Schara Tzedeck – Jewish Independent

Rebuilding Volozhin Yeshivah

Volozhin Yeshivah in Belarus, 2017. In learning about the institution, Mark Weintraub was moved to sponsor a lecture on it, in honour of his mother, and to champion restoration efforts. (photo by Da voli)

“How did I not know about this?” That was the question echoing through the mind of Vancouver lawyer Mark Weintraub, a longtime student of Jewish intellectual history, when he first learned about Volozhin Yeshivah, a once-illustrious place of study that he describes as “the Harvard, MIT and Yale of the Jewish people rolled into one.”

Once Weintraub understood the influence Volozhin – which was open from 1806 to 1892 in what was then Russia – had on the Jewish world, he was stunned that it was so little known. His passion about this treasure of Jewish history led to his participation in organizing a recent online class, From Volozhin to Vancouver, taught by Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz, the rav and a teacher of Ohr Samayach Yeshivah in Israel, whose resumé includes having been a professor of law at the University of Maryland. It led, as well, to Weintraub’s championing of an effort to restore the still-standing building of the yeshivah, which is in Belarus.

To spread knowledge of Volozhin and to honour his late mother, Rita Weintraub, z”l, a lifelong devotee of Jewish learning, Weintraub helped organize and sponsor the online class with Congregation Beth Hamidrash, Congregation Schara Tzedeck, Vancouver Hebrew Academy and Shalhevet Girls High School. On Oct. 18, more than 60 people gathered to learn from Breitowitz on Zoom. Weintraub introduced the lecture, dedicating it to his mother, and Rabbi Ari Federgrun of Schara Tzedeck moderated the discussion. Breitowitz had risen at 5:30 a.m. in Israel to give the lecture about the legend and history of Volozhin, whose very name, he said, “carries an aura of mystery and delight.”

Volozhin is sometimes called “the mother of yeshivot,” since it was the first modern, institutionalized yeshivah, explained Breitowitz. It was established by Rav Chaim Volozhiner (1749-1821), a famed kabbalist and Torah scholar. Rav Chaim was a student of the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797), a towering figure at the time and the leader of non-Chassidic Jewry in Eastern Europe. The Vilna Gaon had led the Orthodox opposition to Chassidism, concerned about its radical theological ideas and the possibility that Chassidim might transgress Jewish law and lead to extremist mystical movements that would disrupt or damage the Jewish community. Followers of the Vilna Gaon came to be known as Misnagdim (Opponents), as the Chassidic movement grew to become the dominant force in Eastern European Jewish life.

Rav Chaim, who did not sign the Gaon’s writ of excommunication against the Chassidim, took a gentler stance towards the movement than his teacher. He focused his efforts on teaching an intellectually intense absorption in Torah study for its own sake and a fierce devotion to the observance of halachah (Jewish law) as a form of devotion to God.

Rav Chaim formed the Volozhin yeshivah to create a new kind of environment for study. Instead of the local learning that took place in small houses of study in the shtetls, Volozhin was a large institution that provided both housing and food to its students, and taught young Jewish men from near and far. “The Volozhiner wanted yeshivahs to be non-local institutions which all of Israel had a stake in,” explained Breitowitz. “He didn’t like a few large donors but many small donors.”

The yeshivah had 24-hour learning that was intended to sustain the world with the power of Torah and de-emphasize practical legal rulings for the sake of pure disinterested study. Volozhin – and its immediate offspring in the form of other similar yeshivot started by its graduates – created both a new model of Jewish learning and a generation of non-Chassidic luminaries with a far-ranging and decisive influence on orthodoxy and beyond. A short list of the graduates it produced, or who taught there, included Rav Chaim Soloveitchik (the Brisker Rav, 1853-1918), Rav Nafatli Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv, 1816-1891), Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) and many others, including both Zionists and anti-Zionists, mystics, ethicists and legalists.

The yeshivah environment encouraged creative ferment and demanded intellectual rigour, and Volozhin was not only famed for the Orthodox leaders it produced. Some of the students became leaders in the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment, and it was rumoured that secret books were passed among students and housed in a hidden library full of philosophy, science and secular language texts. Among its luminaries in this regard was Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), the renowned Israeli poet and writer.

