On May 7, in Vancouver, Dr. Noya Shilo, director of Sheba Medical Centre’s Back to Life Clinic, will share firsthand insights into the journey from trauma to healing. (photo from Sheba Medical Centre)
Following the success of last September’s event featuring Sheba Medical Centre’s Prof. Amitai Ziv, Canadian Friends of Sheba are returning to Vancouver with the Sheba Promise Journey: From Trauma to Recovery, taking place May 7.
The special evening in support of Sheba Medical Centre will feature Dr. Noya Shilo, director of the centre’s Back to Life Clinic and a global leader in trauma recovery. Having led the care of returned hostages – work recognized internationally, including at the White House – Shilo will share rare, firsthand insights into the journey from trauma to healing, and how Sheba’s care extends far beyond the bedside. Additional voices from Sheba will also contribute to the evening’s conversation.
At a time when the need for mental health support is greater than ever, Sheba is leading critical initiatives, including the establishment of a clinic for children in northern Israel who are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Proceeds from the May 7 event will support these efforts, as well as the Bibas Healing Gardens – therapeutic environments inspired by Yarden Bibas, a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Bibas was held hostage for 484 days, separated from his wife and two young children, who were murdered by Hamas during their captivity.
The Bibas Healing Gardens will support women and children through counseling, emotional care and nature-based healing. These restorative spaces will serve hundreds of families each year as part of their long-term rehabilitation journey.
The Sheba Promise Journey event will begin with an exclusive VIP reception and meet-and-greet, followed by a curated theatre-style program designed to inspire, inform and connect. Sponsorship opportunities and tickets are available, and everyone is invited to join the event and/or support the initiatives. The Sheba Promise Journey also takes place in Toronto (May 4) and Montreal (May 5).
When Achiya Klein awoke after surgery, doctors began asking simple questions. Could he see this? Could he see that? “First, take off the bandages,” he told them.
“We already did,” they replied.
Klein was injured during a 2013 military operation near the Gaza border. His team discovered a two-kilometre, reinforced tunnel extending 400 metres into Israel. Klein led an Israel Defence Forces mission into Gaza to investigate further. As he approached an opening above the tunnel, a hidden booby trap detonated, with Klein, at the front of the team, taking the worst of the blast. The explosion caused severe burns, multiple facial fractures and catastrophic damage to his eyes, leaving him permanently blinded. He was evacuated under fire while rockets and gunfire erupted in the area.
Klein, now 34, grew up on a small religious kibbutz in the Judaean mountains. His childhood unfolded during the Second Intifada, surrounded by soldiers and a culture that expected young Israelis to serve. As a teenager, he and his friends competed to see who would make it into the most elite units.
In hospital, Klein initially believed surgery would fix the damage and allow him to return to his command. Realizing he could not see forced him to confront a completely different future.
Instead of dwelling on what might have been, he focused on recovery. Within months, he began rehabilitation through sport – cycling on tandem bikes, swimming, and running with guides. Eventually, he joined Israel’s para-rowing program and went on to compete internationally, representing Israel at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, in 2021.
A turning point in his independence came when he received his first guide dog from the Israel Guide Dog Centre. The dog, Knight, allowed him to navigate campuses, travel independently and rebuild everyday life.
Achiya Klein with his guide dog Joy. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Today, Klein lives in Toronto with his guide dog Joy. For him, the dog represents far more than mobility – she makes it possible to work, travel and be fully present with his children, like walking them to school.
Klein shared his story with the Independent on a previous visit to Vancouver (jewishindependent.ca/freedom-and-friendship) and he shared it here again recently as part of a cross-Canada tour sponsored by Canadian Friends of the Israel Guide Dog Centre. He and Joy were joined by fellow IDF veteran Nave Rachman, and his dog Jack.
Rachman trained in flight school before serving in an elite combat unit. During a military operation, what should have been routine turned into an ambush. Several soldiers were severely injured and Rachman helped evacuate them under fire.
Physically unharmed, Rachman initially continued with his life, even moving to Hong Kong for work. But the trauma lingered. PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms gradually emerged – depression, anxiety, avoidance and difficulty with relationships. Without visible wounds, he received no immediate treatment and tried to push through alone.
Over time, his condition worsened, straining his marriage and leaving him isolated. After his wife left, Rachman sought professional help and began intensive therapy. His recovery took another turn when he was paired with Jack, a service dog from the Israel Guide Dog Centre.
At first, Rachman doubted he could care for a dog – but Jack soon became essential in his life. The yellow Labrador helps him manage anxiety, navigate crowded environments and detect rising stress before panic sets in.
Rachman and Klein shared their stories with invited guests at the home of Ellen Wiesenthal and Eyal Daniel on Feb. 26. They were joined by Noach Braun, who founded the Israel Guide Dog Centre 40 years ago, and Atarah Derrick, executive director of Canadian Friends of the Israel Guide Dog Centre. While in British Columbia, they also spoke at Congregation Schara Tzedeck and at Vancouver Talmud Torah, as well as at a ski-and-learn event in Whistler. Their tour included presentations in Calgary and Toronto.
Braun said he was motivated by his love of people and dogs in founding the Israel Guide Dog Centre for the Blind, drawing on his experience training dogs in the IDF.
Each year, he said, the centre raises about 150 puppies, many of them Labradors. After two months with their mothers, the dogs spend about a year with volunteer families – often university students – who provide early socialization and care before the animals return to the centre for formal guide-dog training.
