University of British Columbia

To heal a fractured campus

Last November, I interviewed my grandmother for an oral history project – one I had been meaning to do for a long time – about her experience surviving the Holocaust. As the grandson of two Holocaust survivors, I can affirm the reality of intergenerational trauma. Yet, as I listened to her story, I realized she was teaching me valuable, timeless lessons which the University of British Columbia community can apply on campus. That is why I am obligated to share her story – so that we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

My grandmother was 13 years young when her parents and most of her family were taken away from her and deported, either to be shot on their way to Bergen-Belsen or exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. My grandmother, my safta (as I call her in Hebrew), was a little girl, orphaned, vulnerable and left all alone. She had every right to be bitter and resentful, to identify herself as a perpetual victim and to rightfully blame the Nazis for her suffering. But she did not.

She could never forgive nor forget the evil perpetrated by the Nazis. However, with this in mind, she had to move on with her life. The way she redeemed tragedy was not to define herself as the victim of the past, asking, “Who did this to me?” but rather by taking responsibility for the future, asking, “Given these circumstances, how can I help to put this situation right?”

This is the greatest eternal lesson I have learned from my grandmother and all the Holocaust survivors I have met: never internalize a victim mentality. Otherwise, you will not only become consumed with hate but also enslaved to the past. As the late chief rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said, “To be free, you have to let go of hate.”

My grandmother took the negative energy and elevated it toward a higher purpose: toward marrying my grandfather, toward raising a family, toward giving back to her community. Her all-encompassing identity, attitude and purpose in life has been not based on the hate of others. Rather, her identity is based on the love of her fellow Jews, of being grateful for her heritage and everything else she had.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt once said. There was one thing from my grandmother that even the Nazis could never take away: her will to be proudly Jewish.

UBC campus today

For my grandmother, the Hamas massacre that took place on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered painful memories from the Holocaust. “Never again,” the lesson we learned from the six million Jews murdered, has now become “ever again.”

The amount of toxic hate I have seen on my campus (and other universities as well) since Oct. 7 has been both disheartening and overwhelming. From disrespectful comments on social media posts, to provocative posters on campus demonizing the other side, to verbal and physical harassment of students, there is a small, yet vocal, minority of students who create a highly flammable atmosphere on campus.

At UBC, I have witnessed students chanting the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a term that has historically been used in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not for “peaceful resistance,” but for terrorizing Jews with suicide bombings, shooting attacks, stabbings and other means of armed violence. I have witnessed students blacklisting other students because they do not agree with their opinions. I have witnessed students rudely spamming hateful comments (which are now taken down) on UBC’s social media page to take advantage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day to push a political message. When I hear that “hate has no place on campus,” I unfortunately continue to observe the opposite.

This is the reason why I dropped my Middle East studies minor. Every time I walked into the classroom, the negative energy was palpable. I was walking on eggshells bringing up my Jewish identity or even mentioning the word “Israel.” Every day, I had to hide my kippa under my hat so that my classmates with different viewpoints would not identify me as Jewish and publicly shame me. In short, I did not feel welcome.

At a university, a safe space should not be a place where you are protected by those with whom you agree from those with whom you disagree – that is called groupthink. Rather, a safe space should be a place where you make space for those who disagree with you so that each can listen to the other with respect.

Whether or not you agree with Israeli, Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim or any other claims, there is no justification whatsoever to scream, silence or slander those with whom you disagree. Right now, the university needs more civility and calm for all students.

Yes, we must acknowledge that there are significant casualties on both sides of the conflict. Yes, we must acknowledge each other’s suffering. At the very least, we can all agree that every human life is sacred with equal dignity.

While we cannot control external circumstances halfway across the world from us, we can control how we respond to it. We can choose to wallow in misery and demonize the other (asking “Who did this to me?”), or we can take action to recognize each other’s suffering and elevate it to something positive (asking “Given these circumstances, how can I help to put this situation right?”).

Now, how do we do that?

Listening, not labeling

Opening yourself up to someone whose colour, culture, class or creed is different from yours can seem daunting. In an age of echo chambers, filtered media and narrowcasting, we all have a tendency to tune in to that which aligns only with our own viewpoint, while tuning out others. However, it is precisely the people not like us that make us grow.

