terrorism

Israel fighting for its existence

Pat Johnson, left, interviews Jonathan Conricus at the Friends of JNF Pacific Negev Event on June 7. (photo by Galit Lewinski)

On June 7, a full sanctuary at Beth Israel Synagogue gathered for the annual Friends of JNF Pacific Negev Event.

Howard Jampolsky, vice-president of Friends of JNF Canada Pacific Region, emceed. He spoke of the rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, including in Canada, “a country that many Jews believed was among the safest and most tolerant countries in the world,” yet where Jewish schools have been shot at, synagogues vandalized, Jewish students intimidated, and Jewish businesses and individuals targeted.

“Antizionism that denies the Jewish people the right to self-determination is antisemitism,” he said. “Israel is not an abstract political issue to us. Israel is family. Israel is history. Israel is survival…. For 2,000 years, we have said, we have prayed, l’shana haba b’Yerushalayim, next year in Jerusalem. Today, there is a Jerusalem. Today, there is a Jewish state – and we will never apologize for defending it.”

Funds raised by this year’s Negev event will support the Beit Elkana Centre for Holistic Therapy, in the Lakhish region of Israel’s Negev. Established by Galit Wiesel in memory of her late husband, Elkana Wiesel, a reserve combat officer who was killed in battle in 2024, the centre will offer care to those suffering trauma-related conditions.

“Projects like Beit Elkana are about more than buildings,” said Jampolsky. “They are about resilience. They are about healing. They’re about ensuring that Israelis living in the south of Israel know that they are not alone – that Jewish communities around the world stand beside them and with them. That’s what Zionism looks like. Not slogans, not hashtags, certainly not hatred, but building, planting, healing, supporting, creating hope…. Because our answer to hatred cannot be silence. Our answer must be courage. Our answer must be pride, and our answer must be action. We must support Jewish institutions. We must educate the next generation.”

In that vein, Friends of JNF Canada presented Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of Judaic studies at King David High School, with its Education Award, “recognizing his tremendous contribution to Jewish learning, Jewish dignity, a Jewish identity, and the strength of our community.” The honour was presented by two of Jampolsky’s children, Elise and Jake.

Berger started his work in the community with NCSY more than 20 years ago, moving to KDHS about 18 years ago. He considers himself a resource for the Jewish community, not just the high school, and half-joked that he’d been teaching the same one idea in 25 different ways.

“The idea, very simply, is that we are souls…. We are spiritual in nature. We are not just super-smart animals…. [Rabbi Israel] Salanter says the big problem with the world is we’re always worried about our own physical needs and everybody else’s spiritual growth, [and] if we just flip that, if we could just worry about our own spiritual growth and everybody else’s physical needs, then the world will be a much better place.”

photo - Rabbi Stephen Berger holds the Friends of JNF Canada, Pacific Region, Education Award, presented to him by siblings Jake and Elise Jampolsky, whose father, Howard Jampolsky, emceed the event — Rabbi Stephen Berger holds the Friends of JNF Canada, Pacific Region, Education Award, presented to him by siblings Jake and Elise Jampolsky, whose father, Howard Jampolsky, emceed the event. *(photo by Galit Lewinski)*

Pat Johnson, who writes for and serves on the editorial board of the Jewish Independent, in addition to being the founder of Upstanders Canada, among other things, spoke about one of the main things he has learned in his 30-plus years of “hanging around” the Jewish community: “the depths of connection between Jewish people in Canada and the land, the state and the people of Israel.”

Engaged in political activism and progressive causes for decades, Johnson said that, during the Second Intifada, his communities diverged.

“Ostensibly, we were asked to choose to side either with Palestinians or with Israelis,” he said. “The real choice we faced, though, was between coexistence, peace and a negotiated settlement to conflict as characterized by the Oslo process, or supporting chauvinistic fanaticism, violence and the eradication from the Middle East of its only oasis of pluralism, democracy and equality.

“Why did I, and why did you, face that choice and make the right one, when so many others faced the same choice and opted to betray the values we thought we shared? Perhaps because we know Jewish history.

“People asked, ‘Could we be right and, seemingly, the entire world be wrong?’ Jewish history, for everything else it teaches us, reveals that the entire world can indeed be wrong – again and again,” said Johnson, who spoke about the inextricable links between Jews and Israel. He held up a JNF Blue Box, pushka, calling it “a tangible symbol of that bond.”

“In Jewish homes in Montreal and Minsk, in Vancouver and Vilnius, in Casablanca and Krakow, parents and grandparents dropped coins into boxes like this, demonstrating from generation to generation the centrality of this eternal connection.”

With Israel reestablished, the Zionist dream today, said Johnson, is “an Israel that is safe and indestructible. An Israel that exists in a changed region, where peace prevails. An Israel that is respected in a world without hatred.”

Jonathan Conricus believes Israel will have to continue fighting for its existence.

