Some 130 women came out to play mahjong, bridge or canasta at National Council of Jewish Women Canada, Vancouver section’s Games Day on Feb. 15, raising almost $8,000 for the Israeli nonprofit ALUMA Counseling Centre. (photo by Adele Lewin Photography)
Last month, 130 women gathered for a Games Day Fundraiser for Israel, hosted by National Council of Jewish Women Canada, Vancouver section. Almost $8,000 was raised for the Israeli nonprofit ALUMA Counseling Centre.
The afternoon event on Jan. 21 was held at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and featured mahjong, bridge and canasta, offering participants a chance to connect with one another, while raising funds for ALUMA, so that help can be provided to the many families who need to start the healing process from the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
ALUMA, also known as IFCA, Israel Family Counselling Association, was established in Tel Aviv in 1954 and joined forces with NCJWC in 1973, said NCJWC national president Linda Steinberg.
“Golda Meir had the idea of twinning Israeli organizations needing financial assistance with women’s organizations abroad,” explained Steinberg. Dorothy Reitman, as president of NCJWC at the time, was contacted and this twinning was arranged through Carol Slater, who then lived in Israel. Slater was the chair of NCJWC’s Israel project ALUMA for 15 years.
ALUMA is a centre for counseling and treatment of couples, families and individuals, regardless of their place of residence, origin, religion or economic circumstances. It was a pioneer institution, the first such centre in Israel, said Steinberg. Most people receiving therapy pay what they can, if anything, and the professional therapists are volunteers, receiving little if any remuneration.
Steinberg noted that ALUMA is dependent on donations and NCJWC is the only Canadian organization providing financial support for the nonprofit. National members have supported ALUMA through fundraising teas, brunches and other events, and by yearly contributions as NCJWC members.
Oct. 7 has increased the need for trauma support in Israel and ALUMA has developed several models to meet this growing need, said Steinberg. “Most recently, their therapists have been training and mentoring new volunteers to help.”
Left to right are event co-chairs Lisa Boroditsky, Juleen Axler, Jordana Corenblum (NCJW Vancouver president) and Sandy Hazan. (Co-chair Jane Stoller is missing from photo.) (photo by Adele Lewin Photography)
Gadi Lifshitz, NCJWC’s contact and spokesperson for the staff at ALUMA, wrote a letter to Lisa Boroditsky, who was one of the chairs of the local games day event, along with Juleen Axler, Sandy Hazan, Lola Pawer and Jane Stoller. NCJWC Vancouver’s president is Jordana Corenblum.
“Dr. Orly Rubin, the director of the institute, and, on my own behalf, I want to thank your wonderful community for the continued contribution and support of ALUMA,” wrote Lifshitz. “First, I will tell you about a treatment process in which Dr. Rubin and I provided a group therapy to five friends in their 30s who, on that cursed Sabbath, simply decided to go to the kibbutzim that were under attack and help as much as they could,” wrote Lifshitz. “Without weapons and without orders from any official authority, they decided that they are going to help. During those hours, they witnessed terrible sights, helped evacuate the wounded and dead, and all this while helping each other and supporting each other.
“About two weeks after the events, they contacted us for help. We quickly developed for them a trauma intervention model for a group therapy. We accompanied them through several group and personal meetings until we felt that their emotional state had stabilized and that they could return to their day-to-day ‘life.’
“It was a very powerful process, which required a lot of commitment, sensitivity and thought from all of us,” wrote Lifshitz. “This is just one of the many examples of the effort we invest in ALUMA in supporting all the many trauma victims who contact us.
“We need your continued support in our journey to expand our services to those, the many, who need them and us today.”
At the daylong legal seminar being held at Congregation Beth Israel on Feb. 15, Howard Mickelson, KC, and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim discuss the legal implications of adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Mickelson, left, spearheaded the event.
Congregation Beth Israel will be holding a full-day seminar, titled The Legality of Combatting Antisemitism, on Feb. 15. Topics will include defining antisemitism, combatting and addressing antisemitism on campus and in the workplace, examining the Charter implications of fighting antisemitism and the constitutional implications.
“Attendees can expect a top-notch group of speakers providing legal insight on, and addressing, a critical issue of our current troubled times,” said Howard Mickelson, KC, of Gudmundseth Mickelson LLP, who is spearheading the seminar. Mickelson has been a lawyer for more than 30 years.
The daylong event takes place four months after the Hamas attacks on Israel that killed approximately 1,200 people and saw about 240 people taken hostage. More than 130 hostages are still in captivity, with at least 32 believed dead. Since Oct. 7, there has been a dramatic rise in hate crimes in Vancouver, as well as the rest of Canada. A disproportionate number of these crimes have targeted Jews.
According to information released by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) on Jan. 16, tensions from the Israel-Hamas war have fueled increases in protest activity and hate crimes in the city. Of the 47 antisemitic hate incidents reported to VPD in 2023, 33 occurred after Oct.7. In all, antisemitic incidents increased 62% in 2023 compared to 2022, when there were 29 incidents reported.
“The topic of the seminar is a result of the rise after Oct. 7 of antisemitism,” Mickelson told the Independent.
Mickelson, along with Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, will discuss the legal implications of adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Sim promised during his 2022 mayoral campaign to push for the adoption of the IHRA definition by the city and Vancouver city council voted for the definition shortly after he assumed office.
In 2016, the IHRA created a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism, which reads: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
Jewish groups are hoping that other jurisdictions, such as the provincial government, will follow Vancouver’s lead. In June 2022, former British Columbia Premier John Horgan issued his support of the definition in a letter. His successor, David Eby, has made several statements confronting antisemitism but his government has yet to adopt the definition. The federal government has adopted it, as have the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Rob Phillip, executive director of Hillel BC, Beth Israel’s Rabbi Jonathan Infeld and Dr. Jay Eidelman, PhD, who is a professor in the history department at University of British Columbia, will present the seminar’s opening session, What is Antisemitism?
Russell Brown, who served on the Supreme Court of Canada from 2015 to 2023, will focus on the Charter implications of combating antisemitism. Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, he was an associate professor and associate dean at the University of Alberta faculty of law and is the author or co-author of numerous legal works.