From clubs tabling on campus to classmates sitting next to you, there are plenty of opportunities to actively seek out diverse perspectives. We need to learn how to listen for the sake of learning, not labeling.

If one has a monopoly on the truth, then why bother listening to others? Because, as a mystical Jewish saying goes: “A full vessel cannot receive.” It is only by acquiring humility, the sense of opening ourselves up to something beyond ourselves, that we realize our own perspective is merely one finite fragment of an infinitely fractured truth. Thus, I’ve reflected on three ideas worth sharing.

First: there is no justice for any person or people without listening to the other side.

Second: true peace, in our relationships with others and toward ourselves, comes as a result of active listening.

And third: in the words of C.S. Lewis, “Humility is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.”

Listening to the other is the first step toward recognizing the “dignity of difference.”

The antidote to hate

Hate, like COVID-19, is a virus. Viruses do not distinguish between different types of people, but rather fester and grow into an infectious force that threatens us all. Historically, for example, the Nazi regime may have started with targeting Jews, but it didn’t end with Jews. Nazis also targeted Roma, Sinti, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities and political dissidents. Hate knows no bounds.

With this in mind, I offer three practical suggestions for what each of us can do on an everyday level to bring more hope to campus – and perhaps other places.

First, take a moment to unplug your AirPods or headphones. Just do it! Whether it’s while sitting on the bus or walking on campus, withdraw from your isolated world for five minutes and acknowledge someone you don’t know by saying hello with a genuine smile. Give them your full, undivided attention and start a friendly conversation. Humanizing starts with acknowledging the other.

Second, take a class from a perspective you have never heard from before. I am a history major. I had never considered taking an environmental history course before simply because I was not interested. But it is precisely for this reason that I am taking the course. Now, I realize how I could see my preexisting knowledge and interests from a new, oblique angle I would never have seen otherwise.

And third, follow social media accounts of people with different viewpoints from your own. Just like our earbuds, we are constantly using our phones. Every time we open Instagram or Twitter, we are training ourselves to focus on our interests and are quick to judge other accounts as not worth our time. Instead of judgment, be curious and interact with accounts to train yourself to learn from others, not label them.

We are first and foremost a community, of students and professors, of friends and family, of human beings with human emotions. Divided, we are more susceptible to hate. United, however, we have the potential to become force multipliers of hope over hate.

Each one of us should ask ourselves: Are we taking actions to further fracture our world, or heal it?

If we are to heal our fractured world, we must first recognize that each and every one of us has the power and influence to turn negative energy into positive energy, just like my grandmother did. If she could continue to spread light after going through the darkest chapter in human history, how much more so can every one of us dispel the darkness of hate by becoming beacons of light in our communities at UBC and elsewhere.

It all starts with one positive thought, one friendly compliment, one good deed.

It all starts with you.

Eitan Feiger is a fourth-year history student and the vice-president and treasurer of the University of British Columbia’s Chabad Jewish Student Centre. This article was originally published in the Ubyssey.

Provincial campuses roiling

On Nov. 1, about 200 Jewish students and their supporters engaged in a low-key demonstration at the University of British Columbia, with many holding posters of kidnapped Israelis. Since the terror attacks of Oct. 7 and the start of the Israel-Hamas war, universities and colleges worldwide have been hotbeds of conflict. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Jewish students and their supporters at the University of British Columbia celebrated a victory last week after the student government overwhelmingly rejected motions that critics say were openly antisemitic.

The Alma Mater Society (AMS), which represents UBC students, voted in the early hours of Feb. 29 not to include a number of referendum questions on the ballot during upcoming student elections.

One proposed question accused Israel of genocide and called for an end to UBC’s exchanges with Israeli institutions. It would have also invited students to vote on whether they believe Hillel BC, the organization that has represented Jewish students, faculty and staff at the university since 1947, should be evicted from campus. (Hillel’s lease is with the university and the AMS has no jurisdiction over whether Hillel does or does not remain on campus.) This question was rejected by a vote of 23 to 2.

