tikkun olam – Page 22

Inspiration from home

A young Israeli-American entrepreneur has invented an app that people – of any age – can use to find a hookup. No, it’s not for romantic hookups, although it does involve love, in a sense. Deevee Kashi invented Deed, an app that allows people to hook up with one-off volunteer gigs, whether serving food at a soup kitchen, walking shelter dogs or providing social interaction for seniors.

The idea may be perfect for our time. The contemporary generation is plugged-in, highly scheduled and perpetually busy, but also deeply committed to making positive impacts on the world. Deed may be just the thing for someone with an unexpected hour or two on their hands to do something more than downing a mocha while waiting for their next meetup.

We’d like to think it is not a coincidence that the app was invented by a Jew. Tzedakah, as Rabbi Joseph Telushkin reminds us, is an obligation and an act of justice. Conversely, to refrain from tzedakah is an act of injustice.

As we spend time in reflection over the holidays, it would be good and rejuvenating to balance the news of natural and human-made disasters with the antidote of tzedakah we see in abundance around us. The Deed app is a high-tech example, but closer to home we have an uplifting richness of good deeds that should make us proud of our community.

This week, the community came together to officially launch the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign. No single act of tzedakah does more than the annual gift that goes to support almost every philanthropic endeavour in this community. This is, rightly, a high-profile campaign, one that you will continue to read about in these pages as the campaign continues. (Interviews with the speakers at Wednesday night’s FEDtalks event are available at jewishindependent.ca.)

There are plenty of other good deeds taking place rather more quietly all year round.

In the past year, at least three synagogues – Temple Sholom, Or Shalom and Congregation Emanu-El – have sponsored Syrian refugees, and others are contemplating doing so or are in the process of making it happen. Such an act is a long-term commitment and a life-changing one not only for the refugees, but for all those whose lives are touched by the experience, and as true a demonstration of justice in action as we could hope to see.

Ensuring that the model of goodness is carried on l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation, is Marc’s Mensches, a new initiative by the Bayit that helps encourage young people in the Jewish community by rewarding them for good deeds. It is a wonderful venture, with nominations reportedly pouring in, which is no surprise, as we have seen some of the most innovative and ambitious tzedakah initiatives emerge from the youngest among us. Our community’s Jewish schools and, of course, parents, are doing a superb job of instilling this core Jewish value in successive generations.

The Independent is undertaking a fresh approach to recognize the power of tzedakah among younger generations through our “18 Under 36” celebration, which will coincide with the 18th anniversary of the current leadership of this almost-90-year-old newspaper. Nominations are open for people under 36 – who are Jewish or doing great things for the Jewish community – to be recognized at this very special event Dec. 6. Please consider nominating someone, then join us for the celebration!

Appropriately, volunteers of all ages have been acknowledged and appreciated recently by the Jewish Family Service Agency, Jewish Seniors Alliance and other organizations. There are few good things in our community that are not dependent on the golden touch of armies of volunteers.

The danger in enumerating a few of these great acts is that we miss countless more … so please be aware that those we have mentioned are truly the tip of an iceberg of tzedakah and this is more reason for great pride. After the holidays, we will return to the quotidian news that can bring down even the most optimistic among us, but let’s try to keep close in our hearts some of these acts of tzedakah and let us be inspired in the new year to add to them.

Shanah tovah.

Being a young Jew in 2017

From the beginning, Jews have struggled to define ourselves within the societies we inhabit. Since the time of the Babylonian exile, we have carved out spaces in other peoples’ countries, walking the fine line between self-definition and belonging.

We have sacrificed much to belong. In becoming part of patriarchal societies, we lost knowledge of the sacred feminine goddess whose statues still stood in the Temple hundreds of years into its use. We lost countless songs and stories and figures of whose existence I will never know. We also lost members of our tribe, ancestors no one is descended from, in crusades, pogroms and massacres across Europe and elsewhere.

But still, we fought to belong. We, know that, above all else, community sustains us, so we infused our culture into traditions that keep us together and nourish us, like foods and songs. When we were exiled from one country, we found shelter in another. We did the jobs they allowed us to do, we lent money and became merchants and bankers. I was taught early that, in each generation, there are those who will oppose us, who will seek our demise. But, after each setback, we found a new place, we salvaged what we could and reinvented ourselves. This is what it is to be diasporic. We were silent about painful things as necessary, and we did what it takes to continue.

And now it is the year 2017. We live among Europeans and Americans, and everywhere in the world. The last genocide is still within living memory, my grandmother having witnessed Kristallnacht, her sister lost in the Holocaust. Now, my grandmother is hugely successful, she has the Order of Canada and never speaks German anymore. We are so adaptable.

They were persecuting us before the word genocide was even coined. Now, we almost sit at the table of whiteness. I have never walked on the street and been profiled for the way I look – any prejudice surfaces after I reveal my own identity. This is my privilege. We are meant to laugh at jokes about Jewishness, because they are not as potentially harmful as jokes about other races. They do not mask death tolls like jokes about our black or indigenous friends; Jews aren’t being murdered or incarcerated at the rates of other people. The jokes about Jews are about how supposedly wealthy we are, a thing we are expected to be proud of.

