speakers

An oral song tradition

Shenandoah University Prof. Lori Şen spoke about Sephardic music on Nov. 2, as part of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s 2025/26 lecture series. (PR photo)

Kolot Mayim Reform Temple started its 2025/26 Building Bridges Zoom lecture series – six music-themed talks running through April – on Nov. 2, with Lori Şen, a professor of vocal pedagogy at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va.

The title of Şen’s lecture was Classical Echoes in Ladino: Sephardic Songs Reimagined.

“This talk is especially meaningful to me, as it reflects a journey that began about eight or nine years ago with my doctoral dissertation in voice performance,” she said.

“What started as an academic project has since grown into a broader exploration and celebration of a rich and underrepresented genre within the Western classical tradition – Sephardic art song.”

Şen spoke about the Sephardim, their history, language and culture, before discussing the elements of traditional Sephardic music. Later, she introduced Western classical arrangements of Sephardic folk songs for voice and various instruments, and spoke about the development of this genre, playing excerpts from a variety of songs.

Within the expanse of what constitutes Sephardic culture, there is a language, most commonly called Ladino or Judeo-Spanish, a mix of 14th- and 15th-century Castilian, with contributions from Galego-Portuguese, Catalan, Valencian, Aragonese, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic and others, such as Greek, French, Italian and Balkan languages.

“A certain linguistic creativity is inherent to Judeo-Spanish, which has even been used as a vehicle for expressing verbal revenge through humour in an oppressive society,” Şen said, citing examples of plays on words that can be found in Ladino.

Şen quoted from linguist Marie-Christine Varol, author of Manual of Judeo-Spanish: “Irony, distance, puns and endless plays on meanings and stylistic nuances bouncing back and forth make this language of quotations, double entendres, discrete jokes that seem undecipherable of implied and overly clear meanings into an original and eternally renewed linguistic system steeped in a devastating sense of humour that can only be achieved through a knowledge of several languages, a knowledge that gives it its strength, its richness and its freedom.”

Şen said the types of Sephardic song are defined based on musical parameters such as structure, melody and rhythm, as well as the text and the relationship between the music and text. Many songs were passed down orally, making their origins difficult to trace. Others are Ladino translations or adaptations of Turkish, French and Balkan songs, incorporating dance rhythms like tango and foxtrot, and sometimes referencing familiar operettas.

“Since this repertoire represents such a wide range of cultural exchange, the musical analyses of them require vast musical knowledge,” Şen said. “Sephardic music possesses elements of Western classical music of all periods, starting from medieval, Spanish, Moroccan, Balkan and Greek musical traditions, and Turkish folk and classical forms, including makam.”

Makam is the Middle Eastern modal practice with more pitches than we’re used to in our Western 12-tone notation system.

According to Şen, although instruments were employed on occasion, the Sephardic song repertoire is essentially vocal. When instruments were involved, they were mainly percussive, a tambourine, for instance, though mandolin and oud were also employed.

Traditional Sephardic folk songs, since they were transmitted orally, incorporate a large amount of improvisation. Thus, the melodies of the same songs can differ significantly between communities and across generations.

On her website, lorisen.com, Şen has a catalogue she compiled that includes lists of Sephardic works and composers, works categorized by instrumentation, and songs. Based on archival research and interviews she has conducted with Jewish musicians and music scholars, Şen has identified more than 45 composers who have arranged more than 190 different traditional Sephardic folk songs in the art song form for voice and various instruments. Also on her website is a Ladino diction guide designed to assist singers interested in performing Sephardic songs.

A mezzo-soprano and Fulbright alumna, Şen’s range spans opera, art song, musical theatre and jazz, and she has performed throughout Europe and the United States. Her teaching and research specialize in vocal literature, pedagogy and voice science. Further, through her background in physics, she explores the art and science of the singing voice.

The next lecture in the Kolot Mayim series will feature Broadway historian and lecturer David Benkof on Jan. 11 at 11 a.m. Benkof will deliver his talk – Spotlight on Jewish Broadway with the Broadway Maven – in Victoria in person and on Zoom. For information, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

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

Jew-hatred is centuries old

Bar-Ilan University’s Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke in Vancouver Nov. 17 at Temple Sholom on root causes of Jew-hatred. (from idsf.org.il)

The Enlightenment of the 18th century carried hopes for Jews that their long history of persecution would end, but the ideas of that period carried the seeds of a new form of Jew-hatred. Communism was intended to erase class and national differences, which might have eliminated discrimination toward Jews, but this ideology too carried a poisonous element. Zionism was intended as the answer to systemic discrimination against Jews. It too, though, merely sparked a variation on the ancient bigotry.

