remembrance

Supplying healthy food

Left to right: Larry Vinegar, Stan Shaw, Lloyd Baron, Michelle Dodek, Steve Schacter and Marcy Schwartzman. (photo from Marcy Schwartzman)

There are roughly 1,200 people who rely on Jewish Family Services food hubs in the Greater Vancouver area, and much of the fresh produce they receive is due to the efforts of Larry Vinegar and Marcy Schwartzman.

Each month, JFS delivers approximately 2,500 bags of groceries to its clients, which include families with children, seniors, new immigrants, people with disabilities and other individuals in need. In 2021, during the pandemic, JFS established the food hubs, in partnership with synagogues and other organizations. The food is collected and distributed, with the help of a team of volunteers, at a central hub in Vancouver on 3rd Avenue called the Kitchen.

photo - JFS hubs, situated in various parts of Greater Vancouver, offer fruit and vegetables — JFS hubs, situated in various parts of Greater Vancouver, offer fruit and vegetables. *(photo from Marcy Schwartzman)*

The hubs, situated in Vancouver, the North Shore, Burnaby, Surrey, the Tri-Cities and Richmond, offer fruit and vegetables. The program does not provide any meats, poultry or shellfish, and ensures that items are available for clients who follow a kosher diet.

“Most of the clients are people who are struggling to make ends meet, and your rent has to get paid. It often takes primary resources to pay your rent, and then food and other necessities come second. A lot of people are at a point where, at the end of the month, they don’t have money to put food on their tables, so they’re looking for assistance for that,” Schwartzman said.

She added that, if people do not have enough money, they choose the least expensive options, which are often not the healthiest. Thus, a community kitchen that supplies nutritious produce can be vital to a person’s well-being, she said.

The Independent caught up with Schwartzman and Vinegar on a spring afternoon. They were about to prepare the ground for planting on a Lower Mainland farm, the produce from which would be distributed by JFS.

photo - Maxwell (Moishe) Vinegar — Maxwell (Moishe) Vinegar. *(photo from Marcy Schwartzman)*

On Dec. 31, 2020, the couple suffered a tragedy, losing their 31-year-old son, Maxwell (Moishe) Vinegar, in a skiing accident. Prior to his passing, the family had had a conversation about food security, which reflected on a period when their son was young, and the family would deliver food for the food bank for Hanukkah.

“We had a lot of conversations with our kids about what it means to be a member of your community and be responsible and look out for our other community members,” Schwartzman said. “That December, around Hanukkah time, we were saying to him, ‘Hey, you should go help at the food bank.’ And he said, ‘I’m busy working, Dad, you’re retired, you should go do it.’”

In trying to come out of their grief, Vinegar and Schwartzman started their food efforts with donations people made after Max’s death, which they requested be directed to JFS. A friend of theirs who owned a farm in the Okanagan planted an acre of squash – a sign notes that all the squash growing on the acre is for JFS in Moishe’s memory.

photo - A friend of Larry Vinegar and Marcy Schwartzman, who owns a farm in the Okanagan, plants an acre of squash for JFS in memory of their son, Maxwell (Moishe) Vinegar — A friend of Larry Vinegar and Marcy Schwartzman, who owns a farm in the Okanagan, plants an acre of squash for JFS in memory of their son, Maxwell (Moishe) Vinegar. (photo from Marcy Schwartzman)

“We went up to help look after that for a couple of weekends that first summer, and that sort of got us thinking that maybe we can find somewhere to grow food to provide it to Jewish Family Services,” Schwartzman said.

The next summer, Vinegar spoke to a blueberry farmer in Richmond, who put the couple in touch with a family that lets them use their half-acre backyard, at no cost, to grow vegetables for the food bank.

“We’ve grown a variety of things over the years, but what grows the best there is zucchini and squash, butternut and acorn, and we also have green beans,” Schwartzman said. “We’ve been generously supported by West Coast Seeds.”

Further efforts include growing 300 plants at Richmond Jewish Day School last year, building relationships with local farmers, and spreading the word about tax benefits for those who donate excess crops to bolster food security.

“Larry has been quite instrumental and not afraid to go talk to different farmers around the Lower Mainland, just at the end of the season, to say you didn’t sell your crop, we’ll be happy to come pick it up,” Schwartzman said.

Vinegar has also developed a relationship with Costco after he walked into one of their stores and spoke with a manager about supplying unsold goods to food banks instead of disposing of them. All Costco stores give away food that is getting close to its stale date, said Schwartzman. “They donate to a different organization each day.”

In 2024, Vinegar and Schwartzman were recipients of the inaugural JFS Lighting the Way Award. At the presentation, they were described as “embodiments of JFS’s values, demonstrating innovation in their commitment to social good.”

“We are grateful for the help of many friends and volunteers who help us plant, tend and harvest,” said Schwartzman. “We couldn’t do what we do without their help!”

For more on JFS’s food and other services, go to jfsvancouver.ca.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

A chime of metal tags

photo - This wind chime with metal tags holds the energy of the people who wore them, and the hostages who we still remember in our hearts — This wind chime with metal tags holds the energy of the people who wore them, and the hostages who we still remember in our hearts. *(photo from Rina (Lederer) Vizer)*

It seems so long ago, but it was only on Jan. 27, after 843 days, 12 hours and six minutes, that all our hostages returned home; the living and the dead. Finally, the clock at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv was turned off.