But still, we are afraid to be openly Jewish in many spaces, because we know we will be asked about Israel, held responsible for the actions of Israel, or at least asked if we have ever been to Israel. The word Jewish or a Magen David on a sign at a Pride march or other progressive gathering could well put us in danger, perceived by some as condoning colonialism or being Zionist, though displaying pride in our Jewishness in these instances has nothing to do with Israel. A minority, we are still tokenized, even by our progressive colleagues. Still proving we deserve to belong, we are used to comments like “you don’t even look Jewish.” What will we sacrifice in the search for belonging in a system that may never really accept us?

Our sages teach that our responsibility is to be a light in the world, that the world we were born into is fragmented and incomplete, and ours is the work of repairing it. I struggle with what this looks like. How can we seek to repair the world even while we ourselves are so broken? I feel very broken these days, astonished by the rise of public fascism in a world that needs healing in so many ways that call on me to help.

I remember, as a preteen, reading about neo-Nazi groups that existed in secret in Europe and being shaken to my core. Now they walk in our streets and our neighbours tell us it is rude to “fight hate with hate,” or they joke about “punching” the agitators, as if the heavy, daily history I carry in my body was as simple as a meme.

We are taught that, since all corners of our universe are fragmented, that means God is also that way. Perhaps then it is alright to be broken, to be incomplete but still trying. Our very name is our task – Yisrael, those who wrestle with God. Those who do even the hardest and most impossible work. Work that it is impossible to ever finish – no one can win against God. But we keep showing up, even as we struggle and break and repair ourselves.

Part of the task of my generation is healing the inheritance we received from elders who escaped the Holocaust or watched family perish, and parents who were raised by people with broken relationships to wealth, food and affection, among other things. We carry these legacies in our bodies and they manifest differently in each of us. For me, I see in my family the deep need to prove we deserved to be the ones to survive. I see the need for material success and productivity and external praise. I hold the grief in my body in moments when I don’t know where the small judgmental voice in my head is coming from, and I recognize the pain of my ancestors rising to the surface in me, now that it is safer to process it than it’s ever been before. My vow is that this healing will happen in my lifetime. It may not be completed, as we are taught that intergenerational trauma lives for generations, but I am not free to abandon the work. I will never tell my – or anyone else’s – daughter “you’ll do well with dating because you’re pretty for a Jewish girl,” as I was told.

Jews are supposed to question everything, our holy books are full of questions, discussions and interpretations. Let us use this training to continue to challenge the status quo. Perhaps being a broken vessel will help – perhaps if we were whole, we would not have such a capacity to hold fragments of others’ pain. Having lost so much and started over so many times in the last 2,000 years, can we not see that anything is possible? Can we not be the ones who discard systems that do not unify a fragmented world? We need to believe that anything is possible – there is nothing to lose in pursuing a world full of our own light, which reveals the light of others along the way.

Ariel Martz-Oberlander is a director, writer, teacher and community organizer seeking to find the personal in the global. As a Jewish settler on Coast Salish territories, her practice is rooted in a commitment to place-based accountability through decolonizing work.

Feed the hungry

(photo from Jewish Family Service Agency)

Each year, Jewish Family Service Agency, in collaboration with Jewish Women International-B.C., operates Project Isaiah – a High Holy Days food drive that assists members of our community in need. A successful response to Project Isaiah is vital to provide 300 people in the community with four months’ worth of provisions from the Jewish Food Bank.

JFSA is grateful for the assistance of local synagogues in distributing bags and collecting items from congregants for this special project. The bags are distributed in September and JFSA asks that people pick one (or more) up, fill it with non-perishable food and return the full bag(s) to their synagogue or wherever they originally collected the bag(s). All donations go directly to the Jewish Food Bank to assist individuals and families.

For more information about Project Isaiah – “… share your bread with the hungry” (Isaiah 58:7) – contact Marnie Greenwald at 604-257-5151, ext. 1-230, or [email protected], or Sara Ciacci at 604-325-4810.

Visit jfsa.ca/donate or call 604-257-5151 to make a direct donation, or buy a Rosh Hashanah tribute card, to support JFSA’s food assistance programs or any of its other funds.

Israel joins the fruit-fly fight

Biofeed’s Nimrod Israely, top centre, with mango growers in Karnataka, India. (photo from Biofeed via Israel21c)

Shortly before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in early July, Indian diplomats in Israel heard about a revolutionary no-spray, environmentally friendly solution against the Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) made by Biofeed, a 10-employee ag-tech company. They invited Biofeed to be one of six innovative Israeli companies meeting with Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The company’s founder and chief executive officer, Nimrod Israely, who has a PhD in fruit-fly ecology, told the two leaders that Biofeed’s product can protect Indian farmers against fruit flies like the Iron Dome system protects the people of Israel against missiles. The Oriental fruit fly has been decimating 300 fruit species in India and in 65 other countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas and is considered to be the most destructive, invasive and widespread of all fruit flies.

