surveys

McGill calls for participants

Sun tans are actually a response to DNA damage. (photo from pexels.com)

Skin cancer is the most common cancer worldwide. To better understand sun safety behaviour and attitudes in the Jewish community, a research group from McGill is conducting a survey. And they are asking community members to take part.

More than 360 participants have responded so far, with the majority being from Quebec (60%) and

Ontario (35%). Most respondents identified as Jewish by both religion and ethnicity (80%), and many identified as Conservative (40%) or Orthodox (20%); 70% are of Ashkenazi background; and 55% are mothers.

Sun exposure and tanning

Ninety percent of participants reported experiencing a sunburn at some point in their lives, and nearly half have had a sunburn that blistered. Seventy percent of respondents travel to sunnier climates for more than one week each year, primarily to the United States (65%).

Seventy-five percent reported having a tan in the last 12 months, and 70% believe they look healthier or more attractive with a tan. Forty-five percent intentionally spend time in the sun on vacation or use tanning beds, while only 17% report never tanning.

A health concern

Six percent of respondents reported being previously diagnosed with skin cancer, while 30% reported having an immediate family member who has had skin cancer.

Only 6% of respondents always wear a sun protective hat, while nearly 50% rarely or never do. Despite moderate sun exposure, only a small percentage take consistent sun safety precautions. Additionally, 70% of participants report that skin cancer has never been discussed as a health concern within the Jewish community.

Why this matters

These findings highlight a critical gap in skin cancer awareness and prevention. Sunburns, especially those that blister, significantly increase the risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Given that 80% of respondents describe their natural skin colour as light, it is essential for the Jewish community to prioritize sun protection.

Skin cancer prevention should be part of ongoing conversations in our community. Encouraging discussions in synagogues, schools and community groups can help raise awareness. Daily sun protection, including the use of sunscreen, hats, sunglasses and shade should become routine practice. It is also important to challenge the misconception that a tan is a sign of good health, as tanning is actually a response to DNA damage.

How dangerous is melanoma?

In 2024, it is estimated that 11,300 Canadians were diagnosed with melanoma, and melanoma incidence in Canada is continuing to increase in men and women at a fast pace. It is often the sunburns in our 20s that lead to melanoma in our 60s and 70s. As people live longer, take more vacations in sunny destinations and are affected by climate change, we expect to see more cases of melanoma in the future unless we take action now.

To take the survey, go to portal.rimuhc.ca/cim/redcap/surveys, and use the code HA8CC7C9Y. By responding, you could win a $200 gift-card.

Any questions about the survey or the study can be emailed to medical student Raquel Lazarowitz at [email protected], dermatology resident Dr. Santina Conte at [email protected], or study director Dr. Ivan Litvinov, McGill University’s division of dermatology, at [email protected].

– Courtesy McGill University

Going beyond numbers

Jews of Colour Initiative chief executive officer Ilana Kaufman speaks at Or Shalom on June 6. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

On June 6 at Or Shalom, Jews of Colour Initiative chief executive officer Ilana Kaufman spoke about Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Colour. She said JoCI commissioned the survey to find out how many Jews of Colour there are in the United States, “what are our experiences, what are our perspectives, what are our beliefs, and then, how do you parlay that information into making the Jewish community, quite frankly, less racist, more inclusive.”

Kaufman was in Vancouver from Berkeley, Calif., where she is based, to share the survey results with “congregational rabbis, agency professionals, educators, board members, Jewish Federation staff, community members of colour and allies,” said Shelley Rivkin, vice-president of local and global engagement at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, which organized and funded the series of meetings. “Jewish Federation had been in conversation with Ilana about the work of the JoCI for over a year,” she said.

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner introduced Kaufman at the shul talk, and Kaufman dove into the data.

“Depending on the age range you’re thinking about … between eight to 20% of the U.S. Jewish community are community of colour,” with the higher numbers being in the younger age groups, she said. “Every day in the U.S., the number of Jews of Colour is increasing, not decreasing. In terms of the data for multiracial families … 20% of U.S. Jewish families identify as multiracial. You may not see the family members of colour, but we’re there. And, if you’re on the coast, that number goes up to 25%, or one in four families. And that number, of course, is getting bigger every day, too.”

Kaufman is working with colleagues to figure out how many Jews of Colour there will be about 20 years from now. By 2042 or 2043, she said, “depending on immigration patterns, the U.S. will become half People of Colour. The majority of those folks will be multiracial and, in the U.S. Jewish community, we don’t know the date [that will happen], but those patterns map onto the U.S. Jewish community as well.”