A retired lieutenant-colonel in the Israel Defence Forces, Conricus is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, where he provides analysis and insight on Israel, the Middle East, and the challenges facing democratic societies worldwide. His Vancouver talk was part of a cross-country tour with Friends of JNF Canada.

Significant progress has been made in Gaza and Hamas has been diminished, Conricus said. “In terms of long-range weapons, far less, almost nothing; in terms of capital, far less, almost nothing; in terms of senior terrorists with decades of experience, almost nothing; and, in terms of an ability to project force and to threaten Israeli civilians, almost nothing. But you’ll notice that I said almost in each and every sentence – and almost is a temporary situation. The nucleus of Hamas remains.

“Nobody has disarmed,” he said. And anyone who thinks they will “see a jihadi fighter lay down their weapons, doesn’t know what a jihadi fighter is.”

Laying down weapons “is not in their DNA – they cannot do it,” he said, adding that, if they did, “they are dead men walking … not necessarily because Israel will kill them all … but because there are long lists of grievances within the population in Gaza with most of the thugs and terrorists of Hamas.”

Gaza will continue to challenge Israel, said Conricus, as the IDF continues to fight in Lebanon, “clearing away the last remains of Hezbollah: storage facilities, bunkers, sniper positions and many other things that Hezbollah had built underneath and within civilian homes in Lebanon.”

The goal is to create a cleared area, “where there’s no infrastructure that Hezbollah can use in order to attack Israeli civilians along the border,” he said.

“I believe that, currently, we’re in the best position that we’ve ever been … [to] help our neighbours to the north in being a sovereign state for the first time in their history,” Conricus said. “The Lebanese state was granted sovereignty in 1946 from the French colonial powers [when foreign troops finally left the country], and they haven’t enjoyed a day of sovereignty in their whole lives.”

On the Iranian front, the IDF is ready “to get going against Iran again, with the purpose of dealing much more severe blows against targets that, up until now, have not been engaged by the IDF,” said Conricus, but the Israeli government is holding back.

“Up until now, Israel has decided not to do so, whether independently or together with the US, mostly thinking about the future of the Iranian people and wanting to leave intact infrastructure for the people of Iran to continue with their lives.”

Before Oct. 7, Conricus said, “We were responding, but we weren’t really fighting strategically back.” Now, however, “all the Iranian proxies that the Iranian regime spent billions and billions of dollars building, arming, training and equipping – none of those are even half as strong as they were before Oct. 7. Most have been dealt significant blows by Israel. And Iran itself, the Islamic Republic, is the weakest that it has ever been in its 47 years of existence.”

While concerned about “the looming threat of an imperialistic Türkiye” and about unity within Israel and between Israeli and diaspora Jews, Conricus said people should take everything they see in international media “with many grains of salt.”

“Please know that the situation in Israel is much happier, stronger, more resolute, united, and better than it is portrayed in international media. Please know that Am Yisrael, in Israel, is strong, committed to prosperity, to life, to creation, to peace, to beautiful things, and that, despite two-and-a-half years, almost three years, of relentless attacks against the very basic legitimacy of the state of Israel to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people, we’re here, we’re fighting and, much to everybody else’s disapproval, we’re going to continue to be so.”

In the conversation between Johnson and Conricus that followed, several topics were covered. One of the last questions was about Malmo, Sweden, where Conricus, who was born in Jerusalem, partly grew up.

“For a lot of us, the word Malmo … is shorthand for European multiculturalism gone wrong,” said Johnson. “Is there something from that experience you would want Canadians to know?”

Malmo is “a cautionary tale,” said Conricus, noting that most young Jews have left the city.

“There’s not really a future,” he said. “Within a generation and a half, I think that the Jewish community won’t exist there.”

He encouraged the community to focus on Jewish education and fostering Jewish identity, “how we love each other, how we nurture the bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish state.”

During the event, David Greaves, executive director of Friends of JNF Western region, and Lance Davis, the organization’s chief executive officer, also offered remarks, and Ilene-Jo Bellas, board member and event chair, thanked the speakers.

Deceit, desire & the divine

In Seattle, hours after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, two FBI agents knock on Monty’s door, asking questions about his Afghan partner, who has seemingly disappeared. How much does Monty really know about Jamal? What does he know about himself?

Vancouver writer Gareth Sirotnik’s Endless Blind Passions (Capsicum Press, 2025) jumps right into the chaos and uncertainty that 9/11 sparked in the United States, and beyond. The novel centres on the character of Monty, a Jewish, gay man in his mid-50s, who thought he had finally settled into himself and his life, yet is forced to reevaluate that thought when the FBI arrive.

Alternating between the repeated visits of the FBI agents and the memories their inquiries trigger for Monty, we witness the fragility of Monty’s contentment and the tumultuous paths that he has chosen. He has lived fully, most would say, experimenting sexually, spiritually, politically and morally. He is a seeker and his soul-searching is a work in progress, despite his initial belief that he had found himself – and peace – once he’d met Jamal.