In 1892, the Russian government closed Volozhin when the heads of the yeshivah refused to change the daily schedule to curtail Torah study and include hours of government-approved secular studies. While it reopened in 1899 on a smaller scale, its glory days had passed.

Volozhin functioned until 1939, when the Second World War broke out. During the war, German soldiers used the building as a stable; later, it was a canteen and deli. The site was returned to the Jewish community of Belarus in 1989. In 1998, it was registered on the State List of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Republic of Belarus.

It was the discovery of this history that so excited Weintraub. His mother had been a devotee of learning, libraries and study. “I wanted to have lectures to honour her, since it was difficult to communally mourn her during COVID,” said Weintraub. “I approached Rabbi [Don] Pacht at Vancouver Hebrew Academy about bringing in Rabbi Breitowitz.”

Wondering if the topic was too Orthodox for his mother, Weintraub, who has been involved in the Conservative movement for years, decided, “Nothing was ever too Jewish for her. She saw the goodness in everyone’s Judaism, no matter what it was, so I went ahead to tell this fascinating story of Jewish learning in her honour.”

For his part, Breitowitz has taken on a project to raise awareness and money for the reconstruction of Volozhin. He has begun organizing a group to work on it and is beginning “to raise momentum and find a way.”

“Five hundred years from now, Harvard, Yale and MIT are in ruins and everyone just walks by it?” he challenged. Volozhin, he said, “is a place that needs special attention from the Jewish community.”

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He has been published in Philosophy Now, Tricycle, the Forward and elsewhere. He blogs on Medium and is master teacher at Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver.

Chai Lifeline in the city

A group of nine Jewish boys from Toronto was in Vancouver recently, courtesy of Chai Lifeline Canada. (photo from CLC)

A group of nine Toronto boys, aged 10-15, recently enjoyed a three-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Vancouver, courtesy of Chai Lifeline Canada, a national charity that supports the families of children or parents who suffer from serious illnesses.

The boys – each of whom has a sibling or parent who is sick – were invited on the trip as a diversion to their family challenges and as an opportunity to bond with other kids in similar situations. Students of seven different Toronto schools, the boys didn’t previously know one another, but came back from the Feb. 28-March 2 trip with strong, new friendships, said Chai Lifeline caseworker Shmuel Rosenberg.

Welcomed by the Vancouver Jewish community, the boys arrived in the city to a group of local boys handing out care packages and then joined them for an excursion to a trampoline park.

A special Shabbat was hosted by Congregation Schara Tzedeck, where the Toronto boys had the opportunity to bond with more of the local community and experience a walking tour of the city, led by Schara Tzedeck’s Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt. Other weekend highlights included skating on the top of Grouse Mountain and hiking amid spectacular views.

Based in Toronto, with an office in Montreal, Chai Lifeline Canada has nearly 600 volunteers helping more than 2,000 family members nationally. The organization provides dozens of free initiatives to help give children stability and their families a sense of normalcy. Initiatives include counseling, tutoring for children missing extended periods of school, family retreats, sibling programs similar to that of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and summer camps for kids. For more information, visit chailifelinecanada.org.

Artistic tribute to Shoah survivors

The Schara Tzedeck Shoah Survivors Tribute Wall was created for the congregation by John Nutter. The sculpture, which includes the names of 230 survivors, was dedicated May 3. (photo from John Nutter)

Congregation Schara Tzedeck has a new art installation in its main sanctuary. The Schara Tzedeck Shoah Survivors Tribute Wall – a Tree of Life rendered in sandblasted glass – includes the names of 230 survivors. It was dedicated May 3.

Full of shared memories and friendship, the pre-Shabbat dedication ceremony featured several speakers: the synagogue’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Andrew Rosenblatt; its executive president, Howard Kallner; younger family members of the survivors; Ed Lewin, co-chair of the project with Hodie Kahn; and the man who started the entire project, Dr. Robert Krell, a child survivor.

