Judaism – Page 13

Identifying the victims

On Oct. 31, among the ruins of Kibbutz Be’eri, Israel Defence Forces personnel brief a delegation of Conservative rabbis and lay leaders from the United States, Canada and Britain, which was on a three-day solidarity mission organized by the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Centre. (photo by Boaz Pearlstein)

WARNING: Extremely graphic reporting.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border assault on multiple army bases, kibbutzim, cities and a music festival in the Gaza Strip periphery, staff at the Israel Defence Forces’ Shura base have been working around the clock to identify the remains of the 1,100 civilians and 315 IDF soldiers, reservists and police officers massacred by jihadi terrorists. With so many bodies, the victims were initially kept in refrigerated milk trucks in the morgue’s parking lot. Plain wooden coffins are stacked in the corridors, waiting for a positive identification so the remains may be released to their families for burial at a military or civilian cemetery. Only then can Judaism’s seven-day period of mourning begin.

A month on, the sickly smell of death lingers. Pathologists at this normally quiet IDF logistics centre and home base of the military rabbinate corps – located on the outskirts of Ramla, a mixed Jewish-Arab city not far from Ben-Gurion Airport – continue their painstaking, harrowing but holy forensic mission.

Dismembered limbs and badly decomposed bodies continue to be delivered. The human remains are sniffed out under the rubble of destroyed buildings by IDF canine units, staff told a 33-person Oct. 31 delegation of Conservative rabbis and lay leaders from the United States, Canada and Britain.

Initially, it is often impossible to determine if the remains are those of victims or perpetrators, Col. Rabbi Haim Weisberg, head of the IDF’s rabbinic division, told the religious leaders. Many are mutilated with limbs and heads dismembered, making the ghoulish jigsaw puzzle even more complex.

“We are in an abnormal situation and that is why it is taking so much time to identify the bodies. In most cases, we have had to identify people via deep tissue DNA or dental records because there is nothing left,” he explained.

The complex identification process has been compounded because so many of the victims were not Israeli residents.

Pathologists can take several hours to assess a body, photograph it and document the fatal wounds. Out of respect for the dead and their families, the IDF is not releasing those photos.

Weisberg spoke not only about whole bodies but also about charred and incomplete remains, including what in one case turned out to be a corpse so severely burned that only a CT scan revealed it was a mother and baby bound together in a final embrace.

The grisly job is complicated by uncertainty over the tally of victims. According to constantly updated data from the IDF, more than 1,400 Israelis and foreigners were murdered. Some 238 people are believed to be held hostage by Hamas inside the Gaza Strip and the fate of dozens of others is unknown. Some may be held inside Gaza by other terrorist groups, like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or even by individuals. Others may still be among the dead, yet to be identified by the staff at Shura.

When drafted, all IDF recruits provide samples of their DNA and fingerprints, and have their teeth X-rayed. The army does not rely exclusively on identification made through a soldier’s twin dog tags kept in their combat boots and worn on a chain around the neck.

According to halachah (Jewish law), fallen soldiers are buried in a coffin in their blood-soaked uniform. They are not ritually washed in the tahara ceremony – the Jewish tradition of purification of the dead – nor are they wrapped in shrouds. The intention is that God should be angered by witnessing the fallen defenders among his Chosen People. Personal effects like a cellphone, watch or wallet are washed of blood and then returned to the family of the deceased. Artifacts that cannot be cleansed of blood are buried with the deceased.

By contrast, civilian dead are ritually washed and wrapped in shrouds. Generally, in Israel, they are interred directly in the ground without a coffin.

While dental records can allow straightforward identification of dead soldiers, that information is often unavailable for civilians. Many dental offices in the city of Sderot near Gaza were destroyed, and with them their files.

Ritual washing is tasked to male and female reservists who have volunteered for the mitzvah (commandment) of chesed shel emet (true kindness).

Women soldiers perform tahara for the hundreds of girls and women who were murdered. The team is working in shifts around the clock. Among them is Shari, an architect living in Jerusalem whose surname may not be released under IDF security regulations. She volunteered for the unit when it was established more than a decade ago to ensure that the modesty of female recruits killed in action was protected.

“We saw evidence of rape … and this was also among grandmothers down to small children,” she stated.

Shari said she and the other volunteers received specialized training from the IDF, which prepared them practically and mentally to care for the bodies of the dead. Until Oct. 7, she had not been called for active duty.

“I’ve seen things with my own eyes that no one should ever see,” she said, describing how she took care of the dead women. Many were still dressed in their pajamas. Their bodies had been booby-trapped with grenades, and the remains bore evidence of extreme brutality.

Shari’s duties begin with opening the body bags to remove the dead person’s clothes, jewelry and any other personal possessions in order to return them to the families.

“The only colour among the blood and dirt was their nails, beautiful manicures, painted the brightest colours,” Shari said, adding, “Their nails made me weep.”

“We gathered this group of 33 Jewish communal leaders from across North America to witness the horrors our brothers and sisters have suffered,” said Dr. Stephen Daniel Arnoff, chief executive officer of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Centre – a home for Conservative and Masorti Judaism in Israel, which organized the three-day solidarity mission. Located in Jerusalem, the centre offers opportunities to study, pray and explore within an egalitarian and inclusive setting, creating multiple pathways for finding personal and communal meaning.

The solidarity group included the first civilians to tour the devastated remains of Kibbutz Be’eri, where terrorists went house to house slaughtering the inhabitants. Wearing flak vests and helmets, the clergy and communal leaders recited the El Male Rachamim and Kaddish prayers for the dead as soldiers continued their search for human remains.

“We literally saw the blood of our people crying out to us from the ground,” said Arnoff.

“It is our moral obligation to make sure that the world knows what happened there.”

Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.

A mission to encourage

Aren X. Tulchinsky is Vancouver Public Library’s new writer in residence. (photo by Jeff Vinnick / VPL)

As this year’s writer in residence at the Vancouver Public Library (VPL), Aren X. Tulchinsky proudly represents his two cherished identities as a transgender man and as a Jewish person.