A lot of forces played into this “miracle” of living up to the Israeli ethos of freeing our people, but, in my view, the main force was the power of the people: the hundreds of thousands that flooded the streets, week after week, in Israel and in cities around the world. Here in Vancouver, we echoed the outcry for their return, every Sunday, for almost two-and-a-half years.

As an artist, I thought that I should find a new role for the metal tags we wore during that period, one that would reflect the spirit of our people; a spirit with a force that can move and sway: a wind chime! The word in Hebrew for “wind” is ruach, the same word used for “spirit.”

I turned to my friends in the circle of Israeli folk dance, who had been dancing with the tags on their chests for those almost two-and-a-half years. I asked them to donate their tags to the project.

Glenda Leznoff, who was part of the creative design, and I collected the tags, and Glenda’s son-in-law, Dave Smith, built the chime. The result: a beautiful wind chime with metal tags that holds the energy of the people who wore them, and the hostages who we still remember in our hearts.

The chime will be offered to the highest bidder in a silent auction this weekend, during the annual BeLev Echad Israeli Dance workshop at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. (“BeLev echad” means “With one heart,” in Hebrew.) The proceeds will go to the Vancouver Israeli Folk Dance Society, a charitable organization that promotes Israeli dance here.

Rina (Lederer) Vizer is a Vancouver artist who has exhibited her work many times over the years. In October 2024, she curated, as well as participated in, the exhibition Memory and Hope, at Temple Sholom, which commemorated the terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. Her art is displayed in Temple Sholom, which commissioned from her 10 panels depicting Israel’s views from north to south.

Together in mourning

Geoffrey Druker, who leads the community’s annual memorial ceremony, consoles a young speaker on Yom Hazikaron. (photo from Geoffrey Druker)

Emotions were close to the surface April 20 at Vancouver’s annual Yom Hazikaron commemoration. The Jewish community gathered at Temple Sholom to mark Israel’s day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism – an evening that bridged decades of loss with the raw immediacy of the present.

Geoffrey Druker, who has led the annual ceremony for many years, shared multiple stories spanning decades, reflecting the losses in Israel’s many wars and incessant terror attacks.

A photograph from 2005 showed four young commanders from the Golani Brigade. Within a year, two of them – Benji Hillman and Roi Klein – would be killed in the Second Lebanon War. Hillman died in battle and, six days later, Klein was killed after throwing himself on a grenade to save his soldiers.

Nearly two decades later, the tragedy continued.

On Oct. 7, 2023, the two surviving commanders in the photo – Roi Levy and Yizhack Ben Bassat – rushed from their homes to defend Israeli communities under attack. Levy was killed that day at Kibbutz Re’im. Two months later, Ben Bassat was killed during the war in Gaza.

Col. Yizhack Ben Bassat’s sister, Hamutal, is a member of the Vancouver community and lit a candle in his memory.

In the 40 days of Operation Roaring Lion, the initial war with Iran, Druker said more than 20 civilians and 13 soldiers were killed. Among the civilians killed was Ofer Moskovitz.

“He was better known in the region and throughout Israel as ‘Pushko,’” said Druker. He was a farmer in charge of the avocado orchard of Kibbutz Misgav Am, which is located right on the border with Lebanon, in Vancouver’s partnership region of the Upper Galilee.

“Veteran members of our Federation partnership committee met with him numerous times during visits to the region,” said Druker. “He was 60 years old.

“Tonight we remember them all,” Druker said, as the congregation rose for a moment of silence.

The ceremony moved between individual stories and collective grief, underscoring the scale of loss while emphasizing its personal nature.

The evening became intensely personal with the remembrance of Ben Mizrachi, the young Vancouver man killed at the Nova music festival.

“Ben did not run away to save himself when he had the chance,” his mother had said in a previous address that was recounted. “He showed tremendous courage … as he tried to save others.”

This year, the graduate of King David High School was remembered by his uncle, Mooshon Mizrachi.

Many other stories were read aloud and relatives and community members read Yizkor and lit candles, transforming the ceremony into a living bridge between Vancouver and Israel.

“These past years, Israel has been engaged in wars on five fronts,” Druker noted, referencing the sustained conflict that has affected every part of the country.

The story of brothers Amit and Yigal Vax, killed defending their community during the Oct. 7 attacks, was told as a recollection of that morning – sirens, explosions and the sudden realization that terrorists had entered their village. The account described fear giving way to terror, as residents hid in safe rooms as gunfire echoed outside.

“Amit … heard gunfire … grabbed his weapon … and was killed,” Druker recounted. His brother Yigal, armed only with a machete, was also killed trying to defend their home.

Sivan Keidar, a member of the extended Vax family, lit a candle in their memory.

Throughout the ceremony, music and ritual provided a framework for mourning. Songs such as “Ad Machar” (“Until Tomorrow”) and “Makom L’de’aga” (“A Place to Worry”) reflected the emotional landscape of grief.

Shinshinim, Israeli teenagers participating in a year-of-service program in Vancouver, spoke about the legacy they have inherited – one shaped by wars they did not experience directly, but which continue to define their lives.

Eliyahu Kaminsky of Congregation Schara Tzedeck synagogue recited the memorial prayer El Maleh Rachamim.