In a survey spanning centuries, one of Israel’s leading scholars of the Middle East explained the seemingly limitless justifications for Jew-hatred in Christian and Islamic civilizations.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke in Vancouver Nov. 17 at Temple Sholom on root causes of Jew-hatred. Kedar is a senior lecturer in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies at Bar-Ilan University, where he has taught for more than 30 years. Kedar served for 25 years in Israeli military intelligence, specializing in Syria and regional Arab affairs.

Kedar said he prefers the term “Jew-hatred” to antisemitism because it subverts the rhetorical claim that Arabs, who are semitic, can therefore not be antisemites.

“We don’t find anti-Jewish sentiments in India, in China, Japan and Korea,” said Kedar. “One reason is the religion. Both Christianity and Islam are religions which are derivatives of Judaism. Therefore, in order to establish their validity and their legitimacy, they must undermine the validity and the legitimacy of Judaism.”

Another reason, he said, is that there have historically been few or no Jews in those places. In addition to being theological, Kedar argues, Jew-hatred has been a xenophobic reaction to the “other.” In the absence of Jews in India or Japan, this role was filled by other others.

Traits of Jews themselves also spark antisemitism, he said. Illiteracy in Jewish communities has been almost nonexistent, said Kedar, and this has created jealousy. More recently, the disproportionate number of Jewish Nobel Prize recipients may be a point of pride for Jews, but it can serve as a red flag for those seeking reasons for resentment. Jewish success in a range of fields spurs bitterness among some who are less successful or struggle to compete.

The historical trajectory of Jew-hatred is long and winding.

“Two hundred years ago, more or less, some countries, especially after the Enlightenment in Europe, started to give emancipation to Jews,” said Kedar. “Instead of erasing the differences between Jews and others, [this freedom] actually increased the hatred because now the Jew, the ‘other,’ invades our circles, he becomes a lawyer, he becomes an accountant, he competes with us in our court.”

When Jews in Germany abandoned traditional distinctive clothing choices, this caused a backlash among non-Jews.

“This is frightening for them because, all of a sudden, the Jew looks like us,” Kedar summarized. “Is he like me or not? All of a sudden, he wants to look like a German, sound like a German, act like a German.”

With the French Revolution, and gaining steam after 1848, the Age of Nationalism was another turning point. The collapse of empires, notably the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where as many as one-third of Europe’s Jews lived, brought unanticipated challenges for Jews. As Hungarians, Romanians and others gained both national sovereignty and greater ethnic identity, Jews were again isolated as outsiders.

“If we are Romanians, we are Christians,” Kedar said. “We speak Romanian.… We dance to the same music. We eat the same food. Who doesn’t? The Jew. He eats different food. He speaks a different language. So, he’s not one of us.”

Socialism and communism were meant to erase the differences between peoples, Kedar said, including the very concept of separate nationalities.

“And who is leading this erasing of nationalism? The Jew Trotsky and Lenin, with his [Jewish] roots,” said Kedar. The Jew is blamed when nationalism is ascendant and when communism is pushing nationalism to the margin, he noted.

Envy and othering even undermined Zionism, which was conceived as the ultimate answer to the inescapable antisemitism experienced by the stateless Jew.

“The Zionist movement was another reason to hate the Jew,” Kedar said. “Let’s imagine that we have a little town in Romania with problems of employment, problems of poverty, problems of alcoholism as well. The Jews are starting this new theology of Zionism, to leave the country and to go to eretz Israel. ‘What, you’re going to leave us and go to a better place? We hate you.’”

Kedar spoke extensively about Islamic theological and political antisemitism, which he described as like a “layer cake.”

“Judaism was canceled 2,000 years ago by Christianity,” he said. “And Christianity was canceled 14 centuries ago by Islam. So, Judaism was canceled twice.… Since Judaism is null and void, why do we need a Jewish state if there is no Jewish religion?”

Another layer rests on the Islamic concept of dar al-Islam, the domain of Islam, he said, which holds that no land controlled by Muslims must ever fall into the hands of the infidel.

Under the Ottomans, he said, eretz Israel was under Islamic rule and should forever remain so because, “according to the belief, according to Sharia, any land in the world has only a one-way ticket to enter the House of Islam, not to get out.”