While Beyond the Count is not a truly representative survey, as that would have cost about a million dollars, which was beyond JoCI’s capacity, the organization “cast the net as far as we could from the Jews of Colour Initiative perch,” said Kaufman. “We were able to have 1,118 qualified survey respondents in our study. It’s the largest dataset of Jews of Colour in the U.S., maybe anywhere in the world, and it’s not representative at all.” The interviewees over-represented in many areas, such as level of education attained and engagement in Jewish activities.

Regarding the methodology, Kaufman said the survey “is unapologetically framed with Critical Race Theory.”

“From our perspective,” she said, “we can’t do this work without framing it in a context where racism is real, and the effects of racism are real. And it doesn’t implicate white people, it doesn’t marginalize People of Colour, it just reveals the infrastructural truth that allows us then to leverage that truth to make change.”

Feminist pedagogy also informed the work, said Kaufman, and “we used a counter-storytelling approach, which means, instead of white folks saying, People of Colour, tell me your story … we had Jews of Colour, our community, centre the conversation and the work to create shape around that.”

JoCI doesn’t define the term “Jews of Colour,” both because race is a social construct and because identity “has to be owned and carried by the self and so we don’t want to be in the business of telling people how to self-identify,” said Kaufman. The organization uses “Jews of Colour” as an admittedly imperfect conceptual framework, she said, pointing out that, while race may be a fiction, racialization is real, and JoCI operates from that space. For those who self-identify as Jews of Colour, JoCI wants to be a space for resources and support.

Kaufman spoke about “whiteness,” also a social construct. Citing historian Karen Brodkin, Kaufman said the G.I. Bill – which offered home loans, college loans and other benefits to veterans after the Second World War – was one of the moments “when European Jews became white.” Instead of rejecting the benefits until their “black and brown family members in uniform” were offered the same opportunities, “there were moments of passive acceptance of the tools of upward mobility that were offered to Jews of European background that were not offered to People of Colour in the United States at that time,” said Kaufman. “And that’s one of the ways that Jews moved into whiteness, from being a highly ethnicized people in the United States.”

But it is a conditional whiteness, she said, and Jews who had lived with a passive acceptance of privilege had that comfort destroyed in 2016 with Charlottesville, “when white supremacists and neo-Nazis reminded Jews who had enjoyed the benefits of whiteness that they’re not safe…. And, in fact, that white identity is not seen as white in the eyes of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.”

Kaufman said one of the ways we can have a more dynamic and thoughtful conversation is to recognize the extent to which racism harms white people. “Even the concept of whiteness is such a flattened idea of who we’re talking about,” she said. “And so, when you think about Jewish ethnicity and you think just about Jewish European ethnicity, it is vast and it is diverse and, at least in the United States, it’s been boiled down to bagels … this caricature of who the Jewish people are.” When we celebrate diversity and grapple with intercultural dynamics, she said, “white folks have a stake in the conversation that’s not about being the target of opposition, but a collaborative part of the conversation” and, to do that, “we certainly have to recognize the privilege that comes with whiteness or being perceived as white…. When we get past our understanding of privilege, we need to get into who we are as ethnic, racial beings, and everybody has an equal stake in that conversation,” she said.

Almost half of survey respondents (45%) selected two or more racial categories. “And that’s the fastest growing population of People of Colour in the U.S., multiracial people, and that also maps onto the Jewish community,” said Kaufman.

One finding of the survey was that most JoCs feel more comfortable in an environment that’s multiracial. “Jews of Colour feel a tremendous amount of stress when [they’re] the only one in a situation…. We have to help people feel welcome without [them] feeling like we’re singling them out,” she said.

Respondents participated in a wide variety of Jewish activities and organizations, including formal Jewish education, attending synagogue, being part of a Jewish youth group and traveling to Israel: 63% of respondents participated in two or more Jewish activities. Yet most JoCs report having had a range of negative experiences in Jewish communal settings. At the top, 75% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Others have made assumptions about me based on my skin tone,” and 74% with the statement, “I have felt burdened with explaining myself/my identity.” At the lower end, 60% agreed or strongly agreed that “I have felt tokenized” and 58% that “I have been treated as if I don’t belong.”

“A tip on that,” said Kaufman. “Of course, we want to welcome Jews of Colour into our committees to do things that matter…. If we’re reaching for someone because of what we think they look like, we have to stop ourselves. We just have say, we’d love to have you on our committee, but we want to know what you want to be on our committee for, instead of telling them … what we want them on our committee for.”

As an example, when she was asked to be on board, she made it a condition that she not have to talk about diversity. “And so,” she said, “how do you bring people in for why they want to be there, what they’re good at, how they want to grow? You just ask, how do you want to grow professionally, personally? Maybe I can give you that community opportunity if you join us, which is way better than saying, I don’t know you, I don’t know what you like, but I want you on my committee because of how I think you look.”