Education offers hope

Left to right: Minister and Solicitor General Nina Krieger, Holocaust survivor and keynote speaker Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Premier David Eby and survivor Leo Vogel at the Legislative Assembly on April 14. (photo from Province of BC)

The annual Yom Hashoah commemoration ceremony at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia took place on April 14, with political leaders, Holocaust survivors and representatives of the Vancouver and Victoria Jewish communities in attendance.

Raj Chouhan, speaker of the Assembly, started the proceedings. “Now, more than ever, it is important that we reflect on and remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and I stand in solidarity with you as we honour survivors today,” he said.

“When I think about the Holocaust, I think of the six million lives of men, women and children lost, the grief, the decimation of entire communities,” said Premier David Eby. “Beyond that, there is the extinguishment of so much potential that could have improved the world.”

Trevor Halford, interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, echoed the premier’s sentiment, calling the Holocaust a genocide unprecedented in its scale. “We lost men, women and children. We never got to see their full potential of what they could be or how they could change and impact this world,” he said. “We must call out hate every time we see it. Every time. Each one of us.”

Jeremy Valeriote, representing the BC Green Party, said that Yom Hashoah is not only a day of mourning but a call to action. “It reminds us of the dangers of hatred, antisemitism and indifference, and challenges us to confront injustice wherever we see it,” he said.

Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, an author, educator and survivor, was the keynote speaker. She described a happy, ordinary childhood in Poland in the 1930s. Hers was an assimilated family that participated in Jewish life. Her father was a lawyer and her mother had a large social circle consisting of many friends, both Jewish and not Jewish. That all changed in September 1939.

“There isn’t a day that I don’t ask myself why I survived. How did I survive when six million of us perished, and 1.5 million were children? And one of them was my sister. I lost my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and the list goes on and on,” Boraks-Nemetz said.

Commemorations, such as the one in Victoria, will hopefully ensure that an “apocalyptic event” like the Holocaust never happens again, Boraks-Nemetz said. Through education, she said, we sow the seeds of truth and understanding, the lesson that racism, intolerance and prejudice must have no place in society.

Through the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Boraks-Nemetz and other survivors have spoken to thousands of schoolchildren in the province. She thanked Eby’s government for mandating Holocaust education for students in Grade 10. “Through such actions, we may find a glimmer of hope for a better future,” she said.

Boraks-Nemetz is the author of several books that reflect on her experiences as a survivor and subsequent life in Canada. Her award-winning young adult novel, The Old Brown Suitcase (1994), is used in school curricula to teach about the Holocaust and multiculturalism. Her most recent books are volumes of poetry, Out of the Dark (2020) and Hidden Vision: Poems of Transformation (2024), written under the name Jagna Boraks.

Towards the end of the commemoration, survivors Leo Vogel and Arlette Baker joined Boraks-Nemetz on stage to honour the victims of Nazi terror.

During the ceremony, Rabbi Meir Kaplan led attendees in prayer, and he reflected on how, over the last 20 years, the room had gone from being filled with survivors to having just a handful. Local community member Ari Hershberg read Boraks-Nemetz’s poem, “A Survivor Remembers the Six Million.”

Nina Krieger, minister of public safety and solicitor general, and former executive director of the VHEC, essentially led the proceedings.

“It’s by engaging with the Holocaust that we consider questions like, What is at stake to remain a bystander?” she said. “What are our obligations in times of moral crisis? We learn about the dangers of denial and distortion of history and memory.”

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Remembrance – a moral act

Malka Pischanitskaya, centre, told her story of survival at the Vancouver community’s Yom Hashoah ceremony. Her daughter, Inna Turner, and granddaughter, Sophie Turner, also spoke at the April 14 event. (Rhonda Dent Photography)

Even before the Holocaust upended her life, Malka Pischanitskaya’s family was hobbled by poverty. Her father left before she was born, and she was largely raised by her grandmother and great-aunt while her mother worked elsewhere. After the Nazi invasion reached Romaniv, Ukraine, in 1941, when Malka was 10 years old, she saw Jews murdered in the streets. On Aug. 25, 1941, Romaniv’s Jews were rounded up for mass execution.

On that day, there was a pounding on the family’s front door and orders to assemble at a central location. What followed was chaos, crowds converging from all directions, families separated. Men were taken away and executed.

“The screams of men were just horrible,” she recalled.

Malka and her mother survived only because, after hours of terror, some mothers with children were unexpectedly released. Most of their family and community were murdered.

What followed were years of hiding, near-starvation and repeated brushes with death. The title of Pischanitskaya’s memoir, A Mother to My Mother, published by the Azrieli Foundation, comes from the reversal forced on her by war: her mother was so traumatized that young Malka often became the more practical, protective figure, begging for food and helping keep them alive. (See jewishindependent.ca/a-harrowing-survival-story.)

Pischanitskaya shared her story April 14 at the annual Yom Hashoah community event, marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, in conversation with Ellie Lawson, education manager of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Each day, Malka left her mother hidden – in a haystack, a trench, wherever they could remain unseen – and went from door to door in nearby villages, begging for bread. Malka had gone to a Ukrainian public school and spoke Ukrainian fluently, while her mother was identifiably Jewish by her accent. Sometimes people helped, sometimes they could not, but two people in particular probably ensured Malka and her mother lived.

One of those people was Lydia. When Malka first approached her, Lydia demurred. “My home is so empty,” she said. “Like a crystal bowl.”