Expanding out from service dogs for the visually impaired, the centre also provides animals for emotional support and other needs, with PTSD being an increasingly common condition for which service animals deliver a range of supports.
The rise of PTSD in soldiers and civilians after Oct. 7, 2023, is putting added strain on the Israel Guide Dog Centre, Braun said. Training dogs is an intensive, multi-year undertaking and maintaining quality while increasing quantity requires significant investments of money and human resources.
“It will take time,” Braun said. “We need more money, more people, more dogs, more land, more vehicles.… We need to build it properly.”
Dr. Gloria Gutman thought interviewees would have refused to place themselves in situations where they might be targeted or victimized, like rallies or Jewish events, but that wasn’t the case. “People felt more comfortable and secure when they were actively part of the Jewish community,” she said. (internet photo)
There’s been lots in the media about Jewish students feeling intimidated, but we tend not to think about older people,” Dr. Gloria Gutman told the Jewish Independent about a recent study she conducted with Dr. Sharon Avidor on the experiences of older Canadians since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel. “We really want to raise awareness of older people among service providers and the general community, and let them know that the impact is really on all of our community.”
Gutman, a lifelong Vancouverite, is vice-president of the International Society for Gerontology, director emerita of the Gerontology Research Centre at Simon Fraser University and professor emerita of SFU’s department of gerontology. Wondering how older members of the Canadian Jewish community were coping in the aftermath of Oct. 7, she reached out to the local Jewish community in summer 2024 for help in recruiting participants for the study she conducted with Avidor, a psychologist in the faculty of social and community sciences at Israel’s Ruppin Academic Centre. Their findings were published in the Canadian Journal on Aging last fall, with the title, “I No Longer Can Say ‘Never Again.’”
Avidor and Gutman interviewed 15 older adults, including Holocaust survivors and Russian immigrants to Canada, and 11 service providers. Respondents were not just deeply affected by the Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war, but experienced the public discourse as anti-Israel and at times antisemitic, upending their sense of safety and belonging.
The study found that Holocaust survivors and their offspring, older Russian emigres to Vancouver and LGBTQ+ Jewish seniors were more impacted. Almost everyone interviewed felt a deep connection with Israel, and personally affected by Oct. 7. Many felt isolated from non-Jews in their communities and were shocked at the lack of support they encountered outside of the Jewish community, as well as by the extent of misinformation proliferating about Israel. Given their experiences of antisemitism and discrimination, many were frustrated by the notion that Jews were considered a part of the white majority.
Interviewees were apprehensive about publicly displaying their Jewish identity and felt deeply offended by the anti-Israel vitriol expressed in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. They felt a strong need to connect with others in the Jewish community, as connecting with like-minded people provided solace at a time when their social circle was shrinking to almost exclusively Jewish friends.
Prior to the study, Gutman thought interviewees would have refused to place themselves in situations where they might be targeted or victimized, like rallies or Jewish events, but that wasn’t the case. “People felt more comfortable and secure when they were actively part of the Jewish community, and some who had not previously been involved came out of the woodwork after Oct. 7, getting comfort from engaging in community-based events,” she said.
Many of the LGBTQ+ respondents were in a somewhat different situation, alienated from LGBTQ+ groups because of “belligerent, negative, and even hateful comments about Israel, sometimes personally aimed towards them because of their Jewish backgrounds,” notes the study, while also not feeling comfortable attending events with an unequivocal pro-Israel view. Thus, Avidor and Gutman write, many in the LGBTQ+ community “were given to experiences of loneliness and isolation.”
Holocaust survivors said they were retraumatized by Oct. 7 and what has followed – the study’s title comes from a survivor who used to end her talks in schools with “never again,” but told Avidor and Gutman, “My recent talks are that I no longer can say never again.”
Emigres from the former Soviet Union felt especially vulnerable. One of the service providers for members of this group described why this was the case: “Because they came, you know, after Holocaust, after everything they’ve been through in Soviet Union, it was terrible. It was terrible. Antisemitism was terrible. And I know my parents went through all this too: wouldn’t be able to be accepted to a university or a good job because of their last name. So they all have these previous traumas and experiences.”
Some of the seniors had robust coping abilities because they had overcome immense struggles in the past. “We heard things like, ‘we’ve lived through this before and will live through it again,’” Gutman said.
Her hope is that this research will raise awareness of the impacts of Oct. 7 on Jewish older adults, particularly among service providers.
“Ours is one of the few studies, to our knowledge, to explore the effects of antisemitism among older adults, often a less vocal and less salient group in society,” she said. “The Oct. 7 attack, the Israel-Hamas war and perceived antisemitism and anti-Israeli rhetoric, have had profound effects on Jewish older adults living in Canada, and this must be recognized and given appropriate attention.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond.
Many Jewish Canadians face unique mental health hurdles right now, and many of the professionals they depend on to help them are themselves struggling with related challenges.
The trauma that has affected Jews in recent years – from the horrors of Oct. 7 to the global explosion of antisemitism societally and in the personal lives of diaspora Jews – has created unprecedented needs in the mental health sector. Professionals in the discipline, including Jewish psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and social workers, are often dealing personally with some of the same issues their clients are confronting.
Dr. Rotem Regev (photo courtesy Rotem Regev)
Dr. Rotem Regev is a Vancouver psychologist with a private practice specializing in trauma, as well as expertise in therapist training, especially addressing practitioner burnout. Burnout in the profession was exacerbated by COVID. Then came Oct. 7.
