Judaism – Page 58

Despair tempered by hope

On the Sabbath preceding the fast of Tisha b’Av, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, we read in our synagogues from Isaiah, and this reading is one of the three “Haftorahs of Rebuke.” The fast completes the cycle of the Jewish year and commemorates the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE by the Babylonians and, 656 years later, on the same date, when the

Romans destroyed the Second Temple.

The prophet Isaiah, from whose book we read, was the son of Amos, a native of Jerusalem. He came from a respected family that moved in royal circles and was a prophet in Israel from 740 to 701 BCE. These were stirring years, for the kingdoms of Syria and Israel both fell to the Assyrians in 721 and only by a miracle was Jerusalem delivered from their grasp 20 years later. Isaiah brought the message of the holiness and sovereignty of God, seeking to interpret the crises of history in the light of Divine guidance.

On Tisha b’Av, we read from Lamentations and the writings of another prophet, Hosea. In describing Jerusalem, he wrote: “for their mother hath played the harlot … she that conceived them hath done shamefully….” (Hosea 11:7)

There is an interesting story connected with Hosea. He was married to a woman called Gomer, beautiful but faithless, who eventually ran off with one of her lovers, later becoming a slave and a concubine. Despite her degradation, Hosea continued to love her and bought her back from slavery. He did not take her back as his wife, but as a ward who he hoped would one day repent and be worthy of his protection.

During this period, Hosea had a strange awakening. He felt that this traumatic personal experience was symbolic of God’s love for Israel. The loving husband who had been abandoned by a faithless wife could be compared to God’s beneficence towards Israel, who repaid Him by worshipping the golden calf. God had redeemed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and made them His special people. Yet, instead of keeping their part of the covenant made at Mount Sinai with God, they adopted the idolatrous practices of the Canaanites, forsaking their God for heathen idols.

However, just as Hosea continued to feel love for Gomer, he realized that God’s love for His people would not change. Just as he did not despair that his wife would one day repent, he believed that God’s everlasting mercies also encompassed His sinning people and that their exile would lead to self-knowledge and a return to God.

When Hosea realized the similarity between his wife’s conduct and that of Israel, he felt that his marriage to Gomer had been preordained and was God’s way of speaking to him.

So, while we mourn the destruction of the Temple and the many tragedies that have befallen our people through history, we can still take comfort in the fact that God’s compassion is ever available to us when we truly repent. In Judaism, despair is always tempered by hope. Because of this, we conclude the Tisha b’Av reading with the words: “Turn us unto Thee O Lord, that we may be turned. Renew our days as of old.”

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

Instilling responsibility

Vancouver Talmud Torah head of school Cathy Lowenstein Lowenstein addresses those gathered for the closing of this year’s Mitzvah of Valuing Philanthropy program. (photo by Jennifer Shecter-Balin)

On June 15, Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah celebrated the close of the year’s Mitzvah of Valuing Philanthropy (MVP) program. Started by the late Sari Zack Weintraub Greenberg nine years ago, MVP integrates a curriculum of tikkun olam (repairing the world), rooted in traditional Jewish teachings, into the students’ educational experience.

Head of school Cathy Lowenstein said Greenberg’s work “revolutionized the school’s tikkun olam curriculum.” Greenberg encouraged the students to “lovingly expand their universe of obligation,” said Lowenstein. The program is something that the kids look forward to in their Grade 7 year, she continued, noting that “tikkun olam is a cornerstone of the school.”

Since its inception, the MVP program has raised a total of $220,000. This year’s 39 Grade 7 students raised an impressive $27,000. On top of this fundraising record, this year’s Tzedakah Project has also contributed $10,000 as a grant to “motivate and inspire” the kids to develop their passion for tzedakah (charity/justice) and chesed (loving kindness).

photo - VTT MVP Ariel Lewinski and Judy Boxer of Chimp — VTT MVP Ariel Lewinski and Judy Boxer of Chimp. (photo by Jennifer Shecter-Balin)

The MVP group expressed thanks to Cambridge Uniforms for their ongoing support of the program. This year also saw the involvement of Chimp representatives Judy Boxer and Ariel Lewinski, who offered support via the company to this generation of philanthropists. Boxer and Lewinski gave gift cards totaling $10,000 out to the members of the audience on June 15. Each card could be used to donate $100 to a charity of the recipient’s choice.

The MVP program is support by the Irma Zack MVP Endowment Fund, established by Dr. David Zack – Greenberg’s father – in memory of his late wife, and the original seed funding was donated by Sylvia and the late Lorne Cristall. It is through these funds that the school has been able to run MVP and other such initiatives.