Endless Blind Passions is a thriller-meets-coming-of-age story, unusual perhaps in its seriousness, which sometimes gets in the way (as does dialogue that doesn’t always sound natural), but it’s entertaining. Most of us don’t really “find” ourselves as teenagers – Monty certainly didn’t – but are continually discovering aspects of ourselves. In our lives, we do things that make us proud, and things that carry shame or regret. Hopefully, we learn from our experiences and become a better person, but who is even to say what that means.

Sirotnik’s personal journey inspires Monty’s, that’s for sure. Sirotnik grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from college in Portland, moved to Canada in 1971 (Monty’s brother lives in Canada) and, most notably, is gay, Jewish and a longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism.

As the novel’s title implies, Zen is a vital component of the story. Monty’s spiritual awakening occurs alongside drug-fueled encounters and unconventional relationships. He works (both consciously and subconsciously) to strip away social personas and confront his “true self.” He lives intensely, even hedonistically, but not necessarily deeply in the introspective sense, or even in knowing his various romantic partners. His ego prevents him from seeing the reality of situations, including the impact of his own actions on others throughout his life.

That’s all on a personal level. Paralleling Monty’s understanding of his “blind passions” is the realization that American society is not what it was, let’s say, sold as being. Sept. 11, 2001, marked a significant increase in racism, xenophobia, paranoia, government surveillance – it did not create them. In the novel, Jamal represents “the other” that became society’s “blind passion” after the attacks that day on the United States, but Monty’s past – though only going back 50ish years – highlights that the concept of “the other” has existed as long as humanity.

Ultimately, the novel posits that true spiritual awakening only happens when we acknowledge our “endless blind passions,” drop our masks and face reality as our true selves. It does this in an engaging way, with readers learning a lot along the way, while rooting for love to win out.

Canada’s mixed messages

In mid-May, a Winnipeg Free Press article by John Longhurst announced a new online database for research. This open access resource lists the names of German Nazi party members. The article’s target audience: the Manitoba Mennonite community.

As background: Many German Mennonites, previously pacifist, joined the Nazi party starting in the early 1930s. In the article, Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, a Toronto researcher, said the goal of researching and publicizing the records was not to condemn or shame anyone. “The point,” he said, “is to understand what made their choices feel plausible at the time, and what this means for us now in Canada and the US.” Aileen Friesen, who teaches Mennonite History at the University of Winnipeg, said it could serve “as a lesson for our current time.”

I’m concerned about this “lesson.” Nazi membership before and during the Second World War is nothing to be proud about. Still, this does make it easier to understand the views of some Mennonites in 2026.

Some Winnipeg Mennonites often offer public opinions about Israel, Gaza and the war. They’re staunchly against war, but support Palestinian resistance and are against Israelis or Jews. This stance appears in local Mennonite gallery exhibits, fundraising, petitions and protests. It’s on stickers on lampposts near a neighbourhood Mennonite school. While out walking, I peel off “Free Palestine” stickers with cartoon characters doing a Sieg Heil and QR code stickers with “Boycott Israel.”

This “pacifism” chooses a side just like German Mennonites chose the Nazi party. This stance doesn’t examine what these choices mean to the safety of others, such as Jewish Canadians who live nearby. It doesn’t reflect a morality-based Christian religious tradition or teachings from a Jewish guy named Jesus, let alone Jewish texts or culture.

Actions have consequences. This failure to understand logical outcomes echoes throughout Canadian society. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech described Canada’s goals for trade alliances and Canada’s role as a “middle power.” It’s easy to see that this dream is failing on a practical level.

Canada, a “human rights champion,” has an uneven track record. According to United Nations Watch, on April 8, Canada, as part of the 54-nation United Nations Economic and Social Council, “participated in the consensus nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran” to a committee responsible for funding women’s rights, human rights, and terrorism prevention. The United States was the only nation who objected to this nomination.

Previously, Canada objected in similar UN processes, but, this time, Canada supported the Iranian regime. Iran’s government has enforced a nearly complete internet blackout since Feb. 28. It kills protesters. The regime uses morality police to force women to cover their hair. Female “offenders” suffer arrests, assaults, rapes, torture and murder. Iran’s regime funds terror proxies, including in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. Yet, Canada didn’t object to the UN nomination.

Canada also has problems fighting terrorism at home. In October 2024, Canada listed Samidoun, an organization supporting Palestinian terrorism, as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code. Eventually, in March 2026, Canada revoked Samidoun’s nonprofit status. Based on federal anti-hate provisions, Vancouver police arrested Samidoun’s international coordinator, Charlotte Kates, for inciting hate and released her with conditions. Apparently, those conditions allow speaking on Iranian state television, attending the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and continuing permission to live in Canada. (Kates is an American whose status in Canada is not publicly known.) The same goes for her husband, Khaled Barakat, Samidoun’s founder, who was deported from the United States in 2003.