Within days of the terror attacks, Regev’s inbox filled with requests from Jewish clients, and from therapists. Non-Jewish clinicians approached her about how to counsel their Jewish clients.
She assembled a webinar for non-Jewish practitioners about the intersectionality of trauma and Judaism, called How to Help Your Jewish Client in this Unprecedented Time.
There were 70 non-Jewish therapists in the first webinar.
“At one point, pretty early on, my Jewish therapist colleagues came to me and said, why is this only for non-Jewish therapists? We need to know what to do,” she recalled.
After other collective traumas, like the 9/11 terror attacks or Hurricane Katrina, counselors may have shared trauma with their clients. After 10/7, though, the antisemitism that swept the world meant many clients – and practitioners – did not feel safe seeking the help they needed.
“We can’t turn to our professional colleagues for consultations,” she heard from fellow practitioners. “We feel silenced. We’re unwelcome in places. And then I said, OK, this is unprecedented. There’s nothing about this in the literature. We need to document our experiences.”
Regev sent out questionnaires to more than 250 mental health practitioners in British Columbia who are Jewish. From the responses and her subsequent research, she coined the term “compounded traumatic reality.”
“It’s not only a shared traumatic reality, but it is compounded by the extra layer of antisemitism,” she said. Her paper on the subject was published last month (Nov. 11) in the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Behaviour in the Social Environment.
Regev’s career has taken a decided shift. She created the International Centre for Collective Resilience, which trains mental health professionals in culturally responsive,trauma-informed care around these specific issues. In that capacity, she developed the CHAI Method™ for clinical practitioners to balance the needs of their clients with their own connection to the trauma.
The CHAI Method™ is a four-part framework that begins with “Connect,” where individuals recognize what is happening, followed by “Honour,” which acknowledges identity and lived experience, particularly in an environment where others invalidate these experiences. “Activate” moves the practitioner into culturally responsive strategies and setting appropriate boundaries. “Integrate” transforms the experience into lasting capacity for both the practitioner and their client.
Regev has already delivered trainings in the CHAI Method™ at McGill and Concordia universities in Montreal and will offer it in Vancouver on Feb. 8 and 9.
Eventually, she said, the training could be adapted for healthcare providers – physicians especially are facing profound challenges right now, Regev said – as well as educators, clergy and others who are not accredited mental health providers.
Regev was born and raised in Israel, though she spent several teenage years in Vancouver while her mother was doing a master’s and a PhD in psychology here. She returned to Israel, did her army service, but moved to Vancouver permanently at age 28.
Israelis and diaspora Jews are having parallel but different experiences, she said. While many diaspora Jews lost loved ones on Oct. 7 and in the subsequent war, that experience is almost universal among Israelis. The experience with antisemitism in the diaspora, on the other hand, is not something Jews in Israel live with. Above all, she said, Israelis are having a shared experience with their entire society. For two years, it has been impossible to escape the reality, if for no more apparent reason than the ubiquity of hostage posters and memorial placards everywhere in the country. Jews in the diaspora, no matter how connected they may be to their Jewish community, are nonetheless surrounded by non-Jews living a completely different reality.
For diaspora Jews, finding a mental health practitioner capable of addressing their unique needs has come down to word-of-mouth. Regev hopes there will be a systematization, perhaps a database of professionals accredited in her CHAI Method™, which will provide assurances to clients that the counselor they are engaging with is prepared to consider the specific contemporary experiences of Jews.
There is plenty to be done, Regev said, and she has been balancing these new responsibilities with her clinical and training work, taking on tasks that currently have no dedicated infrastructure or funding behind them. She is seeking financial backing to support her initiatives.
To register for the February seminar or for further information about Regev’s work, visit icfcr.ca. In addition to training, she is also available as a speaker.
Healing Space has treated more than 20,000 people since it began in response to the trauma caused by the Oct. 7 terror attacks and the ensuing war. (photo from Healing Space)
“It’s important to talk about it because there are still hostages who have been living Oct. 7 every day for over a year-and-a-half. It’s important to talk about it because antisemitism around the world is growing stronger, and there are people who deny or justify the horrors we went through that day. This is not a political matter – it’s a matter of humanity. It’s about human lives,” Raz Shifer, a survivor of Hamas’s horrific terror attack on the Nova music festival, told the Independent.
Shifer, who lives in Giv’atayim, Israel, will be joining Vancouver’s community Yom Hazikaron ceremony on April 29 and Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration on April 30. Another Nova survivor, Inbal Binder, from Petah Tikva, will be coming here as well, and she and Shifer will, among other activities, participate in the events, visit several local Jewish schools and address Federation’s Regional Communities Conference.
Also coming to Vancouver is Dr. Ilana Kwartin, chief executive officer of Healing Space Rishpon, where both Shifer and Binder have participated in workshops and treatments. She has some meetings lined up, but the Israel-related events are the main purpose of the visit.
“In addition, I’m happy to meet people one-on-one or book speaking engagements for groups, communities and teams, where we can share the story of our work and, through that, the story of Israel at this time,” she said.
Healing Space Rishpon was created by Dr. Lia Naor in response to the trauma caused by the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war. With Ra’anan Shaked, therapists and volunteers, Naor set up a centre at Ronit Farm in Sharon that operated for just over a month. With Patrizio Paoletti and Rani Oren, a permanent base was then established in Rishpon. Since Healing Space began, more than 140 therapists have given almost 60,000 hours to treating more than 20,000 people in 16 trauma-healing modalities.