The MVP students followed a careful process of selection of charities to support. They picked ethical commandments to work with, such as healing the sick, helping others in difficulty, or feeding the hungry. They researched the agencies that satisfied these criteria and found contacts with whom to work. Having interviewed these contacts, the kids then had 20 minutes to convince their class to contribute to their agencies, turning classrooms into boardrooms for allocation meetings.

Funds were donated to 24 different organizations this year, including household names like UNICEF and Magen David Adom, and local beneficiaries like the Vancouver Aquarium and Big Sisters. Students also selected Down Syndrome Research and CEASE, an agency that supports women victims of sexual exploitation and domestic violence.

Several students offered their perspectives on the MVP initiative to the Jewish Independent.

Asher Teperson described how “we assumed the roles of principal researchers, primary investigators, bankers and lawyers to assess the needs in our community and respond to them in concrete ways.” For the MVP students, this was a rite of passage. “We had a taste of what it means to become an adult in the eyes of the Jewish community,” said Asher.

Estie Kallner echoed these sentiments: “How often are 12- and 13-year-olds asked to make phone calls to strangers, conduct interviews in corporate offices, request clarification on financial matters and pester agency executives on their overhead costs?”

Julia Huber closed the program remarks with a reflection on how much they had grown through the experience. She described a group of “restless, nervous and confused” kids at the start of the program. However, she said, “with support and encouragement, not only did we embrace the challenge, but we exceeded even our own ambitious goals.”

As another student, Isabella Leipsic, observed, the program left them with a profound sense of their own “strength” in “moral decision-making.” She added, with thanks to the program, “our lives will never be the same.”

Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com.

The two sides of surrogacy

Jennifer Clarke with three of her children. (photo from Jennifer Clarke)

By the time Cyrus and Pam Mizrahi met in the summer of 2015, Pam had already gone through menopause, yet they wanted to have kids. After getting married in December of that year, the couple decided to explore their options.

“We both wanted to have children and Pam was not in a condition to have babies, so it was adoption or a surrogating program,” said Cyrus.

They chose surrogacy, Cyrus explained, because with “surrogacy you have all sorts of options when it comes to having your own kids or children. Adoption is different. You take babies from another parent.”

The Mizrahis did some research and opted for an agency in their home city of Boston, called Circle Surrogacy, an established firm that connected them with a surrogate from the City of Surprise, Ariz. Though they would have loved to have found a Jewish surrogate, none was available at the time. They consulted their rabbi.

“We contacted the rabbi who officiated our wedding,” said Cyrus. “He approved it and said it was a great idea. He said that what is more important is how we bring up our babies – providing Jewish education and raising them Jewish, if we want them to maintain a Jewish identity. It’s certainly important, of high importance, to us.”

The next step was working with the laboratory to produce the embryos. The Mizrahis wanted a boy and a girl. Luckily, both embryos took, and the twins were born on May 17, 2016.

“The first thing we did when the babies were born was we had the bris for the boy, of course,” said Cyrus. “I’ve taken them to shul a number of times and I’ll continue doing that. We have a kosher kitchen at home. We’re not Orthodox, but we observe to some degree. We’re hoping to send them to Jewish school and provide them with a Hebrew education.”

He said, “We named them after my parents’ Hebrew names. Our son is named Sol for Solomon (but only Sol) and our daughter is named Alexa. Sol is after my father – we have the tradition that we can name him after someone who is alive – and his middle name is Michael, named after my wife’s uncle. Alexa is a Hebrew name, named after my mom.” (It is an Ashkenazi custom to not name a child after a living person.)

The connection with the surrogate was very positive and strong. She has come to visit the twins and new parents three times within the past year.

“She lives far away, but she comes from time to time to visit us,” said Cyrus. “We’re always welcoming and it’s fine with us. We want to keep her as a friend in the family.”

With Cyrus having many relatives in Israel, he is anxious to take his kids for a visit there – and he and Pam are planning to do so when the twins turn 4 or 5 years old. “I have many cousins, first and second cousins,” said Cyrus. “A whole tribe. They are all over Israel – Petah Tikva, Jerusalem, Kfar Saba, all over.”

As for the surrogate, her name is Jennifer Clarke. She teaches high school Spanish just outside Surprise, which is a suburb of Phoenix.