“I bring all of my lived experience into the residency,” said Tulchinsky in a Jewish Independent interview. “I am out and proud as a member of the Jewish community and the LGBTQ2S+ community, and I bring my identities with me into the residency. I guess you could say this is a very Jewish and queer residency. The library has been very supportive of me.”

Tulchinsky wears his heart on his sleeve or, at least his right bicep, which is ringed with a tattooed chai in Hebrew letters. “We celebrated the launch of my residency with an evening of words and music, during which I read from new and previous work, and was accompanied by local klezmer musicians,” he noted.

The 65-year-old Toronto native is probably best known for the award-winning 2003 novel The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, under his former name, Karen X. Tulchinsky, which evokes the 1933 antisemitic riot at Toronto’s Christie Pits park. He has had a varied career in film and television writing, editing and directing, and penning short and long fiction, including lesbian romance, notably the novel Love Ruins Everything.

Tulchinsky came out as lesbian as a teenager, and has been writing stories since.

Tulchinsky was named in September to the VPL post, which was launched in 2005 to promote Canadian literature. Among past resident writers are Miriam Libicki (jewishindependent.ca/drawing-on-identity-judaism), Sam Wiebe, Rawi Hage and Gary Geddes. Last year’s appointee was Black Canadian writer Harrison Mooney, author of the critically applauded Invisible Boy: A Memoir of Self-Discovery.

Tulchinsky, who lives in Vancouver, responded to the VPL’s call for applications and was shortlisted. “Then I was called in for an interview with about 10 people from the programs and learning department at the VPL central branch,” he said.

“It was a bit intimidating to be interviewed by a whole group of people, but I must have impressed them because, a few days later, the manager of the department phoned to let me know that they had chosen me for the position.”

Asked if he thought his being transgender was a factor in his selection, Tulchinsky replied: “Not really. The only way my identity as a transman was significant is that in the posting the VPL was encouraging writers from under-represented groups to apply.

“Judging from most of their past writers-in-residence, I assumed they would give the position to a more mainstream writer, so I have never applied in the past. Their encouragement for writers from diverse backgrounds … is what motivated me to apply.”

One of his chief responsibilities is acting as a mentor to emerging writers, in particular, those from marginal communities.

“It is my mission to encourage writers from marginalized communities, specifically, BIPOC, Indigenous and LGBQ2S+ writers, to attend my (free public) workshops and apply for a spot on my one-on-one consultation afternoons,” Tulchinsky explained. “I think Jews, People of Colour and queer and trans writers all have a lot to teach the mainstream world about our lived experiences. I want writers from under-represented communities to feel comfortable to come forward and let their voices be heard.

“Traditionally, Canadian literature has been dominated by white, straight, cis-gendered men (and a few women). We have a lot to catch up on. We all gain from a more diverse society and more diverse voices in Canadian literature.”

The residency will also allow Tulchinsky time for his own writing, principally, the first draft of a novel entitled Second Son, a family saga that draws on events in his own past.

The main character, Charly (formerly Charlotte) Epstein-Sakamoto, is a biracial, transgender man coming to terms with PTSD resulting from a tragedy that devastated his family decades earlier.

“The heart of the novel is based on my own journey transitioning from female to male, a child’s death in my family, and my experiences in a long-term, interracial, cross-cultural (Jewish-Japanese) relationship,” said Tulchinsky.

“Charly knows he’s a boy, even though his parents, his doctor, his teachers and all the other kids at school insist he’s a girl. When Charly’s brother (the first son and his only sibling) Joshua is killed in a tragic bike accident, his dad is so devastated he sinks into a deep depression, his mother begins an affair with her sister-in-law, and Charly finally begins to assert his true gender identity.”

Tulchinsky is also developing another novel, based on family stories and beginning in Russia in 1941.

“As I was writing the novel and researching the Holocaust, I started thinking about how many Canadians think the Holocaust began in 1939, with World War II, but the reality is the oppression of Jews by Hitler and the Nazis began years before the war, within days of Hitler becoming chancellor of Germany in January of 1933.

“I began writing another novel that begins in 1932, when Germany – Berlin in particular – was one of the most progressive places in the world. In Berlin at that time there were numerous gay clubs and cabarets, safe places for gay men, lesbians and trans people to gather, and the Jewish community was also thriving.

“That all changed overnight once Hitler came to power. I ended up with two new historical novels that I am still working on.”

Tulchinsky’s CV is lengthy, and one wonders how he has been able to be so productive.

“To be honest, part of my diverse career has to do with the fact that I found it impossible to survive as a novelist, even though I had numerous books published,” he said. “I am a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, which provides advanced training in film and television. Since then, I have worked as a writer and video editor on numerous television series. I have found it more possible to make a living in film and TV than I could as a novelist. The downside is I rarely have time to work on novels. This residency at the VPL is affording me time to write, which is a real gift.”

His advice to aspiring writers is be disciplined and tenacious.

“You need discipline to sit in a chair and write or you will never finish a novel. And you need tenacity to get your work published. Most writers get a lot of rejections before they find a publisher. Every time you get a rejection, just send your work out again,” he said.

Being Jewish and queer, Tulchinsky looks with growing dismay at what is happening today.

Twenty years ago, The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky reminded Canadians of a shameful history. It remains among the top 10 Canadian books ever borrowed from the VPL.

The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky follows a Jewish family living in Toronto’s Kensington Market in the 1930s and ’40s and is set against the backdrop of a massive antisemitic riot.

“On Aug. 16, 1933, at an amateur league softball game in Christie Pits park – a neighbourhood filled at the time with Jewish and Italian immigrant families – members of the antisemitic Swastika Club showed up with a giant swastika flag, which set off a riot between Jews and gentiles that involved 15,000 people and lasted throughout the night and is the largest race riot in Canadian history,” Tulchinsky said. “Unfortunately, with antisemitism, racism, transphobia and homophobia back on the rise throughout the world, the themes in the novel are just as relevant today as they were when I originally wrote the book.”

Tulchinsky thinks the current polarizing, often acrimonious, debate over sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues is “an effort on the part of the political right-wing to inflate the importance of cultural wars to distract people from the real issues we should be focusing on, such as climate change, wealth inequality and homelessness.