On the topic of Combating Antisemitism on Campus, one of the scheduled speakers is Prof. Cristie Ford of the Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC. Colleges and universities across the province and the country have witnessed a sharp uptick in antisemitic incidents over the past four months. Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe on several campuses due to anti-Israel rhetoric and hostile behaviour from other students, as well as faculty.
The session Addressing Antisemitism in the Workplace is a roundtable moderated by Claire E. Hunter, KC. It features Reut Amit of Southern Butler Price LLP, Erin Brandt of PortaLaw and Abigail Cheung of Harris & Co.
The final topic, Mooting the Constitutional Implications, will be taken on by Marshall Rothstein, CC, KC, Osler Russell Brown; S. David Frankel, KC; Geoffrey Cowper, KC, Fasken; and Greg Allen, Allen/McMillan.
About the seminar as a whole, Mickelson said attendees can expect “legal guidance in a variety of areas, such as employment, campus life and criminal law, to deal with the heightened levels of antisemitism post-Oct 7.
“It is, of course, highly distressing to our community and especially our children,” he added. “As a lawyer, this is the best way I and the others assisting me on this, particularly Claire Hunter, KC, can do something constructive and educational to feel less helpless.”
Mickelson noted that Congregation Beth Israel has put on other topical daylong continuing legal education seminars, with assistance and insight from Infeld, including two separate trips to Israel with members of the bench and bar.
The cost for the Feb. 15 seminar, which runs 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., is $360 for professionals and $180 for students. Breakfast, snacks and lunch are included. The event is worth six continuing professional development (CPD) credits, including two ethics credits. For more information, visit bethisrael.ca or write [email protected].
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Raquel Benzacar Savatti, chief executive officer of Israel Bonds Canada. (photo from Israel Bonds Canada)
The phones at Israel Bonds Canada have been ringing off the hook since Oct. 7, according to Raquel Benzacar Savatti, chief executive officer of the organization that sells bonds for the Israeli Ministry of Finance in this country.
Canada has always shined in terms of its large base of retail purchasers of Israel Bonds, Savatti told the Independent earlier this month. That base has grown substantially.
“Jews to Israel are like firefighters to a burning building. When that building is on fire, they run towards it. When Israel is in trouble, Jews in the diaspora run towards it,” Savatti said.
Israel Bonds can be purchased online and Savatti noticed that many new accounts were opened in October.
“The volume was incredible – people I have not heard from in years, people I have never heard from before, young people. We always asked, how are we going to capture the next generation? This was it,” she said. “People understand it’s a very direct way to show their support of Israel.”
Savatti stressed that Israel Bonds is looking to engage as much as it can with the community in Vancouver and beyond. She praised the work of Ross Sadoff, executive director of the organization for British Columbia, noting that a lot of people in the province reinvested after their bonds reached maturity in recent months.
“We have to be together in our support of Israel and for each other. We have to have hope…. Israel has historically proven that after any conflict it has come out stronger and more innovative. I firmly believe we are going to see more of that when this is over,” she said.
Savatti underscored that the war has caused economic devastation in Israel, yet the country still has to operate and, ultimately, rebuild. The majority of Israel’s budget comes from taxpayers and there are a lot of people not working right now. Concurrently, there are challenges with sustaining the farming sector, the shuttering of businesses, the need to house evacuees and missing tourism dollars as a result of the war.
More than $50 billion has been invested through Israel Bonds by people from all over the world since its inception in 1951, creating a direct connection with Israel for many in the diaspora. In 2023, Israel Bonds had set a global goal of $1.5 billion US – by the end of the year, the amount exceeded $2.7 billion US, the bulk of which arrived after Oct.7. In Canada, more than $130 million US was sold last year and the goal for 2024 is $120 million US, though needs could change.
“I am so proud of us as a country,” Savatti said. “We punch so high above our weight given the size of our Jewish community. Per capita, we do better than any other country.”
The bonds are loans to the state of Israel to be used as it sees fit. When a particular bond – there are several to choose from – reaches maturity, the loan is repaid with interest. In the 73-year history of Israel Bonds, the country has never defaulted on the payment of the principal or interest of its debt.
In February 2021, with Savatti as CEO, Israel Bonds (officially Canada-Israel Securities) became a registered broker-dealer.
“This decision to become regulated came under the behest of the government of Israel,” Savatti said. As such, anyone who sells Israel Bonds must take the Canadian Securities Course, which would allow them to serve in an advisory capacity regarding investments as well.
“Whatever investments are being made by the purchaser, we, as the bonds organization, want to make sure they are suitable,” Savatti said. “We are not advising on a full portfolio, only on how Israel Bonds could work in that portfolio.”
For example, a person can invest in a given Israel Bond as part of a Registered Retirement Savings Plan, a Registered Education Savings Plan, a Tax-Free Savings Account and even a First Home Savings Account, depending on the goals of their portfolio. A person can select a variety of bonds with different dates of maturity.
“They really suit everybody and still make very good bar and bat mitzvah gifts,” Savatti said.
Of the types of bonds on offer, there is, for example, the eMazel Savings Bond, which is only available online; it starts at $36, with a maturity of five years. The Jubilee and Maccabee Bonds last as long as 15 years, with a $25,000 Cdn and $5,000 Cdn minimum, respectively.
Savatti has been connected with Israel Bonds since 2001. Before becoming CEO in 2016, she was the director of women’s and synagogue positions, divisional director, human resources manager, and chief customer officer. She was also the executive director of Ezer Mizion, an Israel health support organization, in Canada for two years.
For more information, visit israelbonds.ca or call 1-866-543-3351. Questions can also be put to Sadoff in the BC office, at 604-266-7210 or [email protected].
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver chief executive officer Ezra Shanken addresses those who gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery Jan. 14. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Vancouverites gathered Jan. 14 to mark the 100th day since the Oct. 7 terror attacks and to demand the release of hostages. The weekly vigils – which have taken place since the day after the attacks with the exception only of two weeks during the December holidays – continue to gather hundreds, with police escorts accompanying marchers through downtown streets after speeches outside the Vancouver Art Gallery.