For Clarke, the idea of surrogacy arose a few years back when she saw an ad at her church posted by a couple who could not have their own children. They were seeking a surrogate, and Clarke thought to herself, “I can have babies so easily…. I have four. I’ve never had any problems or complications, and others can’t and really want kids. So, I thought I’d offer to do that if she’d cover the medical expenses…. I talked my then-husband into it – he did think I was crazy … but he was used to my crazy ideas and eventually was accepting of it. I approached the girl about it and they had just received confirmation of getting two children from Mexico, a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, so they didn’t need a service like that any longer.”

But, as Clarke already had made up her mind to help, she began doing some research, looking for someone else she might be able to assist. Clarke found a few companies that provide surrogacy service and went through the extensive application process.

“They want to make sure you’re mentally stable and that you’re financially sound,” she said. “You can’t be doing this if you want money … they don’t offer very much. It’s mostly just expenses plus a bonus. You can’t be in it for the money.”

The application took about two hours to complete over the phone. The company also screens the surrogacy applicant’s friends and spouse (if there is one). Everyone gets at least one hour-long phone call, to try and ensure that the surrogate has a strong support system and that there will not be an issue with the spouse or anyone else close to the surrogate. If the applicant qualifies – including being given the green light by their doctor and obstetrician/gynecologist – a profile is created of her, which is shown to “intended parents” (IPs).

The company selects some potential surrogates who match what the IPs are seeking – including factors such as how much communication they want with the surrogate, what the surrogate’s habits are (for example, diet, activity level, etc.) – and shows their files to the potential parents. “They sort of match you like a dating service,” said Clarke. “It might take a couple of interviews to find someone who fully suits you, but then you get matched and start the process of hormone treatments, implantation and such.”

Having Our Baby: The Surrogacy Boom, a documentary by Vancouver filmmaker Nick Orchard, aired recently on the Documentary Channel in Canada. While there are some differences between Canada and the United States when it comes to surrogacy, it seems that both countries’ systems work to ensure that the surrogate is entering the arrangement with mainly altruistic rather than monetary aims.

According to Orchard, infertility is often a “disability, for lack of a better word,” that couples hide. Therefore, he said, “most people are unaware of how, for some couples, it’s a real problem – conceiving and having a child of their own. So, it’s a situation where couples and gay couples and, every now and again, some single people really want to have a child, but they can’t do it without help from someone else. That’s when they reach out.”

He said, “The surrogates are doing this because they very much want to help someone. What they are doing is incredibly selfless – to put their … in many cases … own lives on the line. There are dangers involved in having a baby and to do all of that, I find it quite incredible. That was one of the things that first drew me to the topic.”

Some of the costs involved in hiring a surrogate in Canada, according to Orchard, include $10,000 to an agency; $20,000 for a surrogate’s expenses; $30,000 in fees for the clinics doing the transfers, developing the embryos, and so on; and $30,000 in legal fees for agreements drawn up between the surrogate and the IPs, to reduce the risks of having a surrogate change her mind and keep the baby once the process is done.

“You have to really want to have a child and, of course, it’s never a sure thing either,” said Orchard. “You can pay that money and you create the embryo … you might have to get the eggs from an egg donor … who you cannot pay [it is illegal]. You can get the embryos created and implant them, but, in many cases, they don’t take on the first go-around. So, you’ve just lost $10,000 and you have to start all over again.”

For more information on Orchard’s documentary and some of the facts about surrogacy in Canada, visit cbc.ca/documentarychannel/docs/having-our-baby.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Jewish Buddhists in Halifax

Isaac Greenberg grew up speaking Hebrew, and he was raised with Shambhala, as well. (photo by Alex Rose)

With his lean frame folded behind a small coffee table at Just Us Café in Halifax, with his large wire-frame glasses and thinning hair, Michael Chender looks somewhat like Larry David. But although Chender shares David’s sense of humour and perhaps some of his neuroticism, the soft-spoken and measured Chender embodies little else of the Curb Your Enthusiasm star’s notorious annoyance and impatience with other people. That is not a coincidence.

Chender is a Jewish Buddhist, or Jew-Bu, one of a number who call Halifax home. Most of the Jew-Bus in Halifax follow a tradition called Shambhala.

In Tibetan folklore, Shambhala is a mythical kingdom that represents a just and good society. It is also the inspiration for a worldwide movement, which has its headquarters in Halifax.

The movement was started by Tibetan Buddhist Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Rinpoche is a Tibetan honorific). He escaped Chinese-occupied Tibet in 1959 at 19 years old, already a renowned sage. According to Chender, in Tibet, older teachers would come and ask the teenage Trungpa questions.