A second proposed referendum question would have asked students to massively revamp the governing structure of the AMS, adding dozens of additional elected representatives of marginalized groups. The change would have assigned designated groups representation on student government, including the Social Justice Centre, UBC Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, UBC Trans Coalition, Black Student Union, Indigenous students, and the Women’s Centre. Explicitly excluded from representation were Jewish students and groups that represent them. This proposal was rejected 25-0.

Referendum questions can be submitted anonymously, so it is not known from which individuals or groups these proposals emerged, though they had support from the Social Justice Centre, which calls itself “a resource group that works toward progressive social change, inclusivity and equity through a survivor-centric, harm-reduction, radical, feminist, decolonial, anti-oppression framework.”

“I was very pleased and relieved that the AMS leadership chose not to include what I would say are very antisemitic referendum questions on the student voting ballots,” Rob Philipp, executive director of Hillel BC, told the Independent. The intention of the proposed ballot question was to intimidate Jewish students and the vote is a reassurance to Jewish students, he said. “It’s surprising that it took them close to five hours to discuss this. But the vote, in the end, was pretty overwhelming to turn it down, so that was very heartening for us.”

A few hours later, across town at Simon Fraser University, referendum results were announced, with an anti-Israel ballot question receiving overwhelming support. The compendious policy, adopted by the Simon Fraser Student Society in 2022, was put to a vote by the broader student population, endorsing the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and repeating the boilerplate condemnations of Zionism as “a colonial ideology” bent on “ethnically cleansing the Indigenous population.”

The referendum question passed 1,801-442 and, while the statement of results did not indicate percentage turnout, there are around 40,000 students at SFU. It appears perhaps one in 20 students voted in the elections, in which a new president was elected with a tally of 878 votes.

These are just two of the foremost fires the Jewish community has been attempting to put out on campuses across the province recently. Universities and colleges worldwide have been hotbeds of conflict since the atrocities of Oct. 7 and the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas. Administrators have struggled to balance preservation of free speech with often dangerously inflammatory, sometimes clearly antisemitic expressions. The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University were forced to resign after their remarks before a congressional hearing late last year were viewed as insufficiently condemnatory of overt calls for violence against Jews.

Philipp emphasized that postsecondary administrators in British Columbia have all been supportive of the Jewish community’s concerns – the administrations are not where the problems are coming from, although they are inevitably placed in the middle of these dramatic conflicts.

At Langara College, a months-long controversy over the fate of Natalie Knight, an English instructor who called the Oct. 7 mass murder of Israeli civilians “an amazing, brilliant offensive,” may not be over. Knight was put on leave while the college undertook an internal investigation. She returned to work, albeit in a non-instructional role, after the investigation determined her comments were “not clearly outside the bounds of protected expression.” She then spoke at a rally on campus, where she declared: “I’ve been reinstated as an instructor with no disciplinary actions, which means we won. It means we won. It means I did nothing wrong.”

Knight was then fired. While not mentioning her by name, the college said that an employee had engaged “in activities contrary to the expectations laid out by the college and as a result this employee is no longer an employee.” Her union has taken up her case.

Philipp commended Langara’s president, Dr. Paula Burns, for her leadership.

At Emily Carr University of Art and Design, some instructors have encouraged students to leave classes to attend pro-Palestinian rallies, and what Philipp calls “very, very aggressive posters” have appeared on campus. Hillel has been in conversation with administrators there.

“They understand the issue and they are in process right now of making changes to help protect the student body,” said Philipp.

“All our relationships are pretty strong,” he said of administrators at the many institutions at which Hillel BC has a presence, adding that he was recently in Victoria and had dinner with the president of the University of Victoria.

“These administrators,” he said, “are encountering very, very challenging situations that are really stressing their organizations at different levels. Nobody’s able to figure out exactly how to handle these very tricky situations.”

Hillel is also dealing with a lawsuit from the Social Justice Centre, about which they are unable to speak publicly except to say that an independent contractor, not acting on behalf of the organization, participated in the distribution of contentious stickers around the UBC campus. Hillel terminated its relationship with the contractor but is facing a case that attempts to hold the organization responsible.

