The May 31 Festival of Jewish Culture finale will be a concert by a trio of musicians coming in from Los Angeles: Rabbi Tori Greene, accompanied by Yonatan Dror (wind instruments) and Daniel Feldman (percussion). (photo from JCCGV)
A local artisans market, food trucks, dance performances, workshops and a concert – the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver’s Festival of Jewish Culture takes place on May 31, from noon to 4:30 p.m. The event is the culmination of the JCC’s celebration of Jewish Heritage Month.
The marketplace will include Elmwood Candles, Lana’s Jewelry Collection, Keep Turning Studio, AMLiora Designs, Rheya Taylor Designs, Sind Studio, Creative Beading, Lind 3D Wurm, Circles by Nava, Nomi’s Paletas, Braids On, and Egg Plant and Co. Planted Love and Ping BBQ food trucks will be on site.
The festival will once again feature a dance showcase in the Rothstein Theatre, starting at 12:30 p.m. There will be performances by JCC Orr Chadash and Orr Yeladim, Vancouver Talmud Torah, Richmond Jewish Day School, Kol Halev, Aviv Dancers, Dena Wosk School of Performing Arts and others.
At various points in the day, there will be workshops for which people will need to sign up to attend: Israeli dance, krav maga, hamsa-making, and how to make hummus and Israeli salad. There also will be a community street art-mural-making workshop in the arts and crafts room.
The day’s finale is a concert of global Jewish music, sounds and prayers from across the Jewish diaspora and Israel, by a trio of musicians coming in from Los Angeles: Rabbi Tori Greene, accompanied by Israelis Yonatan Dror (wind instruments) and Daniel Feldman (percussion).
“I’m so excited this year for the sense of togetherness made possible by the incredible artists we’re hosting. From professional dancers to chefs to musicians, it’s truly a gift to experience it all beyachad, together. I can’t wait to see everyone, happily full of great food and fun finds, arriving at the Wosk for our grand musical finale,” said Nomi Zysblat, coordinator of Jewish and Israeli engagement at the JCC.
The May 31 program caps off a month of activities at the JCC centring on Jewish culture and heritage.
On May 10, 10 a.m., there is Hebrew Sunday Storytime & Breakfast ($7.50/adult, $5.50/child).
The Project Heroes concert with Israeli singer and storyteller Gilad Segev – celebrating courage, resilience, Jewish pride and unity through music and personal stories – takes place May 13, 7 p.m., in the Rothstein Theatre ($18/$36/$54; $10 for VTT, RJDS, KDHS and Hillel students).
There are two author talks: Caryl Eve Dolinko on A Woman’s Guide to World Travel, hosted by Circle of Friends for Women 55+ on May 14, 2 p.m., at the centre; and Adeena Sussman on Zariz: 100 Easy, Breezy, Tel Aviv-y Recipes, hosted by Hadassah USA/Canada online on May 19, at 4 p.m. For a review of Dolinko’s book, go to jewishindependent.ca/traveling-as-a-woman.
Lilian Broca’s exhibit Lilith – in which she revisits the myth of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, exploring the struggle of an empowered, independent woman whose conflicts echo those faced by women today – opens at the Zack Gallery May 20, and runs through June 29. Broca gives a talk and slide presentation on the exhibit on May 26, at 7 p.m.
For Shavuot, there will be ice cream served in the atrium on May 21, 3-5 p.m., and candlelighting on Shabbat May 29. There will be a community Shabbat dinner (dairy) for Hebrew speakers, including a short Kabbalat Shabbat with songs and readings, on May 22, at 6:30 p.m. Another Hebrew-oriented event is the May 24, 7 p.m., sing-along with Miriam Benny.
There is a community tiyul and picnic – a family nature walk, ending with a snack picnic and games on the beach – on May 24, 10 a.m., and a piano recital at the centre on May 27, 11:30 a.m., featuring Dmitri Kristalinsky showcasing the music of Jewish composers.
Geoffrey Druker, who leads the community’s annual memorial ceremony, consoles a young speaker on Yom Hazikaron. (photo from Geoffrey Druker)
Emotions were close to the surface April 20 at Vancouver’s annual Yom Hazikaron commemoration. The Jewish community gathered at Temple Sholom to mark Israel’s day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism – an evening that bridged decades of loss with the raw immediacy of the present.
Geoffrey Druker, who has led the annual ceremony for many years, shared multiple stories spanning decades, reflecting the losses in Israel’s many wars and incessant terror attacks.
A photograph from 2005 showed four young commanders from the Golani Brigade. Within a year, two of them – Benji Hillman and Roi Klein – would be killed in the Second Lebanon War. Hillman died in battle and, six days later, Klein was killed after throwing himself on a grenade to save his soldiers.
Nearly two decades later, the tragedy continued.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the two surviving commanders in the photo – Roi Levy and Yizhack Ben Bassat – rushed from their homes to defend Israeli communities under attack. Levy was killed that day at Kibbutz Re’im. Two months later, Ben Bassat was killed during the war in Gaza.
Col. Yizhack Ben Bassat’s sister, Hamutal, is a member of the Vancouver community and lit a candle in his memory.
In the 40 days of Operation Roaring Lion, the initial war with Iran, Druker said more than 20 civilians and 13 soldiers were killed. Among the civilians killed was Ofer Moskovitz.
“He was better known in the region and throughout Israel as ‘Pushko,’” said Druker. He was a farmer in charge of the avocado orchard of Kibbutz Misgav Am, which is located right on the border with Lebanon, in Vancouver’s partnership region of the Upper Galilee.
“Veteran members of our Federation partnership committee met with him numerous times during visits to the region,” said Druker. “He was 60 years old.
“Tonight we remember them all,” Druker said, as the congregation rose for a moment of silence.
The ceremony moved between individual stories and collective grief, underscoring the scale of loss while emphasizing its personal nature.
The evening became intensely personal with the remembrance of Ben Mizrachi, the young Vancouver man killed at the Nova music festival.
“Ben did not run away to save himself when he had the chance,” his mother had said in a previous address that was recounted. “He showed tremendous courage … as he tried to save others.”