A third layer is a widespread rejection of Jews as a people or as a nation. By reducing Jews to a religious group, he said, this idea subordinates Jewish identity to national affiliation, so a Jewish Canadian is Canadian first and that is their nation. This argument succeeds in justifying dozens of Muslim states while rejecting one Jewish state based on the premise that these are not Muslim states, but Turkish, Uzbeki or other states that happen to share a religion.

A fourth layer, said Kedar, is that some Islamic thought denies Jewish connections to the land and maintains that the people who today call themselves Jews are descended from central Asian Khazars who converted to the Jewish religion.

These concepts negate a core intention of Zionism, which was to resolve the problems created by Jewish statelessness. Muslim opposition to Israel, founded on these layers of theological justification, and Western opposition to Israel, mainly taking the form of political criticisms that extend into existential rejection, have prevented the Jewish state from serving the role Zionism intended, which was in part to make Jews a people like any other.

Rabbi Dan Moskovitz welcomed Kedar, who is associated with the right-wing in Israel, and said his congregation is a “big tent.”

“I did hear from some of you here,” said Moskovitz, “or in the community, [asking] why is Temple Sholom hosting Dr. Kedar?… As the senior rabbi of this congregation, it is my intention and mission to bring in voices, within the boundaries of the tent of the Jewish people, that represent the spectrum of Jewish thought. I tell my children all the time, you only learn when you listen to people that you don’t already agree with.”

Aron Csaplaros, BC regional manager for B’nai Brith Canada, which co-sponsored the event, introduced Kedar. He also highlighted his organization’s most recent audit of antisemitic incidents, noting they recorded 6,219 incidents of hate against the Jewish community in Canada in 2024.

“That’s the highest number we’ve ever recorded in the more than 40 years that we’ve been tracking this data,” he said. “That comes out to an average of 17 antisemitic incidents every single day.”

Incidents range from online harassment, threatening behaviour and vandalism targeting Jewish institutions to direct attacks against Jewish individuals, Csaplaros said.

“It is hostility directed at people simply because they’re Jewish,” he said. “Many in our community feel less safe today than at any point in their lifetimes. Parents hesitate sending their kids to school. University students are increasingly targeted and isolated. And Jewish Canadians who have always lived openly and proudly now find themselves looking over their shoulders or questioning whether this is still the country that can offer the sense of security that they once felt.”

Explore Jewish music

On Dec. 3, Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz will speak on Harnessing the Potential of Our Comfort Songs, as part of Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s Building Bridges Speakers Series. (photo from Hadar Institute)

Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s annual six-part series of free lectures – the Building Bridges Speaker Series – returned earlier this month with the Nov. 2 talk by Dr. Lori Şen of Shenandoah University on Classical Echoes in Ladino: Sephardic Songs Reimagined. It continues Dec. 3, with Rabbi Deborah Sacks Mintz of the Hadar Institute speaking on the topic Harnessing the Potential of Our Comfort Songs.

The Building Bridges Speaker Series’ theme for 2025/26 is Kolot Zemirot: The Many Voices of Jewish Music. In the wake of the dramatic rise in antisemitism following the events of Oct. 7, 2023, it is more important than ever to celebrate and amplify the rich tapestry of Jewish culture, history and heritage. This series of lectures will explore the role of music in shaping and sustaining Jewish identity across generations and around the world, delving into the diverse expressions of Jewish music – its history, traditions, and its cultural, religious and secular aspects. Music has always been a source of strength, resilience and hope for the Jewish people, and this series will highlight its power to unite communities and inspire pride in our shared heritage.

An educator, practitioner, composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and facilitator of Jewish communal music, Sacks Mintz will explore, on Dec. 3, how Jews use the internal strength we source from singing our own anchor songs to serve our communities in times of disruption. For Sacks Mintz, the power of communal music ignites spiritual creativity, fosters participation and deepens connections within Jewish life.

Historian and lecturer David Benkof, “the Broadway Maven,” will speak in person in Victoria on Jan. 11, with hybrid access for a wider audience. His presentation will dig into Jewish creators, characters and themes that have shaped – and continue to shape – the world of Broadway, revealing how musical theatre reflects and influences Jewish identity.

A leading voice in the study of contemporary Israeli music, ethnomusicologist, Dr. Naomi Cohn-Zentner of Bar-Ilan University observes that Israeli songs about the war and the army have always been about a hope for peace, and this was even more the case after Oct. 7. Her Feb. 8 talk – called Music and War: An Optimistic View – will examine how Israeli musicians have responded to the tragedy, offering an exploration of music’s role in processing grief, inspiring resilience and connecting community in times of crisis.