Malka proposed that, if Lydia would hide her and her mother, she would continue to gather food and share it. Lydia agreed and, for more than a year, Malka and her mother lived hidden in Lydia’s home.

Eventually, neighbours became suspicious. Malka and her mother moved, this time to the home of a young orphan who, like Lydia, chose to help despite the risks.

Both women would be recognized at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.

“They needed us as much as we needed them,” Pischanitskaya said of the relationships forged in desperation.

By the end of the war, nearly 40 members of her family were gone – and she began to rebuild a life. “I was not sitting and crying,” she said. “I was mobilized.”

They returned to Romaniv to find almost nothing left. Malka finished school, earned a teaching diploma in Zhytomyr in 1954. She married, had two children, lived in Tashkent and Uzhhorod, and immigrated to Vancouver in 1975. For decades, she did not speak about her Holocaust experiences.

Pischanitskaya’s daughter, Inna Turner, who joined her at the Yom Hashoah event, grew up with the emotional weight of that silence.

“I didn’t know she was a Holocaust survivor,” Turner said. “But I felt it.”

Turner said the silence had a profound effect on her life.

“I think many Holocaust survivors suffer from PTSD,” she said. “And, in the olden days we didn’t know much about it. We know more now, or at least we think we do, and we know that it affects an individual. But it affects not just an individual, it affects people who are the closest to the individual, like children, grandchildren, spouses, siblings, the family. Being a child of a Holocaust survivor, well, what can I say? Not a walk in the park, that’s for sure.”

Only years later did Pischanitskaya begin to speak – through a community of survivors, art and writing.

Pischanitskaya’s granddaughter, Sophie Turner, introduced her not only as a survivor, but as a grandmother who is strong and resilient. She sees her grandmother’s story as a responsibility she and others of her generation are obligated to sustain. “This is not only history,” she said. “It is living memory that we carry with us.”

Survivors lit candles representing six million lives lost, including one and a half million children. Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and US Consul General Shawn Crowley were among the dignitaries who attended. Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, which hosted the event with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, with support from the Jewish Federation’s annual campaign and the Province of British Columbia, welcomed attendees.

“We live in a time when the language of the Holocaust is being used in ways that empty it of meaning,” said Moskovitz, “Words like genocide, once anchored in specific historical reality, are now invoked casually…. Comparisons are made that collapse moral distinctions rather than clarify them. And, perhaps most troubling, the Holocaust itself is sometimes inverted – Jews recast not as victims, but as perpetrators. This is not just inaccurate, it is dangerous. The Holocaust was not a metaphor. It was not a slogan. It was the systematic, industrialized attempt to annihilate the Jewish people. Six million Jews were murdered, families were erased, entire communities were destroyed. That reality demands precision, honesty and reverence. And when that truth is blurred, something else is lost as well. Empathy is lost. Understanding is lost. And the moral clarity that the Holocaust calls us to carry into the world begins to fade.”

“Remembrance is not a passive state of being,” said Hannah Marazzi, executive director of the VHEC. “It is an act of moral choice … an act of resistance.”

In addition to mourning those murdered, she said, Yom Hashoah is about honouring survivors. “Those who endured unimaginable suffering and yet found the strength to go on,” she said. “Many rebuilt their lives here in Canada. Their resilience, wisdom and testimony have shaped not only this community, but the city of Vancouver, and continue to shape the work that we undertake at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.”

A musical program included Abbygail Sandler, Cantor Michael Zoosman, Cantor Shani Cohen, Lisa Kesselman and Ellie Sherman. They were accompanied by Eric Wilson on cello, Erin Marks on oboe, Wendy Bross Stuart and Perry Ehrlich on piano. Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted the memorial prayer El Moleh Rachamim.

CSS honours Bellas z”l

The Bellas family, left to right: Oksana, Aliza, Yaakov, Maya and Matthew. (photo from Camp Solomon Schechter)

When Camp Solomon Schechter (CSS) hosts their annual Spark fundraiser event at Beth Israel Synagogue May 3, it might be a more emotional gathering than it has been in past years.

That’s because the honouree, Matthew Bellas, z”l, who passed away last year at age 49 from health complications, left a powerful mark on both the Vancouver and CSS community.

“It means everything,” said Bellas’s daughter, Maya, of her aba (dad) being the focus of the local event. “You can’t put into words the impact he had just walking into a room with his positivity, his passion and his light, and how that inspired others.”

Honouring him, she said, “means that those opportunities for him to continue teaching and passing on his ethics and his education are not lost, and we can continue to pass that spark on to more people.”

Maya said her dad had a special relationship with CSS as a child.

“Camp was where he could express most sides of himself in the silliest way possible,” she recalled. “At camp, he was able to be playful, be an athlete, be artistic and do different visual arts, and sing and dance, while also expressing his religious side.”

She recalled her dad saying that he found his calling to be a rabbi while he was leading prayers (tefillot) as an 8-year-old. “Getting to practice Judaism and [Jewish] traditions was key to who he would become. He had lots of nostalgia and gratitude [to CSS] for that,” she said.

Rabbi Bellas grew up in the Vancouver Jewish community, attending CSS as a camper and participating in Oded, the junior counselor program. He became bar mitzvah and got married to his wife, Oksana, at Beth Israel. The couple raised three children here – Maya, Yaakov and Aliza – before moving to Olney, Md., in 2014.