“We wanted to honour the Holocaust survivors who found their way to Canada, before and after the war, and wound up as members of this shul,” Lewin told the Independent. “Most of them came here in 1948. Their names are all there, on the wall. My parents’ and grandparents’ names are among them.”

Explaining how the project started, Lewin said, “We had this empty space, and Krell suggested a tribute to Holocaust survivors. It was several years ago. It took us awhile to find the talented glass artist, John Nutter, who transformed our ideas into a sculpture.”

The synagogue is publishing a commemorative book about the installation, as well. While the Tribute Wall features survivors’ names only, the book also contains photographs of the survivors; there are family and group photo pages. Together, the book and the wall serve as a memorial to those who not only survived the Shoah but contributed greatly to Schara Tzedeck and to the development of Greater Vancouver and the province over the past seven decades.

One page of the book is dedicated to Nutter, who has created numerous art installations for churches and synagogues, mostly in New York. His works decorate many institutions in the United States and Canada: hotels, museums, hospitals. He collaborated with local artist Bill Reid on a glass sculpture at the Vancouver International Airport. A few years ago, Glass Magazine named Nutter one of the top three architectural glass artists in the country.

About how he came to design the Tribute Wall, Nutter said, “A few years ago, I did a small glass sculpture for the Louis Brier Home, a collaboration with a wonderful artist and friend, Diana Zoe Coop. Camille Wenner, Diana’s daughter, works for Schara Tzedeck. I’ve known Camille since she was a young child. She contacted me about this project and, of course, I said, yes.”

He explained his work process. “They knew exactly what they wanted – a Tree of Life, made like a Vancouver cherry tree in bloom. Usually, I start with a small draft, show it to my clients, make changes until they’re satisfied, before I transfer the design to glass. But the people from Schara Tzedeck were very nice. They approved my first draft of the design.”

The first step in making the sculpture was creating a life-size drawing out of the small-scale draft. “I hire a company for that,” said Nutter, “give them my small drawing, and they blow it up to the size I want.”

Once he has the full-size paper draft, he starts working on the glass. For this sculpture, he used nine separate glass panels. The three bottom panels are roots. “The words ‘Schara Tzedeck’ are carved among the roots, to symbolize the Jews who had set their roots with the congregation,” Nutter explained.

The middle panel is the trunk, and the five panels around it are carved with leaves and flowers. “I sandblasted each petal of each flower individually,” Nutter said. “It gives more depth to the sculpture.”

The work is made of 15-millimetre laminated glass; two layers joined together. The carving is on the back, and the names of the survivors are written on the front, in black, which adds to the visual depth.

Nutter has been working with architectural glass for decades. “I started as an architecture student at the University of Manitoba,” he recalled. “A couple years into my studies, I took a summer job with a stained glass company. I loved it so much, I left my schooling and stayed with the company for several years, before I founded my own company. I never finished my architectural degree, but I taught stained glass making at the same faculty years later.”

He loves architecture, and most of his works are large-scale glass. “Sometimes,” he said, “my background in architecture helps me to win the contracts. I often build small-scale models of my proposed installations when I bid for a job. I like the details and hardware used in the models. I learned that during my years of architectural studies.”

Frequently, Nutter’s sculptures and windows tell a story, like the one he created for Schara Tzedeck. “In the past, when artists made glass installations in churches and other religious institutions, it was always to tell a story, as most of the population were illiterate,” he said. “Now, people can read, so the art became more decorative, but it still tells a story.”

To learn more about the artist, visit johnnutterglassstudio.com or visit his studio on Granville Island. For those interested in purchasing the hardcover, full-colour commemorative book ($54), visit scharatzedeck.com/event/-shoah-survivors-tribute-book-order.html; the order deadline is June 30.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

Coping with a legacy of loss

Claire Sicherman began writing Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation after her grandmother passed away. (photo from VHEC)

Claire Sicherman’s grandmother didn’t share much about her experiences in the Holocaust. There were three stories – one about bread in Auschwitz, another about her tattoo, a third about washing – none of them overly traumatizing. It was in the silences, though, in what her grandmother did not share, that Sicherman sensed the deep trauma permeating her family.