On March 8, Dr. Joshua Jacobson, author, composer, scholar and founder and director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston, will speak on Jewish Music: What’s That? One of the world’s leading authorities on Jewish music, Jacobson will share his expertise in the history and ongoing evolution of Jewish music. His presentation will invite listeners to consider what we mean by Jewish music and how musical expression is a rich part of our identity.

Toronto author and biographer Michael Posner wraps up the 2025/26 series on April 12 with the lecture Hallelujah and Beyond: Leonard Cohen’s Torah of Song. Posner will explore Cohen’s Jewish heritage, philosophy and musical legacy and how Judaism influenced the singer-songwriter’s lyrics, philosophy and life.

The Jewish Independent will feature coverage of the lectures in future issues, including Şen’s Nov. 2 lecture, which can be viewed on Kolot Mayim’s website.

Kolot Mayim, from the Hebrew “Voices of the Water,” is Victoria’s Reform Jewish Congregation. The Building Bridges lecture series is partially supported by the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island and donations are gratefully accepted, with tax receipts available for contributions over $25.

The webinars are free and mostly occur monthly mostly on select Sundays (with the exception of Sacks Mintz’s), at 11 a.m., on Zoom. Pre-registration is required via kolotmayimreformtemple.com.

– Courtesy Kolot Mayim Reform Temple

Etgar Keret comes to Vancouver

(PR photos)

Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret will be at the Rothstein Theatre Oct. 30, 7 p.m., in conversation with author and columnist Marsha Lederman. The JCC Jewish Book Festival event is sponsored by the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation.

Keret, who also teaches creative writing at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is known for writing short stories that are lean and accessible in style, but whimsical, surrealist and darkly funny in subject. His work explores life’s smallest, most unremarkable interactions in ways that are profound and unusual, and his seventh story collection, Autocorrect: Stories (translated by Jessica Cohen and Sondra Silverston), is no different – it is vast in reach yet grounded in the bewildering absurdity of modern life. Books will be available for purchase at the Oct. 30 event and the author will be signing. For tickets ($36), go to jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

– Courtesy Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival

New fall lecture series

White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre’s first-ever Fall Speaker Series, starts Oct. 29, with a talk on Jewish immigration to Canada. (image designed by Chloe Heuchert)

On Oct. 29, I will help launch White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre’s first-ever Fall Speaker Series, which will also feature presenters from the Jewish Genealogical Society of British Columbia and the Jewish Museum and Arch-ives of British Columbia over the coming months.

For my presentation, I will give an introduction to the history of the Jews in Canada and some of the adversities they have had to face. I start off with the first known Jewish settlers, who came here in the 1760s, following Britain’s conquest of New France. So, Jews first came to Canada when it was under the British colonial rule. While there were no legal restrictions on them, the opportunities for integration into public life and to hold public office were limited.

One of the earliest Jewish settlers was Aaron Hart, a fur trader who lived in Trois-Rivières, Que. The Hart family was influential over generations and laid the groundwork for Canada’s first Jewish community, in Montreal, in the late 1760s.

Most formal Jewish communities – which grew into the ones we inhabit now – were established in major Canadian cities during the 19th century. Most of these Jewish Canadians would have been small business owners, farmers and traders. While small in number, they established the first synagogues and communal organizations.

During the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, a significant surge of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe occurred. Between 1880 and 1920, Canada’s Jewish population grew from a few hundred to tens of thousands. These individuals found jobs as garment workers, shopkeepers and tailors, among other things, contributing to the industrial economy. They formed organizations, published English and Yiddish newspapers, held social gatherings, etc. In the larger community, Jewish immigrants were regularly at the forefront of labour, social justice and human rights movements, in part because of their own experiences with marginalization.

While Jewish immigrants had thriving communities, they also faced adversity. Antisemitism dates back millennia, before there was even a word for it. In the context of the first Jewish settlers in Canada, Jews were often treated with suspicion and faced social exclusion. Certain professions, institutions and clubs were closed to them. Different publications and political figures depicted Jews as a threat to Canadian morality and economic stability. Restrictive measures were put in place in the 1910s and 1920s, as Jews were seen as “undesirable.” The 1923 Immigration Act severely restricted Jewish and other immigration. (Most notably, it effectively banned Chinese immigration.)