By the 1970s, Trungpa had settled in Boulder, Colo., where his Western following began to develop in earnest. He wanted to teach meditation in the West in a secular language. He taught that everyone was possessed with a fundamental goodness, and that life is worth living. A central philosophy of Shambhala is spiritual warriorship, which is accomplished by living a life of fearlessness, gentleness and intelligence.

Trungpa was known for both his incredible mind and for being an eccentric. He encouraged his followers to take pride in their heritage, so on Robbie Burns Day he would dress up in a kilt and celebrate with his Scottish disciples, and he would work Yiddish phrases like “oy vey” into his lectures. In 1986, Trungpa moved the headquarters of the Shambhala community to Halifax. In 1987, he died there of liver failure at the age of 48.

“He decided that Colorado was too speedy, materialistic, flashy, and that we should move to a simpler, more peaceful, calm place,” said David Greenberg, a former Jew-Bu and current Christian. He was raised outside Boston as an atheist Jew, and is conversant in Hebrew. He is the grandson of Rabbi Simon Greenberg, the founder of the University of Judaism at Los Angeles, a branch of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

When Greenberg was 17, he started reading Trungpa’s teachings, and joined the Shambhala community for the first time at 22. He met his wife through Shambhala and, together, they had four children. Eventually, the couple divorced and, in 2009, Greenberg converted to Christianity. Nonetheless, he said he felt more Jewish when he became a Buddhist, and even more Jewish now as a Christian; it’s allowed him to appreciate his Jewishness and not just take it for granted. For example, he said, he explains the Hebrew meanings of Bible verses to his fellow churchgoers.

photo - Michael Chender knows what he likes about Judaism and what he wants to take from it — Michael Chender knows what he likes about Judaism and what he wants to take from it. *(photo by Alex Rose)*

Chender feels similarly.

“I began to feel much more Jewish after I became a Buddhist,” said Chender. “My being Jewish … it’s deep in the bones, an ethnic thing. I’m very proud of my people.”

Chender calls himself an Upper West Side Manhattan product of the late 1960s – a Woody Allen-type kid who was high-strung and philosophical, the kind who was worried about the world ending millions of years in the future. For him, being Jewish meant viewing the world through Allen’s lens, not beneath a phylactery on his forehead. Religion was never a key component of his Jewish identity – he only knew one observant family growing up – but the culture and heritage always were. He is proud of the Jewish intellectual and moral tradition.

Chender knows what he likes about Judaism and what he wants to take from it. Not every Jew-Bu has such a concrete self-identity.

Isaac Greenberg is David Greenberg’s son, and a university student in Halifax. He grew up speaking Hebrew, and he was raised with Shambhala, as well. After his parents divorced, his mother moved him and his three siblings to Halifax. He was 11 at the time, and he lost his connection with Judaism for almost a decade. When his mother left Shambhala, when he was 17, he lost touch with that community, too.

“After first year of university, I kind of lost my mind … I just became totally untethered. I broke up with the person I was dating for a year-and-a-half, which set off this total spiral of insecurity and not figuring myself out. And then you just grasp the things that you know,” said Greenberg, noting that Judaism and Shambhala are his “foundations.”

Towards the end of his second year, he wanted to reconnect with Judaism. He was dating a Jewish woman, he said, “and she invited me to a seder and she was talking all about Judaism. And I was like, ‘Oh, I remember these things, and they were really great times.’”

Since then, he has been making a conscious effort to become more involved in the local Jewish scene. But he’s not entirely sure how.

“I kind of feel like an outsider,” he said.

As to why some Jews find their way to Buddhism, Chender said there are three common links between Judaism and Buddhism. The first one is appreciation for the critical mind, of inquiry and analysis. The second one is the importance of humour. The third is the truth of suffering.

“As my grandmother said to me when I was telling her about Buddhism, ‘You’ve gotta tell me this?’ We kind of know the truth of suffering in our bones,” said Chender. “So, it was like really coming home to some long-lost cousins who, actually, whatever they’ve been doing the last few thousand years, they had figured some sh*t out…. I wouldn’t go so far as to speculate where the lost tribes went or came from, but, you know.”

Alex Rose is a master’s student in journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax. He graduated from the same school in 2016 with a double major in creative writing and religious studies, and loves all things basketball. He wrote this article as part of an internship with the Jewish Independent.

How to slow climate change

President Donald Trump has received well-deserved condemnation from, among others, leaders of many nations, many governors, mayors, environmentalists, corporate chief executive officers and Jewish and other religious organizations for withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris climate change pact that was agreed to by all the 195 nations that attended, including Israel, Canada and the United States. How should Jews respond to the U.S. withdrawal?

