Skip to content

Where different views on Israel and Judaism are welcome.

  • Home
  • Subscribe / donate
  • Events calendar
  • News
    • Local
    • National
    • Israel
    • World
    • עניין בחדשות
      A roundup of news in Canada and further afield, in Hebrew.
  • Opinion
    • From the JI
    • Op-Ed
  • Arts & Culture
    • Performing Arts
    • Music
    • Books
    • Visual Arts
    • TV & Film
  • Life
    • Celebrating the Holidays
    • Travel
    • The Daily Snooze
      Cartoons by Jacob Samuel
    • Mystery Photo
      Help the JI and JMABC fill in the gaps in our archives.
  • Community Links
    • Organizations, Etc.
    • Other News Sources & Blogs
    • Business Directory
  • FAQ
  • JI Chai Celebration
  • [email protected]! video

Search

Archives

Support the JI 2021

Coming Feb. 17th …

image - MISCELLANEOUS Productions’ Jack Zipes Lecture screenshot

A FREE Facebook Watch Event: Resurrecting Dead Fairy Tales - Lecture and Q&A with Folklorist Jack Zipes

Worth watching …

image - A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project

A graphic novel co-created by artist Miriam Libicki and Holocaust survivor David Schaffer for the Narrative Art & Visual Storytelling in Holocaust & Human Rights Education project. Made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

screenshot - The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience is scheduled to open soon.

The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience is scheduled to open soon.

Recent Posts

  • בעידן המגפה הקשה
  • COVID relief delivered
  • Jewish film fest runs in March
  • Novel journeys shared
  • What makes people happy?
  • What’s in a definition?
  • Celebrate Jewish power
  • Rejoice or slog? You choose
  • Welcome, newcomers
  • A childhood spent in hiding
  • What’s up in gerontology?
  • Importance of food security
  • Protecting children’s rights
  • What constitutes recruiting?
  • Human rights above all
  • New Jewish law group
  • Protect ecommerce ventures
  • It’s RRSP and TFSA season again
  • Purim sameach!
  • פורסמו בפייסבוק על ידי ישראלים

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @JewishIndie

Tag: Lance Davis

Negev campaign goes virtual

Negev campaign goes virtual

In closing the Heart Stirring Negev Event on Zoom, Ilan Pilo, executive director of JNF Pacific Region, talked about the important work done by Save a Child’s Heart, the organization at the centre of this year’s fundraising campaign. (screenshot)

Jewish National Fund of Canada, Pacific Region, held its first virtual Negev campaign event on Aug. 30. The original Zoom was recorded and shown again on Sept. 13 and 16. The object of the fundraising campaign is Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), an Israeli-based global organization with the mission of improving “the quality of pediatric cardiac care for children in developing countries.”

“This year, we’re collaborating with Save a Child’s Heart to build a treatment room in the pediatric surgical wing,” explained Lance Davis, chief executive officer of JNF Canada. “Thanks to your support, JNF can fund the bricks and mortar to house the wonderful doctors and staff who perform life-saving surgeries. JNF will literally fund the foundation of the [new children’s] hospital to provide the necessary facilities to advance this beautiful tikkun olam project. Together with you, our generous donors, we truly are building Israel.”

This tagline – “Building Israel Together” – forms part of the new logo for JNF Canada. The change comes in part because, while JNF Canada continues in its environmental mission, it has become more involved in social infrastructure projects, such as youth centres, playgrounds and healthcare facilities. The current Negev campaign is the latest example of this shift: the treatment room is one of possibly two that JNF Canada will fund (depending how much the campaign raises), which are being constructed in the International Pediatric Cardiac Centre at Wolfson Medical Centre in Holon, Israel.

After Ethan Doctor, a King David High School student, sang O Canada, and Beth Hamidrash’s Rabbi Shlomo Gabay sang Hatikvah, Bernice Carmeli, JNF Pacific Region president, welcomed everyone to the virtual Negev event, which was emceed by JNF Pacific Region past president David Goldman.

Dr. Saul and Lindsay Isserow were honourary chairs of the evening. “Our family became aware of Save a Child’s Heart when my oldest daughter, Jenna, volunteered there one summer,” said Lindsay Isserow. The chance to support an Israeli organization that highlights the contributions Israel makes to the world and to the region is another reason the family was part of this event, said her husband, who specializes in preventive cardiology, among other areas. “The cardiology [aspect] is important to me, obviously, because this is something that’s treatable,” he said.

A video showed some of the work SACH has done – it has saved the lives of more than 5,400 children from 62 countries.