Antisemitism continued to be prevalent during the interwar years, becoming more organized and explicit. Hotels, social clubs and resorts often displayed signs barring Jews and there were several groups advocating for even more restrictive policies. The government of William Lyon Mackenzie King was antisemitic and, during the Second World War, only permitted a small percentage of Jews into Canada – the attitude of “none is too many,” in reference to Jewish immigrants, applied. Many Jewish boys and men were put into internment camps and the government imposed strict financial responsibility requirements on those wanting to sponsor others to enter the country or be freed from internment. While immigration policies began to loosen after the Holocaust, antisemitism is an ongoing challenge in Canada.

White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre’s new speaker series was created to highlight and celebrate Jewish heritage and identity in Canada. Its goal is to engage the community in exploring Jewish genealogy, culture and history, while encouraging intergenerational dialogue and a personal connection to the past. Ideally, it will serve as a platform for education, reflection and preservation of Jewish life in Canada, inspiring attendees to delve into their own histories and contribute to the broader communal narrative.

To register for any of the series talks, go to wrssjcc.org.

Chloe Heuchert is an historian specializing in Canadian Jewish history. During her master’s program at Trinity Western University, she focused on Jewish internment in Quebec during the Second World War.

Series explores music

Building Bridges, Kolot Mayim Reform Temple’s annual six-part free lecture series, returns this year, beginning Nov. 2, 11 a.m., on Zoom. The theme for this season is Kolot Zemirot: The Many Voices of Jewish Music, exploring the role of music in shaping and sustaining Jewish identity across generations worldwide.

The series opens with Dr. Lori Şen presenting Classical Echoes in Ladino: Sephardic Songs Reimagined. Rooted in the folk melodies of Sephardi Jews and shaped by centuries of migration, Sephardi art song brings a distinctive voice to the Western classical stage. Şen explores the transformation of Ladino folk songs – an expressive Judeo-Spanish language enriched with influences from Turkish, Arabic, Greek and other cultures encountered throughout the Sephardi diaspora – into Western classical art song.

Through musical examples, historical context and stories from her research, Şen reveals a genre that not only preserves Jewish memory but also expands understanding of what Jewish classical music can be. Her presentation offers listeners a rare sound world that bridges history, culture and art.

Şen is a Turkish mezzo-soprano and Fulbright alumna known for her versatility across opera, art song, musical theatre and jazz, with an international performing and teaching career. She uniquely bridges the worlds of art and science with a background in physics coupled with vocal pedagogy and voice science. As a dual citizen of Turkey and Spain, her multicultural perspective drives her pioneering research in Sephardi art song. She is recognized as the first to catalogue Western classical settings of traditional Sephardi folk songs and to create a Ladino diction guide specifically for singers.

Currently assistant professor of vocal pedagogy at Shenandoah University and part of the voice faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Şen has shared her work worldwide.

For more information about the Building Bridges series, visit kolotmayimreformtemple.com. The series is partially supported by the Jewish Federation of Victoria and Vancouver Island. Donations are gratefully accepted, with tax receipts for gifts over $25.

– Courtesy Kolot Mayim Reform Temple

Innovative approach to care

On Sept. 30, Canadian Friends of Sheba Medical Centre will host Medicine Reimagined, an evening with Prof. Amitai Ziv, deputy director of Sheba Medical Centre and head of its Rehabilitation Hospital, which is the national rehabilitation facility of Israel. Ziv is also the founder and director of the Israel Centre for Medical Simulation (MSR), an innovation hub for improving patient safety and clinical training.

Originally from Montreal, Ziv is spending his sabbatical in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia.

“This will be the first Canadian Friends of Sheba event in Vancouver, as we launch our chapter here, and we are truly thrilled to welcome Prof. Amitai Ziv,” Galit Blumenthal, manager of donor relations and events at Canadian Friends of Sheba Medical Centre, told the Independent. “Our goal is to raise awareness of Sheba Medical Centre and highlight its profound impact both in Israel and on the global stage.”

photo - Prof. Amitai Ziv, deputy director of Sheba Medical Centre and its Rehabilitation Hospital, speaks in Vancouver on the topic Medicine Reimagined — Prof. Amitai Ziv, deputy director of Sheba Medical Centre and its Rehabilitation Hospital, speaks in Vancouver on the topic Medicine Reimagined. *(internet photo)*

Sheba Medical Centre was established in 1948. Located in Tel HaShomer, near Tel Aviv, its website notes the facility has 159 medical departments and clinics, almost 2,000 beds and 75 laboratories, and receives about 1.9 million clinical visits and 200,000 emergency room visits a year. Its seven major facilities comprise a cancer centre, an academic campus, a research complex and four hospitals: children’s, women’s, acute care and rehabilitation. It also has several centres of excellence and institutes, notably for cancer, and heart and circulation. It counts 10,000 healthcare professionals, 1,700 physicians and 200 PhD research professionals.