“This is the moment for leaders of the world to take a stand against terrorism, to call on Hamas to release the hostages,” said event organizer Daphna Kedem. “Where are you, world leaders? You stay silent while girls are held in tunnels and Hamas are abusing women of all ages. Where are you? [There are] 136 hostages: 17 women, two children, 15 men and women over the age of 65, 94 men and youngsters, eight foreigners. We will not rest until they are all back.”
Kathryn Zemliya spoke of the commitment she made to Israel when she became a Jew by choice 17 years ago.
“Israel is the Jewish homeland,” she said. “Israel is also the birthplace and source of our Jewish faith. Our religious holidays reflect all the seasonal changes in the state of Israel and we celebrate those throughout the year.”
Her commitment to Israel, she said, is also a very personal one.
“Israel is one of a very few handful of Middle Eastern countries where people are not punished as criminals simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Zemliya. “For me, this is tremendously important. There are lots of places in the world where I could not travel with my family, where I could not travel with my wife, but I know that I would always be welcomed in Israel.”
She called for justice and defined what that justice would look like.
“Justice requires that we listen to and believe those who have given testimony of rape, brutality and torture that they have experienced or witnessed at the hands of terrorists,” she said. “Justice requires that we recognize and care for those who have been displaced from their homes due to conflict on all fronts in Israel because the war is not happening just in Gaza. Justice requires that we recognize and care for those who have lost family members, who have been traumatized and who, because of their life circumstances, are retraumatized daily by this terror. My hope is that we will see this justice soon and in our time, that is what we pray for.”
Rabbi Hannah Dresner, senior rabbi at Or Shalom Synagogue, and Rabbi Arik Labowitz, assistant rabbi, addressed the crowd.
“We are here to console one another through the power of gathering in such a difficult time,” said Dresner. She noted that the week’s Torah portion featured the demand by the Israelites to the tyrant of their time to let their people go. “We, likewise, are commanded by everything we know to be decent, to demand of the tyrant of our time, let our people go.”
Labowitz spoke of “waves of grief, fear and deep concern for the existential realities of our precious home in the land of Israel.”
“We are all heartbroken by the loss of life, the ever-deepening chasm and the generations of repair that will be required to heal from this moment in our shared history,” he said. “We know that the Jewish people have a heart that is bigger than any malicious attempts against us. The love and support that has come together to repair the fabric of Israeli society, of our local communities and of each of our hearts, is made up of the strength whose origin is in the plight of our ancestors to be free people in a land of our own, a land where our people were sovereign for centuries and a land that we returned to after 2,000 years of exile.”
Rabbi Arik Labowitz, assistant rabbi of Or Shalom, standing next to his colleague, Rabbi Hannah Dresner, the congregation’s senior rabbi. The two spoke at the Jan. 14 rally marking 100 days since Oct. 7. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Adi Keidar, who moved to Vancouver from Israel in 2000, shared the lesson she has learned since Oct. 7.
“Life, I used to think, matters to all,” she said. “But these past 100 days, I am sad to say, I’m wrong.”
Evil exists, she said, but must not be allowed to be the dominant voice.
Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, acknowledging the day’s below-freezing temperatures, said of the hostages: “The least we can do is stand here in the cold if they live in the cold depths of the tunnels.
“Let them know that, even in the coldest days of the year, we will stand out here and we will stand with them because we know that they need it,” he said, urging attendees to “keep showing up.”
Kedem, who has organized the events week after week, read aloud the names of the 136 hostages.
107 days
A week later, the King David High School community was front and centre at the Jan. 21 rally. Students of the Jewish school sang and spoke at the gathering, which ended in a downpour of rain as the group marched through city streets.
“You’re a link in a chain that has been growing stronger for thousands of years,” event organizer Daphna Kedem told the students.
Erica Forman, a 2022 alumna of King David, and brother Max Forman, a Grade 12 student, spoke of the strength they gathered during this time of unprecedented antisemitism from their respective communities at the University of British Columbia Hillel and at King David.
Rutie Mizrahi, parent of a Grade 12 student, spoke of her uncle and aunt, Oded and Yocheved Lifshitz, who were abducted from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz Oct. 7. Yocheved, 85, was among the first hostages released, after 17 days in captivity, because her captors believed she was near death.
The captors underestimated her aunt, Mizrahi said, and she has survived, despite arriving back in Israel appearing to be about half the weight she was when kidnapped. Yocheved had been rolled in a carpet and driven away on a motorcycle, but not before she saw her 83-year-old husband being savagely beaten outside their home. She did not believe he could have survived, but another hostage, freed later, confirmed that Oded was alive in Gaza but, without his blood pressure medication, had repeatedly fainted and was then taken to a hospital.
“The odds that we will see him back alive are close to zero,” Mizrahi said.
King David’s head of school Russ Klein said he is grateful his father, Emerich Klein, a Holocaust survivor who passed away earlier in 2023, is not witnessing the hatred in the world since Oct. 7.
“He instilled in us the need for Israel,” the principal said. “Only Jews, he said, would take care of Jews. I spent much of my time growing up not believing him. As I found with so many things as I got older, I learned my father was right.”
Klein called the school assembly on Oct. 10, when students and faculty gathered to mourn the Hamas murder of alumnus Ben Mizrachi, 22, and the other victims of the pogrom, the hardest moment of his career.
He urged people of all ages to inform themselves of facts to better engage in the discussion around events in Israel and Gaza, specifically directing attendees to resources released recently by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, an online toolkit called “The Power of One” and a messaging guide called “Real Peace Now.” Both are available at jewishvancouver.com.
Screenshot of Nelson City Council’s Oct. 22, 2023, meeting. Left to right, Topaz Zafrir, Yael Finer and Judy Banfield of the Kootenay Jewish Community Association present their concerns about the rise in anti-Israel and antisemitic events to the council.
Last October, as tensions in Canada were mounting over the Israel-Hamas war, three members of the Kootenay Jewish Community Association in Nelson paid a visit to the city council meeting to convey a request: that the council refrain from taking sides when it came to the emotionally charged protest rally that had taken place the day before. Nelson residents Judy Banfield, Yael Finer and Topaz Zafrir said they were also there to ask the police to continue its protection of Jewish community events, as it had in previous years. “We are very grateful for that,” Banfield said. “Right now, our community is frightened.”