First, Jews should become very familiar with the issues involved. Ten important climate-related factors are:

Science academies worldwide, 97% of climate scientists and 99.9% of peer-reviewed papers on the issue in respected scientific journals argue that climate change is real, is largely caused by human activities and poses great threats to humanity. All 195 nations at the December 2015 Paris climate change conference agreed that immediate steps must be taken to combat climate change.
Every decade since the 1970s has been warmer than the previous decade and all of the 17 warmest years since temperature records were first kept in 1880 have been since 1998. The year 2016 was the warmest globally since 1880, breaking the record held before by 2015 and previously by 2014, meaning we now have had three consecutive years of record temperatures.
Polar icecaps and glaciers worldwide have been melting rapidly, faster than scientific projections. This has caused an increase of elevation in oceans worldwide, with the potential for major flooding.
There has been an increase in the number and severity of droughts, wildfires, storms and floods.
California has been subjected to so many severe climate events (heat waves, droughts, wildfires and mudslides when heavy rains occur) recently that its governor, Jerry Brown, stated, “Humanity is on a collision course with nature.” California serves as an example of how climate change can wreak havoc.
Many climates experts believe that we are close to a tipping point due to feedback loops, when climate change will spiral out of control, with disastrous consequences, unless major positive changes soon occur.
While many climate scientists think that 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric CO₂ is a threshold value for climate stability, the world reached 400 ppm in 2014 and the amount is increasing by two to three parts per million per year.
While climate scientists hope that temperature increases can be limited to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), largely because that is the best that can be hoped for with current trends and momentum, the world is now on track for an average increase of four to six degrees Celsius, which would result in great human suffering and significant threats to human civilization.
The Pentagon and other military groups think that climate change will increase the potential for instability, terrorism and war by reducing access to food and clean water and by causing tens of millions of refugees fleeing from droughts, wildfire, floods, storms and other effects of climate change.
The group ConservAmerica, formerly known as Republicans for Environmental Protection, is very concerned about climate change threats. They are working to end the denial about climate threats by the vast majority of Republicans, but so far with very limited success.

Second, Jews should consider Judaism’s powerful teachings that can be applied to environmental sustainability. These include:

“In the hour when the Holy One, Blessed be He, created the first man, he took him and let him pass before all the trees in the Garden of Eden and said to him: ‘See my works, how fine and excellent they are. Now, all that I created, I created for your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt or destroy my world. For, if you destroy it, there is no one to restore it after you.” (Midrash: Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28)
Genesis 2:15 indicates that the human role is to work the land but also to guard and preserve it. Jews are mandated to be shomrei ha’adama, guardians of the earth, co-workers with God in working for tikkun olam, healing and repairing the world.
Judaism teaches: “Who is the wise person? The one who considers the future consequences of his or her actions.”
The Jewish sages expand Deuteronomy 20:19-20, prohibiting the destruction of fruit trees in wartime to build battery rams to overcome an enemy fortification, to make a general prohibition against unnecessarily destroying anything of value.

Jews should be on the forefront of efforts to help avert a climate catastrophe. We should try to significantly reduce our individual carbon footprints by recycling, using efficient light bulbs and other items, eating less meat, reducing our use of automobiles by walking, biking, sharing rides and using mass transit, when appropriate, and in other ways. We should support efforts to increase efficiencies of automobiles and other items, shift to renewable sources of energy and make societal steps that reduce greenhouse emissions.

We should try to arrange programs on climate change at synagogues, Jewish centres and other Jewish venues, write letters to editors, speak to family members, friends, neighbours and co-workers, and take other steps to increase awareness of the seriousness of climate threats and how applying Jewish values can help reduce them. We should do everything possible to reduce climate change and to help shift our imperiled planet onto a sustainable path.

Richard H. Schwartz, PhD, is professor emeritus, College of Staten Island, president emeritus of Jewish Veg and president of the Society of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians. He is the author of several books, including Judaism and Vegetarianism and Who Stole My Religion? Revitalizing Judaism and Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal Our Imperiled Planet, and more than 250 articles at jewishveg.org/schwartz. He was associate producer of the documentary A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World.

Shalhevet celebrates its 10th

Shalhevet Girls High School founding board members, left to right: Rabbi Yosef Wosk, Terrance Bloom, Vivian Claman, Tannis Boxer and Marie Doduck. (photo from Shalhevet)

On March 16, Shalhevet Girls High School celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a gala at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. The event paid tribute to the many accomplishments that this small school has made in the last decade.