Kwartin became CEO right after Oct. 7. She and her family live in Eliav, a yishuv she helped found, which is in the northern Negev, abutting the separation barrier.
“The Black Shabbat of Oct. 7 upended my life, like it did for so many others, and as we – individuals, families, communities and a nation – mourn, work to pick up the pieces, mend what can be repaired and rebuild where it cannot, I put my personal and professional background to use as the CEO of this one-of-a-kind haven,” she told the Independent.
Dr. Ilana Kwartin, chief executive officer of Healing Space Rishpon, is coming to Vancouver with Nova music festival survivors Raz Shifer and Inbal Binder for Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut. (photo from Healing Space Rishpon)
Kwartin was born in the former Soviet Union and made aliyah in 1987, growing up in Jerusalem. “As an officer in the IDF, I served as a tatzpitanit [spotter] in Nachal Oz and later as a founding commander of the Netzarim observation post, and the tragedy of the tatzpitaniyot struck me deeply,” she said, referring to the female military unit that warned of a potential terrorist attack and whose soldiers were among the first killed and kidnapped on Oct. 7.
With BAs in law and psychology from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Kwartin earned an MA in conflict resolution from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her book, Imprisoned, came from her PhD dissertation on honour-based confinement, which she did at Bar-Ilan University. The stories have inspired activist initiatives across Israel and informed legislation, she said.
Kwartin lectured in law at Sapir College, where she built their legal internship placement program and founded a centre of legal activism, A House of their Own. “More recently,” she said, “I spent three years on shlichut in Los Angeles as the director of Jewish Agency operations on the West Coast. With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, I traveled to the Ukrainian border to help rescue Jewish refugees and bring them to Israel.”
Kwartin’s work at Healing Space Rishpon changes every day. “The programs are so varied and cover many groups of the Israeli population,” she said. “But the most meaningful part is the people who work here – very similar to me, they left everything they were doing and started working at Healing Space to repair the emotional damage we all see around us. They work tirelessly, in uncertain conditions, long hours, doing the hardest work imaginable. It is thanks to the team that Healing Space makes such a big difference in people’s lives.”
Binder found out about Healing Space inadvertently.
“I had heard there was a treatment centre you could go to, but I wasn’t in a mental state that allowed me to reach out for it,” she explained.
“Later on, I was looking for something that could get me out of the house in the mornings and help create a daily routine. By chance, I came across an ad for a new rehabilitative employment program at Healing Space and it sounded amazing – working with my hands, being in a warm and supportive environment, where I could focus on myself and begin a new movement in my life.”
Binder worked as a beautician before Oct. 7 and, while not currently working, she is taking courses, most recently completing one in conscious psychotherapy. She started going to Healing Space early in the war. It “was the first time I realized that another way was possible – that someone was truly listening to me,” she said.
“More than that, I got to experience treatments I never imagined I’d try, like sound healing and yoga therapy. These are treatments I still do to this day, to help maintain my emotional balance and regulate my body.”
At Healing Space, she added, “Even my mom, who was never really drawn to holistic healing, found a deep connection with one of the therapists and opened her heart to her – that really moved me.”
A group gathered outside at Healing Space Rishpon. (photo from Healing Space)
From a place of not wanting to do anything or face anything, Binder said, “I now want to grow. I want to move forward and live a good life. And none of this would have happened without the process I went through over the past six months.”
Binder’s Vancouver visit will be the first time she is telling her story publicly.
“Honestly,” she said, “it’s a little overwhelming to come and talk about my healing journey. It also means recognizing my story – and that alone is a challenge for me. I feel both excited and nervous – telling my story for the first time and receiving acknowledgment for it.
“It’s important for people to hear about the massacre because it was a Holocaust repeating itself,” she said. “The Jewish people are once again in danger, and it’s crucial to echo these stories, to make sure people know and remember.
“Beyond that, the connection between Jews in Vancouver and Jews in Israel – to build strong, deep connections across Jewish communities around the world – that connection is what has always kept us strong as a people.”
Binder attended the Nova festival with her sisters.
“It was actually the first evening that my sister’s boyfriend was introduced to our parents,” she said. “From there, the four of us drove to the party in the south.
“In the morning, when the rockets started, I called my mom to let her know and said we were heading home. We got delayed near the party because one of our friends had a panic attack, and we waited with her.
“We made it to the car, but it took time to decide what to do. At 8:30 a.m., the boyfriend took the lead, called his father, picked us up in the car, and we escaped through the fields. His father navigated him over the phone throughout the whole drive, and that’s how we managed to get out safely. Which is crazy in itself – the reality was so different for so many others. It felt like we were in a divine bubble that protected us.”
“It was the scariest day of my life,” said Shifer of Oct. 7. “I didn’t know if I would make it back home or not, and I didn’t know which of my friends would survive. It was a feeling of helplessness, complete loss of control and sheer terror.”
Unlike Binder, who is only now beginning to share her story, Shifer – who is an actor, singer and artist – has been interviewed by media around the world and has spoken at schools, universities and synagogues.
“I also found myself advocating and telling our story through music during performances,” she said. “In addition, I led tours for people who came to the Nova site and shared my personal story with them.”
Initially, Shifer refused to leave her house after Oct. 7.
“Friends told me there was a place where survivors go to heal, but I was too afraid to go outside and couldn’t bring myself to get there,” she said. “Then, one day, a volunteer came to my home and helped me take that first step – to leave the house and arrive at Healing Space. From that day on, something opened up in me, and I began coming every week.”