Biofeed’s lures, hung on trees, contain an organic customized mix of food, feeding stimulants and control or therapeutic agents delivered by a patented gravity-controlled fluid release platform. Attracted by the odour, the fly takes a sip and soon dies – without any chemicals reaching the fruit, air or soil.

The launch of Biofeed’s first-in-class attractant for female Oriental fruit flies results from 15 years of development of the core platform and more than a year of development and testing in Israel and Karnataka, India. Mango farmers on four Indian orchards saw an overall decrease of fruit-fly infestation from 95% to less than five percent.

“We were hoping to bring a solution that will replace spraying and increase productivity by 50%,” Israely told Israel21c. “I am excited by the results, demonstrating the future potential for some farmers to bring about 900 times more marketable produce to market.”

photo - A fruit fly feeding in a Biofeed lure — A fruit fly feeding in a Biofeed lure. *(photo from Biofeed via Israel21c)*

One farmer in the Biofeed pilot explained that previously he had used a trap that attracted only male fruit flies, with limited success. “If you cut 25 fruits, we were getting only one good fruit; 24 were infected,” he said.

K. Srinivas Gowda, president of the 70,000-farmer Karnataka Mango Growers Association, wrote in a letter presented to Modi and Netanyahu that he “would like to have this [Biofeed] technology implemented to all the mango farmers through the government of India. This technology can be used to develop pest-free zones in the mango-growing belts in India.”

The pilot project started after Biofeed won a Grand Challenges Israel grant last year from the Israel Innovation Authority and the Foreign Ministry’s international development agency, Mashav.

“We don’t have the Oriental fruit fly in Israel. However, until now there was no solution for this problem. So, we took the challenge and chose to focus on India,” Israely said. The company worked with Kempmann Bioorganics in Bangalore to carry out the trial.

Biofeed’s products are used in many Israeli fruit orchards against the Mediterranean fruit fly and other common pests, including the olive fruit fly and the peach fruit fly (Bactrocera zonata).

“Bactrocera zonata is the number two pest in India. There are three main pests in India, so now we’ve given, within two years, a solution for the two most devastating fruit flies in India and in other parts of the world,” said Israely.

“We are the only company in the world with a solution for those two pests and both solutions are harmless to the environment,” he added. “We estimate the annual market potential of these two pest segments to be well over $1 billion.”

The Biofeed platform is effective with as few as 10 units per hectare and for a period of nearly a year before the dispenser needs replacing.

Biofeed, founded in 2005, also has a formula targeting mosquitoes that bear viruses such as Zika.

“Evolution has given insects an elaborate sense of smell, which they utilize to find mates, food, egg-laying sites and more,” Israely told Israel21c last year. “The company has developed a liquid formula that ‘knows’ how to tie different kinds of smells to other materials, as the need arises. The result is a special ‘decoy’ that draws the target insect through smell. The decoy is slow-released from a device over the course of a year. The insect is drawn to the decoy, feeds off it and dies shortly after.”

Headquartered in Kfar Truman, Biofeed sees the future of agriculture in developing countries such as India and China.

“We want to bring something that is extremely easy to use: you don’t need tractors, you don’t need to remember to spray once a week, you don’t need to put yourself in danger with sprays, there’s no safety equipment. This is something that can make a dramatic change in agriculture and human health,” said Israely.

For more information, visit biofeed.co.il/enhome.

Israel21c is a nonprofit educational foundation with a mission to focus media and public attention on the 21st-century Israel that exists beyond the conflict. For more, or to donate, visit israel21c.org.

Sumekh swipes out hunger

Rachel Sumekh is one of five speakers who will participate in FEDtalks Sept. 13. (photo from Rachel Sumekh)

University students with meal plans often end a semester or term with a surplus on their cafeteria swipe card. Whether because they skip a few breakfasts, go on vacation or eat in a restaurant the occasional night, some of the meals they pay for go unpurchased. In most instances, students are not reimbursed for uneaten meals.

When Rachel Sumekh was studying history at the University of California Los Angeles in 2010, she and some friends went to the cafeteria, stocked up on to-go food using the amounts remaining on their swipe cards and handed it out to hungry people on the streets of the city.

The dining provider didn’t like the gesture of goodwill, as it created an unanticipated run on to-go food. Sumekh talked it out with the administrators and created the pilot project for Swipe Out Hunger, an initiative that is now on 32 American college campuses, helping feed hungry people across the country. Sumekh will talk about the project here on Sept.13 at FEDtalks, the opening event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign.

The original idea, she admits, came from her friend Bryan Pezeshki, but he was busy continuing his studies – he’s now a doctor – and so Sumekh and a few friends carried it on as a side gig, meeting on Sundays and creating Swipe Out Hunger. In 2013, they decided to see what would happen if a full-time staff person were devoted to the project and Sumekh took on the job.

In such a venture, the humanitarian impulses of dining providers compete with their bottom line – unused amounts on meal cards means lower operating costs for them. So, in getting suppliers on board, Swipe Out Hunger organizers emphasize doing the right thing, while also implying there might be bad publicity if campus media discover food providers’ reluctance to participate in a program that fights hunger. Nonetheless, it is a challenge. Sumekh said students from about 300 different campuses have approached Swipe Out Hunger to start their own chapters, yet only about 10% of those have been successfully launched.