“I once saw a bumper sticker that read: ‘If you’re against abortion – don’t have one.’ I think it is the same when it comes to SOGI. If you are heterosexual and cis-gendered, you can either be an ally to the LGBTQ2S+ community and actively support us and fight for our rights, or you can leave us in peace.

“As an out and proud transman, I am just living my authentic life. And I hope I can serve as a positive role model to trans and non-binary kids who are struggling with their identity.”

Janice Arnold is a freelance writer living in Summerland, BC.

Navigating the rough times

There are no words. I’m doom-scrolling, praying and worrying, reaching out to family and friends, but nothing prepares us for seeing more than a thousand Israelis murdered and hundreds kidnapped. The images are so graphic, so many bodies desecrated. On my social media feed, the images haven’t stopped coming.

Yet, in the first days of the war, there was a silence. I realized that others weren’t seeing what I was seeing in my Instagram feed. The North American media felt sanitized, distant from the reality that was depicted on Israeli TV and media. The first day or two back at school after the Simchat Torah/Thanksgiving weekend, my kids were stunned when others asked them why they were sombre. Until this year, they attended a Hebrew/English bilingual public elementary school. With their transition to junior high, they didn’t have nearly the same number of classmates who understood the situation.

At their International Baccalaureate middle school, there are curriculum additions, such as a special lunchtime club that meets to make a difference in the world. The resource teacher advises the club. She was sensitive to the needs of the kids affected by the war in Israel and Gaza, and mine came home with fundraising brainstorms. I wrote to thank the teacher for showing support during this hard time.

Then, she asked – do you have ideas for what else we can do? It took me awhile to make a list. I thought about what mattered most for me, far from the war but also very affected by it. The hardest parts of the list are long-term things that teachers should do: teach about misinformation, and definitions of things like terrorism, “rules of engagement” and more. The easiest parts, perhaps the most meaningful ones? Conducting a kindness campaign. Asking how others are doing and listening to their responses. Active listening would help everyone, Israelis, Canadians who are Jewish or Palestinian, and concerned bystanders. So many innocent lives have been lost. We need to talk about it.

I suggested to the teacher that another way of reaching out positively would be to do cards of support. The next day, my son joined other kids from the middle school who walked to the bilingual elementary school to deliver the cards. It was on Friday, Oct. 13, the day that Hamas suggested be a global day of harm for Jews. On a positive note, my son got to share his elementary school and his Hebrew skills by translating for a non-Jewish friend. He was proud. On the other hand, most of the kids in the bilingual program were absent due to the threat. Those who did come to school, from grades 1 through 6, filled just one classroom, according to my kid. He visited with beloved grade school teachers and ate challah at the Shabbat party – but the threat was real.

Outside the school, my kid saw both an unmarked police car and a marked cruiser. My heart flooded with gratitude when I heard this, but the school is in a huge field, accessible from multiple directions. One police car? Two? I felt the fear all over again. How many police would be “safe enough”?

Meanwhile, I heard that Jewish homes in one Winnipeg neighbourhood were egged, and the police were called. A potentially violent rally in support of Palestine, using words like “genocide,” was scheduled within easy walking distance of my home.

Even though we’re far from the fighting, it’s hard to gain traction on work while feeling so emotionally undone. Massive numbers of Palestinians were asked to move and large swaths of Israelis evacuated from both the north and south regions of the country, while so many have been called up to reserve army service. For those Canadians who have lost a family member, the pain is constant. For those who have kidnapped loved ones, like Vivian Silver’s family in Winnipeg and Israel, the families work to publicize their losses and wait in dread to hear what has happened.

Twice, I felt able to rise above this emotional turmoil and felt joy. Both times, it was because of a bar mitzvah.

The first instance that stunned me took place last week, when the cantor who tutors my twins asked them to chant together for their lesson. Their lesson was short, as there was an Israel solidarity rally that she was leaving to attend. I lurked in the next room. Usually, my kids jostle for position but, during that lesson, their voices rang out together, making the rote practice of Torah and Haftorah blessings become so powerful. “Wow,” I heard the cantor say, continuing with something like, “I’m glad I didn’t cancel your lesson. Thank you for gifting me with those brachot.” An almost holy silence hung in the air afterwards.

A few days later, we attended a Chabad bar mitzvah for a kid my twins knew in preschool. Even behind a mechitzah (the barrier between the mens’ and women’s sections), the bar mitzvah boy’s voice rang out sure and strong as he absolutely shone. It was something to see: his big personality, confidence and knowledge. I was achingly proud of our Judaism, in all its diversity and strength.

Writing to deadline, I imagine what might be relevant in a few days, but the things that have helped me will still help later. I am following my own advice. Each day, I am taking time to write emails or texts to friends and reach out. How are they? Are their families safe? Do they need anything? I try to take time to pause, hear what everyone says, and listen for the moments of Jewish joy that we can create – in synagogue or at our homes, when we’re alone or together.

Many ask, “How are you doing?” I pause and say, “Well, it’s been a rough time.” I’m also trying to maintain hope for the future. One hears it – through the generational continuity of every child becoming b’nai mitzvah, through Hatikvah and one other phrase – Am Yisrael chai, the Jewish people lives. It will be my prayer as we get through the days ahead. Amen.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba 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.

Finding awe & wonder again

As a kid, I remember sitting through High Holidays with my family at our Reform congregation. We’d hit a section in the services where the English responsive reading, inspired by the Hebrew, used words like “awe,” “awesome” and “supreme.” There were smirks and stifled giggles as we passed this yearly reading. Why? Our family had discussed it at a holiday meal, and we agreed this sounded like a really big pizza special. It was hard to concentrate after that, thinking about pizza.

This moment hit me again when I heard Rabbi Jeffrey Saxe, one of the rabbis at Temple Rodef Shalom in Virginia, give a Kol Nidre sermon about awe, gratitude and wonder. It was powerful. Before I get into the details, we chose to stream services again this year from home in Winnipeg. In part, it’s so we can be a part of two worlds – my parents’ congregation in Virginia, where I grew up, and our Winnipeg synagogue, too. After the holiday, I can discuss sermons with my mom as if I had been sitting beside her during services and this is meaningful. For many people who are apart from their families during holidays, using shared moments to bond is important.