Overwhelmingly, survey respondents did not feel that American Jewish leaders are adequately addressing “the specific needs of members/participants who are Jews of Colour,” “the need for greater racial/ethnic diversity in Jewish organizational leadership” or “racism/white supremacy within the American Jewish community.” The numbers improve with regards to how these leaders are addressing “racism/white supremacy outside of the American Jewish community.”

“There’s deep comfort in helping those people outside,” said Kaufman. “What happens when those people are in all of us? And how do we collectively adopt a ‘those people’ identity so that we can actually dissolve this barrier between us and them?”

The study focused on racism, not antisemitism, said Kaufman. “Historically, when the U.S. has talked about antisemitism, they haven’t been including Jews of Colour in that conversation. And so, generally, when you hear about who’s being supported by the organizations fighting antisemitism in the U.S., you never see Jews of Colour included in that conversation.”

JoCI has had to be very careful, she said, so that the survey doesn’t become a tool to fight antisemitism among People of Colour. “The Jewish community and our colleague organizations who deal with antisemitism in the U.S. often use a dynamic of anti-Black racism to create support to fight antisemitism, and this has split People of Colour from Jewish people who [are] white.” She talked about the importance of taking on white supremacy. “Inside of white supremacy is both racism and antisemitism,” she said. “And I think it’s incumbent upon the U.S. Jewish community to look at racism and antisemitism side by side and, in our context, the container that holds that is white supremacy. So, I’m very interested in fighting antisemitism, I’m very interested in fighting racism and, I have to say that, in my family’s life and the lives of a million Jews of Colour in the United States, is for us to talk about white supremacy and to target racism and antisemitism in the same breath, at the same time. Because the piece is, we need to be in a relationship with our Muslim brothers and sisters, our Christian brothers and sisters, our family members all in between, because we’re all under threat from the white supremacists…. I’m very interested in fighting antisemitism but I’m not interested in fighting antisemitism if it only means we’re fighting for white, Jewish people.”

Beyond the Count makes four recommendations: support organizations and initiatives led by and serving Jews of Colour; shift organizational leadership to more accurately reflect the diversity of American Jews; prioritize creating spaces and places for discourse and dialogue with and among Jews of Colour; and promote further research by and about Jews of Colour.

Kaufman “helped us better understand the nuances and diversity of the JoC community and how systems of inequality are perpetuated in our own community,” said Rivkin in an email to the Independent. “The issues identified in Beyond the Count must be taken seriously, we can’t offer token solutions. We have to be intentional and first engage Jews of Colour to find out what they see as the key priorities and what path should be taken going forward.”

To do that, Rivkin said, “A key role of Jewish Federation is to bring stakeholders from across the community together to address critical issues and facilitate discussions…. One of our next steps is to explore the feasibility of conducting either a B.C. or Canada wide survey to gain a better understanding of the local JoC perspective.”

To read the full text of Beyond the Count, visit jewsofcolorinitiative.org.

Risk … game vs. reality

Playing the game of Risk. (photo © Jorge Royan)

I’ve always thought of the Nordic region as peaceful. Admittedly, my knowledge of the area is largely limited to Risk, the board game, where Greenland, Iceland and the Scandinavian countries are considered a haven, free of imminent attack from the throw of a dice.

Well, Finland just purchased Israel’s David’s Sling defensive system. For $345 million US. It was one of Finland’s first moves after recently being accepted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And it was the first sale abroad for David’s Sling, an integrated part of Israel’s multi-tier missile defence system. Israel now carries the title of major supplier to NATO.

I guess the world’s a bit more complicated than Risk.

***

So long, Noa Tishby, the Israeli performer appointed by our previous prime minister, Yari Lapid, to advocate for Israel through her strong social media presence. With the formal and former title of special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization of Israel – fit that onto a business card! – she was known for sparring with BDS advocate Bella Hadid and others. Tishby was also a vocal supporter of Israel’s anti-judicial reform movement. Giving voice to the many thousands protesting the current government and its extreme shift rightward and into sometimes theocratic territory, Tishby says this was the reason for her dismissal. Well, ya. As the hawkish Jerusalem Post editorialist Ruthi Blum noted, “Tisbhy is free to share [her opinion]. But she shouldn’t have expected the government she’s been bashing to keep her as a representative.” Well, no. But keep on truckin’ Noa Tishby.

BTW, Tishby will be a guest at the JNF Negev event in Vancouver on June 29.

***

Israel’s Tel Aviv Museum of Art is again among the world’s 100 most visited museums. This according to international art magazine The Art Newspaper. TAMA was ranked 49th in 2022, a jump from its 56th place the year prior. I am fortunate to be one of those visitors, on multiple occasions, over the past many years, often dragging my two children there when they were younger – how fun was that!