“So, it comes down to how difficult it is for universities to actually agree to implement this,” she said.

Originally focused on feeding hungry people in the communities around campus, Swipe Out Hunger has transitioned to focus mostly on addressing the hunger of students on campus.

Ironically, the problem of student hunger is exacerbated by an increasing accessibility of post-secondary education, she said. Financial aid and need-based scholarships are making it easier for young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to attend college. But, once there, they confront the realities of student life without money.

Educational institutions are giving financial aid, even full tuition in some cases, Sumekh said, but the students still have no money. “So who’s going to pay for their housing or their meals or their books or their transportation and all the other stuff?” She estimates that 75% of those benefitting from Swipe Out Hunger now are college students.

Sumekh says hunger leads to increased absenteeism, poor grades and dropping out. She pointed to a Canadian study that suggests 39% of Canadian college students cannot afford balanced meals and fear not having enough food at all. Almost half of the more than 4,000 students who participated in the study said they chose books, tuition and rent over healthy meals, one-quarter said the lack of good food affected their physical health and one in five said their mental health was affected. While there are no Swipe Out Hunger chapters in Canada yet, a similar program, Meal Exchange, exists here.

Universities are slowly coming to the awareness that their students’ well-being depends on healthy, sufficient diets, among all the other factors, Sumekh said. This is evidenced by the shift her organization has seen in the type of people who are approaching Swipe Out Hunger.

“Previously, 100% of the interest in our program was from students,” she said. “Now, over 50% of our interest is coming directly from administrators.… Universities are finally recognizing that they have students on their own campus who are going hungry and they have to do something about it.”

There has been a stigma around colleges acknowledging hunger among their students, she added, but this is diminishing in the face of recognition of the need.

Swipe Out Hunger also had a recent advocacy triumph. In June, thanks to pressure from Sumekh’s organization, the California state legislature and Governor Jerry Brown approved $7.5 million in funding to encourage colleges throughout the state to adopt a Swipe Out Hunger program, establish food pantries and hire staff to help students access nutritious food. So far, 1.3 million meals have been shared – and that number is likely to grow, as Swipe Out Hunger catches on in California and nationwide. Despite this success, Sumekh hopes her organization goes out of business.

“If there’s anything we believe, it’s that the old model of charity doesn’t work,” she said. “We don’t want to exist 20 years from now.”

Swipe Out Hunger is aiming for a systemic shift, where universities take it upon themselves to ensure that students’ needs are met, a universalization of an ad hoc program now on some campuses in which meals are provided to students in need.

While Swipe Out Hunger isn’t aimed specifically at Jewish students or any other cultural demographic, Sumekh credits both her Jewishness and assistance from the Jewish community for inspiring the initiative. The daughter of refugees from post-revolution Iran, Sumekh is excited to be sharing the stage at FEDtalks with Eric Fingerhut, chief executive officer of Hillel International, because she was involved with UCLA Hillel and got lots of support from the campus group when she was starting Swipe Out Hunger.

“When I was getting the program off the ground, I would go to Hillel and they would say, Rachel, whatever you need, tell us and we’ll make it happen,” she said. “It was an amazing way to see the Jewish community say, let’s just support this young Jew, even though what they’re doing isn’t just for Israel or just for Jewish people. If they’re doing something that’s living out our values, we should want to support that.”

For the full FEDtalks lineup and tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017.

Newcomers settling in

From left to right: Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, Meha Qewas, the Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Hesen Mostefa, Brenda Karp and two of the Mostefas’ children. (photo from Temple Sholom)

“I am not scared,” says Meha Qewas, sitting at her small dining table with her 1-year-old daughter on her lap. In front of us is a plate of knefa, a very rich, sweet cheese dish covered in syrup, together with huge tumblers of juice many times bigger than what I’m used to being offered. Meha clearly values hospitality. The only thing sweeter than the mid-morning “snack” is the ebullience and warmth that flows out of Meha and her husband Hesen Mostefa.

When she says she is fearless, Meha is talking about finding work in Vancouver. Despite the challenges, she is confident both in her new friends in the Vancouver Jewish community and in her own ability to master English and overcome whatever other obstacles she may meet. Her confidence is not groundless: Meha was the main force behind and organizer of getting her husband and three children first out of Syria, then out of Iraq, the country where they took refuge for five years. “I wanted my children out of there,” she says, recalling the sight of Syrian children and youth in Iraq taking up smoking and selling candy on the street to make income for their families in the packed, rat-infested refugee housing.

Hesen also has a remarkable story to tell. Trained as a surgeon in Syria, he volunteered in Iraq with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), which eventually hired him as a doctor. During the years they spent in Iraq, Hesen put in long days with MSF while Meha struggled to take care of the children, run a household and plan their flight from Iraq. Eventually, Meha succeeded in securing passage to Canada with the help of sponsors from Vancouver’s Temple Sholom.