Co-campaign chairs Lana and Doug Pulver first visited Wolfson Medical Centre years ago. “I was moved by the way that this organization takes care of children from all over the world regardless of their background, regardless of where they come from, and ensures that their lives are saved,” said Lana Pulver, who was so taken with SACH that she joined its national board a few years ago.

“Each child that is saved is a whole world – and those worlds learn of the compassion of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel,” said Dr. Lior Sasson, lead surgeon at SACH, in his remarks and thanks.

The remainder of the evening was spent with David Shore, one of the producers of The Good Doctor and of House, interviewing Israeli TV show Fauda’s co-author, Avi Issacharoff, and actor Itzik Cohen, who plays the character of Captain Ayub (Gabi). They talked about many topics, including Fauda’s international popularity; how Cohen, a comedian who does musicals, got his (very serious) part as an interrogator; some of Issacharoff’s and Cohen’s favourite scenes; and, of course, SACH.

Ilan Pilo, executive director of JNF Pacific Region, wound up the program by thanking all those who made the event possible: the donors, the boards, staff and others.

After the Sept. 16 streaming, Pilo spoke with the Independent. About 250 people viewed the event over its three nights, he said, noting that it was just the first of two main parts to the local Negev campaign. The next is called Join Us in the JNF Virtual Sukkah, on Oct. 8, 7pm. “It is a Jewish cardiologist panel,” said Pilo. Isserow will spearhead that conversation, and the cardiologists on the panel with him are Drs. Arthur Dodek, Zach Laksman and Joshua Wenner. For more information and registration, visit jnf.ca/vancouver/campaigns/negev-campaign.

The annual Negev Dinner would have normally taken place in the spring or summer. Looking back to March, when COVID hit in full force, Pilo said, “We had plans, and then we were thinking about doing something in April or May, but we realized that people were not going to leave their homes and we had to reconsider our plans…. We had to do everything very quickly. In a month we had to put together an event. And it’s different. On the one hand, it’s in a way easier because you don’t have to serve dinner. On the other hand, you have to be very creative and prepare everything in advance for the online campaign.

“For instance, we have made videos of local young Vancouverites who had volunteered in the past for SACH,” he said. To do this, the former volunteers had to be tracked down and convinced to record themselves. “This way,” said Pilo, “they became part of the online campaign…. You need to get people’s attention and interest and this was a great way [to do that].”

He hoped that the Heart Stirring Negev events would inspire people to contribute to the SACH’s project, “a cause that brings so much pride to the Jewish people everywhere.” Donations are still being accepted at vannegevdinner.ca, 604-257-5155 and [email protected].

Format ImagePosted on September 25, 2020September 23, 2020Author Cynthia RamsayCategories LocalTags Fauda, healthcare, Ilan Pilo, Isserow, Jewish National Fund Canada, JNF Canada, JNF Pacific Region, Lance Davis, Negev campaign, philanthropy, Pulver, SACH, Save a Child's Heart
NDPer sponsors anti-JNF bid

NDPer sponsors anti-JNF bid

Ayalon Canada Park in the Ayalon Valley is one of the projects JNF supports. (photo by Guy Asiag, KKL-JNF photo archive)

A member of Parliament has agreed to sponsor an e-petition that calls on the government to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada (JNF).

This is the first time an MP has lent support to an effort to rescind JNF’s tax-exempt charitable status in Canada and marks the latest development in a long-running battle by those opposed to the JNF’s charitable status.

Quebec NDP MP and national revenue critic Pierre-Luc Dusseault has agreed to sponsor petition E-1999, which, as of this writing [Jan. 21], had garnered more than 1,400 signatures. It went online on Jan. 9 and will close for signatures on May 9.

E-petitions are an official system whereby petitions that are sponsored by an MP and receive 500 signatures will be tabled in the House of Commons. The government must then respond within 45 days.

It was submitted by Independent Jewish Voices of Canada (IJV), which is considered an outlier within the Jewish community, due to its support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

On its website, IJV calls itself “a grassroots organization grounded in Jewish tradition that opposes all forms of racism and advocates for justice and peace for all in Israel-Palestine.”

The JNF was recently the subject of a scathing story by the CBC, which reported that the charity was under a Canada Revenue Agency audit for using charitable donations to build infrastructure for the Israel Defence Forces, “in violation of Canada’s tax rules.”

The JNF responded by saying that it stopped funding projects on Israeli military bases in 2016 and that the projects only “indirectly” involved the IDF, because they were for children and youth on land owned by the IDF.