“I support them, along with many other Israeli institutions, as I feel that this is at least some contribution that I can make during these difficult times,” said Tova Kornfeld, who connected Canadian Friends of Sheba Medical Centre (CFSMC), which is based in Toronto, with the Independent.

“I sometimes feel powerless living here in Canada when I see what is happening in Israel,” said Kornfeld. “If I can help in any way, whether by bringing awareness to the work being done by the various organizations or by making financial contributions, then I feel I must. As far as Sheba is concerned, it stepped up to the plate when Soroka Hospital was hit by an Iranian missile and took in all the ICU patients.

“It is also the biggest rehab hospital in Israel and is providing rehabilitation for thousands of soldiers who have been injured since Oct. 7,” she added. “I have family members in the IDF and it is comforting to know that, if something were to happen to any of them, there would be hospitals like Sheba to care for them.”

Ziv’s areas of expertise are medical education, simulation and rehabilitative medicine, and he has served as a consultant and speaker at academic and health institutions around the world. The event in Vancouver will offer a look at Sheba Medical Centre and its innovations in, among other things, the rehabilitation field.

On Sept. 30, Vancouverites will also get to meet Einat Enbar, chief executive officer of CFSMC, which was established in 2017 to raise awareness and funds for Sheba Medical Centre, the care it offers, the research it conducts and the educational training it provides.

For Kornfeld, there is another aspect to supporting Israeli organizations and institutions. She hopes that financial and other assistance from the diaspora “gives the Israelis caught in the fray the message that we have their backs and that we are all in this together regardless of where we live. I would hope that this would be comforting to them when it appears that most of the world is against not only Israel but the Jewish people themselves.”

For more information on CFSMC and SMC, visit shebacanada.org. To attend the Sept. 30, 7 p.m., event in Vancouver (location upon registration), go to weblink.donorperfect.com/ProfAmitaiZivInVancouver. While free to attend, donations are welcome. Readers can email Blumenthal at [email protected] with any questions.

Trying to counter hate

Warren Kinsella, left, and Ben Mulroney at Montreal’s Beth Israel Beth Aaron Synagogue June 19. (photo by Dave Gordon)

In 1980, when Warren Kinsella was in Calgary performing with his punk rock band, one of his friends tapped him on the shoulder to say some men in the crowd were giving a Nazi salute.

“I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think it was possible,” said Kinsella, now a Toronto Sun columnist, at a recent talk. “There, in fact, were three big guys, shaved heads, T-shirts, jeans, suspenders, Doc Martin boots, coloured laces, and they were making Nazi salutes.”

Kinsella confronted one of them, twice asking him to stop the salutes, and was greeted with an expletive and the word “Jew.” As the Irish-Catholic Kinsella tells it, a fist came his way, he hit back – a fight involving his buddies and the skinheads erupted. Eventually, the “skinheads retreated, battered or bruised,” said Kinsella. After the show, one of them pointed at Kinsella, saying, “We’ll be back.”

“And the truth, my friends, is they never really left.”

On June 19, at Montreal’s Beth Israel Beth Aaron Synagogue, Kinsella was joined by syndicated radio host Ben Mulroney, who acted as the moderator of the event called Weaponizing Genocide: Exposing Propaganda and Hate in the Age of Misinformation. It was a fundraiser for the Foundation for Genocide Education, which was founded in 2014 by Heidi Berger, a child of Holocaust survivors. The nonprofit aims to ensure that the subject of genocide is taught in North American high schools.

Since that incident 45 years ago, Kinsella has battled Jew-hatred as a lawyer and as a journalist – at times with rifles jammed in his chest, police protection, bomb threats and death threats.

“I’ve seen lots of hate, but I have never seen it as bad as it is,” he said at the June event. What the Jewish people are fighting is not only a seven-front military war, but a propaganda war “we are losing,” he said.

Kinsella, the author of 10 books, will soon publish The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda, along with an accompanying documentary.

