policy. This appeared to be the case in the United States until a few hours ago. We can see how quickly things can change, leaving Israel effectively friendless at the highest levels.

Defending Israel in centrist and leftist political environments may seem challenging if not futile. But abandoning those spaces to haters because a mouthy carpetbagger comes along saying the right things until he turns like a mad dog on those who thought they were his friends leaves us in the worst imaginable spot.

Zionism wins big in Vegas

BC students at the StandWithUs conference in Las Vegas March 15-18 included, left to right, Adar Latak, Alexis Moscovitz and Ethan Doctor. (photo by Pat Johnson)

What happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. That was the defiant message from Roz Rothstein, the chief executive officer and co-founder of StandWithUs, as she welcomed about 1,000 Jewish and pro-Israel high school and college students, alumni, activists and assorted allies to the organization’s conference in the Nevada city, March 15 to 18. They assembled to become more informed and empowered, to return to their campuses and communities to advance the fight against antisemitism and antizionism.

Among the delegates were about 100 Canadians, including 15 BC students, as well as Vancouverite Zara Nybo, StandWithUs Canada’s campus and high school manager for Western Canada.

StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy and education organization, provides leadership training and educational programs to students at hundreds of schools, as well as operating many other initiatives, including legal supports for Jewish and pro-Israel individuals and groups.

Among the BC students were four Leventhal high school interns and 10 Emerson fellows, who are part of the organization’s college and university track, Nybo said.

Students are selected based on demonstrated leadership in pro-Israel activism. They attend two immersive educational international conferences like the Vegas meeting during their year of service and are required to initiate several Israel-related programs in their communities or on campus.

Delegates heard from a roster of noted speakers in plenary sessions and more intimate, often hands-on breakout sessions.

The intensive morning to late-night schedule included speakers like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; singer, dancer and online influencer Montana Tucker; sociologist David Hirsh, who is head of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism; Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel; Luai Ahmed, a Yemeni-Swedish journalist; Oct. 7 survivors, including Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage for 505 days; and scores of others.

photo - New York Times columnist Bret Stephens — New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (photo by Pat Johnson)

Stephens, the New York Times columnist, spoke of the revolutionary impact the potential fall of the Iranian regime could have on regional and global affairs but also warned of unintended consequences.

“Regime change is not at all easy,” he said. “There are all kinds of imponderables.”

The state could spiral into chaos and even more bloody and brutal repression than the government has already brought down on anti-regime protesters, he said.

“I do think there is, in fact, quite a plausible scenario [of regime change] – not now, not during this war, but in six months or a year – if [it’s] a militarily crippled and humiliated regime that is still under sanctions, still cannot pay its bills, cannot pay its civil servants, cannot pay its soldiers,” said Stephens.

Iranian street activists, he said, need to “kick this regime when it’s down.”

“If anyone can do it, 90 million Iranians, 88% of whom, at least, despise the regime and had the courage to come out and cheer when the late ayatollah was killed … I think that that creates conditions in which I can see it happen,” he said.

Ahmed spoke of his ideological and physical journey from being an antisemitic young man in Yemen to a new life in Sweden advancing coexistence with Jews.

“It is our duty as reformist Arab Muslims to stand with our Israeli and Iranian brothers and sisters to reject radical Islam, to fight radical Islam,” he said. “It is our duty to fight the terrorists who occupied my country, who believe that firing ballistic missiles at Jews is more important than feeding the starving population of Yemen.

“Radical Islam occupied Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza,” he said. “Radical Islam married my mother off at the age of 8. Radical Islam is our problem and, today, I stand here as a Yemeni who was taught to hate Jews. And I’m telling you something that radical Islamists fear the most: Jews and Israel are not our enemies.”

Alshareef shared a similar transformation.

“I used to be hardcore antizionist,” he said. “I used to be deeply antisemitic. In my local mosque, I repeated after my imams, ‘Death to Israel, death to Jews, death to Zionists,’ without ever having met a Jew or a Zionist before. Today, thank God, I no longer believe in that cancerous ideology that not only impacts the Jewish community, but it also impacts my community as well.… A society that learns to hate Jews more than loving our own children is not a healthy society.”

photo - Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel — Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel. *(photo by Pat Johnson)*

After Oct. 7, 2023, Alshareef decided to visit Israel.