Healing Space has helped Shifer cope with her trauma in many ways.
“First of all, the location,” she said. “You arrive at a place full of trees and greenery – everything is peaceful and calming.
“There’s something comforting about sitting among people who have been through something similar to me,” she continued. “The therapists at the centre are kind and embracing. The shared music circles helped me find my way back to music. But, more than anything, it’s the feeling that I’m not alone. That I am seen. That there’s a place that can hold me.”
People at Healing Space Rishpon have had similar experiences. (photo from Healing Space)
The body treatments have allowed Shifer to release some stress and start letting down her defences.
“The long-term project I joined under Healing Space gave me the tools to return to a routine and become an active human being again,” she said. “Healing Space is a deeply meaningful part of my recovery process – and I honestly don’t know what I would have done without them.”
To register to attend Yom Hazikaron or buy tickets ($18) for Yom Ha’atzmaut, visit jewishvancouver.com.
Claire Sicherman read from her book Imprint, about intergenerational trauma, at UBC Hillel on Jan. 21.(photo by Pat Johnson)
Understanding of intergenerational trauma has expanded in recent decades. Two granddaughters of Holocaust survivors discussed the larger phenomenon and their personal experiences recently at the University of British Columbia’s Hillel House, part of Hillel’s Holocaust Awareness Week.
Claire Sicherman, author, workshop facilitator and trauma-informed somatic writing coach, shared her experiences and read from her book, Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation, which was published in 2017. She was in conversation with Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, associate director of programs and community relations at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, which co-sponsored the Jan. 21 event with Hillel BC.
Sicherman attributed to psychologist Dr. Arielle Schwartz the definition of intergenerational trauma as the ways in which the unresolved experiences of traumas, losses and griefs of one generation can become a legacy that is passed down to the next generation.
“In other words,” said Sicherman, “the experiences of my grandparents are passed down through my parents to me.”
In addition to the “nurture” component of family legacies, there is the “nature” component of epigenetics, which Sicherman described as “the study of how genes turn on and off in response to environmental change.”
“I’ve heard it talked about like it’s sort of like light switches switching on and off in the body,” she explained. “Whatever switches switched on for my grandparents would then be switched on, passed down to my parent, passed down to me.”
Experts in the field say it’s not a biological prison, Sicherman said. “They are actually malleable, so what you’re born with, you are not necessarily stuck with. We do have the ability to change certain things. There is hope in that.”
Growing up, Sicherman knew little or nothing about inherited trauma.
“When I started reading about it, I began to understand that what was going on with me wasn’t really my fault or that it wasn’t really something wrong with me,” she said. “It was just that I was carrying this huge thing.”
Reading excerpts from her book, Sicherman recounted being “disconnected from my body.” The inherited trauma manifested as a nervous system on overdrive and a tendency to hypervigilance. She was always ready to bolt out the door, looking for exit signs, aware of potential dangers, unable to fully rest, and prone to stress and anxiety.
She said that untold stories often pass more powerfully from generation to generation than stories that are recounted.
“When you think about that,” said Sicherman, “it’s what we don’t talk about that has more weight. It’s the silence. It’s the secrets.… That’s why it’s also important to me to speak out about these things, because it’s healing that goes across generations.”
Her survivor grandparents thought they were protecting their children through silence, Sicherman said. In response, the second generation learned not to ask questions.
There were other silences. In addition to the limited discussion around the Holocaust, Sicherman did not learn until well into her own adulthood that, when she was 4 years old, her grandfather had taken his own life, and not died of a heart attack, as she had been led to believe.
As someone who writes about and works with others on issues of healing intergenerational trauma, she urges people to embrace the totality of what they have inherited.
“Aside from trauma, what are the legacies that your ancestors bring to you?” she asked. “What are the gifts? What are the strengths? That’s also an important question to ask yourself, and a way of connecting with Jewish heritage. What are the strengths of your lineage? Is it survival? Is it tenacity? Is it humour? Is it creativity? Those are questions that you can ask yourself.”
Her son, Ben Sicherman, a UBC student, was present and also spoke of his family’s legacy of trauma. He described struggling with anxiety when he was younger and learning mechanisms for addressing issues through his parents’ modeling. He also spoke of carrying the legacy of his ancestors in ways like choosing 18 as his hockey number, not only because it represents chai, life, but because the numbers on his great-grandmother’s Auschwitz tattoo added up to the number 18.
Intergenerational trauma is a major component of her life’s work, said Sicherman.
“I do feel a sense of obligation, as a third generation,” she said. “But I also feel like this is part of my calling, too. It’s very meaningful. It’s an obligation that is not homework. It’s part of what I was set out to do.”
If you were to write a personal “book of life” to express your aspirations for growth in the year ahead, what would its title be? (photo from thisenchantedpixie.org)
In the face of the immense sadness and devastation of the past 11 months, and the suffering that seems to know no bounds, I find it difficult to even register that Elul, the last month on the Jewish calendar, has arrived. But, as the Jewish year inevitably advances, I seek solace and meaning in two practices that have helped me prepare for new years past.
The first is writing my “book title,” for a family ritual we created years ago to facilitate the work of reflection, forgiveness and imagination that are core to themes of the High Holidays. The Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgies tie our teshuvah, our annual returning to our best selves, to our desire to be inscribed in a celestial “Book of Life.” Using this image, my family gathers around the Rosh Hashanah lunch table each year to share the titles of our personal “books of life” and to express our aspirations for growth and desires to be held accountable by one another in the year ahead.