Paris’s Louvre and the Vatican Museum took first and second place, respectively. Canada was represented with a 60th place win by Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum.

***

Congratulations Milk & Honey, Israel’s preeminent whisky distiller, awarded the 2023 world’s best single malt whisky by the World Drink’s Awards for its Elements, Sherry Cask drink. Described as “[f]ruity aromas of citrus zest and white peach with a dash of wood varnish. Sweet to the taste … with flavours of golden syrup, vanilla, tropical fruit and iced tea.…” Sounds like a palate pleaser to me. But, if I had to choose, my favourite would be Seagram’s Five Star rye whisky. Not so much for its taste but for fond memories of fighting with my siblings for the silver sheriff’s star glued to the bottles.

***

Jerusalem was selected by Time magazine as one of the world’s 2023 top 50 destinations, holding the 48th spot. It’s one of my favourite places to visit on a bustling Friday, starting with a walk through the overcrowded neighbourhood of Mea She’arim and enjoying a freshly baked challah. Then, bargaining my way through the Old City’s Arab Market, its tastes, smells and sights, and eventually making my way to the Western Wall, with the golden Dome of the Rock overhead. Ending with lunch at Machane Yehuda, the popular central Jerusalem food market, which has the freshest of meats and vegetables, and many colourful stalls.

Not to be outdone, Canada held two spots. Churchill was third – can’t beat those Northern Light spectaculars. Vancouver was 38th, for its eclectic cuisine and the beautiful Stanley Park.

***

For sure, difficult days in Israel. Sociopolitical cultures are clashing internally. External enemies are looking on with glee, and testing us. But we’re not sinking into despair. Israel has experienced difficult times before and emerged stronger and wiser. So it will be this time.

Arguably, we are being governed by the worst government in our short history – for many reasons, including recent security challenges. I mean, come on, with someone as inexperienced and reactionary as Itamar Ben-Gvir as national internal security minister. Or Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spouting off on things about which he should know better and doesn’t. But let’s not blame the victims for the terror and rockets. Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, an inept Palestinian leadership with a hateful street – they are to blame, not the government.

Usually, it’s the right-wing governments that muster support for the very difficult realpolitik choices, from Menachem Begin’s 1982 Sinai exit to Ariel Sharon’s 2005 Gaza disengagement. Even Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2021 peace deals with several Arab countries under the Abraham Accords. Unfortunately, Netanyahu’s current government may be too inexperienced and messianic to enable reasonable, democratic, liberal change – read judicial reform – at such a scale. But who knows.

We cannot despair. At a very esoteric level, Israelis have hope. In fact, hope is the theme of our national anthem, Hatikvah, The Hope.

***

According to the World Happiness Report, published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Israel remains one of the happiest countries in the world. (See jewishindependent.ca/measuring-happiness.) Rising to fourth place in 2023, just behind Finland, Denmark and Iceland, Israel’s showing likely reflected its reputation as a “villa in the jungle,” as dubbed by former prime minister Ehud Barak – despite being in the Middle East, one of the most contentious spots … on the Risk board.

Bruce Brown is a Canadian and an Israeli. He made aliyah … a long time ago. He works in Israel’s high-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. Brown is the winner of the 2019 AJPA Rockower Award for excellence in writing, and wrote the 1998 satire An Israeli is…. Brown reflects on life in Israel – political, social, economic and personal.

Gallup poll concerning

A Gallup poll released last week shows that, for the first time, Democratic voters in the United States sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis.

Among Democratic voters contacted, 49% sympathize more with the Palestinians and 38% with Israelis. Among Republicans, sympathy for Israel remains overwhelming, at 78%.

The poll should raise concerns – but not only for the most obvious reasons.

Halie Soifer, head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, hit the nail on the head when she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the question paints a false dichotomy. (First, though, she noted that the Democratic Party’s leadership is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, whether that is reflected across the grassroots or not.)

“Democrats – from President Biden on down – strongly support Israel’s safety and security,” she said. But, crucially, she added: “There is no contradiction between being pro-Israel and supporting Palestinian rights, which is why Democrats continue to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as security assistance for Israel and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a zero-sum game, and thus polling that presents it as a binary choice is inherently flawed.”

Calling people on the telephone at dinnertime to ask them how to solve an intransigent international conflict is not likely to advance the most constructive ideas for resolution. Simplistic formulations are inevitable, nuance flies out the door. Questions become self-reinforcing, a sort of unintentional “push poll.” (A push poll is an unethical strategy used sometimes in political campaigns intended not to gauge public opinion but to influence it: “If you knew that Candidate A had a history of drowning puppies and pulling wings off flies, would that make you more or less likely to vote for them?”)