This year, the graduate of King David High School was remembered by his uncle, Mooshon Mizrachi.
Many other stories were read aloud and relatives and community members read Yizkor and lit candles, transforming the ceremony into a living bridge between Vancouver and Israel.
“These past years, Israel has been engaged in wars on five fronts,” Druker noted, referencing the sustained conflict that has affected every part of the country.
The story of brothers Amit and Yigal Vax, killed defending their community during the Oct. 7 attacks, was told as a recollection of that morning – sirens, explosions and the sudden realization that terrorists had entered their village. The account described fear giving way to terror, as residents hid in safe rooms as gunfire echoed outside.
“Amit … heard gunfire … grabbed his weapon … and was killed,” Druker recounted. His brother Yigal, armed only with a machete, was also killed trying to defend their home.
Sivan Keidar, a member of the extended Vax family, lit a candle in their memory.
Throughout the ceremony, music and ritual provided a framework for mourning. Songs such as “Ad Machar” (“Until Tomorrow”) and “Makom L’de’aga” (“A Place to Worry”) reflected the emotional landscape of grief.
Shinshinim, Israeli teenagers participating in a year-of-service program in Vancouver, spoke about the legacy they have inherited – one shaped by wars they did not experience directly, but which continue to define their lives.
Eliyahu Kaminsky of Congregation Schara Tzedeck synagogue recited the memorial prayer El Maleh Rachamim.
Left to right: Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken, Temple Sholom Senior Rabbi Dan Moskovitz and commentator and author Yossi Klein Halevi. (photo by Pat Johnson)
The special relationship between the United States and Israel is at its greatest peak, according to American-Israeli thinker and commentator Yossi Klein Halevi. The bad news is, he predicts, it’s all downhill from here.
In conversation with Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Klein Halevi warned that, whoever succeeds US President Donald Trump, it is almost inevitable that the next American leader will be less supportive of Israel.
“After Trump, the deluge,” said Klein Halevi. “There really is this sense of this moment as bittersweet. We have never been in a closer alignment with the United States than now.… This is really the culminating moment of the special relationship, that it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Were Vice-President J.D. Vance, a Republican, to become president, Klein Halevi warned, the US-Israeli relationship would almost certainly deteriorate.
“If it is just about any Democrat, it’s not going to be good,” he said. “In some cases, it would be extremely negative. So, there’s a sense that this is sort of the final play.”
Change is inevitable in Israeli politics, as well, he argued. Klein Halevi emphatically believes Netanyahu will not be reelected. The only question, he said, is whether someone else can cobble together a workable majority.
Klein Halevi is scholar-in-residence at Temple Sholom and the event April 23 was presented in cooperation with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.
Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and one of Israel’s most influential and widely read public intellectuals, exploring Israeli identity, Jewish peoplehood, faith and the moral complexities of power. His books, including Letters to My Palestinian Neighbour and Like Dreamers, have shaped critical conversations across the Jewish world, according to Karen Kollins, the institute’s director of Canada, who introduced him.
Kollins described her organization as a leading Jewish think tank and educational centre working in Israel and across North America to “help the Jewish people engage thoughtfully and courageously with the most complex moral, religious and political challenges of our time.”
Klein Halevi co-hosts, with the institute’s president, Donniel Hartman, the think tank’s award-winning weekly podcast For Heaven’s Sake, which focuses on the moral aspects of issues affecting Israel, world Jewry and Zionism.
The stresses of living in Israel, always intense, have been unprecedentedly exacerbated in recent years, said Klein Halevi in his conversation with Moskovitz.
“This has been Israel’s longest war,” he said, noting that reservists have been called up for very long tours, upending families, businesses and society at large. “I think that we’re going to start seeing the cracks in the next generation.”
Even as new olim (immigrants) are arriving from France and elsewhere, he said, more and more Israelis are questioning whether they and their children have a future in the country.
“At what point do Israelis start to say, I – we – can’t do this anymore?” Klein Halevi asked.
Disenchantment is further aggravated by widespread dissatisfaction with the government.
“We’ve never had a government in wartime that more than half the country doesn’t trust,” he said. “When you combine that with the endless pressure, there’s this sense that I think many young Israelis have of, What’s the future here right now?”
In contrast, the post-Oct. 7 societal unity, while fraying over time, remains a uniquely enveloping Israeli phenomenon.
Moskovitz asked if the war with Iran has been successful.
“I think the question is, What were the realistic expectations going into this war?” Klein Halevi replied.
He accused Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of prioritizing his own political interests ahead of those of the country, as well as raising expectations of not only eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat but deposing the Islamic regime.
“So, he was plugging this idea of total victory,” said Klein Halevi. “There’s not going to be a total victory.”
Setting back Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been successful, but regime change in Iran will come only from internal forces, he said.
From that perspective, he believes that, in the near to medium term, the Iranian regime is finished.
“When you lose the legitimacy of your people or, to put it more strongly, when you massacre tens of thousands of your own citizens, there’s no recovery from that,” he said. “You’ve decisively lost your legitimacy.”
Klein Halevi said that Israel, for decades, has fallen into Iran’s trap, engaging with Iran’s proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis – instead of confronting the source of the conflict, which is Iran.
“This war will be resolved not in Lebanon, and not in Gaza,” he said. “It will be resolved in Tehran.”
Responding to critics of Israel, Klein Halevi said he has high standards for Israeli morality, but all things have context.
“[Israel] was never an exemplar of democracy in an absolute sense,” he said, “but it was very much an exemplar of a democracy in conditions of extremity. No democracy anywhere has experienced the kind of sustained opposition – war, terrorism, siege, diplomatic boycott – that Israel has known since literally the day of its birth. The fact that we have managed to sustain an imperfect democracy is extraordinary.… And then when you bring in wave after wave of traumatized refugees who themselves come from countries with no democratic [traditions] – 90% of Israelis do not come from the West; they come from the Middle East or Eastern Europe, and yet we have managed to sustain a credible democracy. That, to me, is really the glory of Israeli democracy.