Shalhevet works to educate and prepare their students in both Judaic and general studies as strong, grounded and proud Jewish women. The students are taught a sense of community activism and encouraged from Grade 8 to take an active role in their Jewish community. With these tools, the alumni of Shalhevet will be able to create Jewish homes and communities where there is an appreciation of the value of Torah, community and education.

Shalhevet alumni have been leaving their mark worldwide. In Israel, New York, France, Toronto, San Diego and here in Vancouver, these graduates are active members of their Jewish communities. As they continue their higher education in the universities of their choice, they are finding places to make kiddush Hashem (glorification of G-d’s name), making Shalhevet, along with the Greater Vancouver Jewish community, proud.

At the gala, the five founding board members of Shalhevet were honoured. These remarkable individuals are Rabbi Yosef Wosk, Marie Doduck, Vivian Claman, Terrance Bloom and Tannis Boxer. This group came together and made their dream of creating Shalhevet a reality – a flourishing place of academia and growth. They created yesh me’Ayin, something concrete from the imagined, and it is because of their hard work and dedication that Shalhevet can celebrate 10 successful years.

Shalhevet is excited for what the future holds, as the school continues to grow and add depth and diversity to their program. The board, staff, students, parents and other school supporters are all looking forward to many more years of service to the Vancouver Jewish community.

BBQ party for Lag b’Omer

Approximately 300 people celebrated Lag b’Omer at David Livingstone Park on May 14. (all images are screenshots from the video by LNP)

Chabad East Van, Chabad of Richmond, Chabad Lubavitch BC, Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel, Tzivos Hashem Vancouver (a Kollel program) and Chabad of Downtown hosted a community BBQ at David Livingstone Park in honour of Lag b’Omer on May 14. Approximately 300 people attended and kids from Tzivos Hashem did a presentation and led a short program. There was food, music, prizes and sports. A video by Lior Noyman Productions, which captures some of the afternoon’s highlights, can be found on YouTube.

Busy months at OJC

The Okanagan Jewish Community Association’s Purim party featured a variety of costumes. (photo from OJCA)

So far this year, the Okanagan Jewish Community Association has held several events, including Shabbat services on more than one weekend, as well as gatherings for Purim and Passover, and the first Ladies Group Meeting.

At the Purim party on March 13, children from all across the community enjoyed making their own batches of hamentashen – Nutella was the overall favourite filling, but strawberry was also popular – and unique groggers. They had a “Hamen-tossin’” battle (Haman-shaped beanbag toss) and put the groggers to good use twice: while OJC members Natalie Spevakow and Steven Finkleman showed them the Megillah and told them the story of Esther, and during the costume parade. There was an eclectic and creative selection of costumes – even the grown-ups dressed up. And there was a mishloach manot basket exchange, with the kids eager to devour the treats they received, as well as a light sushi buffet and a variety of hamentashen that people brought to share. Mark Golbey and Abbey Westbury organized the party.

More than 100 people attended OJCA’s Passover seder at the Harvest Golf Club on April 10. This was the first year it was held there and the chefs created, with the help of her expertise, many recipes that OJCA member Barb Finkleman shared with them. The seder was led by OJCA members Philippe Richer LaFleche and Barb Pullan, with parts of the ritual in English and parts in Hebrew.

On March 4, services were led by OJCA member Evan Orloff with a dairy potluck following. On April 21 and 22, services were led by Rabbi Shaul Osadchey of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Calgary, who has been coming out on a regular basis; there was a community potluck Shabbat dinner and luncheon. On May 5 and 6, services were led by Cantor Russell Jayne from Calgary, also with a Shabbat dinner and lunch.

On May 11, the first Ladies Group Meeting was attended by approximately 25 women. OJCA members Lillian Goodman, Cindy Segal and Barb Pullan organized the get-together at which attendees enjoyed refreshments and the screening of the documentary entitled The Lady in Number 6. There was a discussion period following and it is hoped that the meetings will continue on a monthly basis.

For information on more OJCA events, including a June 24 BBQ, visit ojcc.ca.

Exploring Jewish Marseille

BirthWrong participants in Calanques de Morgiou. (photo courtesy Jewdas)

Marseille, a lively port city sloping down toward the Mediterranean Sea, has a long, rich history of immigration and multiculturalism – including a Jewish presence dating back 1,000 years. Today, France’s second-largest city is home to about 80,000 Jews, or almost 10% of its population, with both newer and centuries-old Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities.

Recently, a group of 30 self-identifying Jews and allies from Europe, North America, South Africa and Israel gathered in Marseille for the second edition of BirthWrong, an initiative started by the London-based collective Jewdas to explore and celebrate Diaspora histories and cultures. (The inaugural BirthWrong took place in Seville, Spain, in 2015.) We spent four days exploring the city and surrounding nature, meeting with locals and partaking in Jewish life, and found plenty to do for visitors.