The second is to dust off my shofar and sound the first blast, as I will continue to do, in keeping with tradition, each morning of the month of Elul, until the holidays arrive. Each day, I will I close my eyes and coax out the sounds that the shofar has been compared to: Sarah weeping for Isaac, a call to battle, the blasts that signal God’s presence on Mount Sinai, the callof justice that cracks open the hardness of the universe, the hardness in our hearts and in the hearts of our political leaders and awakens in us a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. By doing this, I hope I will be prepared, both physically and spiritually, for the full complement of 100 blasts, short and long, that will sound over the holidays themselves.
In the past, each of these rituals has given me hope, hope that change is possible, that I can do better, that collectively we can do better and that a better future is possible.
This Elul, I am finding it more difficult, as I imagine many of us are, to muster a feeling of hope. Last Elul, we could not have imagined the challenges of the past year: the slaughter of Oct. 7; the long and devastating war in Gaza; the plight of the hostages; the loss of friends and allies; the fractious polarization within the Jewish community; the rise in antisemitism. All of this on top of the many issues we continue to work on globally, from hunger to homelessness to climate change. Hope feels at best elusive; in our most cynical moments, it feels naïve.
Hope requires of us that we allow for the possibility of a variety of better futures, futures that are as yet unexperienced and perhaps even unimaginable. Hope requires that we acknowledge that a catastrophe that may feel imminent is not a forgone conclusion. Hope demands the humility to recognize that we just don’t know what will be, and the audacity to own our role in shaping it. Human imagination, intention and action forge a line between this present and the better future for which we long.
“People often confuse optimism and hope,” said Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l. “They sound similar. But, in fact, they’re very different. Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief that, if we work hard enough together, we can make things better. It needs no courage, just a certain naïvety to be an optimist. It needs a great deal of courage to have hope.… And hope is what transforms the human situation.”
In Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit describes a commitment to hope as essential to the work of activism toward social change. She shares example after example of times when the future (now history) unfolded because of the powerful imagination, agency and organizing of people who held on to hope. “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen,” she writes, “and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”
Elul reminds us that we don’t know what will happen but that we have the tools individually and collectively to shape the future. The practices of reflecting on the year past and imagining the year ahead that are built into the Jewish holiday cycle offer us the “spaciousness of uncertainty” we need that can spark hope and move us to action. I rely on my two Elul rituals to facilitate this process of reflection and imagination. Whether it’s journaling, reading, speaking to a colleague or friend, or listening to music, I’m sure that each of us has tools for creating space for the kind of reflection and imagination that makes hope, and the attendant action it demands, possible. And our hopefulness has the potential to inspire others. We can hold possibility for them when they feel discouraged and they can do the same for us.
Elul reflection pushes us to awaken ourselves to new possibilities even in the face of despair, fatigue, anger and overwhelm. And this awakening of hope makes it possible to act.
I consider my book title as I blow the shofar each morning in Elul. I’m leaning toward making it “Hope.”
Questions for reflection
• What practices or rituals will help awaken you to new possibilities this month and coming year?
• What is your book title for the coming year, and who do you want to share it with?
Rachel Jacoby Rosenfieldis chief executive officer of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America (hartman.org.il). Earlier this month, the Hebrew month of Elul, Olam (“a network of Jewish individuals and organizations committed to global service, international development and humanitarian aid” – olamtogether.org) asked her to share her thoughts as a profoundly challenging year for the Jewish people ended.
Batia Holini’s photo of Israeli soldiers sleeping on the floor of a grocery store near Kfar Aza on Oct. 8 is one of the works in the exhibit Album Darom. (photo by Gil Zohar)
Album Darom: Israeli Photographers in Tribute to the People of the Western Negev, which opened recently for a six-month temporary installation at the Petach Tikva Museum of Art, is the first group artistic endeavour in Israel to confront the tragedy of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and the subsequent Gaza War, now in its 10th month. The ambitious tripartite installation Album Darom (Hebrew for Southern Album) incorporates a Facebook diary; a printed book of photographs accompanied by essays (published by Yedioth Ahronoth); and the museum exhibit.
Initiated by Prof. Dana Arieli, dean of the faculty of design at the Holon Institute of Technology, together with chief curator Irena Gordon, the project showcases 150 photographs, art installations and texts documenting the story of the western Negev region before and after Oct. 7. The exhibit includes the perspectives of 107 photographers and artists. Some of the participants in the album are world-renowned, others are amateurs. Lavi Lipshitz, the youngest featured photographer, lost his life fighting in Gaza. His mother penned the text accompanyinghis images.
The works in the album represent different photographic practices: artistic, personal and some staged, the intense images are upsetting. As well they should be in confronting mass murder.
Before walking around a corner to see Lali Fruhelig’s gruesome 3-D installation suggesting a corpse sprawled on the floor of a living room, a sign cautions: “The exhibition contains some potentially disturbing contents. Viewer discretion is advised.”
Arieli, a history professor and a photographer who explores remembrance culture and cultural manifestations of trauma, began the Album Darom project shortly after the Gaza war broke out.
“When something’s traumatic, you have to work or do something,” she said.
Shocked by the murder of her friend Gideon Pauker from Kibbutz Nir Oz – who was killed just before his 80th birthday – she posted 100 daily historic and contemporary images of the Western Negev.