The week before the meeting, Hamas had called to its supporters for a “day of rage.” The response was swift in Nelson, a college town that has seen an escalation of pro-Palestinian sentiment and anti-Israel demonstrations in recent years. About a hundred people turned out to hear speakers who gave accounts of what they believed was happening in Gaza. According to Kootenay Jewish community leader Yael Finer, the presentations included assertions about Israel’s role in Gaza that had already been debunked. The purpose of the rally, she felt, was to incite antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the city. Finer, an Israeli-Canadian who moved to Nelson in 2016, told the council that one of the speakers also made a pitch on behalf of Hamas.
“A final speaker said, ‘Don’t hate Hamas. They’re our brothers, our sons, our fathers,’” Finer recounted.
“The event was supposed to be about peace and education,” she said. “I actually reached out to the organizer, asking to speak at the event as one of the Israeli or Jewish [residents].”
Finer told the council that she empathizes with the Palestinian people and shares concern over the current situation in Gaza. She had gone to the rally to learn. She said her request to speak at the event was denied.
Finer added that one of the speakers was a city council member, “creating a perception of legitimacy” for the demonstration. The mayor later released a statement clarifying that only the mayor’s office represented the views of the city government, including at public events.
Not a new phenomenon
Banfield, who is a former Selkirk College instructor and has lived in Nelson since 1990, said antisemitism isn’t a new phenomenon in the city. She said the planned speech in 2013 of Greta Berlin, an accused antisemite, put the community on edge. Eventually, the Nelson library rescinded the offer for her to speak, but she was later offered a venue at the United Church. Although the gathering remained peaceful, Banfield said anti-Israel and antisemitic behaviour have only grown more evident.
“I have been in Nelson a long time and we’ve always been very open that we’re here and inviting,” she told the Jewish Independent about the local Jewish community. She said that, until recently, religious celebrations used to be open to the Nelson public. However, a couple of years ago, demonstrators picketed a Jewish holiday celebration.
“People were picketing us, basically as being Jews, being responsible for what is going on in the Middle East,” said Banfield. Since then, she said, the community has had to ask for police protection at religious and other community events and to conceal their locations from the public. “We do not feel safe gathering together in an announced venue,” she told the Nelson council.
Last November, demonstrators held another rally, this time calling on the city to formally advocate for a ceasefire. According to several attendees, there were also calls for boycotting local businesses that were assumed or known to do business in or with Israel.
Jeff Shecter, another long-time resident and one of the Jewish community’s first leaders, said even more people turned out for that rally. He said the protests and “river to the sea” chants have unnerved the Israeli members of the community.“[They] were more shocked than the rest of us who were maybe used to it,” Shecter observed. While he said he is not afraid, “to have a demonstration supposedly in support of Palestine without anyone, not a single soul, denouncing what happened on Oct. 7 was a travesty.”
Zafrir, one Nelson’s most recent arrivals from Israel, told the council that the community isn’t trying to stifle anyone’s voice. “We’re not asking you to take sides,” she said. “The Palestinians and whoever supports them have the right to protest, as we have to do so, and still feel safe in our community. Any person in Nelson should feel safe, despite disagreement or place of origin.”
On Dec. 5, acknowledging that it had received numerous calls for action, the city issued a formal letter “calling for peace in Gaza” and appealing for a “cessation of hostilities from all involved parties.” While the information shared among council members briefly mentioned the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, the letter that was disseminated to the public did not. Nor did it mention the death toll from the terror attack or that more than 240 people had been abducted by Hamas and most were still missing.
Banfield said she is sympathetic of the pressure that the city council is under. “I mean, they did end up passing a resolution promoting a ceasefire. And I know there was a lot of discussion about it on council and they made it as lukewarm as possible,” she said. “And I guess at this point, the biggest thing for us is that they have given us protection.”
Asked whether she felt the city council understands the Jewish community’s concerns about safety at this time, Finer shook her head. “No,” she said, adding that she had hoped others would understand that anti-Israel protests and picketing of Jewish sites is alarming. “[Even] though there was no direct threat to the Jewish people in the town, it was implied. And that makes me feel terrified,” Finer told the council.
Still, Finer hasn’t given up hope that things could change in Nelson. As the new leader of the Kootenay Jewish Community Association, she’s already thinking about ways to bridge differences and enhance dialogue with those who don’t know, or don’t understand, Nelson’s small Jewish community.
Jan Lee is an award-winning editorial writer whose articles and op-eds have been published in B’nai B’rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and Masorti Judaism and Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com.
Left to right: Rabbis Susan Tendler, Hannah Dresner, Philip Bregman, Carey Brown, Andrew Rosenblatt, Jonathan Infeld, Philip Gibbs and Dan Moskovitz in Israel last month. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Eight Vancouver-area rabbis recently visited Israel where, among many other things, they handed out cards and letters prepared by Jewish day school students and members of Vancouver’s Jewish community to soldiers and other Israelis. The response, according to one of the rabbis, was overwhelming.
“I saw soldiers taking these cards and then dropping down to the sidewalk and crying,” said Rabbi Philip Bregman. “Holding them to their chest as if this was a sacred piece of text and just saying, ‘Thank you. To know that we are not forgotten….’”
The rabbis’ mission included the delivery of thank you cards to Israeli soldiers. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Bregman, rabbi emeritus at the Reform Temple Sholom, was almost overcome with emotion while recounting the experience, which he shared in a community-wide online presentation Dec. 17. The event included seven of the eight rabbis who participated in the whirlwind mission, which saw them on the ground for a mere 60 hours. Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt of the Orthodox Congregation Schara Tzedeck was part of the mission but did not participate in the panel because he extended his time in Israel.
According to Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, who emceed the event, the Vancouver mission was unique in Canada and possibly in North America for bringing together rabbis from across the religious spectrum. The close connection of most local rabbis, facilitated by the longstanding Rabbinical Association of Vancouver (RAV), set a foundation for the mission, which took place in the second week of December.
The eight rabbis transported 21 enormous duffel bags, filled with gear like socks, gloves, toques and underwear, mostly for military reservists.