This spring, Canada welcomed international leaders for the FIFA Congress, including Palestine Football Association head Jibril Rajoub, who was previously convicted of throwing a grenade at an Israeli army bus. Israel later released Rajoub in a prisoner exchange, and he committed further offences. Once in Canada, Rajoub publicly refused to shake hands with the FIFA Arab-Israeli representative, Basim Sheikh Suliman. Meanwhile, Canada refused to let the Iranian FIFA representative into the country. These decisions were inconsistent, not the “pragmatic and principled” actions of a country committed to human rights.

If Canada wishes to be a human rights champion, it must work to stop terrorism at home. The government should protect Canadians from danger. Consistent law and immigration enforcement and UN decisions that support these rights would be a good start.

Education’s another way to be an effective middle power. Increase funding for teaching and researching social sciences, including international relations, political science, religious studies and history. These disciplines offer perspectives to better understand global issues and events. Canada must move beyond popular theories like the oppressor/oppressed model that doesn’t adequately explain conflicts beyond biased white/black racial narratives. This oppressor theory fails in Middle Eastern, African or Asian contexts where Western conceptions of colonization, race and power don’t easily apply.

With a broader social science approach, future Canadian leaders could better understand complicated global situations. Educated Canadians with these skills could better examine global economics, conflicts and the geographic strengths.

For instance, our media and government often ascribe outsized power to Israel. This is a common antisemitic conspiracy theory. Israel’s a tiny democracy of 10 million people, with sizeable minority populations. Many also demonize Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Canada, like many Israelis, may not agree with Netanyahu’s government’s policies, but no other Middle Eastern leaders were elected by functioning democracies. Further, media seldom hold any other Middle Eastern country responsible for its role in the conflict.

Canada’s resources, educated population and multicultural diversity could make it a powerhouse. Yet, its foreign policies don’t use intellectual rigour. Historically, Canada has offered up inconsistent international policies, and bias regarding many of its minorities. Past prime ministers have apologized, promising to forge a better Canada. Instead, Canada’s “oppressor” rhetoric poses as a “peaceful” bystander and blames Israel.

Canada has a tradition of simplistic politics of blame like “war is bad.” Our geographic isolation protects us. It allows Canada to watch hate happen and reproach others without getting involved. Our country must accept that consistently being a bystander isn’t good enough. Failing to condemn or shame those who committed grievous wrongs isn’t good enough. It wasn’t OK to join the Nazi party 90 years ago. It wasn’t OK to reject Jewish refugees. We know where this kind of hatemongering leads. Canada, and Canadians, can do better than this.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press 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.

Making soccer political

Palestinian Football Association president Jibril Rajoub talks to reporters at the FIFA Congress, held in Vancouver on April 30. (Screenshot youtube.com/@thebreakernews)

While the World Cup doesn’t kick off until June 11 – at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca when Selección de fútbol de México faces off against the South African squad, nicknamed Bafana Bafana (the Boys, in Zulu) – penalty cards have already been drawn. Palestinian Football Association (PFA) president Jibril Rajoub, general secretary Firas Abu Hilal and vice-president Susan Shalabi Molano were initially denied entry to Canada to attend the FIFA Congress on April 30, and the Asian Football Confederation confab two days earlier – both events were held at Vancouver Convention Centre.

Ultimately, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) allowed the three sports bureaucrats to attend, and Rajoub, 72, has made the Mondial into a political football. Since 2024, he has repeatedly raised the issue of Israeli football clubs allegedly playing illegal matches in what the PFA argues is occupied territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

In March, FIFA (which stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association) issued a report on the issue, ruling it would “take no action” over the PFA’s claim. The report noted that resolving “the final legal status of the West Bank remains an unresolved and highly complex matter under public international law.”

At the FIFA annual meeting in Vancouver, Rajoub – who also serves as secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee – snubbed FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who attempted to orchestrate a handshake between the heads of the Palestinian and Israeli delegations. Following individual addresses toward the end of the assembly, both Rajoub and the Israel Football Association’s vice-president, Basim Sheikh Suliman, were summoned to the stage by the FIFA president.

“We will work together … let’s work together to give hope to the children. These are complex matters,” he said. But Rajoub refused to stand alongside Sheikh Suliman. Instead, he pledged to take his complaints to the Court of Arbitration in Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. No date has been set for the hearing.

“I refused to shake hands. Sport is sport … for me that should be respected,” he told Reuters. “But, if the other side is representing a criminal like Bibi [Netanyahu] … how can I shake hands or have a photo with such a man?”

The PFA’s three-member delegation wasn’t the only one held up by the IRCC. Iranian soccer federation president Mehdi Taj said Canadian officials cleared him to enter the country for the FIFA Congress, but Iran’s delegation chose to turn back after being held for three hours and questioned at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Iranian media reported on May 1.