“If you strip away the context, which is what the critics of Israel do … they just leave the fact that, well, Arab Israelis don’t have full rights – and that’s true. And, for me, that’s a scandal,” he said. “But it’s also a scandal that I understand, because I can’t think of another more complicated minority/majority dynamic than having as your main minority people who are culturally and even to some extent politically aligned with the enemy you’re fighting.”
Moskovitz asked how Israeli media covers antisemitism in the diaspora and whether Israelis are conscious of the extent of the crisis.
“It is reported the way the Israeli media would cover an Israeli crisis,” said Klein Halevi. “It’s very much seen as a major Israeli story. That’s good news and bad news. It’s good news that the Israeli public really cares about the diaspora more so than in the past.”
Conversely, he said, the traditional Zionist mindset toward the diaspora tends to assume that, if Jews around the world are not making aliyah en masse, the situation they are facing worldwide can’t be that bad.
Since Oct. 7, Klein Halevi said, there has been an upsurge of spirituality and Jewish observance, as well as a resurgence of creativity in music and art. He also noted a shift within some components of the ultra-Orthodox, with “a whole new ideological stream called Israeli Haredi,” that is, ultra-Orthodox who want to be more integrated into society while maintaining the differences that matter most to them.
Amy Frankel, Temple Sholom president, welcomed the packed sanctuary and said that the program and others like it would not be possible without the generosity of the late Jack Lutsky, whose wife, Susan Mendelson, and brother, Peter Lutsky, recently established Temple Sholom’s scholar-in-residence endowment fund as a perpetual benefit to the congregation and the broader community.
Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, thanked Klein Halevi.
Left to right, at Ben-Gurion University’s Spark to Start-Up gala in Vancouver April 12: David Berson, Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, Michael Fugman, Martin Thibodeau, Caroline Desrosiers, Andrea Freedman and Adam Korbin. (photo from BGU Canada)
Israel is set to catapult into an unparalleled era of economic and creative growth, according to Saul Singer.
Singer is co-author, with Dan Senor, of the bestselling book, Startup Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, and their most recent book, the The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World.
Singer made an analogy to a workout regimen in which people run with weights attached to them.
“The idea is, if you’re running with weights and you take those weights off, it’s really easy to run,” he said. “That’s what’s going to happen with Israel.”
Singer foresees something no less than “an opportunity to re-found the country.”
The generation that has fought in Gaza and in Lebanon are going to return to civilian life and feel like weights have been lifted from their shoulders, he said. “You’re going to see tremendous growth,” Singer said. “A tremendous force of building and optimism.”
Singer was in conversation with Niels Veldhuis, president of the Fraser Institute, at a gala event April 12 for Ben-Gurion University (BGU) Canada. Spark to Start-Up: Resilience Ignites Leaders took place at Beth Israel Synagogue and honoured community leader Michael Fugman. Revenue from the event supports Yazamut 360° Entrepreneurship Centre at Ben-Gurion University (jewishindependent.ca/creating-entrepreneurs).
Like Canada, Israel is a nation of immigrants, Singer pointed out. “Immigrants are natural entrepreneurs,” he said, noting that moving from one place to another takes drive and involves risks.
In their books, Singer and Senor credit mandatory military experience with instilling entrepreneurial skills in young Israelis. Singer has three daughters in the army right now, and one was put in charge of liaising with suppliers around complex weaponries, a subject in which she had no background.
“She said, ‘How am I going to do that? I can’t do it, any of this,’” Singer recounted. “And, sure enough, a year later, she was doing it. Israelis go through this experience time and time again, and it really helps make them entrepreneurs.”
Israeli society also benefits from being a unique hybrid of individualism and collectivity, he said. Most Western societies are becoming more polarized, with citizens dealing with mental health problems, depression and other consequences, which Singer puts down to, in part, “the unbridled march of individualism.”
“What is unique about the Jews is that they’re able to balance these two things: to be individual and yet have community,” he said. “That’s kind of our superpower. I think it’s a big chunk of why we survived for 2,000 years … and I think Israel has doubled down on it.
“You understand that you’re part of something larger than yourself,” he said, something that is emphasized by national service. “Service, by definition, is not just about you.”
The evening’s emphasis on entrepreneurship was underscored by Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, president of BGU. Under his leadership, the university launched a 10-year, $1 billion US global development campaign to double BGU’s physical footprint in Beersheva and expand its research capabilities.
Chamovitz described BGU’s venture capital initiative Cactus Capital, which provides funding to undergraduate students. “What’s unique about it,” he said, “is the advisory committee, which is dealing out the money, are also undergraduate students. We take our undergraduate students … train them as analysts and then give them the venture funds for them to fund different undergraduate ventures.”
Last year, three graduates of BGU’s women entrepreneur program addressed the problem that women in religious, traditional communities, whether Muslim or Jewish, tend not to get routine mammograms. The students developed a wearable app that monitors breast density and uses an algorithm to alert a doctor to call the woman in for a mammogram. The company received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, and garnered seed funding of $26 million.
Chamovitz summarized the ethos of David Ben-Gurion and of his eponymous university: “The possible we can do. The impossible takes a little bit longer.”
Given the closure of Israeli airspace due to ongoing conflict, organizers had a backup plan if Singer could not make it to Vancouver. In the end, attendees got a double bill, with Nuseir Yassin joining the evening’s lineup.
Known online as Nas Daily, Yassin is a social media influencer with 68 million followers. He promotes peace and understanding with one-minute videos that focus on stories that highlight humanity and transcend political conflict.
Yassin was the first Arab Israeli to attend Harvard University.
“After 19 years of being alive,” he said, his arrival at Harvard was an awakening. “I made my first Jewish friend, my first Israeli friend, my first female friend, my first gay friend, my first Black friend and my first Canadian friend. And, to be clear, these are not the same person.”
Attending Harvard in the shadow of Mark Zuckerberg, entrepreneurship was in the zeitgeist, Yassin said.
After an unsatisfying time as a software engineer in New York, Yassin quit the 9-to-5 and started pumping out videos. He made a splash posting 1,000 videos in 1,000 days.
“I made a video and I put it on the internet,” he said. “It failed. Nobody saw it. I made another video, it failed. I made another 270 videos in 270 days, and they all failed until video 271 – and that became the beginning of what we know today as Nas Daily.”