The city’s Old Port is the classic starting point, with a spacious plaza, boat-filled marina and daily cruises shuttling visitors along the Calanques, a 20-kilometre series of fjord-like inlets surrounded by steep limestone cliffs. With a compact city centre, Marseille is easy and enjoyable to explore on foot; there are also trams, buses and subways. As in Vancouver, there are beaches in the heart of the city (Plage des Catalans, west of the Old Port) and near the centre (Malmousque, Plage du Prophète, Plages du Prado and Pointe Rouge).

In a city of 40 synagogues, the oldest and grandest is aptly called the Grande Synagogue de Marseille. Opened in 1864, it’s a three-storey Sephardi synagogue (with a basement Ashkenazi chapel) that hosts Shabbat services on Saturdays, followed by Provençal-style kiddush including green olives, anchovies and pastis, which is a local anise-based liqueur. The small congregation is predominantly Algerian-French Jews, and the impressive sanctuary – with the men’s section on the ground floor and women on the second floor – has shining marble floors, chandeliers, Romanesque arches and jewel-toned stained-glass windows. To attend services, be prepared to bring ID and have your bag searched, and women are asked to wear a dress or skirt.

A plaque outside commemorates that, in 1943, Jews were deported from the synagogue to Nazi death camps. In Marseille, 23,000 Jews were deported – with French police aiding the Nazis – and about 1,800 were killed in camps.

Prewar Jewish history in Provence dates back to the first century, with a more documented presence starting in the sixth century. After the Inquisition, Sephardi communities arrived from nearby Spain and Portugal and, in the Middle Ages, when the Vatican controlled the Avignon-Carpentras area, the Juifs du Pape (Jews of the Pope) acted as its financiers. At the time, Jews were banned in most other parts of present-day France.

photo - BirthWrong participants take part in Havdalah — BirthWrong participants take part in Havdalah. *(photo courtesy Jewdas)*

Today, much of the Jewish community in Marseille came from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in the late 1950s and early 1960s, following the countries’ independence from France. The city is also home to large Italian, Armenian and North African communities (resulting in delicious cuisines to choose from).

A local guide, Lou Marin, gave us a custom walking tour of the city centre focused on 1939-1945, and has encyclopedic knowledge of Marseille’s history. He leads hours-long or multi-day walking tours with flexible rates. (Contact [email protected] or 33-486-954576 to inquire about a tour.)

Just outside the city, Calanques National Park offers more than 85-square kilometres of stunning coastal walks through pine forests, which were planted by the Romans, and ridges above the cliffs, with bushes of wild rosemary and thyme dotting the landscape. Our group did a four-hour hike with local guide Felix Altgeld (provenceapied.wordpress.com), who offers customized walks and has extensive knowledge of the local flora and geography.

Food-wise, Marseille is an affordable city within France, with ample fresh produce coming from sunny Provence and varied cuisines to relish, including North African kebab shops, Lebanese delis and 30 kosher eateries (including the pizza food truck L’imprévu). On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, look out for the market in La Plaine plaza, a community institution with independent food stalls and other shopping. The neighbourhood, which holds an annual carnival and is filled with colourful street art, is fiercely resisting gentrification, and maintains an inspiring multicultural, multi-class spirit day and night.

We got the sense that many non-Jewish Marseillais are aware of Jewish history and culture. At the annual May Day rally, multiple locals (both Jewish and non-Jewish) approached our group to ask about our trip and the Yiddish songs we were singing. Both Marin and the local historian Alessi Dell’Umbria, who spoke to us about Marseille’s history, knew a lot about Marseille’s Jewish history and culture through both their work and their personal lives.

Given France’s culture of secularism – where religious identity isn’t generally part of public life – the local Jewish activists who hosted us found it refreshing and unusual to meet Jews who bring our religious identity to politics, wear Stars of David and kippot and are openly Jewish in public. We, in turn, were fascinated to visit a bustling but laid-back city with a rich left-wing history, near-constant sun and diverse communities carving out an inclusive collective identity.

Marseille is just over three hours from Paris by high-speed train (visit sncf.com/en).

Tamara Micner is a playwright and journalist from Vancouver who lives in London, England. Her work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal and London Review of Books.