“I learned that the Jewish community and Israelis were desperate for peace, that the vast majority of Jews and Israelis do not want war with us,” he said. “They want peace, and they are very desperate for this peace. That is something that no one had ever told me until I went to Israel myself to see the truth. I then took it upon myself to try to hammer this newfound truth to my friends and family members. And, since then, I’ve been creating content, sharing the hidden truths about Israelis and Jews that my society either dismisses or is completely unaware of.”

Students shared their experiences with antisemitism and bias from teachers, administrators and fellow students. A high school student explained how he helped get an ahistoric and antisemitic handout removed from his school’s curriculum – it had gone unchallenged since 1998. In plenaries and breakouts, individuals shared personal experiences of harassment, discrimination and loss of friendships.

StandWithUs does not only educate but also uses the law to seek fair outcomes in cases of discrimination.

The conference heard from Yael Lerman, founding director of Saidoff Law, a legal arm of StandWithUs, which includes a team of attorneys backed by a network of hundreds of pro bono lawyers and law firms.

“Imagine being a Jewish student in a high school where there are very few other Jewish kids,” Lerman said. “Day after day, classmates taunt you. They call you ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘Zio,’ they send antisemitic messages. Sometimes, they shove you or punch you. You never know when the next message or the next attack is coming. The school knows about it. Nothing changes. Then you reach out to StandWithUs Saidoff Law. Our attorneys step in. We represent you, we fight for you, and we win. We secure a transfer to a new school, and the original school must pay for it for the rest of your time in high school.”

No student should ever face antisemitism alone, Lerman said.

“Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in legal complaints, not only on campuses, but across everyday community spaces,” she continued.

“Recently, one man went to pick up a clothing order at a store where he had been a loyal customer for several years. The clerk looked at his kippa and muttered, ‘You Jews think you can get everything you want.’

“Later that day, he received an email telling him he was banned from the store and the entire chain. So, he reported the incident to StandWithUs. Our lawyer filed a complaint with the appropriate government agency and negotiated a settlement. The store had to lift the ban and compensate him. That is what accountability looks like,” said Lerman.

The conference heard diverse emotional testimonies.

Shem Tov shared the harrowing story of dancing at the Nova festival and, minutes later, being thrown in the back of a pickup truck and transported across the border into Gaza, beginning a nightmarish ordeal of 505 days of being shuttled between locations and then confined in underground labyrinths. For 50 consecutive days, at one point, he was held in complete darkness in a cell where he could not stand up.

“They used to abuse me physically and mentally,” he said of his captors. “There wasn’t any human interaction, I would say.”

Shem Tov was held in near-starvation even as he saw piled boxes of United Nations-supplied rations.

His captors once took him to a house above a tunnel that had been rigged with explosives and told him he would be forced to trigger an explosive blast when Israeli soldiers entered the boobytrapped structure. When they threatened to kill him if he refused, Shem Tov told them they could shoot him, but he would not do it.

After Shem Tov’s presentation, hundreds of students rushed to the front of the hall, surrounding the former hostage and dancing ecstatically as music blared and massive screens declared: “We are dancing again.”

The executive director of StandWithUs Australia, Michael Gencher, led a memorial for the 15 victims murdered during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach last Dec. 14.

Sami Steigmann, a child survivor of the Holocaust, spoke of the series of flukes and strokes of luck that saved his life.

In addition to Canada and all regions of the United States, student delegations came from Europe, Latin America and Australia. Due to war-related airspace closures, only two delegates were able to travel from Israel for the event.

BC delegates spoke to the Independent about their experiences.

Adar Latak, a University of Victoria psychology student in his final year, said he gained confidence at the conference and made important connections.

“You’re meeting Jews from around the world, and that’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s easy to get brought down by everything, and coming here really lifts your spirits. You’re with other Jews, you’re all facing the same thing, and you’re all talking about it, and you’re giving each other advice and tips, and it is really just a beautiful thing.”

Alexis Moscovitz, a second-year physical and health education student, also at the University of Victoria, echoed Latak’s sense of community.