While studying to become a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Bellas returned to camp in 2001 and 2002 as “Rabbi Matt,” writing curriculum and making other contributions. After receiving ordination in 2004, he continued to build a distinguished career in Jewish education, serving as school rabbi at Brandeis School in Lawrence, NY, and at Vancouver Talmud Torah. He spent the last decade of his life as a principal at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md., where he apparently coined the daily reminder: “Ask a good question, learn something new, and be kind to everyone.”

Camp Solomon Schechter’s annual Spark event celebrates the camp’s legacy, community and future, with simultaneous events in Vancouver, Portland and Seattle, bringing together alumni, supporters and friends from across the region. This year’s theme – Body, Mind and Spirit – reflects the camp’s commitment to nurturing the whole person through meaningful experiences, relationships and Jewish values.

photo - Matthew Bellas with his son Yaakov at Camp Solomon Schechter — Matthew Bellas with his son Yaakov at Camp Solomon Schechter. *(photo from Camp Solomon Schechter)*

Bellas is being recognized for the Spirit element of the event.

“He was so passionate about Jewish continuity,” Maya said of the spirit her dad brought to his work, including his time at CSS. “He wanted to create that experience for other youth and families. He knew that the continuation of our traditions and people relies on joyful, immersive and strong Jewish communities, and that Judaism is a community and family-based activity.

“At Schechter, along with the Judaics team, he created an experience that was fun, engaging and hands on,” she said. “Creating the Jewish memories for the campers that he had as a kid.”

Maya and Yaakov also both attended CSS as campers, while Maya continued her staffing journey there as a young Jewish leader, serving as the director of Oded the past two summers.

“When we started going to camp, being part of this lineage of going to camp, we got to talk about how it evolved over time,” she said. “We are a part of this history and story of camp, and it’s something that connected us, and that’s something that he appreciated, too.”

Maya said witnessing her dad’s legacy has led her to seriously consider her own impact and the work she did at CSS.

“To see the mark he’s left on the world and on the people he’s come across, at my age, it definitely makes me start to think about what I’m going to leave behind me,” she said. “I just hope it’s a warmer, safer, connected place and I hope this event helps camp [provide] that for many more kids.”

For the Vancouver event co-chairs, Lisa Boroditsky and Sandy Hazan, Bellas’s aunt, honouring Rabbi Matt is extra special.

“First and foremost, it is a true honour to be connected to Matthew Bellas, z”l, as part of our extended mishpachah [family] through the Switzer family clan,” said Boroditsky. “To have the opportunity to carry on what was so truly important to Matt is a meaningful way for me to honour his legacy.

“I also strongly believe in the profound impact that Jewish summer camp has on young people,” she said. “It helps shape identity, build community and instil a lasting love for Jewish life and tradition. Being part of an event that both honours Matthew’s legacy and supports something that was so important to him and our shared beliefs is incredibly meaningful.”

Hazan said her nephew taught them all what it means to be proud of being Jewish and loving our traditions.

“His impact in fostering love of Judaism and showing Jewish pride was felt in every aspect of his professional and personal life,” she said. “He also loved bringing people together and Schechter Spark is an opportunity for the Vancouver Jewish community to gather and celebrate Matthew’s spirit and the Jewish values we all hold so dear. These past years have shown us all that we are stronger together.”

Boroditsky made a point of noting Bellas’s impact on those around him, and how that made him an especially appropriate honouree for this year’s event.

“He touched hundreds of lives through his teachings, kindness, leadership and unwavering spirit,” she said. “By honouring him at the Spark event this year, the community comes together not only to remember him, but to celebrate the legacy he leaves behind.”

The Schechter Spark events this year will also recognize Debbi and Alan Montrose in Portland, Ore., as the Body honourees, and Cindy and Bob Strauss in Seattle, Wash., as the Mind honourees.

“As we celebrate another year of impact, Spark is a time to honour our past, celebrate our present and invest in our future,” said Zach Duitch, executive director of Camp Solomon Schechter. “We are especially grateful to honour Rabbi Bellas’s memory and the spiritual legacy he leaves within our community.”

For more than 70 years, CSS has been a cornerstone of Jewish life in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Spark reflects the soul of camp, bringing people together in gratitude, remembrance and hope. Registration and sponsorship opportunities are still available. For more information, visit campschechter.org/spark or contact Leah Conley at lconley@campschechter.org.

Kyle Berger is Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver sports coordinator, and a freelance writer living in Richmond.

Art chosen for new museum

From a specific vantage point, the dispersed lines of Nicolas Baier’s Candelabra – winner of the Montreal Holocaust Museum’s public art competition for its new building – create the shape of a sphere. (photo from MHM)

The Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM) has selected Montreal-based artist Nicolas Baier as the winner of its public art competition for its new museum opening in 2027.

Baier’s artwork, Candelabra, will be installed on the museum’s rooftop terraces. The sculpture is a luminous, constellation-like network of polished stainless-steel lines and points of light set against the Montreal sky. The work is reminiscent of countless survivor stories about imprisonment in ghettos and concentration camps, where the only form of escape was looking to the night sky. Inspired by the human impulse to connect stars into meaningful patterns, the piece reflects bonds built between individuals, communities and generations.