Even though I knew our choice to stay home made sense, I felt pressured to “get back to normal” and “be together again,” especially when a synagogue publication suggested that those who chose to stream did so for “mobility reasons.” (Not all those who choose to stay home have the same challenges. There are multiple reasons to stay home.)

Back to Rabbi Saxe’s sermon, which touched on the ways that the rabbis created liturgy that helps us remain grateful, and even encourages experiences of awe and wonder. If you see a rainbow, there’s a prayer for that. There are specific prayer formulas for eating fruits, snacks, and there’s even, Rabbi Saxe mentioned, a prayer for after you’ve gone to the bathroom. At this, some in the congregation laughed.

I felt shame. Not only is the bathroom prayer something I’ve written about and, yes, recited, but it’s also something I might have laughed at as a kid. Without going into details, thanking G-d for the intricacies of how our bodies work, opening and closing appropriately at the right times, can be absolutely meaningful. If you doubt this, maybe you have been very lucky and never had food poisoning or a stomach virus. Yes, we smirk and laugh when we feel uncomfortable, sure. Also, it’s when we take things like being healthy for granted.

I also felt weird guilt about not being in a congregational community over the holidays, even though we had a holiday meal with another family, dressed up, streamed services and took time off together. I felt strange checking messages over Yom Kippur. Then something happened.

Within a short period of time, two of our close family friends ended up in the hospital. One is in his 80s, in ICU, with COVID. The other friend is 5 years old, and she has a sister who is a newborn.

During Yom Kippur, the 5-year-old was admitted to Children’s Hospital after being up all night in the emergency room.

In the middle of Yom Kippur services, I got up, went to the kitchen and gathered together food for the parents for this unexpected stay. This is why we make the second round challah, I thought, as I threw it in the bag. I left my family, hopped in the car while fasting, and navigated the hospital until I found the room with one dear-to-us child with her oxygen mask, her exhausted-looking parents and their infant. I handed them the food, it wasn’t time for a visit, and rushed out again.

Somewhere on the drive home, I processed what had happened. I felt a profound sense of awe. I had been in exactly the right place. If I’d gone to services in person, I wouldn’t have been online or known that our friends’ child had been admitted to the hospital. I wouldn’t have been able to rush out and offer food, a quick bikkur holim (visiting the sick), and support her family. Leaving the twilight of their windowless hospital room, I was blinded by sunlight as I left the garage. I parked in front of our house and took a moment to cry.

Our liturgy traditionally links daily gratitude with prayer. This is an automatic check-in with nature, our bodies and the world to see and wonder at what’s around us. However, we’re all too likely to get sarcastic, cynical and, frankly, depressed. Mental health experts recommend expressing gratitude and getting into nature to improve our health, but the rabbis, like other faith traditions, prescribed it a long time ago.

It’s easy to ignore the natural world or our bodily functions. I’ve become increasingly aware of the sensory overload in our society. Some people easily manage very stimulating environments, like a dance club or even a household with the TV and radio on, a dog barking and a phone ringing, all at once. Others cannot manage this much. Sometimes, it’s diagnosed as a sensory processing disorder, but this can mean different things. There’s a person who cannot manage too much input, and the person who needs fidget toys and constant stimulation to maintain equilibrium. Nature or the trendier “forest bathing” can sometimes help us find balance.

As I head into autumn, I’m seeking fewer big events or gatherings. Here’s to quiet moments of awe. One of my kids is a new band student. His enthusiasm about his instrument is contagious. I cannot wait to play sax duets and “honk” together. The other kid has been spotting woodpeckers on our dog walks and pointing out migrating birds as the weather turns.

Rabbi Saxe closed his sermon with Genesis 28:16, when Jacob wakes up and says, “Surely, G-d is in this place and I did not know it!” Perhaps, like Jacob, we can all wake up and discover the joys of small wonders, too. We just have to slow down, open up and look for them.

VIFF films explore humanity

Filmmaker Sam Green will narrate live his documentary 32 Sounds, which is part of the Vancouver International Film Festival. (photo by Catalina Kulczar)

“There’s a thing in documentary filmmaking where, after you’ve done an interview with someone, you need to get what’s called room tone,” shares director, writer and editor Sam Green in his film 32 Sounds. “Room tone,” he explains, “is basically just sitting still for about 30 seconds or so and recording the sound of the room; this can help out a lot with editing later. I’ve been making films, which is kind of just marveling at people in the world, for 25 years now, and there’s always something odd and wonderful about this moment. An interview takes a person to other times and places and, now, they’re just here in the present, sitting with the sound of the room.”

Watching some of his interviewees, as they struggle or embrace sitting in silence for a few seconds, is one of the many highlights of Green’s latest documentary, 32 Sounds, which screens Oct. 5, 7 p.m., at the Vancouver Playhouse, as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival’s specialty program VIFF Live. New York-based Green will be in town to narrate the screening in-person, and audience members will be given headphones to wear, to help make the experience as immersive as possible.

The film premièred in January 2022 at the Sundance Film Festival. It exists in three forms: one as described above, but sometimes also with live music by composer JD Samson, who wrote original music for the film; another designed for an immersive at-home experience; and a theatre version without the in-person performance aspect. Watching the film at home without headphones was not ideal, but it was still enjoyable and mind-opening. There are parts where it would have added understanding and had greater impact to have heard something in only the left ear or only the right one.

32 Sounds is not just auditorily stunning but a visual pleasure, and intellectually stimulating, as well. Though there are explanations of how humans hear and how sound affects our bodies, the documentary is more philosophical than scientific. It presents concepts like the idea that all the sounds that have been made in the world should still be out there somewhere, “tiny ripples vibrating,” as contemplated by mathematician Charles Babbage, who is credited with having invented the computer, in the 1800s. If we had the right device, mused Babbage, we should be able to listen again to every joke, declaration of love or angry word ever uttered, narrates Green. “The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered,” wrote Babbage in 1837.

In 2022, Green wrote: “I’ve made many documentary films over the years, and each one has changed me in some way, but none as much as the film I just recently finished called 32 Sounds. The film weaves together 32 different recordings as well as images, music by JD Samson, and voice-over to create a meditation on sound. Or, put a different way, the film uses sound to consider some of the basic features of our experience of being alive: time and time passing, loss, memory, connection with others, and the ephemeral beauty of the present moment.”