This is not to blame Gallup, an established and respected polling firm. Their question unfortunately, reflects a common narrative, an either/or. That, as Soifer said, is a false dichotomy.

To be genuinely pro-Israel demands we be pro-Palestinian because finding a resolution to 75-plus years of conflict requires some sort of resolution to the statelessness of Palestinians. Equally, being pro-Palestinian demands we be pro-Israel, because compromise and coexistence is the only thing that will result in Palestinian self-determination.

Of course, acknowledging this is the easy part. How to behave in “pro-Israel” and “pro-Palestinian” ways is the muddy part. Those who call themselves “pro-Palestinian” often behave in ways that preclude the very thing they claim to advance. By denying Israel’s right to exist, for example, they ensure that compromise is taken off the table and, since that is the route to Palestinian self-determination, they betray the very definition of “pro-Palestinian.”

Those who are “pro-Israel” also need to temper their extremes. It is fair to say that, during the Oslo process, Israelis demonstrated a consensus toward coexistence that has understandably waned since the violence of the Second Intifada. But, for example, the common and senseless mantra we see from some commentators on social media that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” is a fruitless – and racist – squabble. Deny their history, reject the legitimacy of their land claims – there are still people there whose present and future demands a serious form of address and dignity.

To be clear: the sometimes-stated idea that the status quo cannot hold is simply not true. It has, by and large, held since 1967 and it could continue for another generation or more unless mutual compromise emerges to change that. The status quo arguably harms Palestinians more than it harms Israelis, which has led to an assumption that Israel must be in favour of the status quo. As a consequence, overseas activists have blamed Israel for the situation on the assumption that, as the perceived powerful party, it is the only one that can break the impasse. This is partly, if not mostly, untrue. Compromise must come from both sides and chants like “From the river to the sea …” and “Intifada! Revolution! There is only one solution!” the latter of which echoes Nazi slogans, will not “free Palestine.” They will, however, influence public opinion.

We should be concerned by the results of the Gallup poll – it indicates that decades of building multilateral support for Israel’s security among Americans (and, by extension almost certainly Canadians and Europeans) is failing. But, we should be concerned for another reason. It reinforces a false belief that we can only call ourselves pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Until we can legitimately call ourselves both, none of us deserves to call ourselves “pro-peace.”

What survey box to check?

Passover is coming. Its themes of freedom from oppression, the Exodus and Jewish identity stories are ready for the telling.

More Jewish people participate in Passover than many other holidays. A 2013 Pew Research study indicated that 70% of Americans who identified as Jewish attended a seder in the year, far more than any other Jewish practice, such as fasting on Yom Kippur, lighting Shabbat candles or attending synagogue services.

This statistic rings true for me, even though it’s a decade after the survey. I’ve hosted or attended many seders over the years where Jewish relatives or acquaintances turn up even if they’ve long since abandoned any other Jewish ritual. Some of these people hesitated to call themselves Jewish, even though they were raised Jewish or weren’t actively something else. How we identify is a complicated topic. It’s one I explore when I write a bio at the end of an article or introduce myself to someone at an event. As you might expect, the description provided by a writer is a shape-shifting event. I don’t advertise my religious identity in some publications. In others, I might mention where I graduated from university or what I write about.

I’ve told stories for a long time. Identifying as a writer came not long after. When the opportunity arose for me to go to the Young Writers’ Workshop at the University of Virginia as a teenager, at 13 or 14 years old, I was thrilled. I grew up in Virginia and Charlottesville wasn’t far away. My parents dropped me off. I stayed at the dorms. Mostly, I had a great experience and enjoyed myself. However, it was also the stage for some antisemitic moments that I haven’t forgotten.

I’d volunteered to set up chairs for a poetry reading, since a charismatic blond, older teen was also on the committee. Soon after arriving, he proceeded to tell antisemitic jokes, one after another. I silently kept setting out chairs as others crowded around, snickering. They snuck looks at me as I worked, ignoring him. That was the last time I chose the same committee as he did.

When this kind of bullying hate happens, oftentimes, the advice includes “Ignore it! His hate says more about him than it does about you.” That was little consolation for me. Despite the friends I made and all the learning experiences I had at that camp, it was also the source of several hate-filled moments. Later, I visited a camp friend at her home. I sat with her in the back of the family car. Her dad (much older than her mother) made languid conversation as he applauded Henry Ford’s union-busting and antisemitism. Then, he stopped to speak to “the boy” (a middle-aged, distinguished Black man) who managed his farmland. It was another moment I couldn’t erase from my memory, as my family believes strongly in unions and civil rights.