The rabbis delivered warm clothing, including socks, to Israeli soldiers. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
Shanken, who visited Israel days earlier with Federation representatives and five Canadian members of Parliament, said nothing prepared him for what he encountered there. Bregman echoed Shanken’s perspective.
“It’s one thing to have that as an intellectual understanding,” said Bregman, “It’s another thing when you are actually there to witness the absolute pain and trauma. People have asked me how was the trip. I say it was brutal.”
The reception they received from Israelis was profound, several of the rabbis noted.
“I’ve been to Israel dozens of times,” Bregman said. “People are [always] happy to see us. Nothing like this.”
Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, said the mission was to bear witness and also was a response to what rabbis were hearing from congregants about the centrality of Israel in their lives. He told the Independent that he was able to connect with two philanthropists in Los Angeles who funded the mission. Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi at Temple Sholom, and Rabbi Susan Tendler, rabbi at the Conservative Beth Tikvah Congregation, in Richmond, handled logistics, with input from the group.
The unity of Israelis was among the most striking impressions, said Brown.
“It’s so all-encompassing of the society right now … the sense that everyone’s in this together,” she said. The unity amid diversity was especially striking, she noted, when the rabbis visited the central location in Tel Aviv known as “Hostage Square.”
Brown said Israelis asked about antisemitism in Canada and seemed confounded by the fact that there is not more empathy worldwide for the trauma their country has experienced.
Tendler reflected on how Israelis were stunned and touched by the fact that a group of Canadians had come to show solidarity.
The rabbis were able to experience a microcosm of Israeli society without leaving their hotel. At the Dan Panorama Tel Aviv, where they stayed, they were among only a few paying guests. The hotel was filled with refugees from the south and north of the country who are being indefinitely put up in the city.
Several rabbis spoke of incidental connections in which they discovered not six degrees of separation between themselves and people they ran into, but one or two.
Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel, who is chair of RAV, told of being approached by members of a family staying at their hotel who heard they were from Vancouver. They asked if the rabbi knew a particular family and he replied that he not only knew them but that a member of that family had just married into his own.
Likewise, Tendler ran into people who went to the same summer camp she did and the rabbis found many other close connections.
“The idea [is] that we are spread out but, at the heart of it all, we honestly really are one very small, connected people,” said Tendler. “We are one family, one community and that was the most important, amazing thing of all.”
Close connections or not, the rabbis were welcomed with open arms. Rabbi Philip Gibbs of West Vancouver’s Conservative Congregation Har El told of how he was walking past a home and glanced up to see a family lighting Hanukkah candles. They insisted he come in and mark the occasion with them.
Gibbs also noted that the political divisions that had riven the society before Oct. 7 have not disappeared, but that the entire population appears to have dedicated themselves to what is most important now.
The rabbis met with scholars, including Israeli foreign ministry experts and many ordinary Israelis, including Arab Israelis, as well as the writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who told them that many Israelis feel let down by their government, intelligence officials and military leadership.
The rabbis traveled to the site of the music festival where 364 people were murdered, more than 40 hostages kidnapped and many more injured on Oct. 7. They saw scores of bullet-riddled and exploded vehicles. All of them will be drained of fuel and other fluids before being buried because they contain fragments of human remains that ZAKA, Israel’s volunteer rescue, extraction and identification agency, could not completely remove from the vehicles.
Rabbi Hannah Dresner of the Jewish Renewal-affiliated Or Shalom Synagogue was not the only rabbi to compare the mission with a shiva visit.
“I was just so amazed at the care that was being given, that each of these vehicles was now being siphoned of any remaining flammable materials so that each one of them could be buried according to our halachah,” Dresner said, “so that none of the human remains would be just discarded as junk. I found that overwhelmingly powerful.”
Relatedly, the group visited an exhibit at Expo Tel Aviv, which recreates the music festival site and features unclaimed property from the site, including the historically resonant sight of hundreds of pairs of shoes.
The visiting rabbis went to an exhibit at Expo Tel Aviv, which featured unclaimed property from the music festival site where hundreds were murdered. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
The rabbis visited Kibbutz Be’eri, where more than 100 people were murdered, and saw the devastation and destruction, some of it not from Oct. 7 but from days after, when explosives planted on that day detonated. It was also at this kibbutz that the Israel Defence Forces found a copy of the Hamas playbook for the atrocities.
“It sounded as if it could have been written by Eichmann or Hitler,” said Bregman. “[The intent] was not only to destroy the body but to destroy the mind, the soul, the psychology, the emotional and spiritual aspect of every Jew.”
The plan included strategies for setting fire to homes in order to force residents out of safe rooms, then specified the order in which family members were to be murdered – parents in front of their children.
As part of their mission to Israel, Vancouver rabbis visited kibbutzim that were attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7. (photo from facebook.com/jewishvancouver)
While the trip may have had the spirit of a shiva visit, the mood of the Israelis, Dresner said, was “can-do resourcefulness.”
“It’s felt to me over the past couple of years that Israelis have been kind of depressed,” she said, referring to divisive political conflicts. “But they are full force embracing their ingenuity and turning the energy of the resistance movement into this amazing volunteer corps to supply really whatever is needed to whatever sector.”
Groups that had coalesced to protest proposed judicial reforms pivoted to emergency response, she said, ensuring that soldiers and displaced civilians have basic needs met and then creating customized pallets of everything from tricycles to board games, bedding and washing machines, for families who will be away from their homes for extended periods.
The rabbis also went to Kibbutz Yavneh and paid their respects at the grave of Ben Mizrachi, the 22-year-old Vancouver man and former army medic who died at the music festival while trying to save the lives of others. They had a private meeting with Yaron and Jackie Kaploun, parents of Canadian-Israeli Adi Vital-Kaploun, who was murdered in front of her sons, an infant and a 4-year-old.
On the final evening of their visit, the rabbis hosted a Hanukkah party for displaced residents of Kiryat Shmona, the northern Israeli town that is in the Vancouver Jewish community’s partnership region.
At the party, Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Brown spoke with a woman whose two sons are in Gaza fighting for the IDF.
“I told her that we do the prayer for tzahal, for the IDF, in our services in our shul,” Brown said, “and she was so surprised and touched, and she said, ‘Keep praying, keep praying.’”