From the sound of a womb, to a cat purring, to fog horns, to a man who captures the sound of bombs landing nearby as he’s recording his music, Green masterfully takes viewers (listeners) on an emotional journey. We get to see how movie sound magic is made by foley artists like Joanna Fang. We meet sound and visual artist Christine Sun Kim, who talks about the deaf community, as well as hearing people’s perceptions of her work. Edgar Choueriri, professor of physics at Princeton, plays part of a tape he made for his future self when he was 11 years old. And we get to know a bit about composer and academic Annea Lockwood, 81 at the time of filming, who had been recording things like the sound of rivers for more than 50 years. Lockwood fundamentally changed how Green thinks about sound, especially a point she makes in the film: “There’s something I started writing about a year ago: listening with, as opposed to listening to,” she shares. “And it’s my sense that, if I’m standing here, I’m just one of many organisms that are listening with one another within this environment … we’re within it and we’re all listening together, as it were.”

32 Sounds has much to recommend it, including the chance to get up and dance, if you choose, when Green pumps up the volume on Sampson’s music, so you can “feel the sounds in your whole body.”

Accepting oneself

image - William Bartolo as Daniel, left, and Daniel Gabriel as his secret lover, Isaac, in a still from Cut, which is part of VIFF’s International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy program — William Bartolo as Daniel, left, and Daniel Gabriel as his secret lover, Isaac, in a still from Cut, which is part of VIFF’s International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy program. *(image from VIFF)*

Sound that you can feel in your whole body plays an important part in the short film Cut by Samuel Lucas Allen. In what may – or may not – be semi-autobiographical, Cut tells the story of Daniel, a high school student who tries to hide his Jewishness and his queerness. At key moments, the original score created by Sam Weiss thrums with tension, underscoring Daniel’s inner conflict.

Despite being somewhat heavy-handed – there is nothing subtle in this film, perhaps because it is only 19 minutes long – Cut is interesting, well-acted and put together. It opens with a Chassidic man holding a rooster, then shows Daniel cutting his hair, which falls onto a copy of Merchant of Venice, from which the teen will eventually have to perform, by memory, Shylock’s “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” speech. Daniel’s room has drawn images of men on his walls, in various poses, apparently his own work.

The film defines its three main elements: kapparot, as a “Jewish ritual where a chicken is blessed and slaughtered in the place of a person, to atone for their sins”; tefillin as a “pair of leather boxes containing portions of the Torah, worn by Jewish men in their morning prayers”; and cut, “a slang term for circumcision, the surgical removal of the foreskin, usually performed for religious reasons.”

It is mainly the Jewish aspect that Allen deals with in this work. Daniel is able to walk away from a gay slur, but not an antisemitic one, and, in the end, he is reconciled to himself and his Orthodox father by the mystical Chassidic man’s performing kapparot over him. We witness Daniel’s acceptance of being Jewish, but are left to wonder if he comes to accept his queerness, an aspect of his being that conflicts with Orthodox Judaism, though his soul would still be considered divine in religious circles, even if he engages in homosexual acts, which are prohibited by the Torah.

Cut is featured in VIFF’s International Shorts: Nothing Comes Easy, a program for viewers aged 18+, in which the films’ “protagonists discover that sorting out their lives can be much more difficult to achieve than they realized.” It screens Oct. 5, 6:45 p.m., and Oct. 7, 12:15 p.m., at International Village 8.

The Vancouver International Film Festival runs Sept. 28-Oct. 8. For the full schedule and tickets, visit viff.org.

Love and relationships

Hosted by Chabad Richmond, Aleeza Ben Shalom, star of the Netflix series Jewish Matchmaking, will take centre stage in-person for a one-night-only event on Nov. 27 at the River Rock Show Theatre. (photo from Chabad Richmond)

Remember the famous song from Fiddler on the Roof: “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch”? Well, fast forward a century, and things haven’t really changed that much. Jewish singles are still searching for their bashert, except they’re getting tired of swiping right or left to find their soulmate, so they’re turning to the ages-old tradition of matchmaking. Enter the world’s most famous Jewish matchmaker – Aleeza Ben Shalom.

Hosted by Chabad Richmond, Ben Shalom, star of the Netflix series Jewish Matchmaking, will take centre stage in-person for a one-night-only event on Nov. 27 at the River Rock Show Theatre.

Attendees will get an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at this hit TV reality show (signed for another year), discover secrets to successful relationships, and explore the intricate art of finding the perfect match. Ben Shalom – a self-described “marriage-minded mentor,” matchmaker and dating coach – will share her passion and insights into love, relationships and the basic Jewish values that inspire her to transform Jewish singles into Jewish couples.

“The time-honoured tradition of matchmaking, going back to the beginning of our people, has been central to bringing together Jewish couples and building Jewish homes. Focusing on core values that guide Jewish life, matchmaking ensures the continuity of our people for generations to come,” said Rabbi Yechiel Baitelman, director of Chabad Richmond. “In a world where everyone has spent the last three years getting very comfortable in isolation, the hurdles and opportunities for people to connect have been challenging. Never have I had so many people of all ages reach out to me asking me to make a match!”

Baitelman joked that matchmaking wasn’t covered in rabbinical school, but he views matchmaking as an emerging growth area in our community.

Ben Shalom, who has ushered at least 200 couples to the chuppah (wedding canopy) during her 15 years as a matchmaker, guides individuals of all ages on their quest for love and companionship. With her unique blend of warmth, humour and wisdom, she is committed to the matchmaking process. She adapts the model of formal Orthodox matchmaking (known as “shidduch dating”) to Jewish singles from all religious backgrounds, including secular, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox, from across Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. She’s out to show the world that Jewish matchmaking is not some antiquated practice, but rather a relevant and successful process for lots of singles. She admits that it’s no easy task, but believes it’s worth the effort.