Rajoub, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Rami, has long been connected to Palestinian terrorism. In September 1970, he was arrested for throwing a grenade at an Israel Defence Forces bus near Hebron. Tried and convicted of this attack and of membership in an armed group, he was sentenced to life in prison. Fifteen years later, he was one of 1,150 security prisoners Israel released in exchange for three hostages held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.

Re-arrested in 1987 for his activities during the First Intifada, Rajoub was deported to Lebanon in 1988. Relocating to Tunisia, he served as an advisor to Fatah deputy leader Khalil al-Wazir. After Wazir’s assassination by Israeli agents, he became a lieutenant of Yasser Arafat, then head of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and was allegedly behind a 1992 plot to assassinate Ariel Sharon.

Rajoub was allowed to return to the West Bank in 1994, following the signing of the Oslo Accords. He served as head of the PA’s Preventive Security Force until 2002. The following year, Arafat appointed him national security advisor.

The FIFA Congress was the 76th since FIFA was founded in 1904. It brought together more than 1,600 international delegates from 211 FIFA member associations.

This summer’s 48-team competition – the most widely watched sporting event in the world – takes place in multiple cities in Canada, the United States and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian team qualified for the tournament.

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide who lives in Jerusalem.

A chime of metal tags

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Together in mourning

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

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

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

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

Nearly two decades later, the tragedy continued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On war and antisemitism

Sharren Haskel, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, spoke with Canadian media on March 9. (photo from Consulate General of Israel in Toronto and Western Canada)

A terror attack against Canadian Jews on par with the Bondi Beach attack in Australia last December is inevitable if leaders in this country do not address the growing antisemitism crisis, according to Israel’s deputy foreign minister.

In an interview with the Independent Monday, Sharren Haskel reacted to recent shootings at Toronto synagogues and a larger trend of antisemitic acts.

“This will end in blood if the government is not taking serious actions. This is going to end exactly like the Bondi massacre,” she said.

Haskel is attuned to the Canadian situation because she was born in this country – one of only three Canadian-born individuals in Israeli history to sit in the Knesset. Her father lives in Canada and she has other family members here, who she visits frequently.

“I was always so proud of Canada being such a safe haven for Jews,” she said, calling Canada a place where acceptance of minorities, tolerance and coexistence have been strong, defining values.

“And to know where Canada was and where it is today is absolutely devastating,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking for me, and I think that not enough people truly understand the danger the Jewish community is [facing].”

Shootings at Jewish institutions and other acts of vandalism and violence have made Canada, according to an Israeli government report last year, the “champion on antisemitism.”

“It’s insane,” said Haskel.

When a racialized or other minority community in Canada expresses discomfort with a situation, she said, significant steps are taken to alleviate the problem.

Jews do not enjoy a parallel level of empathy, she said. “[Jews] say I am violently being attacked. I’m not allowed to enter my classes. I’ve been beaten. My business was shot at,” she said. “And nothing. Nothing.”

Elected officials have allowed the situation to go too far, said Haskel.

“The government is not setting a very clear red line,” she said. “We are far beyond words. Words don’t matter anymore. This is about actions now.”

The deputy foreign minister added that Canadians, too often, demonstrate inappropriate responses to international events. Critics of Israeli military approaches to Hamas and to the Iranian regime are coming from a place of privilege.

“In Canada, you are very lucky,” she said. “This is one of the most peaceful countries, you enjoy its freedom, and many people in the younger generation have received that freedom on a silver platter. This is not the case in the Middle East. Israel has faced a six-fronted war for the last two years against six different armies – all of them sponsored, trained, armed by this vile, fanatical regime in Iran.”

The Iranian regime has also undermined Israel’s neighbours, she noted, destroying Lebanon’s politics, social fabric and culture. In Syria, Iran backed the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which was overthrown in 2024 after a civil war in which the government explicitly targeted and murdered its own citizens, particularly minorities, killing at least 300,000 people and possibly as many as 650,000.

“It’s very easy to speak from a very comfortable, liberated place,” said Haskel. “But our reality in the Middle East is a very difficult and harsh one, where we are still fighting for our survival, for our freedom, for our rights as minorities here in this region against very extreme, radical, fanatical terrorist organizations and terrorist regimes.”

Haskel hedged on whether Israel’s war aim in the current conflict with Iran is regime change.

“The goal is to take out the long-term existential threat over Israel,” she said. “This is how we define it, and this is the goal of the war.”

That involves taking out Iran’s nuclear program, she said, as well as its ballistic missile program, and neutralizing the experts who are developing, manufacturing and advancing tools for mass destruction. This war is aimed at conclusively ending that threat, she said.

Past Israeli military and covert actions against the Iranian nuclear program resulted in continued Iranian determination to rebuild, according to Haskel.

“They didn’t get the message of our capability, of how determined we are that they will not be able to reach that master plan of annihilation of the state of Israel,” she said. “They’ve been working tirelessly on renovating, on re-creating, on reconstructing, all of that over again. And we are at the point where we say, look, you know, we cannot go every year into an operation like that to eliminate an immediate threat like a nuclear weapon, mass destruction, disruptive weapons.”