Rather than reproducing traditional constellations, Baier has created a new network based on astronomical data from the sky above Montreal. From a specific vantage point on the terrace, the dispersed lines create the shape of a sphere, evoking our shared planet and humanity.

photo - Nicolas Baier’s Candelabra — Nicolas Baier’s Candelabra. *(photo from MHM)*

In a museum dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, Candelabra speaks to the fragility and resilience of human connection. The Holocaust was marked by the systematic destruction of Jewish life, the devastation of whole communities and the severing of social bonds. At a time when antisemitism and other forms of hate are on the rise, the sculpture serves as a reminder that societies are shaped by the networks we build and protect, and that, even in darkness, light endures.

The competition was held in accordance with Quebec’s Politique d’intégration des arts à l’architecture et à l’environnement des bâtiments et des sites gouvernementaux et publics, which mandates that approximately one percent of the construction budget of public buildings be dedicated to the commissioning of a work of art.

The selection committee was composed of Marie-Blanche Fourcade (head of collections and exhibitions at the MHM); Adrian Sheppard (user representative); Renée Daoust (architect); Suzelle Levasseur (visual arts specialist); Stéphanie L’Heureux (ministry representative); Martha Townsend (visual arts specialist); and Helen Malkin (observer, chair and consultant for the new MHM).

“Nicolas Baier’s proposal moved us because it expresses the importance of human connection,” said Rachel Gropper, Holocaust survivor and co-president of the museum. “In a place devoted to memory and education, this work reminds us that each individual life matters, and that together we have the responsibility to uphold compassion and hope.”

To contribute to the MHM’s building campaign, Give Voice, go to museeholocauste.ca/en/give-voice.

– Courtesy Montreal Holocaust Museum

Lessons from past for today

At the Kristallnacht commemoration in Victoria on Nov. 6, Congregation Emanu-El’s Rabbi Elisha Herb led a community pledge of mutual respect and support, joined by local politicians, faith leaders and law enforcement. (photo by Penny Tennenhouse)

“Hate has no boundaries and needs to be resisted wherever and against whomever it is found. This is necessary to protect our whole society. The history of the Shoah teaches us the dangers of complacency,” said Micha Menczer in his opening remarks at the Nov. 6 commemoration in Victoria of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.

Menczer is a founding member of the Victoria Shoah Project, which held the community’s commemoration at Congregation Emanu-El. The project is a group of Holocaust survivors and their descendants, as well as educators and other individuals, dedicated to Holocaust remembrance and education.

photo - Micha Menczer — Micha Menczer, a founding member of the Victoria Shoah Project, gave the opening remarks at the Nov. 6 commemoration in Victoria of Kristallnacht. *(photo by Penny Tennenhouse)*

After Menczer spoke about the increase in hate crimes in Canada – of which Jews are often the target – Kristin Semmens, a history professor at the University of Victoria, spoke about Kristallnacht, the organized anti-Jewish riots in Germany and Austria on Nov. 9-10, 1938. The violence sent a clear message to Jews that they were not welcome in Germany, said Semmens, noting that, although Jews had already faced extreme persecution, no one foresaw what would come.

“Even after November 1938, even after the destruction and horror and humiliation and fear, even after the shattered storefronts, the burning synagogues, the mass arrests, the physical assaults and murders, few could have imagined how much worse things could get,” she said.

Semmens stressed that, while people came on Nov. 6 to commemorate what happened in the past, it is also fundamentally important to act in the present, to differentiate among people when it comes to basic human rights today.

“We cannot turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to defamation and demonization,” she said. “We must find the courage to challenge the wrongs we see in our society. And, as the events leading to Kristallnacht reveal, we must beware of the beginnings.”

Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s solicitor general and minister for public safety, was the keynote speaker. Due to inclement weather that evening, she spoke from the Lower Mainland via Zoom.

“How can we, today, fathom six million lives cut short solely because they were Jewish?” asked Krieger, who, before entering politics, was the executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC).

“Sadly, as we gather to remember events of 87 years ago, our historical imagination, I think, is less challenged than we thought. With the recent Manchester synagogue attack and the graffiti scrawled on this congregation, the echoes of the past are particularly and painfully resonant.”

In August, antisemitic graffiti was painted at the entrance of Congregation Emanu-El. According to a September post by the synagogue, Victoria police have since found the suspected perpetrator, who “has been charged on two counts: mischief relating to religious property and wilful promotion of hatred.”

Krieger noted that, during the pandemic in Canada, contingents within the anti-vaccination movement borrowed symbols from the Holocaust, such as yellow stars and photos of Anne Frank, to portray their feelings of being marginalized and victimized for the requirement to carry proof of vaccination. She said a commitment to history and memory is the necessary antidote to such Holocaust distortion and trivialization, “which we are seeing with increasing frequency as the Holocaust transitions from lived to mediated memory.”

She pointed to the VHEC’s use of primary sources when engaging with the 25,000 young people the centre educates each year. “Fragments of the Shoah – artifacts, photographs, documents – provide tangible entry points into the past and to individual human experiences during an event that might otherwise be an abstraction of numbers,” said Krieger, who reminded the audience that, in a time of rising antisemitism, the Holocaust may not simply be a lesson but a warning, “an inescapable fact that speaks to what is possible.”

Remembrance of the Shoah, she said, “provides an opportunity to wrestle with fundamental questions about the fragility of democracy and our responsibility as citizens today.”

Music performed by Kvell’s Angels, a local klezmer group, and the Capriccio Vocal Ensemble of Victoria, conducted by Adam Jonathan Con, was interspersed between speakers at the commemoration.