In the past 10 years, Yassin has visited 100 countries, but, when he is looking for fascinating story subjects, he realizes, he keeps coming back to Israel.
“Every time I was looking for people who think different to make videos about, I found them in Israel,” he said. “A vegan steak company: Israel. A technology to make cars drive: Israel. A security startup to hack your phone: Israel. Even my Singaporean team asked me, ‘What’s in the water in Israel?’ And I told them, ‘Nothing. It’s not the water, you fool, it’s the air.’ The air in Israel is really different. If everyone around you is thinking of a startup idea, you think of a startup idea, too. If everyone is into tech, you are into tech. Humans are memetic animals. We mimic the people around us. It’s as simple as that. And, clearly, the startup culture is super-contagious.”
Yassin is now moving away from video creation and has launched a new venture. “It’s an AI business platform,” he said. “It helps anybody start a business just by taking a picture of what they want to sell. AI creates the store, it creates the marketing contents, the videos and the pictures and finds the customer.”
Entrepreneurship – and Israeli entrepreneurship in particular – is an antidote to the negativity evoked by world news, he said.
“Open your phone and it’s alldepressing,” said Yassin. “But, in these moments, I remember Canada’s greatest contribution to the world: hockey. And, in hockey, you don’t skate to where the puck is. You skate to where the puck is going. That’s what we’re doing today – we’re skating to where the puck is going. Even if today is super-depressing, the puck is going towards more peace, more collaborations, more entrepreneurship, less death, more prosperity…. So, the only option we have is to pick the damn puck up and push it forward together – and that, we can do.”
The Spark event honoured Michael Fugman, a community leader who has served on the boards of many organizations, including the United Way, Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Richmond Country Club and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. A former president of his family’s apparel business, Fugman managed more than 100 staff and oversaw $100 million in annual sales. He is now in business development with PearTree Canada, a financial firm that created a system to help people donate to charities in a tax-efficient way. PearTree and RBC Royal Bank were the event’s presenting sponsors.
Honorary co-chairs of the event, Caroline Desrosiers and husband Martin Thibodeau, who is regional president of RBC in British Columbia, presented Fugman with the BGU Canada Award for Outstanding Leadership. They were joined for the presentation by Chamovitz, BGU Canada chief executive officer Andrea Freedman, BGU Canada regional president Adam Korbin and BGU Canada regional director David Berson.
Fugman credited his family – going back to his immigrant grandparents – for instilling in him Jewish values, devotion to family and commitment to Israel. He noted his cousin Mordechai, who died, at age 17, in Israel’s War of Independence. Fugman acknowledged his family in the audience, including wife Kathi.
Simon Margolis, who has known Fugman since Grade 1 at Vancouver Talmud Torah, was emcee.
ראש ממשלת ישראל בנימין נתניהו ונשיא ארצות הברית דונלד טראמפ פתחו במלחמה נגד איראן, הנחשבת למסוכנת ביותר. לשני המנהיגים הללו לא הייתה תוכנית מסודרת לגבי המלחמה באיראן, והם כנראה לא חשבו מספיק על התוצאות ההרסניות שלה. הן מבחינת כמות הנפגעים הגדולה, הנזק לרכוש והנזק לכלכלה העולמית. ולא פחות הגרימה ללחץ נפשי גדול מאוד לאזרחי ישראל שצריכים כל העת לחפש מקלטים ומקומות להגן על עצמם, מפני הטילים מאיראן ושל החיזבאללה מלבנון – שהגיעו בכמויות עצומות. הקלישאה אומרת כי ידוע איך מלחמה מתחילה אך לא ידוע כיצד היא תסתיים. זה נכון מאוד לגבי המלחמה הנוכחית
המלחמה עם איראן משרתת בין היתר את הקברניטים שפתחו בה נתניהו טראמפ. נתניהו מחפש לבסס את עצמו כמנהיג ביטחוני ממעלה ראשונה שהרחיק את הסיכון האיראני, תוך שהוא מנצל את העליה בפופולריות שלו בישראל, לקראת הבחירות שאמורות להיערך בתוך מספר חודשים. יש שחושבים שהוא מסוגל להמשיך במלחמה עד הבחירות, או ליצור מלחמה אחרת, כדי לדחות אותן. ואילו טראמפ מבקש להשכיח מהציבור האמריקני את פרשת תיקי אפשטיין שכוללת מידע חדש גם עליו. במקביל הוא מבקש להציג את עצמו בתור הנשיא האמריקאי היחידי שביטל את הסכנה האיראנית. ובכך בעצם הוא בוגד בבוחריו הרבים שקיוו שהוא יעסוק בפתרון בעייות הפנים של ארה”ב והכלכלה בראשה, ולא בפתיחת מלחמות חדשות שעולות מיליארדי דולרים
בתקופת הנשיא ברק אובמה נחתם הסכם הגרעין בין מדינות המערב לאיראן שמנע ממנה להתקדם בפרויקט. הסכם זה כלל פיקוח הדוק על מה שאיראן עשתה בנושא הגרעין, אך טראמפ בקדנציה הראשונה שלו, שמע בעצת נתניהו וביטל את ההסכם. מרבית גורמי הביטחון בישראל טענו שזו הייתה טעות קשה לבטל את הסכם הגרעין עם איראן, אך זה לא הטריד ממש את שני מנהיגים אלה, שלאור כך, מנהלים עכשיו מלחמה קשה מול איראן. הפופולריות של נתניהו וטראמפ בעולם ממשיכה לרדת פלאים. נתניהו עדיין נחשב פופולרי יחסית בישראל, בקרב למעלה משלושים אחוז מהאוכלוסיה, אך מצבו של טראמפ בסקרים בארה”ב הולך ומחמיר. טראמפ שחושש שהמפלגה הרפובליקנית תאבד את הרוב שלה בסנאט ובקונגרס, ינסה בכל דרך לפגוע בתקינות בחירות האמצע של ארה”ב, שגם הן אמורות להיערך עד סוף השנה
כך או כך לאזרחים בארץ פשוט נמאס מהמלחמה הנוכחית כאשר כל העת עפים על המדינה עשרות טילים מאיראן ומלבנון. לא זכורה תקופה כזו בישראל מעולם. כבר כשנתיים וחצי שמתנהלת מלחמה בישראל, שהחלה לאחר הטבח של השבעה באוקטובר. מתי יהיה כבר הסוף לכך ונוכל לחזור למסגרת חיים נורמלית שואלים רבים בארץ. התקופה הקשה והבלתי נתפסת הזו גרמה לישראלים לא מעטים לעזוב את המדינה. גם האנטישמיות הגואה בעולם לא מרתיעה אותם
לפי נתוני מדינת ישראל לפני כשנתיים למעלה משמונים אלף ישראלים עזבו לחו”ל, ואילו אשתקד כשבעים אלף ישראלים עזבו לחו”ל. במקביל יש פיחות משמעותי במספר הישראלים החוזרים לגור במדינה. כצפוי הסיבות העיקריות לגידול המשמעותי בירידה הן המצב הבטחוני ולאחר מכן חוסר היציבות הפוליטית ובעיקר המהפכה המשפטית. גם לחוסר יציבות בכלכלה הישראלית יש משקל בהחלטה של הישראלים לעזוב. יצויין שחלק מהעוזבים הם עולים חדשים שהגיעו לישראל בשנים האחרונות ועזבו לאחר זמן קצר. במונחים כספיים מדובר בנזק של כמיליארד שקל בשנה לישראל
לא ברור מתי ישראל תחזור לתקופה שלפני המלחמה האחרונה והשקט יחזור על כנו. יתכן ומנהיגים חדשים בישראל ובארה”ב יעזרו בקידום היציבות באזור
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.