Temple Sholom’s efforts to sponsor Syrian refugees started with a High Holidays sermon from Rabbi Dan Moskovitz about the refugees’ plight. Members of the shul immediately formed a committee of volunteers to bring in at least one family, and others, if possible.

Meetings with the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Anglican Diocese followed (the diocese is a federally approved sponsor for refugees with which other groups can team). The committee learned about private sponsorship and began working through Mosaic, a local agency that serves newcomers and refugees, and were connected to the Mostefas. The process to bring them to Canada was started.

In December 2015, however, Canada pulled some immigration services out of Iraq and began working through Jordan. A letter that Moskovitz gave to Senator Mobina Jaffer about the Mostefa family and their situation apparently found its way to the prime minister, and services in Iraq were reinstated as a result.

“In the end, over 200 people from shul got involved,” Moskovitz said. “I met personally with anyone who expressed concern about whether bringing in the refugees was a good idea. Most got on board with the initiative and I’m happy to say that, now that they [the Mostefas] are here, everyone in the community is thrilled.”

The synagogue’s efforts did not end there. They have since brought in another family, Bawer Issa, Shinhat Ahmed and their newborn son. The Issa family was welcomed at a Shabbat service in the synagogue on Aug. 25 (it can be seen on YouTube). Bawer spoke movingly at that event, recounting how some people had asked him if he was surprised, as a Muslim, that he had been rescued by Jews.

“We were not surprised,” he told the congregation. “Growing up in Iraq, we were brainwashed at school every day to hate Israelis and Jews as our number one enemy. My Kurdish father always told us not to care what they said, not to believe it. He told us that Israel had been the first to send aid when Saddam Hussein bombed us with chemical weapons.” Citing Israel’s continued support for Kurdish self-rule, Bawer said that he had already known that Jews were their friends.

At the upcoming biennial meeting in Boston of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the umbrella organization of the Reform movement, a resolution – that Moskovitz helped write – will call for the sponsorship of 36 more refugee families by Canadian congregations.

The wider Vancouver community is invited to welcome the Issa and Mostefa families on Sept. 10, at 11:30 a.m., at a reception at Temple Sholom that also marks the first day back of the synagogue’s Hebrew school. An RSVP is requested to 604-266-7190 or via templesholom.ca/get-know-new-canadians.

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

Helping out new immigrants

Sol and Shirley Kort (photo from Alisa Kort)

The Kort family – in an initiative led by sisters Beverley and Alisa – has established a scholarship in their parents’ names with the National Council of Jewish Women. The award will provide education funding to two newcomer women each year.

Beverley and Alisa’s parents, Shirley and Sol Kort, have both passed away. They met, said the sisters, in Shirley’s hometown of Edmonton at a Shabbat dinner event organized by the local Jewish community for the American Jewish soldiers stationed there – this included Detroit-native Sol, who was then in the U.S. army.

The couple moved to Vancouver in the 1940s and Sol started up the business Kent Chemicals with a fellow American who relocated to Vancouver.

Of Kent Chemicals, Beverley said, “He did that for many years, until the 1960s. Then, he sold his business and went into continuing education at UBC. On the side, he was leading and developing a lecture series called Search for Meaning, and more. He decided that, instead of being a chemist, he’d become an adult educator in the humanities.”

Sol was in his 40s when he changed career paths. In his new endeavour, he enjoyed connecting with people who were pushing the boundaries of understanding philosophy, science and psychology – people questioning the world.

Beverley recalled going to her father’s lectures, along with other kids, starting in her early teens. “I’d sometimes leave school and go to those lectures,” she said. “People came and stayed at our house. I was exposed to all sorts of interesting perspectives, like Buddhism and different types of spirituality, levels of consciousness, and ideas. I was already curious about human nature and this catapulted me onto the level of, ‘Oh, my God! Wow. What’s going on?’”

Meanwhile, Beverley’s mom, Shirley, was busy doing her own work, serving on the board of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver for many years and being involved in National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), among other pursuits. Later, Shirley helped form Shalom Vancouver, a welcoming service for newcomers to Vancouver.

“This was very important to her,” recalled Beverley. “People would describe her as one of the most welcoming, supportive people. When we did a special kind of presentation about my mom for the NCJW after she passed away, people got up and spoke about their relationship with her, especially young women who moved to Vancouver when she was quite involved in the council. They just found there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to help them get settled – connecting with people, coming to our house for dinner. Our whole family has this culture of, come for dinner, how can I help you connect, that kind of thing.”

Alisa added, “My mother was also on the board of the Volunteer Bureau of Canada and had been a president of the Vancouver chapter of the NCJW a number of times, [as well as being] involved in their mobile hearing testing project, HIPPY and Shalom Vancouver. My father was involved with the Vanier Institute of Canada and was director of humanities and science in continuing education at UBC.”

Alisa noted that one of her father’s good friends, author Ted Roszak, wrote of Sol that “he was ‘a bright, inquiring and caring educator who wanted to bring every leaping mind he could find to his school.’”