“When I grew up, there was a constant heaviness that I couldn’t name,” Sicherman told the Independent. “I grew up knowing about the Holocaust but not really knowing too much about my family’s personal struggle with it, the stories.”

Her understanding of the Shoah came more from reading Anne Frank and watching Schindler’s List than hearing firsthand accounts from her grandmother.

These unspoken traumas, conveyed across generations, are what Sicherman will speak about at the High Holidays Cemetery Service, an annual commemoration presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Schara Tzedeck Congregation and Jewish War Veterans. The event takes place this year on Sept. 16, 11 a.m., at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery, in New Westminster. Her presentation is titled Honour and Remember: Breaking the Silence in the Third Generation.

Sicherman explored the topic in her book Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation, which she began writing after her grandmother passed away. (See jewishindependent.ca/long-enduring-trauma.)

“After my grandmother died, it was safer to start uncovering the silences,” she said. “I think it’s much safer for the third generation to explore the stories of their families. For the second generation, especially for my mom, for example, there was this not wanting to hurt her parents.

“I experienced a bit of that when my grandmother was alive in that we just knew automatically not to ask certain questions, not to go there. For some of the second generation, the silence was a normal part of life. For others, the opposite is true. It was constantly talked about to the point that it became unhealthy that way. But, for my family, the silence was the norm. I think, in third generations, now you’re seeing more people wanting to talk about it, wanting to get back and explore the roots and figure out what they are carrying.”

Sicherman cites the relatively new science of epigenetics to suggest the weight of family history. As a response to that possibly inescapable legacy, Sicherman practises forms of yoga that release stresses in the body, journaling as a form of therapy and an Ayurvedic diet, which incorporates healthy foods and mindful eating rituals, all of which can potentially ameliorate the effects of inherited trauma.

Sicherman’s grandparents, who were from Prague, were the sole survivors in their respective families. They escaped communist Czechoslovakia in 1968 and settled in the Vancouver area. When Sicherman was 4 years old, her grandfather passed away. The cause of death, she was told, was a heart attack. In her 30s, Sicherman learned that her grandfather had committed suicide. This was another of the family’s secrets.

Despite the hidden past, Sicherman thought her family was entirely ordinary.

“For me, growing up, it was really normal,” she said. “I didn’t know that what my family went through, what I was carrying, what everyone was carrying and not talking about, was not quite normal. For me, I thought I came from a Leave it to Beaver kind of family.”

Sicherman’s dawning realizations of her family’s story and the weight of that history represent a sort of metamorphosis, she said. The cover of her book features a caterpillar, a cocoon and a butterfly.

“This sort of represents being third generation,” she said. “The symbolism around the butterfly is one of transformation and I feel, in writing this book, I was able to carry the story of my ancestors in a different way, and that’s where the transformation comes from.”

Cemetery improvements

(photo from cemeteryboard.com)

The Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Board has appointed its board of directors for 2018, and is planning more facility upgrades for the coming year.

The cemetery board is co-chaired by Jack Kowarsky and Arnold Silber. Other members of the board are Shirley Barnett, Harvey Dales, Joshua Hauser, Dr. Mark Schonfeld, Gary Segal, Herb Silber, Isidor Wolfe, Rabbi Yosef Wosk and Barrie Yackness. Honourary board members are Charles Diamond and Joseph Segal. Howard Kallner, president of Congregation Schara Tzedeck, also serves on the board in an ex-officio capacity.

The board has made significant improvements to the chapel in New Westminster over the past two years. Constructed in the early 1990s to house the chevra kadisha, as well as to provide a chapel at the New Westminster cemetery, this building was in need of repairs and upgrades. This $600,000 project was completed last year with the generous contributions of many in our community.

Other improvements to the New Westminster cemetery included beautification initiatives and projects to help manage the organization more efficiently, including developing a grave-finding system that people can instal on their mobile devices, a GIS (geographic information system) to better track records and land use at the cemetery, and the implementation of a system that broadcasts funerals on the internet so that those unable to attend in person can view the funeral. (This service is available at cemeteryboard.com.)