As a freelancer, I often find interesting work opportunities that don’t pan out. I spent time in December applying for an editor gig that involved editing summaries of literature to provide students with educational support. I used to think these supports were “cheating,” using these kinds of guides, but now I know differently. Students with special needs deserve access to these stories. I recognize that every student has the right to learn, read great pieces of literature and access education, even if they struggle along the way. So, I dutifully filled out the form, sent off my CV and submitted an application. One application question irked me. “What’s your favourite piece of literature and why?”
Two things bothered me. One is that this response had a word limit on the form, so nobody could wax eloquent about whatever they chose. The second thing is that, as someone in mid-life who reads voraciously, I thought it was ridiculous to ask what someone’s all-time favourite was. I couldn’t possibly name only one, but I thought about it. I’ve been reading Talmud daily for about four years. I must like it. Further, it has helped me gain a lot of insight into the ancient world, and reflects further on ancient cultures, law systems and storytelling.
I tried to fit this into the form, but I had reservations. The organization had a big “We do not discriminate” statement on its page but, after Oct. 7, I wondered if I was risking something to say that the Babylonian Talmud was my current favourite. My concerns might have been warranted. On Dec. 25, in the morning, I received a vague form email telling me my application hadn’t been successful. My household laughed about the timing of the form letter. What were they indicating? That Jews should work as usual on Christmas, a North American statutory holiday? Or that my choice of literature was so egregious they couldn’t wait for a business day to reply? Perhaps something else about my qualifications didn’t meet their needs. It’s best not to work for a place that isn’t a good fit. Although this part-time gig had great potential, I wasn’t a contender. That’s OK.
This experience made me reflect on my lifelong relationship with reading. I’ve always loved to read. One of my undergraduate majors was in comparative literature. Afavourite moment during my graduate work in English education came when the professor put different things on a table and asked us to list which things were “literature.” The professor included newspaper articles, fiction and nonfiction, plays and song lyrics, advertisements, and more. Her point was that we often couldn’t predict what piece of writing would stand the test of time. Further, all of us would have different answers to this question about how to define literature and its meaning. She was right.
Since Oct. 7, I’ve had a hard time focusing. For a long time, I couldn’t read a book. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been glued to the news and social media, reading many articles and much political analysis. I listened to completely “fluffy” fiction audio books as I cooked but, eventually, I had to stop renewing a book I’d checked out from the public library. It was nonfiction, a book about the US Great Migration called The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson. It was well-written and engaging. I felt like apologizing to the author. I couldn’t focus enough to remember the various narrative threads or finish it.
Later, on Dec. 25, I managed to complete reading On the Way Home, the short diary of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which recounted her trip from South Dakota to her new home in Mansfield, Mo., in 1894. This brief chronicle transported me, giving me a window into travel during a period of US history that I could only imagine. Was it literature? Perhaps, because it worked the way literature should. I spent time in my imagination in a different place and time. It offered a brief respite. Perhaps it’s the start of being able to focus on reading again? I can only hope.
I wondered why I’d made it through this (admittedly short) volume I’d found at a neighbourhood Little Free Library. It made me reflect on what aspects of literature are valuable and what allows us to focus on it. Perhaps it’s about escape or the imagination. Maybe it helps us learn about relationships, history and culture.
Four years ago, I resolved to start Daf Yomi, reading a page of Talmud a day, on Jan. 5. It was my birthday and close enough to the start of the secular new year to be a “resolution” that truly stuck. After four years of reading a page a day, I am still immersed in this experience. Even though I read mostly in English, and barely skim the surface of each page, I’d argue this is a good read. I’ve learned a lot, but it has taken work and research to make meaning. Sometimes, I have to struggle with finding connections with the rabbis who lived 2,000 years ago. Even as the rabbis struggled with practical issues, I sometimes have to read commentaries and make a leap to figure out how the issues applied then as compared to today.
Great literature is about history and context, as well as mystery, and it’s all there, wrapped up for us like a big gift in Jewish literature. Religious texts like Torah and Talmud, as well as all the other Jewish stories that came afterwards, add meaning and depth to our lives. Surprisingly, I haven’t had trouble focusing on these narratives.
Here, too, is another lesson that literature is teaching me – we Jews are a small people but have incredibly rich literary and spiritual resources. As Israel struggles physically with war, these texts remind me what we’re fighting to maintain. Doing the work to understand these texts offers us so much history, context and tradition, I’m grateful to have the opportunity. It’s the least I can do when so much is at stake.
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.
“Dear Hostages, as the world rallies to celebrate your desecration I will not forsake you,” begins the poem written by Seattle-based multimedia artist and educator Loolwa Khazzoom. Posted on her Facebook page, with a #BringThemHomeNow poster featuring photos of Israelis kidnapped on Oct. 7, it continues, “My instinct is to deprive myself of oxygen / Because you are underground / And I will not forget you // But I know that you would dance / In the sun / If given the chance / So I now rise up / And dance for you.”
Many of Khazzoom’s songs begin as poems. In this case, she told the Independent, “I felt as if I could not breathe and as if I did not even want to breathe, out of solidarity with the hostages and with all of Israel, in particular, all the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre. It’s like I wanted to physically feel their pain and suffering, as a way of physically demonstrating that I would not forsake them or forget them.”
In a traumatized mental state, Khazzoom returned to the “healing tools of poetry and music,” which was another way she could show her solidarity and do her part in keeping the issue of the hostages in frontof people.
Similarly, Khazzoom and her band, Iraqis in Pajamas, recently released another poem-turned-song, “#MahsaAmini.” They did so this past Sept. 16, the first anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iranian “morality police.”
Finding out about Amini’s murder soon after it took place, from TikTok videos posted by Iranian women, Khazzoom “jumped into action.” She wrote to her political representatives, raised funds for United 4 Iran and reposted Iranian women’s videos on her feed constantly, to help boost the content’s views. “In addition,” she said, “a day after I found out about what happened, a poem with my feelings poured out of me, and I posted it on social media. Months later, I put that poem to a melody, and the band developed it into a full band song, which we released on the [anniversary of the] day of Amini’s murder.”
The death affected Khazzoom deeply for many reasons.