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.”
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.”
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.
Local Israeli cover band HaOpziot will get people dancing at this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21. (photo from JFGV)
“As we hold Israel close to our hearts, we are reminded that our connection transcends oceans,” wrote Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, in a recent enewsletter. “We have the power to bring Israel closer, to feel it and to celebrate it together right here at home through our community’s signature Yom Ha’atzmaut event.”
On Yom Ha’atzmaut, April 21, 7:30 p.m., Israeli musician and producer Ben Golan will headline our local celebration of Israel’s 78th Independence Day. (See jewishindependent.ca/story-of-israels-north.)
Golan came onto Federation’s radar when Shanken saw him perform during a 2024 visit to our community’s partnership region in Israel, the Upper Galilee. Golan is from Kiryat Shmona, where he also runs a recording studio.
In addition to his own performance, Golan will join local Israeli cover band HaOpziot for a couple of songs during their set.
HaOpziot is comprised of Goor Cohen (vocals, guitar), Kobi Gabay (vocals, guitar), Yotam Ronen (bass guitar), Avishai Weissberg (lead guitar) and Omer Yehi Shalom (drums). The group was founded by Ronen and the band’s former drummer, Maoz Kaufmann, in 2022. The pair posted a call-out on Facebook looking for musicians.
“The rest of us responded, we clicked instantly, and the Optziot were born,” said Cohen.
The band performs a few times a year, at clubs around Vancouver, as well as at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. To find out where and when they’re playing, people can follow the band on social media: Instagram, Facebook and/or YouTube.
When asked how to describe their musical sound or style, Cohen said, “In short: high-energy, loud and often fast.
“Our sound is a fusion of hard rock, punk and heavy metal, with subtle touches of Mizrahi influences, creating a style that strongly resonates with Israeli musical taste and culture,” he elaborated.
Each band member brings their different influences to the music, said Cohen, “ranging from mainstream to underground, old-school to contemporary, and classic to anarchistic. That diversity is a big part of what shapes our unique sound.”
Federation’s website page promoting the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration highlights some of the songwriters whose music HaOpziot performs, including artists like Mashina, Eifo Hayeled, Berry Sakharof and Monica Sex.
The band’s popularity in the local Israeli community is how they came to Federation’s attention, their sound suiting the vibe that Federation would like the event to have, with the night ending in a dance party.
“This will be the biggest crowd we’ve played for so far,” Cohen told the Independent, “and we’re really excited to have more members of the community come see us in action.”
Unfortunately, Gabay won’t be able to make the Yom Ha’atzmaut concert. But no worries.
“For this show,” said Cohen, “we’ve asked Noga Veiman, our unofficial band manager, to join us on stage and take part as a band member – so, together, we’ll deliver the high-energy show we’ve been planning.”
The night, of course, will begin in a more sombre fashion, with the conclusion of Yom Hazikaron, the day of remembrance for Israel’s fallen soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in war and terror attacks. In Vancouver, the community’s memorial service will take place on April 20, 7:30 p.m., both in person and online. To attend or watch, register at jewishvancouver.com/zikaron.
For tickets ($36/adult, $12/youth, $75/family pack) to the Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations on April 21, go to jewishvancouver.com/yh2026.
Hundreds of terrorists entered Kibbutz Be’eri. Of the 1,000-plus residents, 101 kibbutz members were killed, 30 people were abducted and one-third of the houses were severely damaged or destroyed. (photo by Larry Barzelai)
My wife and I frequently travel to Israel to visit our three grandchildren. Our interest in Be’eri comes from its special connection with Kibbutz Hatzerim, the birthplace of our daughter-in-law. I feel that the story of Be’eri is a paradigm for the story of the Jewish people, the story of building something magnificent, experiencing a great
destruction and rebuilding afterwards to create something even better. It also illustrates how, when people work together, they can accomplish greater things.
Through a mutual friend, I arranged to meet Yaron, a lifelong member of Kibbutz Be’eri and one who had survived the Oct. 7 massacre. He graciously took me on a tour of the kibbutz as he described the events of that day. Much of what follows are descriptions of the events in his own words. He’s given me permission to share them with you.
On the evening of Oct. 6, Yaron and other kibbutzniks were celebrating the anniversary of the founding of Kibbutz Be’eri. Sharing drinks later with some of his closest friends, they started planning a summer hiking trip in the French Alps.