Haskel stops short of declaring whether that requires regime change, echoing US President Donald Trump, who has urged Iranians themselves to overthrow their government.

She is hopeful that the US-Israel actions will open a path “for the Iranian people to liberate themselves and to change these fanatical tyrants who have been abusing and torturing them for so many years.”

Should the regime be replaced by a Western-oriented government, the impacts would be broader than the Middle East. For example, Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran, is engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering in Latin America to help fund their operations, she noted.

Haskel believes that the world should be grateful to the United States and Israel.

“President Trump and Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu are leading right now an effort to protect humanity,” she said. “Every leader and every sensible person around the world needs to ask themselves who they want as their friends and who would come to their help when they really needed it the most.

“During our time in history, when freedom, real freedom, is in danger,” she said, “we are very fortunate to have two leaders like Trump and Netanyahu that stood up and took actions to defend humanity, to defend Western democracies.”

Haskel said that representing Israel carries a profound responsibility not only to the country itself but also to Jewish communities around the world. For her, that responsibility is deeply personal, particularly when it comes to Canada, where she has such close ties. Hearing directly from relatives and friends about rising fear and insecurity has reinforced her sense of duty.

Haskel, who has served as deputy foreign minister since 2024, was first elected to the Knesset in 2015. She was born in Toronto to an Israeli father and a Moroccan mother who met in Paris. The family lived in Canada before moving to Israel when Sharren was a year old. She was raised in Kfar Saba and studied in the United States and Australia. First elected on the Likud slate, she joined Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party in 2021.

Shooting response

Jewish leaders and public officials across the Greater Toronto Area are warning that a series of shootings targeting synagogues has pushed antisemitism into a far more dangerous phase, prompting urgent calls for action from police, governments and civil society. Community organizations said the attacks were not isolated acts of vandalism but part of a broader climate of escalating hatred that has left many Jewish families feeling exposed, shaken and abandoned.

Groups including CIJA and UJA Federation said symbolic condemnations are no longer enough, arguing that officials must respond with stronger enforcement, more visible protection and a clearer strategy for confronting extremist incitement before more serious violence occurs. Their message was that when shots are fired at houses of worship, the issue is no longer only about one community’s fears, but about whether public institutions are willing to defend basic safety and democratic order.

Prime Minister Mark Carney described the attacks as “criminal antisemitic assaults” and said federal agencies would support investigators in identifying and prosecuting those responsible. Other civic leaders publicly denounced the shootings as an attack on the right of Jewish Canadians to gather in safety. Together, the reactions reflected a growing consensus that these recent events are not just alarming, but a national test of whether repeated anti-Jewish violence will finally trigger a more serious response.

Killed for being Jewish

For Jews worldwide, the hope represented by the first candle of Hanukkah was snuffed out by the horrifying mass murder at a communal Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia. At press time, 15 were confirmed dead, ranging from a 10-year-old named Matilda to an 87-year-old survivor of the Holocaust, Alex Kleytman.

There have been many antisemitic incidents and attacks in Australia in the past two years, as there have been in many places. One of the reasons this hatred is spreading is the refusal of leaders to recognize and address it specifically as Jew-hatred.

This stubborn blindness was evidenced in the words of Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s mass murder.

“An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian,” he said.

This is the sort of bromide politicians bring forth in moments like these, almost entirely devoid of meaning and, more significantly, a refusal to see the incident for what it is.

This was absolutely, decidedly, emphatically not an attack on “every Australian.” It was a targeted attack on Jewish Australians and to paint it as anything else – to universalize the very anti-Jewish particularity of the violence – is to deflect attention from the reality and true nature of the problem and ensure no resolution to Australia’s crisis of antisemitism is reached.

An Australian Jewish communal leader said antisemitic incidents in the country are “off the scale,” noting a series of recent antisemitic arsons, which pile upon recent attacks on synagogues, a daycare centre and an Israeli restaurant, as well as a tragically long list of less violent incidents.

The Australian problem is a microcosm of a larger global phenomenon. Government leaders, activists, commentators, NGOs and public figures worldwide for (at least) two years have been condemning Israel in the most malevolent terms, including outright blood libels and slanders that have become so endemic as to be treated as received truth.

The parallels between the tenor of frenzied rhetoric against Israel – including from the highest levels of government, society and media – and the unprecedented spike in antisemitic violence has seemed to spark almost no recognition of cause and effect. An alternative (and perverse) explanation seems to be that the victims of these incidents deserve it, considering their perceived complicity in Zionism.

Given the panorama of tragedy in the world and the myopic focus on the only one involving the Jewish state puts the lie to naïve assessments that there is no correlation here. Or that the Jewish victims are to blame. If overheated rhetoric toward any other identifiable group paralleled extraordinary targeted violence against members of that group (or anyone seen to be in sympathy or associated with them), almost anyone would recognize the correlation.