Exactly 18 months before Oct. 7, 2023, social media profiles started popping up all around the Muslim world, Kinsella said. They had “very few followers” and were filled with “stuff about soccer matches and celebrities and pictures of kittens.” On the morning of the seventh, as Hamas and its allies were attacking Israel, thousands of these social media profiles came to life, he said, noting those that had just a few followers suddenly had half a million.

“They pushed out lies,” he said, such as “there had been no murder, no rapes.”

“It was an indication of how sophisticated and how effective these guys were, as they were able to get that word out into the stratosphere,” said Kinsella.

“Antisemites,” he added, “know that … this is the greatest political, cultural and economic revolution of our lifetimes,” with Generation Z’s primary source of information being TikTok, “one of the principal platforms for antisemitism on the planet.”

After the event, Berger told the Jewish Independent that social media literacy for students is critical, to “learn when the term genocide is being used to manipulate their views and their emotions.”

In his remarks, Kinsella said some three million members of Gen Z in Canada believe Israel should be wiped off the map and that Hamas was justified in its actions. Weeks before Israel sent troops into Gaza, he said, young people across Western democracies were chanting the lies that they had seen online.

These were organized campaigns of protests, with professionally made signs, and the “disrupting and terrorizing of Jewish neighbourhoods with military precision,” said Kinsella. “They had talking points. They had food, drink, transportation. They even had legal representation for free…. And many of them were being paid to show up.”

He said, “It was principally a campaign to seize the sympathies of our young. And it’s a campaign that’s winning.”

Kinsella, president of Daisy Consulting Group, who has worked for various high-profile US and Canadian political campaigns, noticed that protesters used pithy phrases “very much like what political mainstream parties do,” such as “from the river to the sea” and “free Palestine.”

“Who’s against freedom?” he asked. “It’s nice.”

Media, government and nongovernmental organizations continue to take Hamas at its word, said Kinsella, citing an early example. On Oct. 17, 2023, when the Gazan Health Ministry declared that Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City had been bombed by Israel and that 500 people were dead, it made headlines around the world. “The bombing was cited as evidence of Israel’s genocidal war,” yet evidence later showed it was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that hit the parking lot, and perhaps a few dozen were killed.

The day of the Montreal talk, Iran bombed Soroka Medical Centre in Beer Sheva, Israel – a war crime that almost no media reported on, said Kinsella.

“The line I always use with politicians: facts tell, but stories sell,” said Kinsella. “That’s why they try to overwhelm us, because they know if our story gets heard, if it gets seen, if it gets read, they will be defeated, because, at the end of the day, their story is a litany of hate.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com.

Harper to speak here

photo - Stephen J. Harper — Stephen J. Harper *(photo from internet)*

On Sept. 7, the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation, Western Region, presents A Special Evening Marking 50 Years of Supporting Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem, featuring former prime minister Stephen J. Harper.

The event, moderated by Gordon Campbell, raises funds for Shaare Zedek Medical Centre’s Incubators Drive.

In 2024, more than 20,000 babies were born at Shaare Zedek’s Wilf Woman and Infant Centre – three times that of BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Of those, 1,100 required intensive care in the neonatal intensive care unit. The NICU operates 70 state-of-the-art infant stations, offering 24/7 care with specialized staff and cutting-edge equipment. The goal of the campaign is to raise enough money to purchase additional Giraffe Incubator Carestations, each costing $50,000, to meet growing demand and save more lives. Thanks to a matching donor, every dollar donated will be matched up to $118,000.

Marla Gordon and Justin Segal are emcees of the Sept. 7 event. Herb Silber and Eli Konorti are corporate committee chairs, while Carol Segal and Yael Segal are dinner chairs. The Jewish Medical Association of BC is the evening’s educational sponsor and the Dr. Harry and Ruth Frackson Speaker Series has contributed to the event. Community partners are the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Congregation Schara Tzedeck and the Jewish Independent.

Tickets for the VIP meet-and-greet are a minimum gift of $1,800, which includes tickets for two guests. Admission to the VIP cocktail dinner is $250 per person, and the price to only attend the moderated presentation is $36 per person. For more information and sponsorship opportunities, contact Ilan Pilo, Western Canada director of CSZHF, at [email protected] or 778-858-8748.

– Courtesy Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation, Western Region

A childhood spent on the run

Survivor Miriam Dattel, right, with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s Ellie Lawson at the Yom Hashoah commemoration April 23. (screenshot)

Miriam Dattel was born Branka Friedman, in September 1940, in the Croatian city of Zagreb, then part of Yugoslavia. She was about six months old when the Nazis invaded and her family began a life in hiding. Fleeing ahead of the Nazis and their collaborators, the family survived together through a series of close calls, lifesaving tips from compassionate officials, luck, determination and exhausting treks through the wilderness in search of refuge.