At 6:30 in the morning of Oct. 7, Yaron heard unusual noises, as he slept with his wife and two young children – both under 5 years old. It sounded like shelling and bombing. When the red alert siren went off, they ran to join their kids in their home’smamad (reinforced security room), which is also the kids’ bedroom.
Initially, Yaron wasn’t too concerned, even after receiving a text that the kibbutz may have been infiltrated by enemies. “OK, I guess we’ll be cooped up in here for a couple of hours,” he thought.
“Messages in the different kibbutz WhatsApp groups start reporting about terrorists walking inside Be’eri,” he writes. “It is close to 8 a.m. Someone writes a message that she hears gunshots.”
Shortly after that, someone reports hearing “terrible screams from the apartment above her, then silence.” Another says that one of the houses in the kibbutz is burning.
Yaron tries to stay calm. The power goes off. Their dog, who is not inside the room, is unusually silent. They hear that someone is in their house.
“They get to the room and try to open the door. I fight over the handle, heart pounding,” writes Yaron. “They don’t succeed! Every time they try, I swing the door handle back to the upright, ‘Safe’ position.”
Eventually, the terrorists give up on opening the mamad. Yaron ignores the calls in Arabic and English to come out of the room. He and his family listen, as the terrorists sing, while wrecking the house. First, there is the smell of gasoline, then smoke enters the room.
A neighbour advises them, via Yaron’s phone, that they should close the gap under the door with wet clothes.
“I take the sheet from my daughter’s bed, pour the bucket of urine on it and jam it under the door,” Yaron writes. “Outside the room, the fire grows fierce, it consumes five years of our lives in minutes…. We are in a closed room, we have no electricity, the children are coughing. I realize that the fire in our home is probably so crazy that even those inhumane monsters can’t still be waiting outside the door. I let go of the handle and I take a deep breath and feel some oxygen flow to my brain. So far, it was the pressure and fear of the terrorists that was suffocating me, but now the smoke is becoming the main problem.”
Yaron’s wife continues to text with neighbours, calling emergency team members repeatedly.
“All of our children’s books are burning outside,” Yaron shares. “Amidst all the terror we hear one of our favourites, a sound book of Arik Einstein songs, catching fire. The fire makes it play, chillingly, one of the happiest songs we know: ‘It’s Saturday morning, a beautiful day….’”
Suffocating on the smoke, the family has no choice but to open a window of their second-floor apartment. Despite the fear of what awaits them outside, the smoke is too much and they climb out onto the metal awning below.
“The four of us are sitting on the metal. We can breathe but we are exposed 2.5 metres (eight feet) above the ground. OK, now what?” Yaron recalls.
They can’t reach the emergency team, so they jump to the ground and hide in a nearby shed. Yaron jumps first, his wife hands him the kids, then follows.
A house identical to Yaron’s, which has been demolished, that gives an idea of the window of the family’s safe room and the challenge of jumping to the ground from the second storey. (photo by Larry Barzelai)
“Another neighbour reaches out, ‘Come to my place.’ I call him. I ask him to risk his life, leave his mamad and open his house for us. He does this while we’re on the phone. We are hesitant to come outside, we are debating with our eyes, and can’t decide if we should stay hidden in an unsafe shed or try to reach a safer place but risk exposure. I ask him to risk his life even more, to take a look outside and verify there are no terrorists in sight. He bravely obliges and says it’s clear. We were in the shed for maybe five, maybe 10 minutes, maybe it was two years, who knows. The kids are silent…. My heart is racing, I open the shed door and we sprint to the neighbour’s house.”
The fire has consumed their own home, and their beloved dog. Temporarily safe at the neighbours’, Yaron sees that the fire might cross over to where they are hiding. “We decide we need to evacuate,” he writes. “At a distance, we spot a few IDF soldiers. A small company or a team…. They escort us to a nearby building where my brother lives. We contact him and he let us in together with two more kibbutz members who had gotten stuck in a similar situation.”
Around 11 p.m., soldiers returned to Yaron’s brother’s place. “They helped us out, they asked us to cover our children’s eyes to shield them from the horrors on the kibbutz lanes and they escorted us to the yellow gate.”
“We made it out,” he writes. “We made it out.”
Most of Yaron’s extended family survived the massacre, except for an aunt who was murdered. In total, hundreds of terrorists entered the kibbutz. Of the 1,000-plus residents, 101 kibbutz members were killed, 30 people were abducted and one-third of the houses were severely damaged or destroyed.
Another victim of the massacre was Winnipeg-born Vivian Silver, who had, prior to Oct. 7, driven patients from the Erez border crossing to hospitals in Israel. She learned Arabic so that she could better communicate with her Bedouin neighbours. She truly believed in a peaceful future between the residents of Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza. Sadly, she was killed on Oct. 7. Her remains were so badly burned that it took weeks to identify her by DNA analysis.
Eli Sharabi, another resident of Be’eri, was kidnapped and taken to Gaza. In his book Hostage, he describes 491 tortuous days in Hamas captivity. He was looking forward to reuniting with his family once he was freed. Instead, upon his release, he discovered that his wife and daughters had been killed on Oct. 7. He cried at their gravesites for two hours, before making the decision that he had to move forward.
Immediately after Oct. 7, Yaron and his family spent many months living in an apartment in the Dead Sea area. They were alive and they were safe, relatively free from missile attacks, but life was far from normal. To say nothing of the trauma they were dealing with, reestablishing a kibbutz lifestyle, while living in a crowded hotel with none of the amenities that glue kibbutzniks together, was challenging.
The family has since relocated to a temporary custom-built village adjacent to Kibbutz Hatzerim. Be’eri and Hatzerim are sister kibbutzim, both founded in 1946. Be’eriwas named for Berl Katznelson, a founding father of Labour Zionism, whose nickname was Be’eri; Hatzerim, after a verse in Deuteronomy (2:23) that mentions hatzerim (farms/enclosures) “as far as Gaza.”
Be’eri and Hatzerim are both traditional socialist kibbutzim, populated mainly by people on the left of the political spectrum. Thus, it was natural for Kibbutz Hatzerim to offer to build a temporary kibbutz adjacent to them for people from Be’eri to live until their kibbutz was rebuilt over a two-year period.