Politicians, leaders from other faith groups and members of the Victoria Police Department rose at the end of the ceremony to recite a pledge of mutual respect and support.

In the program notes to the commemoration, the organizers drew attention to the events that transpired in Germany 87 years ago, when at least 91 Jews were killed and 30,000 Jewish men were forced into concentration camps, Jewish homes and institutions were ransacked, businesses destroyed and synagogues burned. It was, the notes read, “a reflection of the inability of ‘polite society’ – of Jews and non-Jews – to comprehend that the institutions at the very heart of civil society (the police, uniformed people, political representatives) would be at the very core of this violence inflicted on the Jews of Germany and Austria, or contribute … to its devastating effect.”

The commemoration was sponsored by Congregation Emanu-El and the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Visiting the Nova Exhibition

The Nova Exhibition commemorates the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. The exhibit is in Toronto until June 8. (photo by Lorraine Katzin)

My friend Karen Shalansky and I, from Congregation Har El, went on a Jewish National Fund tour to Israel in April 2024, traveling with some congregants from Congregation Beth Israel. We were based in Tel Aviv but drove to the south to see the Nova Festival Memorial and the car cemetery. (See jewishindependent.ca/reflections-on-april-mission.)

When I heard of the Nova Exhibition, which had been traveling to New York, Los Angeles and then Miami, I Googled to see if it was going to be in Toronto. While we live in Vancouver, my husband and I were going to be heading to Toronto for our granddaughter’s Grade 1 siddur celebration. I was able to purchase tickets to the exhibition for May 6, during the time we (and our daughter) were going to be in the city.

Normally, when we go to Toronto, we attend Saturday morning services at our son’s synagogue, the Village Shul. It just so happened that, on the Shabbat of our visit, the guest speaker was Ophir Amir, one of the founders of the Nova music festival and one of the producers of the Nova Exhibition. Amir was shot in both legs by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. He survived, but so many of his friends did not. He shared: “While I was hiding from the terrorists, I thought about my wife, who was pregnant, and that’s what saved me.”

photo - bulldozer footage from Nova Exhibition — *(photo by Lorraine Katzin)*

The Nova Exhibition tells the stories of the victims and helps this community begin to heal – we will dance again.

The first part of the exhibit is a movie. It shows people having fun, enjoying life, singing and dancing, until 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7, when the music stops and security starts shouting “Red alert! Tzeva adom!” as they could see the rockets flying over Israel. They tell everyone to go home. The movie ends.

We were then led to another room for a reenactment of what came next. There were different TV screens showing how the Hamas terrorists came through the fence, the continuous firing of their weapons, the continuous shouting of “Allah Akbar!”

The next area is filled with belongings from the festival, which include tents, sleeping bags, chairs, clothes, snacks, trees, the market, featuring various items, portable toilets, the bar, freezer chests, burnt-out cars, shelters, and more. By each display there is a TV screen with a survivor telling their story. One young girl lost 15 friends, another young man lost more than 40 friends, a mother lost two of her daughters. Many different stories of loss, as well as stories of heroism.

On one wall of the exhibit are photos of the Nova hostages still held in captivity by Hamas. On another wall are photos of all the people at the Nova festival who were murdered on Oct. 7 – as well as their hats, shoes, other clothing and knickknacks.

photo - knocked over Coca-Cola machines from Nova music festival — *(photo by Lorraine Katzin)*

As you walk through the exhibit, it shows how the larger community is helping with the psychological trauma, the grieving process, the bereavement, the difficulties of survivors to function day-to-day. All the proceeds from the exhibition are dedicated to helping heal and rehabilitate survivors, commemorate those who were lost, and support the bereaved families.

We spent two-and-a-half hours walking around and reading testimonies. We came out emotionally drained. Our Israeli brethren are resilient, they have ruach, spirit, and they are dancing again.

The Nova Exhibition runs until June 8 at 1381 Castlefield Ave., in Toronto. For more information, visit novaexhibition.com.

Images from the exhibition:

photo - knocked over and shot up portable toilets from Nova music festival — *(photo by Lorraine Katzin)*

photo - memorial wall at Nova Exhibition — *(photo by Lorraine Katzin)*

photo - shot and burnt cars from Nova musica festival — *(photo by Lorraine Katzin)*

photo - wall of those murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023 — (photo by Lorraine Katzin)

Past echoes in present

Child survivor Lillian Boraks-Nemetz speaks at the community’s Yom Hashoah Commemoration May 5. (Rhonda Dent Photography)

The pogrom of Oct. 7 and the hurricane of antisemitism that has swirled since then added resonance to commemorations of Yom Hashoah this week.

Around the world, Jewish communities united in different ways to mark the annual Holocaust remembrance day. Sunday night, May 5, the local commemoration at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver featured child survivor Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, who reflected on the unmistakable parallels across time, of “Broken families, broken bodies and minds and the poor frightened children and much more.”

Recently, said Boraks-Nemetz, she heard the words of Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilan Erdan, who reflected on how a sunny Shabbat morning in Israel turned, in a matter of seconds, into hell.

“On just such a sunny morning, in Warsaw, I lost my childhood,” said Boraks-Nemetz, who was introduced Sunday night in a touching tribute by her son, Stephen. “The day Nazis invaded Poland, I remember German bombers flying low over my head against an innocent blue sky and as World War Two began on Sept. 1, 1939, I had to become an adult at the age of 6.”