“Obviously, everybody has different experiences, but it’s all basically the same,” she said. “We’re all fighting antisemitism on our campuses and so, having a support system, amazing staff here, it’s just amazing to be able to be with people that you know are experiencing the same things.”

Vancouverite Ethan Doctor, a Langara College student, has faced threats on campus, including being followed and intimidated by a group of masked and keffiyeh-clad activists. His experience as an Emerson Fellow helped him navigate the college bureaucracy, seeking appropriate security and prevention steps.

“If it wasn’t for organizations like StandWithUs, I wouldn’t know how to properly deal with it and wouldn’t know the proper steps to take,” said Doctor. “I am just eternally grateful to organizations like this.”

photo - Michael Dickson, executive director of StandWithUs Israel, left, speaks with Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage in Gaza for 505 days — Michael Dickson, executive director of StandWithUs Israel, left, speaks with Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage in Gaza for 505 days. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Jesse Primerano, executive director of StandWithUs Canada, told the Independent his group’s role is to help young pro-Israel activists, but also people of all ages, find their voices.

“In many cases, they don’t feel comfortable with the facts, to engage with people who are coming at them very aggressively,” he said. “So, our job is to help them understand the facts and how to communicate them to people who disagree.”

Earlier, Primerano briefed the convention on the state of affairs in Canada.

“We look back on times [of] the Holocaust, and I think what we said for many generations was that, as long as our government didn’t turn on us, we would be safe in the countries that we live,” he said. “And, you know, since Oct. 7, antisemitism has become emboldened in a way in Canada that it feels like our politicians know the only way to stay in office is to take an anti-Israel position.

“So, we’ve seen our mayor of Toronto be unwilling to come to an Oct. 7 vigil, unwilling to come to an Israeli flag-raising,” Primerano continued. “Our prime minister in Canada said that he would arrest Bibi [Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] should he come to Canada. He put an arms embargo on Israel and, most importantly, as I’m sure many of you are aware, he rewarded Hamas with support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“That type of rhetoric and action from our government has spilled into the streets because it has emboldened those who are willing to take shots at the Jewish community. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. Just [days earlier] in Toronto, we had three synagogues that were shot overnight in four days,” he said.

StandWithUs partners with many different groups, Primerano said, but because they work extensively with university students, some people might wonder how they fit with agencies like Hillel.

“Hillel is, in many ways, the voice on campus,” he said. “They are the coordinators of Jewish life. Their goal and their work and their ultimate obligation is to bring Jewish students and their allies together. Our job is, once those students are together, to help supplement the work that Hillel is doing with Israel education, with helping awareness towards antisemitism. Hillel has a wide array of responsibilities that go far beyond just advocacy. Our job is to supplement their work, to work with them as a partner and bring our resources into their space while they bring the students here to meet our resources.”

At the Vegas conference, StandWithUs unveiled SWUBOT, a free, downloadable artificial intelligence tool providing at-the-fingertips information on Israel, antisemitism and activism.

StandWithUs was marking 25 years since Rothstein founded the group with her husband, Jerry Rothstein, who is the organization’s chief operating officer, and Esther Renzer, who is the president.

Survival not passive

Driving south along Oak Street on a recent sunny spring morning, it was hard not to feel the hope of renewal. Paralleling Vancouver Talmud Torah is a majestic line of cherry blossoms in full flourish. A few metres on, outside Congregation Beth Israel, waves of daffodils tell the cyclical story of nature and regeneration.

If hope itself were temporal, springtime would be its incarnation. Sometimes, though, recognizing and feeling hope can take effort.

For many of us, the just-ended celebration of Jewish redemption and rebirth held special resonance, as it has since 2023. The ageless stories, relived at the seder, remain so relevant. We are living through a period that feels, at once, ancient and immediate, because hatred has resurfaced so ferociously and wears familiar disguises.

The redemption of the last hostages from Gaza and the end of that war gave little reprieve before a new war began in a cycle with which Israelis are all too familiar. Jewish history, though, teaches that darkness is never the whole story.