These are not easy times for Jewish students, but, in some cases, individuals are finding resources they did not know they have.

Rachel Seguin, a graduate of Vancouver Talmud Torah elementary and King David High School and a second-year psychology student at UBC, has become an accidental activist.

“Since Oct. 7, I’ve seen a new part of me that I didn’t even know existed – neither did my parents, honestly,” she said. The anti-Israel actions of the Social Justice Centre and the repeated stonewalling by the AMS in response to her complaints have driven Seguin to become a public voice against antisemitism on campus, including addressing the council last week in opposition to the referendum proposals.

“I didn’t imagine myself doing something like that,” she said. The fact that the AMS did what Seguin believes is the right thing was, she said, “really refreshing and satisfying.”

Remembering, learning

Hillel BC’s Holocaust Education Week takes place on campus at the University of British Columbia Jan. 29-Feb. 2. Every day of that week, there will be something going on to attend and learn from, including the exhibit from Yad Vashem called Shoah: How Was It Humanly Possible?, which will be on display the whole week.

photo - Rachel Mines — Rachel Mines (photo from Hillel BC)

Jan. 29, 6 p.m.: Unheard Echoes: Jews in Lithuania Before, During and After the Holocaust. Presentations about the Jewish connection to Lithuania throughout history, focusing on the Holocaust, by Rachel Mines and Gene Homel, two members of the Lithuanian community. Register at forms.office.com/r/s4uAFqv8gc.

Jan. 30, 6 p.m.: Unheard Echoes: The Far Reach of the Holocaust in Asia. Ryan Sun is a PhD candidate in the department of history at UBC, working with Prof. Leo Shin and Prof. Richard Menkis. His transnational project expands the geography of Jewish exile outside Europe and beyond Shanghai, and onto the British colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore. He is particularly interested in Jewish refugees’ ship-bound experiences, how transiting colonial port-cities and encountering local inhabitants informed their understanding of “the Orient,” as well as how these ship-moments disrupt the standard narratives of the Holocaust and survivor testimonies. Register at forms.office.com/r/aQx4LG2Fhi.

photo - Ryan Sun — Ryan Sun *(photo from Hillel BC)*

Jan. 31, 5 p.m.: In a partnership between Hillel, brothers of the AEPi chapter of Vancouver and Chabad UBC, there will be a reading of the names of those who were murdered in the Holocaust. Meet at Hillel, then walk over to the fountain at the main mall, where the reading of the names will begin at 5:30 p.m. The reading can also be joined online, live on Hillel BC Facebook and Instagram, as well as the Instagram page for AEPi.

photo - Marie Doduck — Marie Doduck (photo from Hillel BC)

Feb. 1, 5 p.m.: A Fireside Chat and Q&A with Survivor Marie Doduck & Dr. Lauren Faulkner Rossi. Marie (Mariette) Rozen Doduck was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1935. She immigrated to Canada in 1947 as a war orphan with three of her siblings and settled in Vancouver. She is actively involved in Holocaust education and is a cofounder of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.

Rossi is currently researching child survivors of the Holocaust, the significance of their memoirs to Holocaust studies and the shared language of trauma among child survivors of different genocides.

Feb. 2, 5 p.m.: Students-only Shabbat Dinner with Honoured Guests: Holocaust Survivors will feature a candlelighting ceremony and survivors spread out among the dining tables with students. Students can register at forms.office.com/r/ayufQr3Zmy.

For more information or help with the registration links, email [email protected] or call 604-224-4748.

– Courtesy Hillel BC

Prof: “no choice but to resign”

Dr. Ted Rosenberg (photo from BC College of Family Physicians)

Ted Rosenberg has stepped down from his post as a clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine, citing an unsafe environment, following his repeated attempts to have the school do more to address antisemitism.

In a Jan. 1 letter to UBC, the award-winning geriatrician, who has taught at the medical school for more than 20 years – prior to that, he had a position at the University of Manitoba – wrote that because the faculty has failed to address concerns, he had “no choice but to resign.”