In the war that began that day, she said, 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered. She suffers guilt and questions around her survival when so many, including her little sister, did not live.

“Some of us were younger than others. Some older,” she said. “Nevertheless, we were all traumatized – as our brothers and sisters are today, in Israel, and in a world that won’t learn history and its lessons. We don’t feel safe anymore around our world. Thousands protest against us as they have always done, just looking for a reason to express their hate for Jews.”

Boraks-Nemetz shared parts of her Holocaust history, from the earliest time, when her mother took her to a favourite café only to find a sign declaring Jews were forbidden from entering – signs that then proliferated in parks, recreation areas, theatres, streetcars and elsewhere.

“We were beginning to lose our humanity,” she recalled. “Thousands protested against us with words such as ‘Death to Jews,’ ‘Final Solution’ and more.”

Today, she said, similar words are directed at Jews.

“This is being allowed to flourish unpunished, using our freedom of speech for their purposes,” she said. “But surely there are red lines where free speech ends and hate speech begins that must be punishable by law.”

She recalled seeing the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto being constructed, higher and higher, as she watched.

“I asked my father what this wall means,” said Boraks-Nemetz. “I asked many questions. I was almost 7 years old. This wall, he replied, will eventually enclose a part of Warsaw where we will be forced to live.”

That day came when, through a window, she saw a long car with officers and a bullhorn ordering Jews to enter the ghetto or suffer severe consequences.

“From the day I and my family entered our one room within these close, shabby quarters, I felt as if I had stepped out of sunlight into darkness,” she said. “I felt as if I was being stifled and the feeling of being stifled stayed with me as a memory and a trigger all of my life. The wall meant confinement, exclusion, isolation, fear, hunger and quarantine of a disease called typhus.”

Boraks-Nemetz shared the story of how she was to be smuggled out of the ghetto by her father, who had bribed a non-Jew but, when the day came, she was ill and instead her sister was sent out, never to be seen again.

“The streets were treacherous, with children dying of hunger and disease, poor and starved people peddling what little they had for a few potatoes and stealing what they couldn’t buy,” she said.

While smuggling a child out of the ghetto was a life-threatening act for all involved, so was remaining in the ghetto, she said. Eventually, thanks to an enormous bribe, young Lillian was passed through the gate of the ghetto, where she survived on the outside in the care of her grandmother, who had secured a false identity.

“That day, I felt as if I had lost my family, my home and any degree of safety I had felt,” she recounted. “I became numb and frozen. As a child, I didn’t understand why was I being sent away, alone, into a hostile world. I felt I wasn’t wanted by family or society. That day, I lost my identity as a Jew and a human being, a daughter.”

A forged piece of paper gave her a new, false name, false parents, a false age.

With a small blue suitcase in hand, she walked the short distance from her father, past the bribed guards, who looked the other way, into the care of a waiting stranger who would whisk her to a new, still very hazardous, life outside the ghetto.

“Although it was a very short distance, today I think of it as the longest walk, from impending death to the possibility of life,” she said.

Eventually, she started a new life in Canada, married at 19 and took on the role of a typical Canadian housewife, she said. At 40, she had a crisis, during which she was forced to confront the realities of what she had experienced, a struggle she has addressed ever since, through poetry, sharing her story with students and other means. For her, and for so many others, she said, Oct. 7 brought back from the mists of time the collective consciousness and memory of the past.

“We are still persecuted, blamed, hated,” she said.

Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi at Temple Sholom, spoke earlier in the evening, expressing the need to be careful in drawing parallels between historical events, but acknowledging that the traumas of the past inform reactions to the present.

“It is difficult to distinguish between remembering the past and living in the present,” she said. “It feels inseparable.”

The current generation, said Brown, owes it to the memory of those who perished in the Shoah, as well as to the generations yet to come, “to take seriously and be steadfast in our commitment to ‘Never again.’”

photo - Singers Erin Aberle-Palm, left, and Cantor Shani Cohen and cellist Eric Wilson were part of the music program produced by Wendy Bross Stuart — Singers Erin Aberle-Palm, left, and Cantor Shani Cohen and cellist Eric Wilson were part of the music program produced by Wendy Bross Stuart. (Rhonda Dent Photography)

The solemn ceremony began with Holocaust survivors in a procession escorted by King David High School students who are descendants of survivors.

Shoshana Krell-Lewis, a member of the board of directors of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and a daughter of the centre’s founding president, Dr. Robert Krell, welcomed the audience and acknowledged elected officials and survivors. In recognition of survivors from the former Soviet Union, Irena Gurevich translated into Russian.

Sarah Kirby-Yung, deputy mayor of Vancouver, represented the city.

Cantor Yaacov Orzech recited El Moleh Rachamim.

A moving musical program by artistic producer Wendy Bross Stuart featured Eric Wilson on cello and singers Erin Aberle-Palm, Cantor Shani Cohen, Lisa Osipov Milton, Matthew Mintsis, Kat Palmer and Lorenzo Tesler-Mabe.

The program was presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, funded through the Jewish Federation annual campaign and by the Province of British Columbia, and supported by the Gail Feldman-Heller & Sarah Rozenberg-Warm Memorial Endowment Fund, Temple Sholom Synagogue and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.