Kennedy Stewart

Stewart, Sim spar at forum

Left to right: Fred Harding, Colleen Hardwick, Mark Marissen, Ken Sim and Kennedy Stewart at the CIJA-SUCCESS Vancouver Mayoral Pre-Election Townhall last month at Temple Sholom. (photo by Pat Johnson)

A forum for Vancouver’s leading mayoral candidates briefly descended into mayhem when candidate Ken Sim criticized the current city council for failing to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.

The only other notable drama was the presence of a small group of protesters who had positioned themselves throughout the sanctuary at Temple Sholom synagogue. They rose and unfolded signs contending that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. The protesters were ejected and the meeting continued.

In addition to the incumbent, Mayor Kennedy Stewart (who is running on the Forward Together slate), and Sim (with A Better City, or ABC), invitees included Fred Harding (Non-Partisan Association), Colleen Hardwick (TEAM for a Livable Vancouver) and Mark Marissen (Progress Vancouver).

There are 15 individuals running for mayor of Vancouver. The Sept. 7 forum’s organizers, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and SUCCESS, invited those they viewed as frontrunners.

The election is a rematch after Sim was bested by Stewart in 2018 by just 984 votes. Each candidate repeatedly accused the other of misrepresenting their own record or positions and those of their opponent.

Among other conflicts, Stewart and Sim argued over comments Sim had made on CKNW radio, in which Stewart claimed that Sim had promised to cut $330 million from the city’s budget. Stewart characterized this as a “massive and radical cut,” while Sim replied that he was not speaking about cutting the budget but about reallocating funds within the budget.

Sim’s proposal to add 100 police officers as well as 100 mental health nurses to deal with crime and social problems on the street were dismissed by Stewart, who said the mayor of Vancouver does not have the authority to make those hiring decisions.

Housing was the hottest topic at the meeting, with Stewart touting the incumbent council’s record.

“Last year, we approved almost 9,000 units of housing,” Stewart said. “That is double what we approved just a decade ago. We’ve changed the way and the kind of housing we’re approving…. We used to approve about 75% of very expensive condominiums, but we’ve switched now to about 60% rental and social housing. That is a massive change.… Just last year alone, we opened and built 1,600 units of social housing, which is an absolute record.”

Sim slammed Stewart’s claim as quantity over quality.

“He believes in providing quantity of housing and having big headlines in the media,” Sim said of Stewart, “but he’s not focused on the quality. How bad do these units have to be where people would rather live in a tent on Hastings Street than in one of these unlivable units?”

Later, Sim went on the offensive again when the topic came to community safety.

“You can’t just warehouse people,” he said. “If you do not have support services, you set them up for failure, and that’s what we have done.”

Hardwick lamented that the cost of housing may be pushing her children and grandchildren away.

“I don’t want to be the last generation of my family that can afford to live in Vancouver,” she said. “I have two kids in their 30s and during this term on council I gained two grandbabies and I have to say that I’m not happy … that they are seriously considering moving to Nanaimo because they can’t see a future here. This is what we hear over and over again.”

Marissen said the city of Vancouver has lost 7,000 people in the last year, even as the province gained 60,000 new residents.

Housing, homelessness and community safety merged in the discussion. Hardwick said she, her daughter and her grandchildren went to the Chinatown Festival in July.

“We were pushing along the stroller and trying to navigate between people passed out on the sidewalk with needles in plain view,” she said. “How am I supposed to explain to my grandchildren what’s going on here? It’s just shocking.… It has been 30 years since the closure of Riverview [mental hospital] and we’ve just seen things get progressively worse. Yet we continue to perpetuate the same failed policies. We’ve seen zero improvement and I’d like to hear anybody here saying we have an improved situation. What’s the solution? If we’re spending $1 million a day down there, maybe we better analyze where that money is going.”

Marissen seconded Hardwick’s words, saying there should be an audit of what is being spent in the Downtown Eastside.

Harding, a retired police officer, positioned himself as the voice of experience on safety.

“You cannot have harm reduction and safer supply without access to treatment,” he said. “We have to increase the treatment for people who are addicted and going through a crisis on our streets. I’m here basically because of this issue. I spent 30 years as a police officer. I understand what we need to do and how we need to work on strategic targeting of criminals. We have to work on cleaning up the streets and we do that by targeting the 3% who commit 95% of the crime.”

Stewart said the city is providing “wraparound services, including complex care,” to people who require them and accused opponents of advocating policing where medical interventions are needed.

“There is no way we are going to arrest our way out of it and that’s what a lot of my colleagues here at the table are pointing to,” Stewart said.

“Don’t let Mr. Kennedy [Stewart] trick you into believing that we are trying to police our way out of this,” Sim responded, saying that a range of responses are needed to confront what has become a dangerous situation, including for visible minorities. “In the last four years, our city has become more unsafe. Mayor Stewart was on the news saying that he felt safe in our city. Being a person of Chinese descent, I don’t have that same experience. In fact, residents across the city have told me over and over again that they do not feel safe.”