Seeking peace is a central obligation in the Jewish tradition. But Jewish law, halachah, also acknowledges the role of force when necessary. Jewish survival has never been passive; it has never been the result of favourable conditions. It has been an act of will – a refusal to accept that the present moment, however dark, is permanent. From the destruction of the Temples to the expulsions of Europe and the Levant, from the crusades and pogroms of the Middle Ages to the ashes of the 20th century, Jewish history has been punctuated by chapters that seemed like endings. And yet, they were not.

Jewish hope is not blind. It is strategic – necessary and unavoidable. Consider what has happened in just the past century – an epoch that, in the annals of Jewish time, is the blink of an eye. A people nearly annihilated rebuilt not only our lives, but our language, our culture and our sovereignty. The rebirth of Jewish life in our ancestral homeland was not inevitable. It was improbable.

War is tragedy. There are no easy moral lessons in suffering, no easy narrative that redeems loss. But history demonstrates that moments of profound rupture can create the conditions for transformation. As David Ben-Gurion said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”

The peace between Israel and Egypt followed a devastating war. The Abraham Accords emerged from a recognition that endless conflict was untenable. It is not naïve to hope that, from the current devastation, a new framework might eventually emerge – one that prioritizes stability, dignity and coexistence over perpetual violence.

The same is true of the surge in antisemitism globally. It is alarming, yes. But it is also exposing something that has long simmered beneath the surface. Ideas that were once coded are now explicit. Relationships that were once assumed are now being tested. Perhaps, in these challenges lies opportunity.

There is a growing recognition that Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred are not isolated prejudices, but warning signs. Individuals and communities are standing ground and pushing back. Young Jews and “Oct. 8 Jews” – whose connections to Jewishness were limited until the shock of renewed hatreds motivated new inquiries into their identities – are rising to the moment.

Non-Jewish allies are speaking out, showing their support in their actions and presence. Take, for example, those daffodils at Beth Israel – planted in memory of those people murdered in the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the garden was inspired by a non-Jewish ally. (See jewishindependent.ca/flowers-for-those-murdered.)

The story of Passover does not promise that the journey will be easy. It does not deny the existence of hardship or doubt. It does insist that liberation is possible. And this idea is not just tradition. It is necessary and an obligation.

Sheltering in train stations

Another day, another missile alert: Israelis sheltering at the Herbert Samuel Hotel miklat. The writer and his wife take refuge there, but their dog, Max, won’t leave home. (photo by Gil Zohar)

Those who think history doesn’t repeat itself may wish to WhatsApp my 97-year-old mother, Joyce, to discuss how millions of Londoners like herself sheltered in the British capital’s Tube stations during the Blitz and later in the Second World War. The Luftwaffe bombings traumatized her and her two younger sisters, Anita and Renee. Today, the same “rain” of terror is falling across Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.

In Tel Aviv and in the neighbouring cities of Ramat Gan and Bnei Brak, nine underground stops on the Red Line of the Light Rail are open 24/7 as public bomb shelters, including on Shabbat, when there is no transportation service. Some denizens of Greater Tel Aviv have taken to sleeping on the station platforms overnight rather than returning home after each all-clear alert.

At the time of writing, the Red Line is not operating. Commuters from Jerusalem to central Israel have been temporarily required to change trains at Ben Gurion Airport before continuing to Tel Aviv.

Not surprisingly in a country where kvetching is the national sport, some people have complained that not all the underground stations have been opened to serve as protected spaces. The Ministry of Transportation has published a list of stations deemed safe, which the frantic hordes may freely enter when the missile alert screams.

The Carlebach station – named after Esriel Gotthelf Carlebach (1908-1956), the Leipzig, Germany-born pioneering journalist, founding editor of the daily Maariv, and cousin of Berlin-born troubadour Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach – has not been opened, as it is not considered suitable as a secure shelter for engineering reasons.

In the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Yerushalmis are also taking cover underground. While all the stops on Jerusalem’s single tram line are on the surface, the Navon Train Station – which is 90 metres below street level and was designed to function as a nuclear bomb shelter – is now serving its secondary purpose apart from transportation.

Home Front Command (HFC) and Ministry of Defence officials have praised the Israeli public for its resilience in quickly reaching a safe place to shelter when the siren goes off.