The Australian government, like so many others, seems to believe they can condemn Israel in the most strident, undiplomatic terms, on the one hand, and claim, on the other hand, shock and dismay – even bewilderment – when violence against Australian Jews erupts.

In the aftermath of the mass murders, Albanese committed to stronger gun laws, which are already some of the strongest in the Western world. Well, OK. But how about stronger laws and customs against antisemitic incitement? How about toning down the declarations from his own government, which some have accused of rewarding the 10/7 terror attacks by nearly instantaneously demanding and then leading a vanguard of nations to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood while terrorists are still in control there? How about listening to the voices of Jewish Australians who have been warning for more than two years that this sort of terror was becoming inevitable given the pitch of rhetoric?

It will be noted extensively that the attacks were apparently perpetrated by a father and son who are reported to be migrants from Pakistan. (The father is dead. The son is in hospital with significant injuries.) It should be noted at least as prominently that the man who disarmed one of the attackers is a Syrian Muslim. If we want to paint a broad brush of blame, we must also paint with an equally broad brush of heroism, truly incredible courage and heroic action. Let us not, though, pretend that there are not dangerous strains of cultural and theological antisemitism embedded in some communities that absolutely need to be addressed much more vigorously and vociferously than they are currently being addressed. It is also true that antisemitism knows no borders and has spread to nearly every pocket of the world over the last 2,000-plus years.

Early indications are that Australia is determined to ignore the obvious parallels between unrestrained continual damnation of Israel across society, including at the highest levels, and violence against Jews. Maybe other countries – like ours – will take heed and learn from Australia’s folly before it is too late. We hope so. Canada’s government and civil society have responded very much along the lines of Australia’s throughout these horrible two years.

Facing a complex situation

The Gaza Strip is currently divided between the Israeli-held zone (green) and Hamas territory (red). (Screenshot from Channel 14)

More than 25 months after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and the consequent multi-front Middle East war, and more than one year after Israel and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 27, 2024, Israel faces a complex geopolitical and security situation.

In the north, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) is engaged in continuous covert and overt operations to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping. The Shi’ite terrorist militia has been dealt multiple blows, first by the Mossad’s twin attack Sept. 17-18, 2024, nicknamed Operation Grim Beeper, in which thousands of hand-held pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives exploded across Lebanon and Syria. On Sept. 27, the terror group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in his Beirut bunker. On Nov. 23, the IDF eliminated Haytham Ali Tabataba’i in a missile strike on the Lebanese capital – Hezbollah’s chief of staff had been designated by the US Department of State as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2016. Washington was offering a $5 million US bounty for information on him.

Though diminished, Hezbollah is not a spent force, according to Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute who specializes in Iran, Turkey and the broader Middle East. Writing in the National Security Journal, Rubin notes that, notwithstanding the targeting of its senior leadership, Hezbollah’s financing – diaspora-linked laundering from Europe, Africa and South America and new backing from Turkey – remains resilient. He cautions that, unless Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun cuts off the money supply and disarms Hezbollah by the year’s end, the country will slide into a renewed insurgency. Trained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in guerrilla tactics and bomb-making, Hezbollah will resume its terror campaign attacking Lebanese armed forces’ vehicles with IEDs (improvised explosive devices), said Rubin.

Israel has made a huge investment to literally alter the landscape of its 120-kilometre-long northern frontier into a formidable physical barrier, and to blow up cross-border tunnels. Similarly, during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon from 1985 to 2000, several strategic mountain peaks were bulldozed to no longer loom over the Upper Galilee. However, the fiasco of Oct. 7 has shown that static positions provide limited deterrence against lightning strikes by well-trained guerillas.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas – an Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamia (the Islamic Resistance Movement) – also refuses to disarm. There, too, the situation remains unclear, complicated by Israel’s assassination of the terrorist group’s leaders: Yahya Sinwar, his brother Mohammed, Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa and Ismail Haniyeh.

image - On Oct. 22, the terrorist-linked group Samidoun hosted a panel discussion in Athens with a newly released top Hamas operative — On Oct. 22, the terrorist-linked group Samidoun hosted a panel discussion in Athens with a newly released top Hamas operative.

In October, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees as part of the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas. In exchange, Hamas released 20 living Israeli hostages. On Oct. 22, the terrorist-linked group Samidoun hosted a panel discussion in Athens with the newly released top Hamas operative Abdel Nasser Issa. Known as a student of Hamas’s notorious chief bombmaker Yayha Ayyash (1966-1996), aka “the Engineer,” Issa was serving two life sentences for his involvement in two suicide bombings in 1995 that killed 20 Israeli civilians and wounded more than 100.

On Nov. 24, Palestinian Islamic Jihad turned over a coffin with the remains of Dror Or. Staff Sgt. Ran Gvili and Sudthisak Rinthalak are the last two people murdered on Oct. 7 not yet returned. Rinthalak, an agricultural worker at Kibbutz Be’eri near the border of the Gaza Strip in southern Israel, was among the more than 40 Thais killed and 31 kidnapped in Hamas’s attack.