Safety as it pertains to minorities, including the Jewish community, emerged repeatedly. Sim noted that it was Councilor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who is running on Sim’s ABC slate, who proposed the adoption of the Working Definition of Antisemitism during the current council’s term.

“And Mayor Stewart actually voted it down,” Sim said. “I think it’s incredibly important that council [adopt the definition] so VPD can actually define what an antisemitic hate crime is.”

“The rise in antisemitism and the rise of anti-Asian hate has been profound,” said Marissen. “It’s a tragedy. Leadership matters.”

He said it wasn’t long ago that local politicians were accusing Asian people of causing the housing crisis in Vancouver. He said he would adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism and urged more diversity work in schools.

“We need to educate our kids,” Marissen said. “It’s really important that people understand the history of all of this. We also need to give support to interfaith and intercultural groups.”

Yosef Wosk, JFS honoured

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart pins the Freedom of the City medal to Dr. Yosef Wosk’s lapel in a ceremony May 31. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Yosef Wosk, a scholar, educator, author, businessperson, art collector, explorer, rabbi, peace activist and philanthropist, has been awarded Vancouver’s Freedom of the City.

The top honour bestowed by the City of Vancouver, the Freedom of the City is in recognition of Wosk’s philanthropic work benefiting libraries and museums, academic excellence, nature conservation, health care, community and social services, heritage preservation, science, humanities, reconciliation, and the arts in Vancouver and around the world.

The honour was bestowed by Mayor Kennedy Stewart at a ceremony May 31 at the Roundhouse Community Centre. Also recognized that night with an award of excellence was Jewish Family Services’ the Kitchen.

Born in Vancouver in 1949, Dr. Yosef Wosk is a multidisciplinary thinker and community activist who founded the Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars, the Philosophers’ Café, and a number of schools. He has championed museums and libraries on every continent, assisted individuals and institutions with publication grants, planted hundreds of thousands of trees, and endowed the City of Vancouver’s Poet Laureate. His extensive travels culminated in expeditions to both the north and south poles.

Wosk is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Member of the Order of British Columbia, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He is the recipient of both the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals, the United Nation’s Culture Beyond Borders Medal, the President’s Award from the Canadian Museums Association, and a Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Community Service from the NAACP.

The Freedom of the City is the highest award given by the City of Vancouver. The city grants the honour only in exceptional cases to individuals of the highest merit. The recipient is usually someone who has gained national and international acclaim in the arts, business, or philanthropy, and who has brought recognition to Vancouver through his or her achievements.

The city began honouring individuals with the Freedom of the City Award in 1936. While several Jewish community members have been awarded the medal – most recently landscape architecture Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, just four days before she died on May 22, 2021 – Wosk and his late father, Morris J. Wosk, are the only father-son recipients in its history.

Yosef Wosk delivered an address to the audience, who assembled to witness a number of civic awards presented by the mayor and city councilors. Among the organizations recognized – in the category of Healthy City for All – was the Kitchen, a program of Jewish Family Services Vancouver.

photo - Jewish Family Services’ the Kitchen is honoured for excellence. Left to right: Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Councilor Jean Swanson, JFS chief executive officer Tanja Demajo, JFS board chair Jody Dales, JFS Food Security Task Force co-chair Stan Shaw, JFS volunteer and food security committee member Paul Becker, and Councilor Michael Wiebe — Jewish Family Services’ the Kitchen is honoured for excellence. Left to right: Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Councilor Jean Swanson, JFS chief executive officer Tanja Demajo, JFS board chair Jody Dales, JFS Food Security Task Force co-chair Stan Shaw, JFS volunteer and food security committee member Paul Becker, and Councilor Michael Wiebe. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

Recognizing the vulnerability of people with food security challenges in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, JFS transitioned to delivering food for those most in need. The number of people they served and the frequency of food distribution more than doubled, and JFS saw the need to open a new multipurpose space in Mount Pleasant in March 2021.

The new purpose-designed food distribution centre has enabled JFS to establish all of its food operations under one roof, store and distribute a larger supply of food, prepare meals in-house, and eliminate the need to set up and reassemble the food bank every second week.

The Kitchen now provides a wider array of options, particularly for those with specific dietary needs, and serves a more diverse group of people across Vancouver. Produce, dairy, and healthy and nutritious food items are part of an ongoing food preparation operation that prepares and delivers vegan meals to community members and local Jewish day schools from the main Mount Pleasant location, as well as six satellite locations in the Vancouver area.