Dattel shared her family’s story at the annual Yom Hashoah commemoration at Temple Sholom on April 23.

Upon invading Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Nazis, aided by their Croatian fascist Ustaše collaborators, immediately instituted the Nuremberg Laws and set up the first concentration camps in Yugoslavia. Dattel’s father and uncle were thrown out of the university and all Jews were forced to don the yellow star – including on young Branka/Miriam’s baby carriage.

The family was set to flee to Budapest, where they believed they would find refuge with family. When the day came, the baby Branka was ill, so her grandmother, Irma Stern, was sent on ahead. It was the last time the family saw her.

In her haste, the grandmother left behind her prayer book, which was her ubiquitous companion. Branka’s mother viewed the holy book as a fortuitous omen that all would be well in the end. At the commemoration last month, Dattel held the prayer book, now more than a century old and suffering the inevitable evidence of time.

Eventually, the family fled – but not to Hungary. Branca/Miriam, her parents, Andor and Margita Friedman, and her aunt and uncle, Lili and Fritz, were transported with the help of a friend of her uncle’s southwest to the Croatian city of Split on the Adriatic coast. Sections of the city were controlled by the Italian fascists and others by the Croatian regime.

One day, her father was tipped off by a high-ranking Italian officer that the Croatians were preparing to deport Jews from the areas of Split they controlled. He returned home in the middle of the night and evacuated the family to the Italian side. Eventually, the family’s race against fate continued, with a journey under false identities by ship to northern Italy.

“In 1943, when eventually Mussolini was finished, the Germans took over,” Dattel said in a video at the ceremony. Again, her father was tipped off by an Italian official, who warned him to disappear.

“From then on, from what I saw in my father’s diary, we went through 18 different hiding places,” she said, noting assistance from underground operatives.

As a child forced to race from one place to another, few distinct memories remain. However, in various barns where they took refuge, people would roast chestnuts and that remains an evocative taste-memory for her.

Ovaltine is another. And it is a flavour from the very moment that may have saved the life of Miriam and her family.

The group – now six with the addition of her newborn cousin Gerardo – had made their way through northern Italy, around Lake Como and toward the Swiss border. After walking for hours, crossing under fences and trudging through difficult terrain, they came to the frontier of Switzerland.

“There were two Swiss border guards there,” said Dattel. “They said the border is closed. And my father said, impossible, you are not going to let two kids be killed. My recollection is this Swiss soldier [with] a German Shepherd coming towards me, lifting me up and carrying me to the station, to the border house.”

There, the guard gave her Ovaltine and, while she has tried to recreate the flavour, it has never tasted the same.

The family members were placed in refugee camps, Miriam separated from her parents. In Switzerland, the family lived out the war, returning to Zagreb afterward before Miriam and her parents made their way to Israel.

About 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust. Miriam was one of an estimated six to 11% who survived. In addition to the video screened at the event, Dattel spoke on stage with Ellie Lawson, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s education manager.

Claire Sicherman, a granddaughter of survivors, was the third-generation descendent speaker. She spoke of being consumed by grief in early life and growing up in a family filled with silences. (Sicherman shared her story of trauma and recovery earlier this year. See jewishindependent.ca/healing-trauma-possible.)

Hannah Marazzi, acting executive director of the VHEC, noted that this year marks the 82nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a symbol of defiance in the face of annihilation. In addition to remembering the millions of lives lost and the resilience of survivors, she said, “We remember the young Jewish fighters who rose up against the Nazis and whose courage continues to inspire us to stand against oppression in all of its forms.”

Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi of Temple Sholom, welcomed attendees to the synagogue and reflected on the past’s lessons for the present.

Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, associate director of programs and community relations for the VHEC and a member of the third generation, introduced survivors, who lit candles of remembrance.

Cantor Shani Cohen chanted El Moleh Rachamim, the memorial prayer for the martyrs.

Wendy Bross Stuart was responsible for musical direction and arrangement, and played piano. Eric Wilson played cello. Cantor Michael Zoosman, Erin Aberle-Palm, Matthew Mintsis and Lorenzo Tesler-Mabe sang.

As is traditional, the annual ceremony ended with the singing of “Zog Nit Keynmol,” “The Partisan Song.”