Initially, Arieli intended Album Darom to be exhibited at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai Museum just north of the Gaza Strip frontier. After the museum was damaged by rocket fire, this wasn’t feasible. Instead, she selected Petach Tikvah as the venue. She explained that the site – the first Yad Labanim memorial to fallen Israel Defence Forces soldiers from the War of Independence – is meant to be relevant to all Israelis. The museum offers free admission on Saturday, so observant Jews may visit on Shabbat.
Speaking to a group of journalists, Arieli compared Oct. 7 to the Nov. 4, 1995, assassination of then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. “Everyone is frozen in their memory of where they were,” she said.
Arieli and Gordon emphasized the intended cathartic nature of the exhibit. The two said the museum is a “safe space” and a “place for healing.” After experiencing the horrors of Oct. 7, Gordon found solace in this project, she added. “This is part of how we are coping with it all,” she said.
Miki Kratsman is one of the photographers whose depiction of his Oct. 7 nightmare is in the exhibit. Terrorists took his aunt Ophelia hostage from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. She was later released from Gaza in the November hostage exchange deal.
Kratsman’s photograph, “In Aunt Ophelia’s Neighbourhood,” captures a modest kibbutz home collapsing as it is immolated in a fireball.
“These are the kinds of things that need to be in a museum,” Arieli said of the photograph. “You’re looking at the destruction of Nir Oz.”
While vividly showing the devastation of the kibbutz, the burning home photograph is an enigma, and creates dialogue, she added.
But it is the human toll rather than the destroyed real estate that is most painful. Paradoxically, perhaps, Batia Holini’s peaceful photo of exhausted IDF soldiers sleeping on the floor of a grocery store near Kfar Aza on Oct. 8 hints at the savage warfare in which they have been engaged.
“Funeral of Five Members of the Kutz Family who were Murdered in Kfar Aza,” a photo by Avishag Shaar-Yashuv. (photo by Gil Zohar)
Avishag Shaar-Yashuv’s photograph, “Funeral of Five Members of the Kutz Family who were Murdered in Kfar Aza,” captures the searing emotion of the funeral of a family annihilated in the Hamas attack.
“I tried to focus and also wipe the tears at the same time,” Shaar-Yashuv said.
For this reviewer, the most symbolic part of the exhibit was a taxidermy display of a doe entitled “Bambi.” The exhibit references Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi: A Life in the Woods and the 1942 animated movie produced by Walt Disney. Metaphorically, the hapless baby deer represents both the Six Million victims of the Holocaust and the 1,200 people murdered on Oct. 7.
Viewing Album Darom, one could conclude that the myth of the state of Israel protecting its citizens has been shattered. Arguably, Israelis today are no more secure than their ancestors were facing the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903, the Hebron Massacre of 1929 or the Farhud in Baghdad in 1941.
Gil Zohar is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.
Co-authors Raja G. Khouri, left, and Jeffrey J. Wilkinson in a conversation at Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace June 13. (photo by Pat Johnson)
To bridge a divide between peoples, Jews and Palestinians need to listen and understand one another’s stories of trauma, according to two authors who spoke in Vancouver June 13.
“Not only do we not know each other’s narrative, we don’t want to know each other’s narrative,” said Raja G. Khouri. “We are resistant to the other’s narrative. Palestinians need to understand Jewish suffering and Jews need to understand Palestinian suffering.”
Khouri, founding president of the Canadian Arab Institute, is a Palestinian-Canadian. With Jeffrey J. Wilkinson, a Jewish American who lives in Canada, he wrote The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinians Don’t Want to Know About Each Other.
The two men have been engaged in ongoing dialogue around trauma and other topics related to Israel and Palestine. Their book was released four days before the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
Jewish trauma from the Holocaust and Palestinian trauma from the Nakba, or the “Catastrophe” of the 1948 war, replay in various ways among the peoples today, said Wilkinson, an educator who works on issues of trauma.
“It’s not about amount of loss,” said Wilkinson. “Six million Jews died, 750,000 Palestinians [were] displaced. That impact is not about the numbers. That impact is about that loss, that something being taken from you, that feeling of anger, resistance.”
The conversation, at Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace, was sponsored by Vancouver Friends of Standing Together, in partnership with several other organizations. Standing Together describes itself as “a progressive grassroots movement mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality and social justice.”
The authors acknowledge the chasms between the consensus Israeli and Palestinian narratives, while carefully noting that they did not claim to speak on behalf of their respective peoples.
“Zionists are saying 1967, 1967, 1967,” said Wilkinson, referring to the war that marks the beginning of what many consider “the occupation.”
“Palestinians are saying 1948, 1948, 1948. The two-state solution does nothing to address 1948,” Wilkinson said.
A two-state solution is not something either author views as a reasonable proposition, said Wilkinson – unless it is as a waystation to an alternative that neither author spelled out explicitly.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad solution and you can’t support it,” Wilkinson said of the idea of two states. “But I want you to frame it from the perspective of justice, and it does not address the injustice of Palestinians.”
While the evening – and the book – were billed as a conversation across barriers, the divide was not as big as advertised. Both authors view the existence of Israel as a problem to be solved.
“I believe that Zionism and my Judaism are not compatible,” Wilkinson said. “That does not lessen my compassion for the vast majority of my community who are somewhere on that journey but not where I am, and I embrace you as you walk through that.”