Remembering the Holocaust

Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah light memorial candles to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (screenshot)

Vancouver’s city hall, the Burrard Street Bridge and other landmarks around the city were lit in yellow light Jan. 27, as were buildings across the country, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The commemoration coincided with the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Yellow was chosen, said Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, to reflect the colour of the candles of remembrance being lit globally to mark the day.

“Antisemitism is on the rise around the world,” the mayor said before reading a proclamation on behalf of city council. “Vancouver has the opportunity to join with the Jewish community and all of our residents and Canadians from all walks of life in demonstrating our commitment to stand against antisemitism, hate and genocide.”

Stewart was joined by councilors Sarah Kirby-Yung, Pete Fry and Adriane Carr.

Kirby-Yung spoke of calls from constituents who have had swastikas drawn on their sidewalks or who have come across antisemitic graffiti in local parks.

“I’ve seen firsthand, when you go to work out at the gym or community facility, the need to post security guards, to have them at schools and daycares, at synagogues during times of worship,” Kirby-Yung said. “It takes all of us individually to stand up to discrimination. We need to continue to work together, collectively with our Jewish community, to ensure safety and inclusion for everybody.”

The Vancouver event was sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

Nico Slobinsky, Pacific regional director for CIJA, urged unity.

“Antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem, it affects us all,” he said. “Only by working together and standing up against antisemitism are we going to insulate all Canadians against the threat of hatred and racism in our society.”

Nina Krieger, executive director of the VHEC, noted that education about the Holocaust is at the heart of her agency’s mission.

“This mission is perhaps more urgent than ever as globally and in our own backyard we are encountering a rising tide of Holocaust denial and distortion,” Krieger said. “The latter includes actions or statements that seek to minimize, misrepresent or excuse the Holocaust. These assaults on the memory of the most well-documented genocide in history should raise alarms for all citizens of our diverse society. Online or offline, intentional or not, distortion of the Holocaust perpetuates antisemitism, conspiracy theories, hate speech and distrust of democratic institutions, all of which have reached new heights during the pandemic. Around the world, opponents of public health invoke Nazi policies to systematically persecute and murder Jews and others in order to depict themselves as victims and their governments as persecutors. Such outrageous comparisons are clearly inappropriate and deeply offensive to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.”

Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke of her father’s survival during 34 months in Auschwitz – an unimaginable expanse of time in a place where the average life expectancy was measured in days. (Romney’s experiences, and those of her father, Jacques Lewin, were featured in the April 7, 2017, issue of the Independent: jewishindependent.ca/marking-yom-hashoah.)

photo - Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke at the local commemoration marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 — Dr. Claude Romney, a child survivor from France, spoke at the local commemoration marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. *(photo from VHEC)*

Prior to the streamed event, Grade 7 students at Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary school lit candles of remembrance. King David High School students Liam Greenberg and Sara Bauman ended the ceremony with a musical presentation.

Earlier, another ceremony was livestreamed from the National Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa. Emceed by Lawrence Greenspon, co-chair of the National Holocaust Memorial Committee, the event featured ambassadors and Canadian elected officials and was presented by CIJA, the National Capital Commission, the embassy of Israel in Canada and the Jewish Federation of Ottawa.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of CIJA, said the day of remembrance is intended to be as much “prospective as it is retrospective.”

“As we remember, we also reaffirm our resolve to combat the hatred that still plagues our world today, perhaps more so than at any time since those dark days of the Shoah,” he said. “There is an urgent imperative to sound an alarm and refuse to let its ring be silenced. Hate is no longer simmering in dark corners, relegated to the discredited margins of civil society. It has, in many respects, increasingly asserted itself in the mainstream public square. It has become normalized.

“Countering hate speech is both a necessary and essential imperative to preventing hate crime,” he said. “So let us resolve, collectively here today and across this great country, to give special meaning to our remembrance by fulfilling the pledge, ‘never again.’”

Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Ronen Hoffman, told the audience that his grandmother’s entire family was murdered in the Shoah. He denounced the misuse of that history.

“Any claim, inference or comparison to the Holocaust that is not in fact the Holocaust only acts as a distortion to the truth of what happened to the victims,” he said. “Invoking any element of the Holocaust in order to advance one’s social or political agenda must be called out as a form of distortion and, indeed, denial.”

Germany’s ambassador to Canada, Sabine Sparwasser, noted that, in addition to the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it was also recently the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where the “Final Solution” was devised.

“No country has a greater responsibility to learn from the past and to protect the future than Germany,” she said. “Remembrance is the only option. This sacred duty is the legacy of those who were murdered and of those who survived the horrors of the Shoah and whose voices have gradually disappeared. The greatest danger of all begins with forgetting, of no longer remembering what we inflict upon one another when we tolerate antisemitism, racism and hatred in our midst.”

Other speakers included Ahmed Hussen, minister of housing and diversity and inclusion; the American ambassador to Canada, David L. Cohen; Mayor Jim Watson of Ottawa; Andrea Freedman, president and executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa; and Dr. Agnes Klein, a survivor of the Holocaust.