Judaism’s importance

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks speaks at Congregation Schara Tzedeck on April 28. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

“There is one thing about Judaism for which we were mocked for centuries, whose wisdom is just becoming clear in the 21st century,” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks told a packed Schara Tzedeck synagogue on April 28, after describing the world as “a terribly dangerous place” in which religion has “returned in some of its most violent and aggressive forms.”

“We did not try to conquer or convert the world,” he explained. “Why? Because we believe that God made a covenant with Noah before he made a covenant with Abraham and, therefore, you don’t have to be a child of Abraham to be in a relationship with the Holy One, blessed be He.

“We believe that the righteous of every nation have a share in the World to Come and, therefore, we never sought to conquer or convert the world. Christianity and Islam sought to become, and did become, world powers, and they achieved great things, but right now their clash, which is threatening in some ways to take us back into the age of crusades, is so dangerous because our powers of destruction are so great.”

Sacks was introduced to the crowd of approximately 700 people by Schara Tzedeck Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt, who talked about Sacks’ importance as an embodiment of the ethos of Modern Orthodoxy, which Rosenblatt said combines fidelity to Orthodox tradition with openness to the world. He commented on Sacks’ ability to bring Jews of all kinds together, quipping, “Tonight, we have here rabbis from all stretches of Oak Street.”

That was far from the only joke of the evening. When Sacks, who lives in London, England, took the stage, he asked the audience to forgive him if he rambled a bit, saying, “In my body clock it is now almost two in the morning and I am feeling very much like the man who once dreamt he was giving a speech in the House of Lords and woke up to discover that he was.”

After saluting the relative unity of the Vancouver Jewish community, Sacks took up his theme, which was the value of Judaism to both Jews and non-Jews, and the need for Jews to move confidently in the world as ambassadors of Jewish wisdom.

He noted how often it seems that non-Jews appreciate our strengths more than we do, and then he focused on seven things he felt Judaism has to offer the world: a sense of purposeful identity; a strength of community; the centrality of family; the prioritization of the intellect; a belief in the dignity of difference and an acceptance of religious and cultural pluralism; the sacred value of protest; and the importance of hope.

Sacks spoke of the essential human need for identity, pointing out that Moses’ first question to God was, “Who am I?”

Of community, the rabbi cited research showing that “regular attendance at a house of worship extends your lifespan by seven years.” He followed this up with a joke, saying that he told his wife, Elaine, “Maybe it just feels as though your lifespan has been extended by seven years.”

With regards to family, Sacks shared the story of taking Penelope Leech, a childcare expert in the United Kingdom, to a Jewish school in London on a Friday morning. There they watched a mock Shabbat, complete with “5-year-old abba and ima, 5-year-old baba and zaida shepping naches [feeling proud].”

Sacks said Leech asked one of the boys, “What do you not like and like about Shabbes the most?” The boy responded, “What I don’t like is not getting to watch TV! What I do like is it’s the only time Daddy doesn’t have to rush off.”

Leech apparently told Sacks, “that Sabbath of yours is saving their parents’ marriages.”

To illustrate Judaism’s appreciation of the intellect, Sacks told the well-known story of Nobel laureate physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, who said his mother had made him a scientist by asking him every day when he came home from school not ‘what did you learn today?’ but ‘Izzy, hot du fregn a gut kashya [did you ask a good question]?’ What do we teach our children?” asked Sacks. “The Four Questions. Do you know how rare that is, to teach your children to question?”

Addressing one of his favourite themes, the dignity of difference, Sacks said, “You will meet with more diversity on a city street in one hour today than an 18th-century anthropologist would in a lifetime. We have to live with difference; we have to learn to respect difference. We have learned that the miracle of monotheism is not ‘one God, one people, one book’ – the miracle of monotheism is that it is the unity up there creates diversity down here.”

On his sixth point, Sacks said, “Many faiths teach the virtue of acceptance – yes, there’s injustice and suffering in the world, but in Olam Haba, in the World to Come, it will be OK; or, in Nirvana, where you escape from the sufferings of the world. Judaism is a religion not of acceptance but of protest.” Rather than accepting the pain and injustice in the world, God tells us to be partners in making the world a better place, he said.

And, lastly, Sacks described Judaism as “the voice of hope in the human conversation.”

“Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better,” he said. “Hope is the belief that, if we work hard enough, we can make things better. It takes no courage, just a kind of naiveté, to be an optimist. It takes great courage to have hope. Let us go out and do what we are called to do, to be Hashem’s ambassadors to the world. Let us, and not only non-Jews, recognize the value of what it is we’ve got.”

Sacks’ talk, which was sponsored in part by Cathy and David Golden to mark their 30th anniversary, was followed by services and dinner.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.