The new neighbourhood on Kibbutz Be’eri, where Yaron and his family are planning on living. The rebuilding of the kibbutz is expected to take two years. (photo by Larry Barzelai)
Most former residents of Be’eri are now living in the temporary kibbutz. Some facilities, such as medical clinics and administrative offices, are shared by the two kibbutzim. Otherwise, the temporary Be’eri has its own houses, schools and offices. Hatzerim expanded its dental clinic, seniors lounge and grocery store to accommodate the increased needs of the larger population. In typical kibbutz fashion, members of both communities met many times to jointly plan this project.
Every day, Yaron leaves his family on the temporary Kibbutz Be’eri to commute 45 minutes to the original. About 60 kibbutz members are living there now, while it’s being rebuilt, and the plan is for most members to return by the start of the school year this September. A printing factory and agriculture are the two sustaining industries on Be’eri.
Yaron’s home, along with 140 others, was destroyed on Oct. 7. Recently, members of Kibbutz Be’eri made a collective decision to tear down all the damaged buildings. They want to try and wipe away the terrible memories of Oct. 7 and build anew. As one part of the construction work, the kibbutz is building a new subdivision, where Yaron and his family are planning to live.
But Yaron isn’t sure that he wants to return. He was born on Be’eri and has lived most of his life there. However, the memory of the trauma of Oct. 7 is very strong. He’s not sure he wants to move back to this place, where so much death and destruction happened. He confided that he may want to live outside of Israel, somewhere he can anticipate a more peaceful future for his children.
Larry Barzelai is a Vancouver family physician, specializing in care of the elderly, who travels to Israel frequently to visit his three grandchildren there. He is presently co-chair of the Jewish Medical Association of British Columbia.
Israeli Minster of National Security Itamar Ben G’vir holds up a champagne bottle in the Knesset on March 30, toasting the passage of Israel’s new death penalty law. (screenshot)
On March 30, two days before erev Passover, Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated the passing of his racist, dangerous, vengeful and unjust death penalty law by raising a champagne bottle and drinking to victory. The customary toast in Jewish tradition, of course, is to exclaim “L’chaim!” (“To life!”) Partly for this reason, the name chosen for the Jewish anti-death penalty group I co-founded, which now includes thousands of members in Israel and abroad, is “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty.” Those members of the Knesset who support this law have upended the phrase meant to evoke Judaism’s core life-affirming principles.
While Ben-Gvir claims to be a pious and observant Jew, his actions once again reveal his blatant disregard for Jewish values, and an essential mockery of Jewish ritual symbolism. He might as well have screamed “Lamavet” (“To death”) for his celebratory toast. Make no mistake: the passage of this death penalty law will certainly bring death for both convicted terrorists and innocent Israelis and Jews across the world. It is an abomination that will prove disastrous for multiple reasons.
Wine at Passover
One of the most well-known facts about the Passover seder, which both Jews and many non-Jews are keenly aware of, is that it traditionally involves drinking four cups of wine or grape juice. These four cups are a mandatory rabbinic commandment, representing the four expressions of redemption God used in Exodus 6:6-7 to promise freedom to the Israelites. Consumed at specific intervals in the seder, they symbolize freedom, joy, and key stages of liberation, from slavery to becoming a nation.
Perhaps one of the most widely understood reasons for drinking wine on Passover, as on Purim and on any Jewish holiday, is its symbolism of life, joy, sanctification, and transformation used to elevate holy moments like Shabbat, holidays and weddings. It signifies “cheering the heart,” redemption (specifically the four cups at Passover) and divine blessing, while also serving as a reminder of the need for temperance and balance. By lifting a glass for death just ahead of Passover, Ben-Gvir has effectively desecrated this sacred tradition with inverted, grotesque symbolism.
Another tradition of the Passover seder highlights the extent of the sacrilege of Ben-Gvir’s celebration. It is customary for seder-goers to remove 10 drops of wine, one for each of the plagues they chant, symbolizing how the suffering that each affliction produced for our people’s enemies diminishes our joy. This list culminates in the 10th plague of the death of the firstborn of Egypt at the hands of Malakh Hamavet, the Angel of Death. Instead of honouring this Passover ritual, Ben-Gvir profaned it by using wine to glorify killing.
The 10 Plagues
It is most fitting, with Passover only recently having ended, for L’chaim to use the 10 Plagues – with which God cursed the Egyptians in response to Pharaoh’s “hardened heart” – as symbols of the many reasons to oppose the death penalty. We align these biblical maladies with 10 damning strikes against the death penalty to highlight that capital punishment itself is a plague on any society that enacts it. Capital punishment condemns any government that wields it, including Israel now, infinitely more so than any of the individuals it condemns to death.
Dam (Blood): Israel’s death penalty law could increase terrorism, making it more enticing to would-be martyrs (shahids).
Tzifatdeiya (Frogs): It will undoubtedly endanger Jews worldwide.
Kinim (Lice): From Adolf Hitler to Donald Trump, Machiavellian politicians wield the death penalty as a political tool, particularly for election campaigns, and that is the case with this law. Consider the recent examples in Israel of Ben-Gvir’s noose-shaped lapel pin and his video promoting the death penalty law, illicitly filmed at a gallows museum in Jerusalem, as well as Limor Son Har-Melech’s Nazi-inspired Purim costume featuring an injection syringe.
Arov (Wild Animals): Jewish tradition makes the death penalty virtually impossible to carry out. Passage of this law has betrayed the life-affirming core of that tradition.
Dever (Pestilence): Terms like “deterrence,” which is a fallacious delusion when applied to the death penalty, and “retributive” or “proportional” justice, are veils for vengeance. Unequivocally, revenge does not bring closure for murder victims’ loved ones.
Sh’chin (Boils): The death penalty is racist, and this law in particular is viciously discriminatory.
Barad (Hail): The death penalty inherently violates the human right to life. Relatedly, it often results in physical torture, and always is psychological torture, for individuals counting down to their execution day. There is no humane way to execute human beings against their will.
Arbeh (Locusts): Many execution methods are direct Nazi legacies, including firing squad, gassing and lethal injection.