Born and raised in suburban Philadelphia in a secular Jewish home, Ben Shalom has been happily living in an Orthodox Jewish marriage for more than 20 years. She and her husband, Gershon, moved to Israel in 2021. They have five children and Ben Shalom entered the world of matchmaking in her 20s, when she was looking for a job that would give her a flexible schedule around childcare.

Tickets to hear Ben Shalom are $54 for general seating and $90 for preferred seating. Also, consider a VIP sponsorship opportunity at chai ($1,800), double chai ($3,600), triple chai ($5,400), $10,000 or $18,000. This inNludes a personal meet and greet with Ben Shalom over cocktails, forshpeis (appetizers) and conversation.

For more information, call 604-277-6427. Register for this exclusive event at chabadrichmond.com/matchmaker.

– Courtesy Chabad Richmond

Obligated to warn of danger

I often chat with a retired doctor neighbour as I walk by his house with my dog. When he mentioned hiking solo on the famously difficult Mantario Trail in southeastern Manitoba, it sounded risky to me. I asked him what safety precautions he was taking. Afterwards, he chided me for being overly motherly and a worrywart. While his response made me feel uncomfortable, maybe it was because he was defensive about a potentially unsafe hike. The defensiveness might be a sign that part of his brain thought I might be right.

I just studied Kiddushin 29, a page of the Babylonian Talmud, while doing Daf Yomi (a page a day of Talmud). It turns out, this scene has played out before. At the time, rabbis had their own yeshivas/schools where others came to learn and a seven-headed demon was in Rav Abaye’s “study hall.” The best advice to avoid a demon, according to the rabbis, was to travel during the day and in pairs. Demons were known to come out at night, but this situation was so dangerous that students were unsafe even during the day.

Now, it happened that Rav Aha bar Yaakov wanted to come study with Abaye, but had nowhere to stay. Instead of helping Rav Aha find a place to sleep, Abaye tells others not to accommodate him. This forces Rav Aha to stay overnight at the study hall. It’s a set up. There, Rav Aha must battle the demon and vanquish it. Abaye hopes for a miracle to take place.

When Rav Aha is faced with the demon, the text indicates that he prayed. As he prayed, he bowed to shuckle (the movement many Jews make when davening/praying), and each vigorous bow resulted in knocking off one of the demon’s heads. Rav Aha battles the demon with prayer and survives.

This storyline, according to Dr. Sara Ronis’s introduction to the page on My Jewish Learning, fits into a greater literary and historic context. There are many tales of a divine hero combating a demon in Ugarit and ancient Mesopotamia. There are Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish holy heroes who triumph over demons through prayer.

Rav Aha was a pious and great man who came eagerly to study with Abaye. However, he wasn’t without fault. Just before this story takes place, Kiddushin 29b says that Rav Aha sent his son to study. Alas, his son’s studies weren’t sufficiently “sharp,” so Aha left his son at home to manage the household while Rav Aha went to study instead.

After his confrontation with the demon, Rav Aha says to the others, “If a miracle hadn’t occurred, you would have placed me in danger.” Rav Aha was given no warning about the demon. He had no opportunity to stay elsewhere. Abaye relied on Rav Aha pulling off a miracle to save his study hall and his students.

This is one of the talmudic stories you can “sink your teeth into.” The rabbis appear as flawed people and a product of their time. There were stories about demons floating around the wider community, and people in general worried about demons and how to fight them. In the Jewish community, you see a “pious and learned” person, Rav Aha, who chooses his own study over further opportunity for his son’s education. And Abaye is a famous scholar, but asks others to deny hospitality to a student, and chooses to endanger others.

After my concern over the Mantario Trail hike, I got to wondering. If your friend is about to be in a potentially unsafe situation, do you have an obligation to warn them, to show concern? I believe we do. I still think I have this obligation, even if I’m belittled for it. I think we have the obligation even if some see it as hovering, annoying or overly solicitous.

I think about this a lot. We live in a peaceful urban residential enclave, but it’s not unusual to hear news reports of violent crime just a few blocks away. We have a neighbourhood watch, too. It pays to be cautious to avoid “demons” that might endanger us. It isn’t just a motherly inclination to be street smart. It’s not wrong to let others know if we foresee danger ahead.

Returning to this talmudic story, I’m angry that Abaye doesn’t warn or protect his student, Rav Aha. Abaye had an opportunity to do the right thing and failed in his responsibilities as a teacher. I’m also amazed at Rav Aha’s tact and self-control. After being endangered in this way, I might have made a much bigger fuss.

This time of year, we’ve got a lot to think about in the Jewish world. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we spend time thinking about our behaviours and failings as individuals and in community, the concept of forgiveness and our fate for the coming year. Yet we also look forward to Sukkot, grateful for the harvest, and to celebrating the Torah with joy on Simchat Torah.

Our calendar is complicated. Like the story of Abaye and Aha, we can’t find just a single obvious answer. Maybe this keeps us from getting bored as we repeat the rituals of each Jewish year. Perhaps it helps us sharpen our skills so we can perform miracles, protect and look out for one another, and slay unexpected (proverbial) demons, too.

The traveling Hebrew school

B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools currently serves more than 120 children – in Langley, Port Coquitlam, Vancouver and Whistler/Squamish. (photo from B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools)

It’s late Monday evening when Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld loads a half dozen plastic containers of canvases, crayons, crafts and children’s Hebrew workbooks into his minivan. As directors of British Columbia Regional Hebrew Schools, he and his wife Chaya make the two-hour-long commute between Vancouver and Whistler every week so that Hebrew school parents don’t have to. “We’re the only ones crazy enough to do this,” he laughed.

When Erin Silverstein moved to Whistler from Ontario a few years ago with three children under 10, the village boasted one of North America’s largest ski resorts, glacier-capped peaks and exceptional mountain biking trails – but no Jewish community.

“Our biggest concern was that there weren’t other Jewish families and our children wouldn’t receive a Jewish education,” Silverstein said.

With Vancouver’s skyrocketing cost of living, many families have moved far beyond the city limits to small towns and suburbs. While running a summer camp and Hebrew school for Chabad Lubavitch of British Columbia in Vancouver, Rabbi Rosenfeld met families who’d left the city but returned for camp each year.