Wilkinson explicitly denounced the extremist rhetoric heard in some anti-Israel protests, such as calls to destroy Tel Aviv and telling Jews to “go back to Poland.”
Khouri said Palestinians believe that “the antisemitism label” has been misused to silence them.
“We both know that antisemitism is real and it’s dangerous,” he said. “But, to Palestinians, it is a weapon that has been used to silence criticism, or at least that’s what we believe. And it’s important to get that.”
Both men believe there is a misunderstanding around definitions of terms.
Israelis and their allies might hear the word “apartheid” and reject it.
“Lens the word from the person who is speaking,” Wilkinson advised, outlining how he views separate treatment of Palestinians as equivalent to the racist regime of 20th-century South Africa.
“Likewise with terms like genocide,” said Khouri. “We both avoided using the term for the longest time. But I can tell you there isn’t a Palestinian I know who isn’t convinced that this is absolute genocide because of the mass killing that is happening. Whether it meets the legal definition of genocide or not, it feels very much like genocide.”
The defensiveness that comes around these terms, they said, is a barrier to the peoples’ understanding of each other.
The flexibility of definitions extends to the term “intifada.”
“When you hear someone, say, we’re calling for intifada, ask them what they mean by this,” said Khouri. “Do you mean going and blowing up cafés and buses?”
Neither author offered their interpretation of the term.
The Oct. 7 attacks took place in a particular context, they said.
“If you fixate on Oct. 7 only, then you’re missing a big part of the picture,” said Khouri.
“That doesn’t mean you grieve less for the victims of Oct. 7,” Wilkinson said. “It doesn’t mean that.”
Avril Orloff, representing Vancouver Friends of Standing Together, emceed the event. Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, director of inter-religious studies and professor of Jewish studies at the Vancouver School of Theology provided a land acknowledgment and contextualized the discussion in the context of Shavuot, which was ending as the event began.
Some 130 women came out to play mahjong, bridge or canasta at National Council of Jewish Women Canada, Vancouver section’s Games Day on Feb. 15, raising almost $8,000 for the Israeli nonprofit ALUMA Counseling Centre. (photo by Adele Lewin Photography)
Last month, 130 women gathered for a Games Day Fundraiser for Israel, hosted by National Council of Jewish Women Canada, Vancouver section. Almost $8,000 was raised for the Israeli nonprofit ALUMA Counseling Centre.
The afternoon event on Jan. 21 was held at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and featured mahjong, bridge and canasta, offering participants a chance to connect with one another, while raising funds for ALUMA, so that help can be provided to the many families who need to start the healing process from the Oct. 7 terror attacks.
ALUMA, also known as IFCA, Israel Family Counselling Association, was established in Tel Aviv in 1954 and joined forces with NCJWC in 1973, said NCJWC national president Linda Steinberg.
“Golda Meir had the idea of twinning Israeli organizations needing financial assistance with women’s organizations abroad,” explained Steinberg. Dorothy Reitman, as president of NCJWC at the time, was contacted and this twinning was arranged through Carol Slater, who then lived in Israel. Slater was the chair of NCJWC’s Israel project ALUMA for 15 years.
ALUMA is a centre for counseling and treatment of couples, families and individuals, regardless of their place of residence, origin, religion or economic circumstances. It was a pioneer institution, the first such centre in Israel, said Steinberg. Most people receiving therapy pay what they can, if anything, and the professional therapists are volunteers, receiving little if any remuneration.
Steinberg noted that ALUMA is dependent on donations and NCJWC is the only Canadian organization providing financial support for the nonprofit. National members have supported ALUMA through fundraising teas, brunches and other events, and by yearly contributions as NCJWC members.
Oct. 7 has increased the need for trauma support in Israel and ALUMA has developed several models to meet this growing need, said Steinberg. “Most recently, their therapists have been training and mentoring new volunteers to help.”
Left to right are event co-chairs Lisa Boroditsky, Juleen Axler, Jordana Corenblum (NCJW Vancouver president) and Sandy Hazan. (Co-chair Jane Stoller is missing from photo.) (photo by Adele Lewin Photography)
Gadi Lifshitz, NCJWC’s contact and spokesperson for the staff at ALUMA, wrote a letter to Lisa Boroditsky, who was one of the chairs of the local games day event, along with Juleen Axler, Sandy Hazan, Lola Pawer and Jane Stoller. NCJWC Vancouver’s president is Jordana Corenblum.
“Dr. Orly Rubin, the director of the institute, and, on my own behalf, I want to thank your wonderful community for the continued contribution and support of ALUMA,” wrote Lifshitz. “First, I will tell you about a treatment process in which Dr. Rubin and I provided a group therapy to five friends in their 30s who, on that cursed Sabbath, simply decided to go to the kibbutzim that were under attack and help as much as they could,” wrote Lifshitz. “Without weapons and without orders from any official authority, they decided that they are going to help. During those hours, they witnessed terrible sights, helped evacuate the wounded and dead, and all this while helping each other and supporting each other.
“About two weeks after the events, they contacted us for help. We quickly developed for them a trauma intervention model for a group therapy. We accompanied them through several group and personal meetings until we felt that their emotional state had stabilized and that they could return to their day-to-day ‘life.’
“It was a very powerful process, which required a lot of commitment, sensitivity and thought from all of us,” wrote Lifshitz. “This is just one of the many examples of the effort we invest in ALUMA in supporting all the many trauma victims who contact us.
“We need your continued support in our journey to expand our services to those, the many, who need them and us today.”