This year, the board is planning to move ahead with another key project. The community cemetery located in Surrey has about 2,500 plots, and began having burials in 2008. To date, there is little infrastructure at that location, only a small handwashing station and a portable building.

Plans are being developed for the construction of a chapel building that will allow the cemetery to better serve those who choose this location. The chapel will seat between 40 and 50 people, provide a private space for families to gather prior to a funeral service and have two accessible washrooms. It will also provide facilities for cemetery board groundskeepers to store equipment. Part of this project will include improvements to the fencing of the cemetery, as well as improving the gardening and landscaping to make the cemetery a more welcoming place.

The cemetery board provides its services to the entire community. Members and non-members of Congregation Schara Tzedeck may purchase plots in any of the cemeteries. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and those involved with congregations associated with other Jewish movements, all use the chevra kadisha, which is comprised of diverse members of the greater Jewish community. Funeral directors Rev. Joseph Marciano and Howard Jampolsky (who also serves as the executive director) are available anytime to answer any questions, and to provide more information about the availability of burial plots in all three of the community’s cemeteries – New Westminster, Surrey and the Jewish section of Mountain View. They are also available to provide information about pre-planning funerals in order to relieve family members of this task during the difficult time when a loved one passes away. They can be reached at 604-733-2277.

To learn more about the board or to contribute to the current Surrey Chapel Project, call Jampolsky at 604-733-2277 ext. 204, or email [email protected].

Jewish veterans gather

Danny Redden places a poppy at a family grave. (photo by Shula Klinger)

photo - Royal Canadian Legion Shalom Branch #178 paid their respects at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery. — Royal Canadian Legion Shalom Branch #178 paid their respects at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery. *(photo by Shula Klinger)*

With Remembrance Day falling on a Saturday this year, members of Royal Canadian Legion Shalom Branch #178 paid their respects on Monday, Nov. 13. They met at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster. Legion president Ralph Jackson was in attendance with vice-presidents Alan Tapper and Mark Perl, along with legion members.

The group sang O Canada and Hatikvah, and the Last Post was sounded, before poppies were placed at veterans’ graves. Danny Redden laid a poppy at the grave of a former neighbour. He later emailed the man’s son and daughter, who do not live locally. “I told them, we remembered him and laid a poppy at his grave. They were so appreciative. When you hear that, you need to continue doing it. It’s the honourable thing to do.”

After the service, attendees went on to lunch at Louis Brier Home and Hospital. Redden described it as “a lovely lunch, followed by live piano music and songs from the war years. They did a wonderful job.” Redden credited Rachel Worth at Louis Brier for coordinating the afternoon’s entertainment.

Marking memorial’s 30th year

On Sunday, Sept. 24, 11 a.m., at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery in New Westminster, the annual High Holidays Cemetery Service, presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Congregation Schara Tzedeck and the Jewish War Veterans, will mark the 30th anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial. On April 26, 1987, 1,300 numbers of the community, including Holocaust survivors and their families, attended the unveiling of the memorial, on which more than 900 names of family members who perished during the Holocaust were inscribed. Survivor Lillian Boraks-Nemetz wrote the following poem after that unveiling 30 years ago.

The Six Million
Written in dedication of the Holocaust Monument in Schara Tzedeck Cemetery

In this cemetery
far away from where They died
you stand dwarfed by this giant monument
your feet sinking lower and lower into the earth
your soul graining deeper and deeper
into the black granite.

You stand an alien to this earth
a born again human
sixty odd years away from the factories of death
of mercy – pleading voices scattered to deaf winds.

You stand in this cemetery
on the anniversary of the Holocaust
staring with hollow eyes
at simulated graves of strangers finally named
who once went to sleep in a common ditch
souls torn from peace like bones from flesh –

a child’s name upon your lips
a child’s fist pressing upon your breath
to break the granite silence
to speak to shout to scream the truth
to silence forever the mad dogs who
deny the happening of Shoah.