When Sol passed away, the Kort family established a fund in his name at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library, as he was an avid reader. They also sponsored the Sol and Shirley Kort Author Series, the opening night of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, for many years.

photo - Shirley and Sol Kort — Shirley and Sol Kort *(photo from Alisa Kort)*

“My mom, during her life with my dad, was always hosting events and having people come and speak, and dealt with the behind-the-scenes things, organizing and being social,” said Beverley. “For her, hosting the author series in her and my dad’s name was a nice continuation of that. We did that for many years. They would come to our house the night before. And, the author would come, and my mom would meet him and talk. We named it after both of them because we always wanted to do something for both of them together.”

When Shirley passed away, the family wanted to find a way to further commemorate both of their parents’ lives, and looked to the NCJW, even though Sol wasn’t a member of the council.

“He was like a feminist more than his own daughters were, and he was an educator and a mentor,” said Beverley. “He was always finding people who needed mentoring. We were hosts for a Bosnian family who we’re still good friends with. After retiring, they set up weekly sessions with him to talk about books. He led speaking series for seniors and was always looking for ways to teach.”

Among the NCJW initiatives that were important to Shirley was HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters), said Beverley, and she talked about it “a lot during the last three years of her life, as she struggled with dementia. HIPPY is about mentoring women and furthering their education. We wanted to do something that would further education and make a difference in someone’s life – that’s why we chose the scholarship.”

The Shirley and Sol Kort scholarship provides $2,500 per year to two newcomer women toward their education.

“HIPPY is a way of keeping my parent’s memory alive and supporting something that represents the essence of what they found important in the world, which is welcoming people, furthering education, being supportive and being larger than the Jewish community,” said Beverley.

According to Alisa, her parents were interested in people, above all – they were passionate about education and in helping newcomers to the Jewish community and beyond. Beverley and Alisa also are inspired in what they do by their late grandmother, who informally adopted one of the young children who made their way to safety via the Kindertransport.

Regarding the HIPPY scholarship, Alisa said, “It seemed to embody all that our parents held dear and it also seemed very important to support women, particularly women with children struggling to find a new life in a new country after having to let go of so much of what made them who they are.”

The initial recipients of the award, said Alisa, “were both very highly motivated and articulate about their experiences as immigrant women and mothers in Canada, and how … being involved in HIPPY has factored into their journey and continues enriching their lives. They’re multicultural in background. One of the women intends to complete her bachelor of social work and the other wants to get her social work diploma.”

Past president of NCJW’s Vancouver chapter, Debbie Altow, said, “Shirley Kort inspired us all in council. Besides working to bring HIPPY to Canada, she led the way – she was the first in our membership to use a computer; she worked tirelessly to pilot a hearing testing program for preschoolers (a project taken over by Vancouver’s health department); she hosted so many meetings that daughter, Beverley, printed up a neat collection of her recipes; and she had family and friends all over Western Canada, especially in Edmonton and Winnipeg.

For more information about NCJW in Vancouver, visit ncjwvancouver.org.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Tzedakah not charity

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will be in Vancouver for FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from HarperCollins)

A group of elderly retired men routinely gather in a Tel Aviv coffee shop and talk about current events. Given the world situation, their chats tend to be very downbeat. One day, one of the men in the group declares, “I am an optimist.”

His friends look at him in puzzlement and one of them asks, “You’re an optimist? So why do you look so worried?” And the man replies, “You think it’s easy to be an optimist?”

This is a joke Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells when he speaks about Jewish humour – a topic on which he literally wrote the book. It also sums up his response to a question posed by the Jewish Independent in a recent telephone interview.

Telushkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including the two-volume A Code of Jewish Ethics, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History and The Book of Jewish Values: A Day-by-Day Guide to Ethical Living. He is routinely cited as one of North America’s most engaging thinkers and writers on Jewish topics and he has devoted his life to Jewish education.

“I am by nature an optimist,” he said, explaining that his study of Jewish history inspires pessimism, but Judaism’s promise of messianic redemption makes him an optimist. “Hence, I end up as an optimist with a worried look on my face,” he said.

Telushkin is one of five leading thinkers – originally there were four scheduled – who will speak at FEDtalks, the kickoff of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign next month.

Telushkin’s lifetime devoted to Jewish education was motivated in part by his concern that Jewish religious devotion tended to emphasize ritual observances “as if ethics were necessary, but sort of an extracurricular activity.”

Judaism, he said, has important and uplifting rituals, such as Shabbat and the observance of the holidays. “But there are these incredible insights in Judaism that apply to us in every day of our lives.” That is why he wrote The Book of Jewish Values, which is an exploration of ideas and lessons that can be applied day after day.

Exploring these ideas, he said, can ameliorate some of the challenges facing the Jewish people, such as assimilation and intermarriage.

“If two percent of Jews were intermarrying, you could make a big fight and just do everything in your power to stop intermarriage,” said the rabbi. “Once you’re dealing with intermarriage rates approaching 50%, you can either write off the future of the Jewish people … or you can say, guess what, Judaism has things to teach Jews and non-Jews. If Judaism has something to offer people, it can offer it to non-Jews as well. That’s the role that Jewish education can play. We can model values that people can look at and feel enriched by.”