On Passover, we celebrate our identity and our journey, as if we, too, had been slaves in the land of Egypt. We use a story that shapes Jewish identity to help us coalesce into a grateful, free people. We discuss standing up for what we believe when it matters, the way Moses did.

All this came to mind when I took a research survey online. I agreed long ago to participate in occasional research surveys so that Canadian academics or government offices can learn how “ordinary Canadians” feel about things. This particular survey seemed to be about workplace psychological health. At the beginning, the authors gave their names, contact information and other details. By the end, lulled into complacency by harmless questions, I got to this question, which was something like: “We know that race is a cultural construct and isn’t genetic, but some people suffer on account of their race nevertheless. Please let us know how you identify for the purposes of this survey.”

What followed was a long list of categories, including “White, European descent” or “Middle Eastern, Arab” and various other categories, which you can probably imagine from your own survey experiences. I was stymied. In the past, I’d likely have ticked off “White, European descent” because, although my family has lived in the United States for the last 110 to 200 years, the places they came from were European. Yet, as anyone who has studied Jewish history knows, Europeans didn’t consider Jews to be in the same category as they were. Many centuries before the Second World War, Jews were being expelled from parts of Europe, murdered, raped and charged large extra taxes just to remain in some areas. The same can be said about much of the Middle East, where Jewish people have lived for millennia. Jews were heavily taxed, forced to wear identifying garments and had to cope with all sorts of other restrictions if they wanted to live as dhimmis, “under the protection of” Islam. Even in Virginia in the 1970s, Jews weren’t always considered “white.” We weren’t eligible for memberships in some social settings.

With current rising antisemitism, many slurs against Jews are conflated with issues surrounding Israel, our historic homeland. The Jewish population in Israel is in fact mixed, with Jews of all colours or races. Some Israelis are from families who have always lived in Israel. Also, yes, immigrants from all over the world have sought refuge by returning to Israel. Yet the antisemitic, race-driven comments online suggest that only white settlers from Europe “colonized” Israel.

That leaves a person with few options when the survey is about to “time out” online. One could just pretend and say “White/European” or “Indigenous” or “Middle Eastern,” “Asian,” “African,” or whatever one’s skin tone is. There’s often a “prefer not to say” category, which is a safe spot some choose. It offers anonymity, but it muddies the waters a bit for some research studies. This time, there was an “Other” category. Since the survey was aimed at an academic audience and anonymous, I checked off “Other” and in the box, I wrote Jewish, with a brief note that said, “In a time of rising antisemitism, please don’t leave us out.”

Was this the right thing to do? I won’t ever know. The Canadian Jewish population is very small. We’re only a little more than 1% of the population, based on recent Census numbers. Even so, if we are to tell our own story – the Exodus from Egypt, or the story of Jewish identity, we should have the chance to do so. Many people don’t feel safe enough to self-identify as Jewish. I certainly know the relief of blending in as “other.” Sometimes in risky surroundings, I feel safer with my nondescript last name and features that could be Greek or French but aren’t identifiably Jewish. We all have to decide when to tell our stories. Some seek freedom through erasing their ethnoreligious identities. Others relish the freedom that comes from proclaiming their “otherness” as Jewish.

I don’t have the answers here. I’m still wondering which survey boxes to tick off myself. In any case, have a wonderful Passover, with a delicious, meaningful seder where you can explore your identities, stories and life journey to freedom.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Opposition to policies

In Tel Aviv on Jan. 28, Israelis demonstrate against their government’s judicial reform proposals. A majority of Canadian Jews also oppose the proposals. (photo by Oren Rozen)

A new poll shows that most Canadian Jews oppose policies favoured by the current Israeli government. Fully three-quarters of Canadian Jews say they are emotionally attached to Israel. However, 56% claim that Israel’s government is moving in the wrong direction, compared to just 13% who say it is moving in the right direction.

Opposition is especially strong to laws proposed by members of the governing coalition that would allow gender segregation in some public places, ban Pride parades and legalize conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people on religious grounds, with between 83% and 88% of Canadian Jews expressing opposition to such moves.

Some 73% of Canadian Jews oppose judicial reform that would make it easier for the Israeli government to reverse Supreme Court decisions, thus adding their voices to that of well-known Canadian jurist and former minister of justice Irwin Cotler, among others.

Two-thirds of Canada’s Jews oppose the idea of disallowing Palestinians from serving in the Israeli parliament, compared to just 15% who support the idea. About twice as many Canadian Jews oppose building new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and incorporating parts of the West Bank into the state of Israel as favour such initiatives.

The so-called “grandparent clause” in Israel’s Law of Return allows anyone with one Jewish grandparent to claim citizenship, but religiously Orthodox members want the clause removed. Some 58% of Canadian Jews oppose such a move, while 17% favour it – hardly surprising since fewer than one-fifth of Canadian Jews are Orthodox.