You remember as you stand here
waiting your turn to honour the Dead
how you stood with Them then
in line for death only you didn’t die
running away on all fours
through the contaminated sewers like a rat.

You say Kaddish and for a single moment
become one with the living and the dead.
Then you, the survivor, slip away into an alien world
where your soul must learn to sustain alone,
The Six Million.

Israel has some allies

In a wide-ranging lecture addressing Israel’s place in a rapidly changing Middle East, Prof. Asher Susser claimed that, without a continued focus on cutting-edge technology and modernization, Israel will not survive in the long run.

Susser, who is a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, spoke at the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel in Vancouver on Aug. 9. The event was presented by the Kollel, Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University, Congregation Schara Tzedeck and Vancouver Hebrew Academy.

The professor believes that the key to Israel’s survival is its universities, which he described as the “powerhouses of Israel’s future.”

“Without that basic education, we will not have the wherewithal to withstand the absurdity of the neighbourhood,” he said.

In opening the evening, Kollel director Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu noted the “tough neighbourhood” in which Israel lived.

Stephen J. Adler, executive director of the Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University’s Ontario and Western Canadian division, said that TAU is not only the largest educational institution in Israel, with more than 33,000 students, but that it also houses the largest research centre in the country. He highlighted the university’s affiliations with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and also with the Sackler School of Medicine in New York. Adler said TAU alumni have created, among other things, technological innovations like the Iron Dome and the navigation app Waze. Adler invited members of the Vancouver Jewish community to come visit the TAU campus, then introduced Susser, “one of our treasures.”

Susser has taught at TAU for more than 35 years and was director of the Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern and African Studies for 12 years. In addition to various visiting professorships in the United States over the years, he teaches an online course on the Middle East that has been taken by more than 85,000 students in more than 160 countries, including attendees of the Vancouver event. He is the author of several books, including Israel, Jordan and Palestine: The Two-State Imperative, On Both Banks of the Jordan: A Political Biography of Wasfi al-Tall and The Rise of Hamas in Palestine and the Crisis of Secularism in the Arab World.

Susser discussed the root causes of some of Israel’s past successes – including its ability to modernize and the Arabs’ failure to do so – and remaining challenges. One of those challenges, he noted, is the conflicting narrative regarding the establishment of the state of Israel.

“These narratives are not just slightly different between Israel and the Palestinians, but they are completely contradictory and have virtually nothing in common,” he said. “I would say that this is one of the major reasons why Israel and the Palestinians have such great difficulty coming to terms with each other and the difficulties remain.

“Our narrative,” he continued, “is a heroic story of the self-defence of the Jewish people,” which represents “literally rising from the ashes of Auschwitz to sovereignty and independence from 1945 to 1948, in three very short years.” This was viewed, he said, as “a miraculous redemption and justice for the Jewish people” but is viewed by Palestinians as “the epitome of injustice.”

Susser also noted that the establishment of Israel, wherein “the few against the many” prevailed, is, ultimately, “a monument to Arab failure.” He said, “For the Arabs, when they look at us every day for the last 70 years, it is to look at the monument [of] their failure to modernize successfully.”

He pointed to the Six Day War as a turning point that “proved that Arabism is an empty vessel.” And he listed three reasons why Arab states have failed to advance: a lack of political freedom, a lack of first world education systems and a lack of economic equality and inclusion of women in the workforce.

These weaknesses in Arab civil society, he said, have led to “a human disaster” that has “prevented Arab countries from advancing,” and is worsened by the sectarian divisions that exist in Arab countries. The one exception, he said, is Jordan, which is a stable state in large part due to the fact that its Jordanian and Palestinian citizens are Sunni Muslims.

“Israel’s major challenges now come not from the strength of the Arab states but the weakness of the Arab states,” said Susser. Unlike the period between 1948 and 1967, when Israel was threatened by Arab states like Egypt, Israel is now threatened by non-Arab states like Iran and non-state actors like Hezbollah, Hamas and ISIS. The problem, according to Susser, is that, “You can’t destroy Hamas or Hezbollah in six days.”