Also in November, a flight of 153 Gazans landed in Johannesburg, after departing from Ramon Airport near Eilat. Shimi Zuaretz, a spokesperson for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) – the Israeli body that runs civil affairs in the West Bank – confirmed that the Palestinians transited through Israel “after COGAT received approval from a third country to receive them.” That third country was South Africa.

Some 200,000 Gazans are currently living in limbo in Cairo, unable to either find a destination in which to settle or to return to their homes. Together with the estimated tens of thousands of combatants and civilians killed in the Gaza war, these numbers indicate the ongoing depopulation of the destroyed coastal enclave.

image - Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition faces a mounting campaign to reestablish Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. The poster above reads, “It’s time to settle in Gaza! Let’s start now! Hanukkah 5786!” — Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition faces a mounting campaign to reestablish Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. The poster above reads, “It’s time to settle in Gaza! Let’s start now! Hanukkah 5786!”

With an election on the horizon in the first half of 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition faces a mounting campaign to reestablish Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Daniella Weiss, head of Nachala Movement Israel, whose stated aim is to settle further into Judea and Samaria, wants to begin Jewish settlement in Gaza within “months.” According to Weiss, more than 600 families – more than 2,500 people – had already registered for an initiative to settle in new beach towns.

Many Israelis fault Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal of 9,000 settlers from Gush Katif in 2005 as the catalyst that allowed Hamas to seize power from the Palestinian Authority two years later. In turn, that violent coup laid the way for the catastrophic Oct. 7, 2023, attack on cities and kibbutzim bordering Gaza.

The Gaza Strip’s 365 square kilometres are today uneasily divided into Hamas- and Israeli-controlled sectors. Israel will not allow Türkiye or Qatar to send troops to monitor the ceasefire, nor are any other countries keen to send boots on the ground. US President Donald Trump envisions a $500-million military base near Qiryat Gat, called the US Civil-Military Coordination Centre, to assist in Gaza’s future governance and patrol of the territory.

photo - The Israeli Defence Forces have killed Muhammad Abu Shaar, the Hamas terrorist who broke into Adi Vital-Kaploun’s residence on Oct. 7, 2023, and murdered her in front of her young children. He recorded himself with Adi’s babies in the same room she was killed as a Hamas propaganda video — The Israeli Defence Forces have killed Muhammad Abu Shaar, the Hamas terrorist who broke into Adi Vital-Kaploun’s residence on Oct. 7, 2023, and murdered her in front of her young children. He recorded himself with Adi’s babies in the same room she was killed as a Hamas propaganda video. *(internet image)*

Clan and Bedouin tribal groups in Gaza are engaged in a violent internecine struggle with Hamas. And the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Nov. 15 that IDF commandos on motorcycles are targeting Palestinians who participated in the abduction and holding of Israelis during the Oct. 7 attack. Among the Mujahideen Brigades terrorists gunned down in Khan Yunis was Mohammed Abu Mustafa, who kidnapped Shiri Bibas and her children Kfir and Ariel from Kibbutz Nirim on Oct. 7. Also recently eliminated was Muhammad Abu Shaar, who broke into Adi Vital-Kaploun’s residence at Kibbutz Holit and murdered the Canadian-Israeli woman in front of her 4-year-old son Negev and 4-month-old toddler Eshel. Shaar then recorded himself holding her children in the same safe room where Vital-Kaploun was murdered.

Troops of the elite Nahal Brigade captured six Hamas gunmen who surrendered after a 24-hour search that followed the IDF’s collapsing of the tunnel in Rafah where the terrorists were hiding, forcing them to emerge from a shaft, the military reported. The men were taken to Israel to be questioned by the Shin Bet Klali (General Security Service). A photo released by the IDF showed four of the operatives in the army’s custody, hands tied behind their backs, next to an armoured vehicle.

“At the end of a 24-hour pursuit, all 17 terrorists who attempted to flee the underground terror infrastructure in eastern Rafah were either eliminated or apprehended,” the IDF announced. At least 30 Hamas terrorists were killed trying to flee from tunnels in Rafah last month.

photo - Last month’s winter rain flooded Gaza’s tent encampments — Last month’s winter rain flooded Gaza’s tent encampments. (photo form IDDEF)

Environmental issues are also impacting the complex situation. Last month’s winter rain flooded Gaza’s tent encampments. In Iran, a severe drought has depleted the reservoirs that provide its capital city, Tehran, with drinking water.

Symbolizing the Ayatollah regime’s crumbling control, on Nov. 12, protesters garbed in military uniforms of the Shah’s regime unfurled the banned pre-1979 lion and sun Pahlavi national flag in a Tehran metro station. Commentators have posited that the next revolution may come soon, if the taps run dry.

Gil Zohar is a journalist and tour guide based in Jerusalem.