Choshech (Darkness): Capital punishment will traumatize the executioners within the Israel Prison Service. This law also risks placing anyone involved in contravention of human rights treaties.
Makat Bechorot (Death of the Firstborn):The death penalty inevitably risks executing the innocent.
Onward toward repeal
On March 30, the same day that the Knesset passed this barbaric law, a vast coalition of Jewish organizations across Israel and the world immediately petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to repeal it. The next day, the Supreme Court ordered that the state must respond to the petition and the request for an interim injunction by May 24. The members of L’chaim, together with Jews of good conscience and all of civilized humanity, will continue to do all we can to support this vital, sacred effort.
None other than death penalty abolitionist Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) aptly referred to capital punishment as the “Angel of Death.” It is high time to banish this medieval plague from Israel once and for all. The final uplifting song of the Passover seder is “L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim” (“Next year in Jerusalem”). It is our consummate hope and intention that next Passover, Jerusalem will see the repeal of this monstrous legislation.
Cantor Michael Zoosmanis a certified spiritual care practitioner and received his cantorial ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He sits as an advisory committee member at Death Penalty Action and is co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. Zoosman is a former Jewish prison chaplain and psychiatric hospital chaplain. He lives with his family in Vancouver.
A few days ago, our beloved, big, senior dog had a limp. We went to the vet, on short notice. Our regular vet was away. It was icy and snowy. I got the dog into my 23-year-old car, backed it out of the 123-year-old garage. We made it there on time. The dog got help for what is maybe arthritis or an injury, perhaps from the ice. Driving home, I wondered if I should run an errand but decided, nope, it was windy and raw. The dog should be warm and cozy at home again.
I parked the car in the driveway, got the dog inside and then returned to put my car into our narrow garage. I heaved open the left garage door, planting it into the ice. I hoped the prairie winds wouldn’t slam it shut again. When I got back into the car, it was completely dead. Wouldn’t start.
Then I realized that the heavy garage door had come off its bottom hinge. Huge screws were hanging halfway out. I closed it as best I could and locked it. Inside again, I nearly keeled over because I’d missed eating lunch.
When I warmed up, ate, triaged my work and called the Canadian Automobile Association, I anticipated the worst. The day hadn’t gone as planned.
Yet, CAA help arrived quickly. Miraculously, the fix was simple. A terminal needed to be replaced on my battery. At that moment, the raw day tempered by a cup of hot tea and a moment to think, I was seized with gratitude. What if my car had died on a busy street, with the dog inside? What if we’d been stuck at the vet? What if I’d stopped to run an errand and then been stuck with a car that wouldn’t start and a dog hurting too much to walk home?
Back inside, I looked again at a garage door photo I’d taken. It could have been even worse. What if I hadn’t noticed the screws hanging off the hinge? What if I’d shoved the heavy door and it crushed me underneath it instead? The possibilities were far worse once I’d thought about what happened. This has a happy ending. My husband will repair the hinge when that ice melts. My car now starts. My dog is on medicine and will hopefully be better soon. Gratitude felt like the only answer here.
This was midweek, and we stayed close to home through the weekend. Though we live near downtown Winnipeg, where the national NDP convention took place, we steered clear. At synagogue, one kid played baritone sax for the family service on Shabbat, as little kids danced along in their seats. My other kid greeted families in the lobby as they arrived. Before the wiggly kids got there, we spent a few moments at the main service and did the Birchot Hashachar, the morning blessings, where we thank G-d repeatedly for the good things, the everyday basics, happening in our lives.
On Sunday, our teens spent time on science fair preparation and on helping deliver Passover hampers for those in need, and we adults worked on the household. My husband cleaned steadily but managed to burn something in the microwave, break a pencil sharpener and a cereal bowl. I began to worry again about this weird bad luck, when I thought of the Birchot Hashachar. I remembered what to do. Being resilient meant pausing and finding gratitude instead.
Emergency services had to be called to the high school earlier this week for a student, but, this weekend, my kids are safe, healthy and doing productive things. Though I walked past slogans calling for radical protests at the NDP convention and a woman attendee wearing a keffiyeh at the café right near home, we’re safe, for now.
This year’s celebration of Israel’s birthday feels emotionally like a larger, more difficult version of our small misadventures. War is no joke. Israel is really going through it right now. Via social media, I see these extended family members in my tribe, my community, running for bomb shelters and fighting. Yet, I’m so impressed by the way Israelis strive for beauty and everyday normalcy – trips to the park, surfing and making music – with so much violent disruption. It’s been scary to watch, and I’m not there. That said, maybe the lesson in this birthday is seeing how, after these horrible, life-shattering events, it’s possible to practice that mind shift. The gratitude one, where strangers care for one another in bomb shelters, sharing food, music and space while struggling with what could have happened.
It’s unsettling to be Jewish near a Canadian political convention peddling antisemitic tropes. I’m reeling from seeing a premier who lives near me, who is also a parent I’ve spoken to on the playground, say deeply unsettling words on the NDP stage. Even if Wab Kinew’s “Epstein class” comment wasn’t intended to be antisemitic, his words, about this “dumb war” horrified me.
Jewish tradition teaches that all lives are valuable. Premier Kinew said North American lives shouldn’t be lost – to stop a repressive regime that has already killed thousands of its citizens. Our lives are no more valuable than theirs. Iranians deserve help, as do all the people harmed by the horrible regime and its terror proxies.
In precarious times, it’s helpful to seek the good. To remember that heavy garage door, still dangling off its hinge, the car that died, thankfully, in the driveway and was fixed, and the veterinary help that came when needed. Being grateful and practising joy, even when it’s a strain, is complicated. I want to be happy on Israel’s birthday, but it’s a complicated emotion, too. It requires practising gratitude and celebration even when times are tough, but that’s what we’re “commanded” to do sometimes.
This year, I wish for peace and everything good for everyone in Israel and its neighbours, as well as in other places where conflict reigns. Thank goodness Israel exists, as a place of refuge for all Jews, but it’s OK to wish for safer times at home in the diaspora, too. May the year ahead be an easier one, without war or complication; one in which we can all embrace less fear and more simple joy.
Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.