“Fighting the non-state actors is a much more difficult prospect,” he said. “These non-state actors are less of a threat to Israel but ending the conflict with them is a lot more difficult.”

The threat from Iran – which he considers to be one of the three principal non-Arab Middle Eastern powers (along with Turkey and Israel) – is “not necessarily that the Iranians will drop a bomb on Israel,” he said. The main problem is “the constraints that a nuclear Iran will pose to Israeli conventional use of military force.”

“If Israel is attacked by Hamas from Gaza or by Hezbollah from Lebanon, or by both of them together, and Israel wishes to retaliate by conventional means against these two Iranian proxies with a nuclear umbrella provided by Iran, will Israel have the freedom of operation to do it?” he asked.

One other challenge Israel faces, said Susser, is demography. He noted there are six million Israeli Jews and an equivalent number of Arabs residing in the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, including the West Bank and the Palestinian citizens of Israel. “Can Israel remain a Jewish democracy with these demographic realities?” he wondered.

Susser concluded on a somewhat optimistic note. The conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis, he said, has allowed Israel to forge alliances with Sunni Arab nations like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, all of which, he said, “have common cause with Israel to block Iranian regional hegemonic design.” In addition, he noted, “We have cooperation with Jordan against ISIS and its allies, so the idea that Israel is against everyone in the Middle East is not the reality.”

David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com.

Judaism’s importance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Value in mentorship

T-Jex after-school supplementary program is a partnership between Schara Tzedeck Synagogue and Shalhevet Girls High School, where the older students mentor the younger. (photo from Shalhevet)

When friends approached Gila Ross several years ago to start a new Hebrew school in Vancouver, Ross turned for inspiration to a program she had previously run in Calgary for college students, refitting it for children.

The program, T-Jex – the Jewish Experience – is built around mentorship and is based out of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. Vancouver’s Orthodox Shalhevet Girls High School (grades 8 to 12) sends carefully selected mentor volunteers to T-Jex to work one-on-one with students or in groups of two or three. The mentors work predominantly on building Hebrew-language skills with the children. Children also learn as a class with Ross, who is the main teacher and program director, and takes the lead teaching Jewish values, holidays and Torah study.

T-Jex, now in its fifth year, involves about 10 students a year. “It is an amazing opportunity,” Rivka Abramchik, principal of Shalhevet, told the Jewish Independent. “A big part of the Shalhevet curriculum, and the goals we set for our students during the five years they are with us, is to stand up and take leadership. This is an opportunity to take responsibility, to learn the concept of giving back to the community.”

She added, “The girls get to really see how one person can make a meaningful impact. T-Jex so beautifully intertwines with the desire the girls have to be part of Jewish continuity and gives them a chance to give in a way which also gives to the girls themselves. It’s a big commitment – to give up 90 to 130 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon is give up a lot of time for these girls. You would think teenagers would be reluctant but, actually, the idea of teaching a child, students get more inspired than you might think. We have repeats every year.”

Ross gives a presentation at Shalhevet annually to introduce the program to the school’s new students. The importance of committing for a whole year is stressed, as is the importance of engagement, motivation and responsibility.

“I really enjoy working with the kids at T-Jex,” said Grade 11 student Hadassa Estrin. “The gratifying feeling you get when you see them learning about their heritage is so special … like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.”

“Most of our students have been coming from word of mouth, from all over Vancouver and from across the Jewish spectrum,” said Ross. “They have heard from others that kids enjoy coming.”

Ross started a Facebook group for Jewish moms a year or so ago, which has become a virtual community. The group has also helped spread word about the Hebrew school.

Ross, who has six kids of her own, is the youth director at Schara Tzedeck, where she has spearheaded the synagogue’s Families That Give social action projects. She also teaches at Torah High, an after-school program, and works with her husband, Rabbi Samuel Ross, the director of Vancouver National Conference of Synagogue Youth.

“The most wonderful thing to see,” said Ross, “is the students wanting to be here and having fun. To see them take joy in learning and Jewish activities is what it’s all about.”

For more information, visit scharatzedeck.com/education-learning/t-jex-2.