Israel updated its national building code in 1992 following the Gulf War the previous year, when Saddam Hussein rained Scud missiles down on Tel Aviv and Haifa from Iraq. Previously, zoning laws had required condominium apartment buildings to incorporate a basement bomb shelter, but the threat of heavier-than-air poison gas attacks made those shelters potential death traps. Thus, gas masks were distributed, and every apartment in new residential buildings is now required to have a reinforced and sealed security room, called a mamad in Hebrew. Typically, these are a bedroom protected with extra thick concrete and equipped with a steel door and heavy shutters. A wet towel placed by the door makes for a reasonably airtight seal. Some newer buildings have been designed so that the area around the elevator shaft and stairs serves as a protected miklat (shelter) for the entire floor. It’s a uniquely Israeli way of getting to know one’s neighbours.

The number of fatalities has been miraculously low in the night-and-day barrages from Iran and Lebanon since the current war started on Feb. 28. At press time, 28 people – including two soldiers – had been killed in the hundreds of missile and drone attacks targeting civilian regions in the Jewish state. More than 400 ballistic missiles had been launched. No information has been released on the number of drones fired.

Nine Israelis were killed and more than 40 injured in Beit Shemesh on March 1 when an Iranian missile hit a residential neighbourhood, destroying a synagogue and collapsing the adjoining bomb shelter. The shelter was in a pre-1991 building that had been retrofitted.

A Thai agricultural worker in central Israel and four Palestinian women in a beauty salon in the village of Beit Awwa, southwest of Hebron, were killed on March 18 by debris from an Iranian missile. Barrages employing cluster munitions have hit multiple locations – including near my home in downtown Jerusalem. More than 100 residents in Dimona and Arad were wounded in missile strikes on those two southern cities March 21; most were not in bomb shelters, according to an HFC investigation.

Train service has been interrupted at Tel Aviv’s Savidor station and in Holon, where, as well, several buses were damaged. Military censorship prohibits publishing the addresses of hits.

photo - Max prefers to stay home when the sirens sound — Max prefers to stay home when the sirens sound. *(photo by Gil Zohar)*

On March 15, Israel Railways reopened the train stations in Hod HaSharon-Sokolov, Bnei Brak, Rishon LeZion HaRishonim and Dimona, which had been shut down when the war began. Full service resumed on the lines from Herzliya to Ofakim, and Herzliya to Jerusalem. While the latter stops at Ben Gurion Airport, service at the international air hub remains greatly reduced. Some travelers are choosing to take a bus to Amman, Jordan, or Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to fly abroad. The situation remains fluid.

For my wife and me, four overseas guests at our Pesach seder have had to say “Next Year in Jerusalem” because their flights have been canceled. We live in a charming stone building in the city centre, which was built in 1886 and has neither a miklat nor a mamad. When the siren sounds, we head to the Herbert Samuel Hotel across the street. There, the synagogue two floors below ground level doubles as the reinforced space. Last Friday, as the Sabbath approached and the air raid alert rang, a guest was playing the violin, serenading those present with the strains of “Shalom Aleichem.”

And what of our dog Max? The poor mutt refuses to leave his comfort zone – our unprotected apartment. With every second meaning the potential difference between life and death, we leave him to lie on the sofa and howl at the sirens.

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.

Supporting Iranian community

Harley Kushmier and his mother, Samantha Kushmier, at the March 8 Car Rally for Iranian Voices. (photo from the Kushmiers)

Members of the Kelowna Jewish community participated in the Car Rally for Iranian Voices on March 8.

photo - Harley Kushmier at the March 1 weekly rally in Kelowna in support of those protesting the Iranian regime — Harley Kushmier at the March 1 weekly rally in Kelowna in support of those protesting the Iranian regime. *(photo from the Kushmiers)*

Every Sunday in downtown Kelowna a protest is held in support of loved ones lost in the Shir-o-Khorshid (Lion and Sun) Revolution – the ongoing anti-regime protests in Iran – and of those who remain detained in Iran, subjected to unspeakable hardship. The protests ask that Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi be recognized as transitional leader of the country.

Rally organizers thanked Israel for its support and help, and asked the local Jewish community to attend the car rally. Organizers also reached out to the local Ukrainian community to join.

Samantha Kushmier and son Harley Kushmier are part of the Okanagan Jewish community.