In a subsequent interview with the CJN, JNF Canada’s chief executive officer, Lance Davis, said the charity is working with the CRA on its review and issued staunch defences of JNF’s financial transparency and donor accountability.

The e-petition, which is addressed to the minister of national revenue, says JNF Canada “engages in discriminatory practices, as its landholdings are chartered for exclusively Jewish ownership, lease and benefit, as noted by the United Nations, the U.S. State Department, a former attorney general of Israel and the JNF itself.”

It says evidence “strongly indicates” that JNF Canada violates the Income Tax Act, common law and Canada Revenue Agency policy over its IDF-related projects.

As well, it claims the charity violates Canadian and international law “by enabling physical changes within occupied territory, thereby helping Israel effectively annex land within occupied territory, and, in the case of east Jerusalem, deepen control over land already annexed illegally.”

“Notably,” it adds, “the JNF Canada-funded Canada Park was built on the lands of three Palestinian villages destroyed following the 1967 war in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

It also accuses JNF Canada materials of depicting “occupied territory as part of Israel, a representation that runs contrary to Canadian foreign policy and international law.”

It calls on the minister of national revenue to revoke JNF’s charitable status, if the charity is found to violate the Income Tax Act, or CRA guidelines and policies.

It was initiated by Rabbi David Mivasair, a longtime IJV activist now based in Hamilton, Ont. He called the e-petition “part of an ongoing process” to hold public officials accountable.

“It’s incontrovertibly factual that JNF Canada is in violation of Canada’s tax laws,” Mivasair claimed. “It has been for decades. It’s been reported for decades.”

This latest campaign “is not something that I take any pleasure in doing, but feel is morally necessary to be done,” he added.

According to guidelines for MPs, no debate is permitted when a member presents a petition. An MP “may make a brief factual statement (referring to the petition being duly certified, to its source, to the subject matter of the petition and its request, and to the number of signatures it carries), but members are not allowed to read petitions nor are they to indicate their agreement or disagreement with them.”

In 2017, IJV submitted an 85-page complaint about JNF Canada to the CRA and the national revenue minister. That followed many other campaigns designed to pressure federal officials.

This is the first time IJV has submitted a parliamentary petition and it’s “just one way of drawing public attention to this,” said the group’s national coordinator, Corey Balsam. “We’re assuming [officials] will look into it and not much more than that. [But] it’s definitely a big step for our campaign.”

He said Dusseault is “not someone who’s very engaged [in the issue], but he heard the concerns and saw the evidence.”

Dusseault did not reply to the CJN’s requests for comment.

In a statement posted to its website, JNF called the e-petition “as empty and scurrilous as earlier efforts to delegitimize the outstanding work of the JNF and, by extension, the existence of the state of Israel.”

JNF said its outreach suggests “that those who are applying any degree of critical thinking see the petition for what it is and are dismissing it as not worthy of engagement.”

For Jewish National Fund of Canada’s response to the Jan. 11 Jewish Independent editorial, click here.

Format ImagePosted on January 25, 2019January 24, 2019Author Ron Csillag CJNCategories NationalTags CRA, David Mivasair, IJV, Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish National Fund, JNF, Lance Davis, taxes3 Comments on NDPer sponsors anti-JNF bid
טיסות ישירות בין ריקאוויק לוונקובר

טיסות ישירות בין ריקאוויק לוונקובר

חברת ואוו אייר האיסלנדית תפעיל לראשונה במהלך הקיץ הקרוב טיסות ישירות בין ריקאוויק לוונקובר. חברת הלואו-קוסט תפעיל שש טיסות עונתיות בשבוע בקו ריקאוויק-ונקובר – בין החודשים יוני עד אוקטובר. ישראלים שמעוניינים להגיע לוונקובר יכולים לטוס בוואו אייר מתל אביב לריקאוויק ומשם להחליף מטוס שיטוס עד ונקובר. הטיסות של ואוו אייר מתל אביב יפעלו גם כן בחודשים יוני עד אוקטובר, ארבע פעמים בשבוע (ראשון, רביעי, חמישי ושישי).