Community milestones … archery, Carter Wosk awards, Lamplighters, Chanukah at Kollel

Adi Shapira (centre) willcompete in archery in the 2019 Canada Winter Games.

Adi Shapira, 16, is an up-and-coming athlete in the sport of archery. In Grade 10, she is part of the SPARTS program at Magee Secondary School, which is open to students competing in high-performance athletics at the provincial, national or international level, as well as students in the arts who are performing at a high level of excellence.

Since being introduced to archery only 18 months ago, Adi has climbed in the ranks, winning two gold medals in the 2018 B.C. Winter Games in the cadet category (15-17 years old) of Olympic recurve bow.

On Nov. 24, Adi won the qualifying tournaments against other female archers ages 15 to 20 and will be representing the province of British Columbia in the female recurve category in the Canada Winter Games in Red Deer, Alta., in February 2019.

The games’ website notes this is “the largest multi-sport and cultural event for youth in Canada and the largest event to be hosted in Red Deer’s history.” It will feature more than “150 events in 19 sports and a major arts and cultural festival” and welcome “up to 3,600 athletes, managers and coaches and more than 100,000 spectators.”

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Left to right: BillPechet, Afshin Mehin, Claudia Schulz and HenryNorris.

Awardees of the Carter Wosk Awards in Applied Art and Design were honoured for their creative excellence at the 14th annual awards presentation Nov. 29. Bill Pechet, the architect for the restoration project of the Jewish section of Mountain View Cemetery and the renovation of the Schara Tzedeck Chapel and grounds, received the 2018 B.C. Creative Achievement Award of Distinction.

Pechet has dedicated himself for more than 30 years to creating environments that bring people together in refreshing and unexpected ways. He has made his mark on public spaces across the country through his street furnishings, lighting, urban infrastructures, public art and memorial design. Many of his contributions can be found around the Lower Mainland, including seating and lighting on Granville Street and the Shipyards in North Vancouver. In all his projects, he has extended the possibilities of merging social space with sculptural invention and sound ergonomics.

Since 2000, as a faculty member of the architecture and environmental design programs at the University of British Columbia, Pechet has encouraged his students to consider how manners of contemporary urban social practice intersect with material and spatial invention, all impacting the experience of the built world.

As an artist and mentor, Pechet frequently lectures on the critical role that public space plays in healthy and vibrant cities. His work emanates from a desire to generate a generous sense of simultaneous recognition and pleasurable strangeness in the public realm, giving individuals the permission to see the world as a little bit wondrous.

The Carter Wosk Awards for Applied Art and Design celebrate British Columbians who, through their creativity, contribute to the cultural economy of the province. Each year, up to three recipients are chosen by jury and each is awarded $2,500. This year, the winners were Afshin Mehin (wearable technology), Henry Norris (furniture design) and Claudia Schulz (hat design).

The awards honour excellence in art with a practical or functional application and are named in honour of philanthropist, academic and visionary Dr. Yosef Wosk and for educator, designer and curator Sam Carter.

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The 2018 Young Lamplighter Award was presented to Ethan and Simoana Dreyshner.

On Dec. 9, at the Centre for Judaism’s public menorah lighting at Semiahmoo Shopping Centre in South Surrey, the 2018 Young Lamplighter Award was presented to Simoana and Ethan Dreyshner for their dedication to community and those less fortunate. They have raised funds and given of their time and energy to various important causes, including the Jewish Food Bank, B.C. Lung Association, First Call B.C. and the Louis Brier Home and Hospital.

Parents (Marat and Ella Dreyshner) and grandparents were on hand at the ceremony. Dignitaries in attendance included MLAs Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Cloverdale) and Tracy Redies (Surrey-White Rock), Langley Mayor Val van den Broek, Langley Councilor Rudy Storteboom, White Rock Deputy Mayor Helen Fathers and Surrey Councilor Linda Annis.

Cantor Yaakov Orzech lit the menorah and led the Chanukah songs, and Adina Ragetli played the harp. In the “human menorah” presentation (written by Simie Schtroks as a response to the Pittsburgh shootings), Louise Stein Sorensen, Moshe Fidelman, Joanne Yaakov, Marat Dreyshner, Ettie Shurack, Ethan Dreyshner, Bayla Shurack and Schtroks each kindled a flame with a message. Dean Donnelly entertained the children, and winners of last year’s Lamplighter, Emily and Jessie Miller, were there to pass the torch forward.

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Right to left, Kollel Rabbi ShmuliYeshayahu, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s chief of staff Neil Monckton andStewart share a moment with some of the many party-goers. (photo by AlanKatowitz)

On Dec. 2, the first night of Chanukah, the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel hosted its Annual Latke Vodka party at the Maple Grill.