Israel’s minister of national security was once convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization. Israel’s minister of finance recently described himself on radio as a “proud homophobe.” JSpaceCanada and the New Israel Fund of Canada have proposed that the Canadian government refuse to meet or build relationships with these ministers. Nearly six in 10 Canadian Jews agree with that proposal, while just two in 10 disagree.

Commenting on the results, Joe Roberts, board chair of JSpaceCanada, said, “These results couldn’t be clearer, Jewish Canadians are overwhelmingly concerned with the direction and policy decisions proposed by Israel’s radical governing coalition. These are not the shared values that the Canada-Israel relationship was built upon. Jewish Canadians, like the hundreds of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets to protest the undermining of democracy and assault on the human rights of Palestinians, expect bold and decisive leadership on this issue from the government that represents us in Ottawa.”

Ben Murane, executive director of the New Israel Fund of Canada, said, “Canadian Jews are worried that a country that removes basic democratic checks and balances and eviscerates the independence of the judiciary can no longer be referred to seriously as a full democracy. They overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli government’s legislation stripping power from the country’s judiciary, one of the few remaining institutions willing to protect the rights of Palestinians, LGBTQ people, women and other vulnerable populations.”

The poll was funded by JSpaceCanada and the New Israel Fund of Canada, organizations that promote democracy and equality in Israel, as well as a two-state solution to end the Israel-Palestine conflict. It was designed and analyzed by Prof. Robert Brym of the department of sociology and Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. Brym commented, “To corroborate these findings we need more polls with larger samples asking similar questions. However, this poll provides a fair baseline representation of Jewish community perspectives on issues of vital importance to the approximately 404,000 Canadians who identify as Jewish by religion or ethnicity.”

The poll, fielded between Feb. 16 and 28, 2023, by EKOS Research Associates, is based on a nationally representative sample of 288 Canadian adults who identify as Jewish by religion or ethnicity. Nineteen of 20 polls like this one would likely yield results with less than a 5.8% margin of error.

– Courtesy JSpaceCanada

Thirteen calls for action

The recently released report, Twice Blessed 2.0: The Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ Initiative, offers a hint of just how diverse the Metro Vancouver Jewish community is. In that diversity lies challenges and opportunities.

“Embarking on Twice Blessed 2.0: The Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ Initiative has been an important step in acknowledging our gaps and our commitment to learn and work towards diversity and inclusion in the Jewish community,” write Carmel Tanaka, founder and executive director of JQT Vancouver, and Tanja Demajo, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services Vancouver, in the final report’s preamble. “It is important to identify the work that has and has not been done. Taking pause and asking ourselves: Where are we today? What prevents us from engaging deeper into these conversations about diversity and inclusion? And where do we want to go?”

“The word diversity is used so often these days, but it is not easy to define what it means on a day-to-day basis in an environment such as JFS,” Demajo told the Independent. “This process started simply by acknowledging ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ but we are willing to learn. Carmel and I started conversations about the LGBTQ2SIA+ community and how open JFS is to their members. Saying everyone is welcome is not enough, it takes much more commitment and work. There could have been other ways to engage in that conversation, but we started with the training and learning about the work done in 2004.”

“We are honoured to have collaborated with Dr. Jacqueline Walters, who did the 2004 survey that never saw the day of light,” said Tanaka. “It is so rare to be able to include those who have come before us in ways that help with continuity and give the opportunity for healing. A lot has changed since 2004, not just in the Jewish community on LGBTQ2SIA+ inclusion, but also more broadly, especially surrounding language and terminology. So, we paid homage to the 2004 questions and updated how these questions were asked in 2022.”

Developed from the 2004 community needs assessment conducted by JFS, many of the 2022 questions were the same, but others were added or reworded to reflect changing times or for clearer results. The survey was distributed over a two-month period this past spring, and 111 people responded, compared to 56 responses in 2004; there were three people who responded to both surveys.

The majority of respondents to the 2022 survey were in the 30-39 age bracket (or older) and ethnically self-identified as Jewish, in addition to being Canadian and of varying European identities. Of the 111 respondents, 31.8% identified as disabled (mental health, chronic pain, etc.) and 24.1% as neurodivergent (ADHD, autism, anxiety, PTSD). In 2022, half of respondents identified themselves as cultural Jews, with one-third practising other religions or ways of life; 50% were in multi-faith/racial/ethnic/cultural relationships.

These were just some of the findings indicating that there is broad diversity within the Jewish community. The findings, in part, were generated by the open-endedness of many of the questions.