ואוו אייר מפעילה כבר טיסות בקו ריקאוויק-טורונטו ובקו ריקאוויק-מונטריאול. ישראלים יכולים להגיע עם ואוו אייר לצפון אמריקה (עם עצירה בבירת איסלנד) בין היתר לערים הבאות: ונקובר, טורונטו, מונטריאול, ניו ג’רסי, וושינגטון די.סי, בוסטון, דטרויט, שיקגו, סן פרנסיסקו, לוס אנג’לס, דאלס, פיטסבורג, סנט לואיס, סינסינטי, קליבלנד ובולטימור. הם ישלמו לפי הערכה כאלף ומאתיים דולר. בין יעדי החברה באירופה: ברלין, קופנהגן, ורשה, בריסל, פריס, אדינבורו, לונדון, דיסלדורף, קורק, טנריף ודבלין.

ואוו אייר פועלת מזה כשמונה שנים והיא מגיעה לשלושים ושישה יעדים בצפון אמריקה, אירופה ואסיה. החברה הטיסה בתחילת דרכה כארבע מאות אלף נוסעים בשנה. ואילו כיום היא מטיסה קרוב לארבעה מיליון נוסעים בשנה. בחברה מועסקים כיום למעלה מאלף עובדים והיא מפעילה ארבעה עשר מטוסים.

קרן הקיימת בקנדה מגיבה לפרשת העברת התרומות לפרוייקטים צבאיים בישראל

מנכ”ל קרן קיימת קנדה לאנס דיוויס החליט להגיב על החלטת הארגון להפסיק להעביר תרומות לפרוייקטים צבאיים בישראל, לאור חקירה של רשות המיסוי הקנדית (סי.אר.איי).

רשות המיסוי הקנדית בודקת מזה מספר שנים את פעילותה של קרן קיימת קנדה, לאור מידע שהתקבל לידיה כי הארגון עבר על כללי החוק הקנדי למתן תרומות מצד קרנות צדקה. קרן קיימת קנדה כך התברר תרמה כספים לפרוייקטים הקשורים לצה”ל בניגוד לכללי המס בקנדה. במקרה כזה קרן קיימת קנדה לא זכאית לפטור במס. כן גם התורמים שלה עצמם לא זכאים לפטורים במס.

דיוויס אמר לאתר החדשות בנושאי היהודים בקנדה (סי.ג’י.אן) את הדברים הבאים: “קרן קיימת קנדה תמשיך לעבוד במשותף עם רשות המיסוי הקנדית לבדיקת כל הפעילויות שלנו. לכן בשלב זה אנו מוגבלים במה שאנחנו יכולים להגיד בנושא. השליחות של קרן קיימת קנדה היא להטיב את איכות החיים בישראל. בעבר היינו מעורבים בפעילויות צדקה הקשורות בעקיפין בצה”ל. רבים מהפרוייקטים היו לטובת בין היתר איכות חיים של ילדים ובני נוער, כמו תרומות למגרשי משחקים ופארקים. כל הפרוייקטים האלה נמצאים על שטחים השייכים לצה”ל והכסף לא הועבר לצבא. בסך הכל היקף התרומות הקשורות בפרוייקטים צבאיים נמוך והגיע לכאחוז מסך כל התרומות שלנו במשך כעשור. אז האמנו שקרן קיימת קנדה עומדת בדרישות החוק הקנדי, משום שמדובר בתרומות לצדקה שנועדו לעזור בעיקר לילדים. אנו לא ידענו שהפרוייקטים שלנו יהיו מטרה לחקירה של רשות המיסוי הקנדית, כיוון שהם נמצאים על אדמה בבעלות צה”ל. מייד שקיבלנו מידע על כך לפני מספר שנים הפסקנו את התמיכה בפרוייקטים אלה. כאמור מזה מספר שנים אנו לא תורמים יותר כספים לפרוייקטים על אדמת בצה”ל”.

לפי פרסומי קרן קיימת קנדה הארגון תמך בפרוייקטים רבים הקשורים בצה”ל. בהם: פיתוח כיתות לימוד, אולמות אירועים, חדרי הקרנות, מועדוני חיילים, הקמת מגרשי משחקים עבור ילדים (שמתגוררים עם בני משפחותיהם בבסיס), שידרוג מרכזי מבקרים, שיפוץ כיכרות מרכזיות, הקמת מתקני נוחות לחיילים, בניית נקודות מפגש לאפשר לחיילים לראות את בני משפחתם וכן תמיכה פרוייקט הגדנ”ע.

Format ImagePosted on January 23, 2019January 23, 2019Author Roni RachmaniCategories עניין בחדשותTags Canada Revenue Agency, CRA, Jewish National Fund Canada, JNF, Lance Davis, travel, Wow Air, ואוו אייר, לאנס דיוויס, נסיעות, סי.אר.איי, קרן קיימת קנדה
Proudly powered by WordPress