“First, the women in my family wore the abaya, the Iraqi equivalent of the hijab – Jewish women throughout the region were subject to Muslim dress codes, so it’s a Jewish issue, too,” she said. “Second, so many people assume that Islam is indigenous throughout the Middle East and North Africa, but it’s not. Arab Muslims rose up from the Arabian Peninsula and conquered the entire region, forcibly converting masses under the threat of death. So many indigenous ethnicities and religions predated the Muslim conquest, including Jews, Persians, Berbers and Kurds. The Iranian women protesting and burning their hijabs felt to me like challenging that Muslim conquest and awakening the ancient Persian warriors. Third, Persia is central to Jewish history and the origins of the Mizrahi community, dating back nearly three millennia ago…. And, lastly, the fire of these women, and the men who joined them, and their willingness to risk their lives for their dignity and freedom was just breathtaking and profoundly inspirational.”
Another of Iraqis in Pajamas’ releases this year was also intensely personal for Khazzoom.
“I wrote ‘The Convert’s Quest’ in response to some friends on social media sharing how hurt they were, coming under attack during the process of their conversion to Judaism. I had ample experience witnessing variations on this theme throughout my life – both first-person, seeing it happen to friends, and through my research as a Jewish multicultural educator. For decades, I felt very disturbed by this seemingly growing trend.
“I am the daughter of a Jew by choice, as my mother called herself, so the matter of conversion to Judaism is very personal for me,” she said. “I remember understanding very clearly as an Orthodox Jewish child that, according to halachah (Jewish law), once you convert, you are no longer to be called ‘a convert,’ but rather, a Jew, period. So, even from a religious Jewish perspective itself, I was very distraught by the ways that Jewish leaders and communities were rejecting or harassing converts, or even all-out forbidding people from converting. It all flies in the face of Jewish history, theology and practice.”
The band released “The Convert’s Quest” on May 24, on the harvest holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people and on which the Book of Ruth is read. It tells the story of Ruth, a Moabite woman who converted to Judaism, whom Jewish tradition teaches will be the ancestor of the Messiah.
“To me, Jewish converts are the lifeblood of the Jewish people,” said Khazzoom. “I have a provocative line in my song, saying that converts are ‘the most Jewish Jews of all,’ because they are intentionally and consciously practising the foundational precepts of Judaism, which so many either take for granted or do rote, as is often the case in the Orthodox Jewish world where I was raised. In addition, amidst life-threatening levels of racism and violence against Jews, converts choose Judaism…. Why would we reject, in any way, from subtle to blatant, someone with such a heroic Jewish soul?”
Even when delivered in a playful manner, Khazzoom’s song are serious to the core. The campy “Kitchen Pirate,” for example, “emerged from my choice to reject the conventional option of surgery, in the wake of a cancer diagnosis in 2010,” she said. “Instead, I chose to radically alter my diet and lifestyle. Simply by overhauling my diet, I cold-stopped the growth of the nodules, which remained stable for the next five years – neither growing nor shrinking – until I returned to my lost-love of music, following which they began shrinking.”
Khazzoom said her songs “are always questioning, always challenging, always defiant. Sometimes, it’s more explicit, other times it’s embedded in silliness, which, parenthetically, I also see as defiant. I am and forever will be a curious, playful and awe-inspired child. I think that, if and when we ‘outgrow’ that, we die inside. And I refuse to capitulate to that norm of expected behaviour once we enter adulthood. By way of example, to this day, at age 54, when I am flying in a plane, if there is nobody sitting next to me, I will stretch out my arms and pretend I’m a bird, during takeoff.”
Not everyone has appreciated this aspect of her personality. “I have constantly gotten into trouble for it and have been at odds with my family, my community and society at large,” said Khazzoom. “I have endured terrible loneliness and often even self-doubt as a result. But I always come back to my core. And all of my songs emerge from that place – that raw, gut-wrenching place of being fiercely alive and allowing the clash with everything around me, and then writing about it.”
It is this enthusiasm that Victoria-based band member Mike Deeth enjoys about being in Iraqis in Pajamas, whose third member is Chris Belin.
“Loolwa and Chris are both easy-going, creative people. The energy is very positive, which makes collaborating with them fun and organic,” Deeth told the Independent. “Further, I appreciate the passion Loolwa has for the subject matter she writes about. One thing I always struggled with as a musician is ‘What do I have to say?’ At the end of the day, I’m a privileged guy who has never had to face oppression, hate, war or genocide. I have a lot of respect for artists who have experienced darker parts of humanity and have the courage to bring that perspective into their art.”
Born in Toronto, Deeth, who is not Jewish, spent most of his adolescence in Calgary, and moved to Vancouver Island when he was 18. He first picked up a guitar a few years earlier and has been playing ever since. “I was in my first band at 18 and played in bands throughout my 20s. For the past several years, I have been mainly focused on recording,” he said.
Mike Deeth (photo from Mike Deeth)
Deeth got hooked on music production in his teens, getting his first digital recorder at age 16. “I still remember pulling all-nighters with friends trying to write songs and get ideas down on tape. Production was always fascinating to me, as I could layer parts together into something bigger than I could ever play on my own.”
Deeth and Khazzoom met a couple of years ago through a Craigslist posting. “She was looking for a guitarist to contribute to an early version of her track ‘The Convert’s Quest,’” he explained, complimenting Khazzoom on the fact that she “puts her full heart into her songs.”
“I recorded some initial guitar demos and, about a year later, we reconnected and worked up the current releases,” he said.
Deeth adds guitar to the songs and completes the mix and master of the songs when they are ready for those steps. Khazzoom sings, writes and plays bass, while Belin – who lives in Pennsylvania – composes the drum parts and performs them.
Among his other music ventures, Deeth has “played the guitar with Bryce Allan, a country musician here on the island, and recorded a few tracks with him. I also work closely with Jennie Tuttle, another musician from Victoria. We have been recording together for seven or eight years now.”
For Deeth, “recording is such an interesting combination of art and science. I get to be musically creative, but I also get to play with cool machines, solve problems and think about gain staging, compression ratios and other technical aspects. I thoroughly enjoy both the artistic and scientific parts of the process – they work my mind in different ways.