“JQT approached the creation of the 2022 survey with great care and intention – a love letter to the Jewish queer and trans community,” said Tanaka. “It was and remains extremely important to JQT that the experience of filling out this survey was not triggering for those who are on the spectrum of Jewish and LGBTQ2SIA+ identities. All too often, these types of surveys, which ‘study’ our communities, don’t allow for self-identification (are not asking open-ended questions), instead forcing those being surveyed into checking boxes – boxes that either don’t fully encompass who we are and/or other us and/or are hurtful to us.”

When she saw the results, Demajo said, “I had this moment of realization that there is much social justice work that we need to do in order to reach out to those who need the support. One of the questions we ask ourselves often is ‘who are we missing and why?’ This survey and the answers we received made it clear that the community we are supposed to serve is very diverse and requires us to wrestle with questions of gender, race and religion. Some may argue that these are political questions but, for us, these are questions that impact our service delivery. If someone doesn’t feel welcomed in our space, no matter how dire their needs are, they will not accept the support.”

“The finding that most resonated with my personal experience is that, today, so many of us in the JQT community are mixed like me and/or are in mixed relationships like my family – mixed racially, culturally, ethnically, religiously, etc.,” said Tanaka, who self-describes as queer, neurodivergent and Jewpanese. “Growing up in Vancouver’s Jewish community as a mixed kid was pretty isolating. It’s great to see that the future of the Jewish community is mixed!

“The finding that surprised me the most was how many Jewish queer and trans people identify as white or Caucasian when asked about their ethnicity and race,” she added. “It wasn’t too long ago when Jews were not considered white, so it’s sobering to learn of this shift in identity.

“The finding that made me the most sad,” she said, “was how the JQT community, especially our seniors, feel about aging and entering long-term care. Honestly, it’s terrifying.”

Some of the comments made by seniors who responded to the survey were: “As a transgendered Jew long-term care is a frightening prospect as transgendered seniors are often abused in long-term care”; “Worry that my relationship will not be seen as real”; and “I fear that it will be primarily heterosexual and that I will have to go back into the closet.”

Among the 13 calls for actions made in the report are: “Develop inclusive care services for Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ seniors” and “Ensure that senior care home intake adequately assesses the needs of LGBTQ2SIA+ residents.”

Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver supported the survey, and one of the other recommendations is to allocate some of the annual campaign funds to the “operational costs of providing year-round Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ programming for all ages and community outreach in both Jewish and LGBTQ2SIA+ communities.” More education is recommended, including diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) training, and more “open discussion with rabbis, synagogues and boards to adopt an ‘open tent’ policy regarding intermarriage.” To see the full set of recommendations, visit jqtvancouver.ca/twice-blessed-2.

That all four of the 2004 recommendations still apply – more education of community leaders, a larger Jewish presence at LGBT activities, inclusion of LGBT Jewish community members on Jewish committees and boards, and increased LGBT presence at Jewish events – indicates the challenges of change, the report notes. However, Twice Blessed 2.0 also highlights some progress, including JQT’s recent partnering with the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival on a queer Jewish film, with the Zack Gallery on the first Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ art exhibit and with the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia on the first B.C. Jewish Queer and Trans Oral History.

As for JFS, Demajo said the agency’s priorities for the next year are “allocating funds for further training and awareness building” and to “partner on initiatives with LGBTQ2SIA+ agencies, ensure LGBTQ2SIA+ friendly Jewish mental health support, [and] adjust our policies to include DEI.”

She said, “JFS is in a unique position in the community to touch lives of a diverse community. At the same time, those we support don’t always reach out to us, we need to reach out to them. And, in order to do that, sensitivity, understanding of social justice and intersection of culture, gender, race and religion is essential for our ability to do the work in a sensitive and uplifting way.”

Another of the calls for action is for the adoption of a “Nothing about us without us” approach and Tanaka thanked Demajo and JFS for doing just that.

“Building trust between the JQT community and JFS, learning from one another, is the key to building a healthier Jewish community,” said Tanaka, noting that JQT is a volunteer-run group and “the only homegrown Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ nonprofit in Canada in operation today,” funded solely by donations and grants.

JQT has presented the findings to the JFS board and in staff training, and would like the opportunity to present them to other local Jewish organizations. However, response to the report has been quiet, said Tanaka, who postulated that there is a “fear of airing dirty laundry.”

“The truth is that we’re not here to point fingers,” she said. “We’re here so that queer and trans Jews – and, in general, marginalized Jews on the periphery of the Jewish community, whether they be Jews of Colour, patrilineal Jews, disabled Jews, queer and/or trans Jews, etc. – can also benefit and have access to the same infrastructure as the mainstream Jewish community.”

Cynthia Ramsay is a member of the JQT Vancouver board.