If Jewishness plays a central role in one’s life, Telushkin said, a person should want to share that with a spouse and model Judaism “in a way that would also make them want to share in Judaism.”

With Dennis Prager, Telushkin wrote the book Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism. The provocative thesis suggests that something particular about Jews inspires Jew-hatred; that Jews bring it upon themselves.

“Antisemitism, we argue, is ultimately a reaction to Judaism and its values,” Telushkin said, “to the Jewish concept of God, which denied the gods of the others, to the Jewish concept of law.”

The centrality of education in the Jewish tradition has led to personal and collective successes that, in turn, have inspired jealousy, he continued. This jealousy leads to antisemitism and it is indeed, Telushkin said, something inherent in Judaism that provokes this response.

“The reason Jews have succeeded, often much more than their neighbours, is because Judaism entered the world with a demand that no other religion had made: that everyone has to be educated – and you shall teach it to your children – and that focus on education led to greater success.”

Antisemitism, he added, is also inspired by the unique theological relationship between God and the Jewish people.

“There is no other religion that fuses religion and peoplehood the same way,” he said. “When Ruth converts to Judaism in the Bible, she says, amech ami, your people shall be my people, Elohayich Elohai, your God shall be my God.”

This connection between religion and peoplehood also defined antisemitism and the way it morphed during the Age of Nationalism. Until around 1800, when the world in which Jews lived was primarily a religious one, antisemitism focused on the God of the Jews and the rejections of the prophets of Christianity and Islam.

“When nationalism emerged, antisemitism was increasingly focused on the people who were Jews,” Telushkin said. Conversion to another religion would no longer erase Jewish national identity, and membership in a peoplehood, a nation, became the focus of antisemitism. “Hence, the greatest antisemitism in the world today is anti-Zionism.”

The most catastrophic forms of tyranny in recent history, Telushkin added, were direct refutations of Jewish values.

“What was Nazism if not a rejection of all the values that Judaism was trying to bring into the world? What was Soviet communism if not a rejection of all the values the Jews bring into the world?” he said. “Nazism and communism were both radical repudiations of the Jewish notion of God. They held that the state had the highest value. That’s why Soviet dissidents used to chant the song ‘I Fear No One Except God,’ because, in a totalitarian society, people who fear God think that there is something higher than the government, higher than the party. Today, of course, there is the danger of Islamists, people who claim to believe in God but who certainly don’t believe in a God whose primary demand of humans is ethical behaviour.”

At FEDtalks, Telushkin will speak on the topic, Tzedakah is Not Charity. The word charity, he said, suggests something done voluntarily, out of love. “While the word tzedakah derives from the word justice, which suggests that it’s not only a voluntary thing to give tzedakah, it’s an act of justice, which means not doing so becomes an act of injustice,” he explained. “What I want to emphasize is that Judaism is rooted in the notion of not just volunteerism but also obligation.”

By example, he suggested comparing two types of diets. People go on diets, he said, usually for one of two reasons – to be physically more attractive or healthier – but few are able to maintain a strict diet for a month or longer without breaking it.

“Because, in the final analysis, it’s voluntary,” he said. “Everyone knows people who keep kosher, who can go for years without eating foods that are forbidden because they feel commanded … when we do something out of a sense of commandment, we do so with a greater sense of consistency.”

Charities often suffer during tough economic times, he added, because people see charity as voluntary. But, even during tough economic times, people pay their taxes because they are afraid of the consequences of not doing so.

“So the notion of mitzvah in

Judaism is a notion of commandment, something is obligatory,” he said. “I emphasize that point because people consider mitzvah a good deed, but it’s really a commandment.”

FEDtalks takes place at the Chan Centre on Sept. 13. For tickets and more information, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017. The Independent has invited all of the speakers to be featured in advance of the event. Last week: Ruth Wasserman Lande. Next week: Rabbi Jay Henry Moses.

Encourage menschlichkeit

The Bayit in Richmond has launched a new youth initiative, called Marc’s Mensches. Starting in September, the program aims to encourage youth in the community by rewarding them for good deeds.

The basic layout of the Marc’s Mensches program is as follows. If you witness a youth from the community (grades 5-10) doing a good deed – within either the Jewish or non-Jewish communities – enter them to be a Marc’s Mensches winner. Each month, a panel will review all the candidates and the impact their good deed has had, and they will decide a mensch for each month. The winner will be awarded a certificate of appreciation, as well as a $25 gift card to Amazon. The same candidate cannot win two months in a row.

At the end of the 10-month school year, each monthly winner will automatically be entered for the final prize. The panel will look at the each one of Marc’s Mensches and determine who has had the largest impact – that mensch will be awarded a $1,000 scholarship for Jewish education.

This program is made possible by the donations of Donald and Bonnie Dwares on behalf of their son Marc Dwares, Marshall and Sally Cramer, and Jeffrey Sachs. The Bayit is asking the entire Jewish community to participate and to give as many youth as possible the chance to be recognized for their contributions.

To submit a nominee, contact Matti Feigelstock at 604-771-8897 or visit thebayit.ca/mensches.