“I also love how each project starts as a blank canvas and ends with a new piece of music out in the world. There are an almost infinite number of possibilities when recording a track (all the possible settings on the equipment, the subtleties of different instruments) and it always fascinates me how each song takes shape during the process.”
“Mike has an exquisite sensitivity in his musical composition, performance and recording,” said Khazzoom. “He’s not only super-talented and -skilled, but he’s warm, upbeat, enthusiastic and professional. It’s a joy to create music with him. As is the case with our drummer Chris Belin, Mike has an uncanny ability to capture the essence of the songs I write, to the point that I feel he is playing back to me the sound of my soul. I have literally sat and cried after hearing the mixes.”
For more on Khazzoom, visit khazzoom.com. For more on Deeth’s production and sound services, visit glowingwires.com.
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.
Teenagers are filling in for drafted reservists at Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market. (photo by Gil Zohar)
With the horrors of Oct. 7 embedded in our minds, in our hearts and in our souls, Israel has come together in so many ways, including for war. The effects are so broad and deep. Here is a bird’s-eye view from my narrow perch.
All the booms in the air, coming from far-off (and not-so-far-off) mid-air missile collisions – bravo Iron Dome! The swoosh of our fighter jets overhead – bravo Israeli Air Force! And all those customized Red Alert apps buzzing away on everyone’s cellphones – bravo Elad Nava, tech entrepreneur extraordinaire! It’s starting to sound like an orchestra out there.
Social media was calling for Israelis to sing, to go out on our patios at 9 p.m. and belt out Hatikvah. We did. And it felt great! So darn cathartic. What a sense of solidarity. As it turns out, on this particular evening, Hamas warned Tel Aviv of a missile barrage at 9 p.m. Guess our singing acted as type of musical Iron Dome, as no barrage arrived. Which is not to say Tel Aviv hasn’t had its share of missiles, just not at this particular time.
Driving to work, traffic slowed down considerably due to some “jackass” up ahead. Turned out to be a convoy of military jeeps carrying weapons and personnel to our north. As I passed them – 12 vehicles – I slowed down (in the left lane), gave a friendly honk and a thumbs up to each. Twelve times. Cars behind me did the same.
With 75 seconds to reach our safe room and with missile attacks being random with no real pattern, the stress and uncertainty prevents me from enjoying my private bathroom time, sitting down with a newspaper or book or my smartphone. But not under current circumstances. Just want to get in and out of there as quickly as I can..
Same for showering. No more basking under a warm spray of fresh water. No more humming a few showtunes while lathering up. Nope. Just a quick soaping and get out of there. For shaving, I’m getting use to a three-day growth cycle.
And, getting really personal … in the bedroom with the wife, I am now suffering reverse performance anxiety. I just get it done and move on. Don’t want to get caught with my pants down when the sirens sound.
Bravo to McDonald’s – giving McHappy meals free of charge to our soldiers. The restaurant stepped up, and many businesses are doing the same. From banks, to other restaurants, to retailers, providing goods or services at discounted prices to relieve some of the burden weighing on the country. Wonderful to see this coming together.
I miss my exercise routine. Was swimming a couple time a week. Now, not. The pool closed due to homeland security restrictions limiting gatherings at places of leisure. Who would categorize exercise as leisure? Anyway, I don’t think I’d hear the missile alert with my head bobbing in and out of the water while doing the breaststroke or front crawl. More so, there’s no running along the poolside, so would not make the saferoom in time.
We are not immune to panic buying. A few nights into the war, based on some rumour or other, I went grocery shopping to stock up on water, canned goods, candles, matches, toilet paper…. Didn’t get out of there until almost 11 p.m. The checkout line snaked all the way to the meat section. It was long, the joke being that, by the time we reach the checkout counter, Netanyahu will have negotiated a hudna (truce in Arabic). Ha.
I keep saying I’ll do it. Need to put more than just a half dozen bottled waters and a few inhalers in our safe room. Should stock it with canned goods, more medicine, flashlight, battery-powered radio and other survival aids. Maybe tomorrow.
If someone forgets their house key and knocks at our now always-locked door, they need to say a password before we’ll open the door. The theory being, if a Hamas terrorist is holding a gun to their head, they won’t say the password. Talk about paranoid. Probably run-of-the-mill war-related stress.
Joe Biden. His Oct. 11 “Don’t” speech was amazing! Talk about geopolitical alliances, commitments, pacts, and the such – I won’t. I’ll simply say I fell in love that evening.
Joe Biden. His Oct. 18 “We’ve got your back” speech was TREMENDOUS! I fell in love with him. Again. With a lightning visit to Israel, he kind of reminded me of Clint Eastwood in his glory days. He had that “make my day” squint in his eyes. Might have been him struggling to read the monitor, but he came across as a Dirty Harry kind of guy.
There are still a handful of Israelis – OK, maybe more than a handful – who just don’t get it. Now is not the time for divisiveness and finger pointing. There was utter failure. But the hard questions and difficult answers will come later. Now is the time for unity!
My wife and daughter volunteered at a high-end event (my wife works in the industry) to help arrange 1,000+ meals for our soldiers. There will be some very satiated soldiers enjoying gourmet meals in cardboard boxes and with disposable utensils.
And the sweet smell of my wife’s chocolate chip cookies and brownies baking in the kitchen. She slaps my hand as I go for a cookie: “Not for you! For our soldiers.” It’s that spirit of coming together.
My daughter left the house early the other morning and returned about an hour later with a huge orange garbage bag full of…. “What’s that?” I inquired. “Laundry. From a family in the south who was evacuated to some hotel. Mom volunteered.” As much as we get preoccupied with the war, with survival, sometimes it’s the mundane that really makes a difference.
Ouch. Our currency at its weakest since 2015. Pretty painful when you are sending US dollar instalments to your son studying in the States.
I know the diaspora is busy raising money for Israel at speeds and amounts like never before. But don’t stop once you give. Give more. This war will cost Israel billions. If you have given, please give again. Sderot is Israel’s front line. Israel is the diaspora’s front line.
Bruce Brown is a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah … a long time ago. He works in Israel’s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is the winner of the 2019 AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire An Israeli is…. Brown reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal.