“They’d ask me, What can we do for a bat mitzvah? How can we keep our children Jewishly engaged?” he said. “Jewish families kept moving to the outlying areas but lacked access to basic Jewish resources.”

Then, in 2018, the Rosenfelds met a former Hebrew school teacher from Langley, some 50 kilometres southeast of Vancouver, and offered to fill the vacancy she left at a weekly Hebrew program for 18 local children. When the rabbi walked into the Langley program sporting a beard and a fedora, three families walked out. Six months later, they were all back.

“I think those families who stayed saw their children having positive Jewish experiences, making Jewish friends, and connecting to their traditions; they must have passed on the message,” Rabbi Rosenfeld said.

Dovid and Chaya Rosenfeld and an ever-expanding team of teachers and volunteers pack up the B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools program week after week and bring it to rented classrooms in remote communities.

“At every location, there are dozens of moving parts to keep in mind,” Chaya Rosenfeld said. “It’s immensely gratifying when the program comes together.”

photo - Rabbi Dovid and Chaya Rosenfeld and an ever-expanding team of teachers and volunteers pack up the B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools program week after week and bring it to rented classrooms in remote communities — Rabbi Dovid and Chaya Rosenfeld and an ever-expanding team of teachers and volunteers pack up the B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools program week after week and bring it to rented classrooms in remote communities.(photo from B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools)

Today, their traveling classroom serves 25 children in Langley, 50 children in Port Coquitlam, 25 children in central Vancouver and 22 children in Whistler and neighbouring Squamish – more than 120 children in all. Chaya Rosenfeld has often found that Jewish families who had lived alongside one another for years met for the first time when their children joined Hebrew school.

“There had never been any centre for the Jewish community in these towns, so we saw whole communities come together for the first time,” she said. Within three years of opening their program in Port Coquitlam, the parents and grandparents they’d met there asked for a permanent home for their community.

In November 2022, Rabbi Mottel and Nechama Gurevitz opened Chabad of Coquitlam to serve the growing community. “It started with Hebrew school, but it’s become a real community,” Rabbi Gurevitz said. Already, the couple hosts Shabbat meals for 40 local Jews and a weekly Torah class alongside the Hebrew school.

Since the opening of the Whistler location, a group of parents has asked Rabbi Rosenfeld for a weekly Torah class of their own, and many are eager to volunteer, creating a centre of Jewish community life in the once-Jewishly-isolated town.

The parent body is as diverse as Canadian Jewry at all four locations. Yet, they share a common desire to share elements of their Jewish identity with the next generation.

“We were so excited when the Hebrew school opened here,” said Julie Persofsky, whose three children attended the Whistler location this past year. “All of a sudden, our kids are getting a Jewish education alongside peers their age; it’s been wonderful.”

Like other parents here, Persofsky is delighted to see her children look forward to Hebrew school, learn Hebrew and deepen their Jewish knowledge. “It’s incredible to see them come home with crafts they’ve made, and they’re able to share their own ideas when we practise our Jewish traditions,” she said. “At the seder table this year, they all used seder plates they made in school – that was meaningful for them.”

Dan Anolik, who moved to Squamish with his wife and young daughter shortly before the 2022-2023 school year, is grateful that his child has Jewish friends.

“Moving here was tough for my daughter,” he said. “She didn’t know other Jewish kids here; she felt like the only Jew in town. When she first stepped into the Hebrew school classroom, she saw the morah teaching and doing crafts, it looked familiar, and it was like a load came off her. She jumped right in, and all three of us shed a little tear of joy.”

Moments like these make supporting B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools a source of pride for Vancouver-based philanthropist Steven Silber, a trustee of the Arnold and Anita Silber Family Foundation. “When you see the children’s faces when they’re in their classrooms, you realize it’s a blessing everyone should get to experience,” said Silber.

To find out more about B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools or to become a supporter, contact Rabbi Dovid and Chaya Rosenfeld at [email protected] or 604-266-1313.

– Courtesy B.C. Regional Hebrew Schools

Value of community

When we hear about addiction and recovery, most of us might think of the incredibly difficult journey to achieve and then sustain sobriety. For certain, this is one reality.

That said, it’s one thing to refrain from using, and quite another to rebuild one’s life. One of Jewish Addiction Community Services’ clients told us that, although they have been in recovery for three years, they felt that their life had little meaning. Working together, we uncovered the “missing link”: their prior lifestyle had damaged, and in some cases severed, many of their connections to family and community. More importantly, that insight led to building some practical plans for reconnecting. They now report that they feel like they have turned the corner – rediscovering motivation for work, life, and being an active member of our community.

Another client, who had been using drugs for over 25 years, is now seven months sober. They recognize that Judaism’s role in their early life was important, and reconnecting to some aspect of that former life is comforting and familiar. This client attended a seder for the first time in many years and looks forward to the High Holidays.

It is no secret that community plays a crucial role in sustained recovery. The harder part is to operationalize the insight. Our role at JACS is to meet people where they are, help them find treatment, if needed, work with them to rebuild their lives, and be a link to the greater Jewish community. At the very practical level, we have helped clients connect with Tikva Housing, access the Jewish Food Bank and get financial help from Hebrew Free Loan Association. As well, working with rabbis and other agencies, we are helping individuals find ways to reconnect with a Jewish social network, support systems and the community at large.

JACS is proud that we are here to help our community. It is gratifying to know that, through education, counseling and connection, we are making a difference for those who need to know they have value and do indeed belong.

For more information about what we do, visit jacsvancouver.com.

Shelley Karrel is manager of counseling and community education at JACS Vancouver. She can be reached at [email protected].

Habonim role pivotal

A recently retired rabbi who was born and raised in Vancouver is offering an insider’s look at life as a congregational leader.

Rabbi Allan Tuffs, who now lives part-time in south Florida and in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, has published A Rabbi’s Journey: Roads Traveled Lessons Learned – Stories from an Unconventional Rabbi’s Career. The 54 bite-sized chapters (coincidentally, he notes, the same number as parshas in the Torah) range from touching and hilarious to insightful and tragic.

Tuffs was born in Vancouver – he’s 10 days older than the state of Israel – and his home life was tough. His mom had a mental illness and his largely absent father had alcoholism. He and his sister would end up in the foster system.