Shibli: a model Israeli town

Ruth Wasserman Lande is one of the four speakers at FEDtalks, the kickoff event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, on Sept. 13. (photo from Ruth Wasserman Lande)

In her “day job,” Ruth Wasserman Lande is deputy director-general of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel, a position in which, among other things, she seeks out the best practices of municipal governments around the world and shares them with cities and towns in Israel. As a “volunteer, extracurricular” side gig, she is involved in a pilot project that could have massive implications for Israel’s cohesion, security, economic and social advancement and the place of minorities within the country.

She and a group of volunteers – many of them, like her, alumni of the Wexner Foundation’s Israel fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government – are turning a disadvantaged Bedouin village in the north of Israel into a model community that can be replicated across the country.

Improving the economic conditions and the integration of non-Jewish citizens into the Zionist project is crucial for Israel’s future, Wasserman Lande said in a telephone interview with the Jewish Independent, and the Bedouin population is critical to this undertaking. She will speak about the project and its potential impacts at FEDtalks, the kickoff event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, next month.

The town of Shibli Um El-Ghanem has a population of 6,700, all of whom are Muslim Bedouins and many of whom serve in the Israel Defence Forces or alternative civil service. Bedouins in the country’s north have a long history as “exemplary citizens,” going back to service in the War of Independence, she said.

“The potential impact of the 180,000 Bedouins in the north is far larger than their absolute number, and the country’s strategic alliance with them since the establishment of the state has been, and remains, key to its national security interests,” Wasserman Lande has written. The pilot project will “serve as a positive example to others in the village who do not serve in the IDF, as well as other minorities, who find themselves in the crossroads between different vectors which threaten to draw them away from moderate integration into Israeli society.”

Wasserman Lande notes that Egypt’s poor treatment of its Bedouin population is to blame for some of the anti-government unrest in Sinai, while Israel’s comparative success in integrating Bedouins has dissuaded many in that community from becoming attracted to extremist movements. Success in this pilot project is integral, she contends, to cementing Bedouin allegiance to Israel and providing an example to other minority communities.

The project is a multi-pronged effort to identify and address challenges and opportunities within the town. It includes the establishment of a centre for scientific excellence, as well as a regional centre of United Hatzalah, the first aid brigade created and run by Charedi Jews, which is often first on the scene at emergencies, providing basic medical care until the arrival of Magen David Adom. It also includes the creation of a Bedouin Heritage Visitors Centre, which will represent northern Bedouin culture and heritage.

A regional industrial park serving Jewish and Arab communities in the Lower Galilee is intended to provide opportunities for employment and growth.

In analyzing the untapped assets of the town, Wasserman Lande and her team identified tourism as a potential source of economic growth. Shibli is located at the base of Mount Tabor, which is home to two important churches – one Catholic and one Orthodox Christian – and is located in a place of immense natural beauty. The churches attract 500,000 pilgrims a year, but the area has done little to maximize the economic potential of these visitors. When the model is replicated in other towns, she said, economic assets unique to each place will be identified.

Shibli was selected to test the model because it ticked many boxes, one of which was the cooperation of the local authorities, including a mayor who is a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen. It is also notable that the town is on Israel’s demographic and geographic periphery and is socioeconomically disadvantaged.

While there are tangible components to the project, there are also capacity-building aspects that target less visible obstacles to the success of communities like Shibli. The central government, through its various ministries, allocates significant financial resources to local communities, but some are better than others at doing the administrative work required to access funding and use it efficiently. While public aid may be available, Wasserman Lande said, obtaining it often depends on “being able to speak to the right people, open the right doors, do the right follow-up.” Successful use of funds also depends on confronting nepotism and a lack of transparency in some communities. Part of the project is to develop skills in local leadership.

Wasserman Lande sees the entire undertaking as a Zionistic one.

“The vision is Zionistic, my drive and incentive is Zionistic,” she said. “I’m thinking, what is good for my country? It is very important for my country strategically that this particular population is aligned with its interests.”

If successful, the project will advance the Zionist project within Israel and abroad, she said.

“That will create, if it’s a success story, a model formulation for other minorities,” said Wasserman Lande. “It will also be a flagship against BDS [the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel] across the world as a beautiful, successful model formulation in a completely Muslim village. In a little bit of a later stage it can even serve as a potential bridge – a people bridge – between Israel and the Saudi Arabian Bedouins, Egyptian Bedouins … but we are not there yet. Furthermore, it will empower and enhance the Bedouins themselves, first and foremost those that live in that particular village.… That is something very, very special.”

Prior to beginning this project and her position as deputy director-general of the municipal authority, Wasserman Lande was an advisor to the late former president of Israel, Shimon Peres. From him, Wasserman Lande learned something that she said has served her well in this undertaking.

“I will say only one thing [about Peres]: he didn’t think that anything was impossible,” she said. “It was an inspiration for me. That’s really the driving force behind this whole project because I can definitely say from the bottom of my heart that it is very challenging.”

Wasserman Lande will be one of four speakers at FEDtalks on Sept. 13 – for tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com/fedtalks2017. The Independent has invited all four speakers to be featured in advance of the event. Next week: Rabbi Joseph Telushkin.