The bookish, thoughtful Allan devoured everything he could read about Israel (among other topics) and, when he was invited to join the Labour-Zionist youth group Habonim, his life changed and everything else is as result of that connection.

“Habonim was kind of like a family to me, it really was,” he told the Independent in a telephone interview from North Carolina. “The people were warm and inviting and I was looking for my place in the Jewish community.”

Being the product of an intermarriage – “My father was not Jewish, my mother was,” he said – made the young Allan feel like an outsider.

“Intermarriage was still somewhat rare in those days,” he said. “I did not have a real religious background. I guess I was spiritual. I was very proud of my Jewish heritage and Habonim was very Jewish, very Israel-oriented, and it had a deep sense of purpose. It was kibbutz-oriented and there was this idea that the Jewish people had a role in the world, to repair the world, so to speak. That appealed to my youthful idealism.

“We had meetings almost weekly,” he added. “Here we were, these young kids.… I don’t really know if we understood what we were talking about, but we studied some of the great early socialist Zionist thinkers.”

In addition to their interest in Israel, social justice causes closer to home also drove the Habonimniks’ activism.

“We were pretty uniformly against the war in Vietnam,” he said. “We were quite disturbed by the racial injustices happening in the United States and also we were involved in fighting for Indigenous peoples’ rights in Canada. There was this sense that we are going to make the world a better place because we are Jews, because we have this ideology, because we are cognizant of the whole history of being a minority, being persecuted.”

In 1969, Tuffs headed to Israel and lived for two years at Kibbutz Menara, almost flush against the Lebanese border (and, coincidentally, now part of Vancouver’s partnership region in Israel). It was during the War of Attrition and the reality of the conflict was intense. Concentric rows of barbed wire were interspersed with landmines and German shepherd dogs patrolled the perimeter of the kibbutz.

While socialism, not Judaism, was the religion of the kibbutzniks, Tuffs notes in his book that a fortuitous meeting in Jerusalem changed the young man’s path again. Working in the holy city to earn a plane ticket home, he encountered an Orthodox rabbi from Seattle, with whom he began studying Budokan karate and Talmud. Among other things, the mix of eastern and western influences would follow Tuffs through his life. He integrates contemplative and meditative practices into his Judaism and practises yoga.

Returning to North America – and Habonim – Tuffs worked as a counselor at the movement’s camps in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.-adjacent Maryland. While in the D.C. suburbs, he started teaching Hebrew at a Conservative synagogue. He was hired for his language skills but the gaping holes in his Jewish knowledge – he never had a bar mitzvah – led his employer to suggest taking a few courses at Baltimore Hebrew College. This was the beginning of “a lifelong love of Jewish learning,” he writes.

Now in his mid-20s, he still wasn’t sure what to do.

“I was scholarly, but I would never be a scholar – too solitary,” he writes. “I was interested in psychology, but the thought of listening to people’s problems five days a week gave me a headache. I’m something of a ‘ham’ but would never be an actor. I’m a do-gooder – hardly a way to make a living.… What profession would allow me to do a little of all these things?”

Turns out the rabbinate fit quite nicely for 40 years. While a child of intermarriage with no early Jewish education might not seem a top candidate for the clergy, fate intervened again. Tuffs’ Hebrew language skills got him a job running a Conservative synagogue youth group in Maryland on the understanding that he would become shomer Shabbat and keep kosher. The job, in fact, put him under the wing of the rabbi and gave him more experience.

“This opportunity amounted to a rabbinic internship,” he writes.

Tuffs spent two years learning the ropes of the rabbinate. He began leading Shabbat services at a local nursing home. In 1977, he entered Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, spending the first year on the Jerusalem campus and four more at the institute’s New York centre.

He experienced “imposter syndrome,” partly because he had only one Jewish parent. But, he concluded, “with such a high frequency of intermarriage these days, who better than a rabbi of mixed parentage to welcome others like himself or herself into the Jewish fold? Suddenly, my rabbinate had renewed significance and purpose.”

In his book, Tuffs reflects the tumultuous and historic times he has lived through. After receiving his ordination, his first convention of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, in 1983, saw the historic decision to recognize patrilineal descent.

Over the next 40 years, as he shares, he navigated synagogue politics – some comedic, some sad, including a corrupt sisterhood president and an authoritarian, bullying board president. He discusses his decision to officiate at same-sex weddings, his activism on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, and his congregation’s support of orphans in Haiti.

The tragic collapse of a condominium building in Surfside, Fla., in 2021, hit Tuffs close to home. A young couple whose marriage he had presided at just weeks earlier were killed in the disaster.

The hurricane that devastated parts of Florida and other states in 2005 ravaged his temple. The silver lining was that Tuffs was able to be part of a rebuilding project that made the sanctuary more welcoming, removing the elevated bimah that instilled “an air of un-approachability” for the rabbi and cantor.

Perhaps because he came to the Reform rabbinate with some Conservative movement experience, Tuffs considers himself on the traditional side of Reform. He wears a kippa and dons a tallit when praying, something that was unusual in some American Reform congregations when he started out.

“I embraced the growing trend in the movement toward reintegrating older, discarded ritual practices into religious life,” he writes. “At the same time, I was sold on the Reform idea of personal autonomy in matters of ritual practice.”

He would serve at congregations in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania before spending 25 years at Temple Beth El, in Hollywood, Fla., from which he retired a year ago.

Fate almost brought Tuffs back to Canada before he ever made it to Florida. Desperate to escape the Wisconsin winters, he was invited to consider a position at a synagogue in Ottawa. His mind was made up for him when a congregant enthusiastically offered: “Rabbi, you’ll be able to skate to work on the Rideau Canal four months a year.”

In addition to all else, Tuffs obtained a doctorate in ministry, for which he wrote a dissertation about masculine spirituality, which was published as a book. He was a rabbinic fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem for five years and studied at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

Reflecting back on his life, Tuffs can’t recall precisely where or how he first connected with Habonim. Everything that came after, though, can be traced back to that early Vancouver connection.

Tuffs’ book is available in ebook format on Amazon, though it is currently not available to order in Canada as a hardcopy.