A tense atmosphere developed following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks when a petition titled “A Call for Action on Gaza” first appeared at the faculty of medicine and was signed by more than 225 of its students. The petition went beyond calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Rather, it condemned Israel as “a settler colonial state,” accused it of “collective punishment through indiscriminate bombing of civilians” and claimed that “Palestinian people have been continually abused, traumatized and killed by the settler state of Israel and its Western allies for over 75 years.”

In a Nov. 29 letter to UBC president Benoit-0Antoine Bacon, medicine faculty dean Dermot Kelleher and other top officials at the university, Rosenberg wrote, “This petition and other similar statements on campus, as well as the inaction by UBC, makes me wonder if antisemitism has become systemic in this institution.”

While praising UBC’s efforts to redress discrimination and promote diversity and inclusion, he asked, “Why do these efforts for diversity and inclusion come to an abrupt halt when it involves ‘including and protecting’ Jewish/Zionist students and faculty?” According to Rosenberg, the petition not only made him feel unsafe but also traumatized a medical student “who was left distressed, anxious and sleepless after reading it, and enduring the hostile reactions of colleagues and faculty.”

A Dec. 21 letter, co-signed with 283 other physicians – both Jewish and non-Jewish – stressed the growing polarization at the medical school due to events in the Middle East.

“This is resulting in hate speech, student intimidation and the feelings of many students and teachers that they are working in a toxic environment. Several of us have expressed concerns to you in writing and are waiting for specific responses,” the letter read.

The letter also called into question the validity of the anti-Israel petition, emphasizing that it contained several inaccuracies, caused deep divisions within the medical student community, and was one-sided and unrelated to medical care.

In requesting a response from university leadership to take action to protect the integrity of the medical school and the safety of medical students and staff, the letter urged that those who signed the petition “be made aware of the significance of their choice of contentious language.”

Additionally, the letter called on the offices of equity, diversity and inclusion (at both the university and the medical school) to receive sensitivity training regarding Jewish issues and antisemitism, encouraged the university to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, and asked the university to form a clear policy on the boundaries of free speech, “having zero tolerance for any speech that crosses the boundary to antisemitic or hate speech or language used to incite violence, either openly or covertly.”

Both letters received responses from Dean Kelleher of the medical school. Rosenberg, however deemed them inadequate. In the resignation letter, he said they “did not address any of our specific concerns re: the medical student’s petition, antisemitism within the faculty, or concerns that politicization and polarization of the Middle East conflict are creating a toxic work environment.

“I checked the recommended links to your and the president’s statements on respect and compassion…. Two words are conspicuously absent from all these documents: 1. Jew(ish) and 2. Antisemitism.”

Rosenberg added that he searched the websites for the offices of equity, diversity and inclusion at the university and the medical school for “antisemitism” and did not find the word included among the several anti’s that were mentioned.

In his most recent letter, Rosenberg said he lamented the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides, but denounced the “oversimplistic ahistorical demonizing narratives and rhetoric” taking place.

Rosenberg also expressed the hope “that the faculty of medicine and UBC will recognize this serious threat of antisemitism/Jew-hatred and the dangers of politicization and polarization of the faculty and student body.”

In his concluding remarks, he advised the school to consult with the physicians who collectively wrote the school leadership in December. “They can work with you to constructively, collaboratively and proactively rectify this situation and ultimately help restore respect, compassion, empathy and trust among colleagues and students,” he said.

Rosenberg told the CJN that he is aware of other faculty members who have considered resigning because of the present atmosphere at the medical school. Since his letter, he also has heard from people at the faculty who are prepared to do more to recognize antisemitism – and to do something about it when it appears at the school.

In response to a request for comment about Rosenberg’s resignation, a spokesperson for UBC wrote, “The faculty of medicine and the University of British Columbia have been very clear that antisemitism, or discrimination of any kind, is completely unacceptable. We are committed to creating a safe and respectful environment for all of our community members and will continue to take steps to do so.

“In response to concerns raised by faculty and learners, the faculty of medicine is also working expediently to develop educational opportunities for inclusive learning and respectful dialogue within the faculty in areas that directly reflect our stated values, including how we address issues such as discrimination, harassment and hate speech,” they added.

Rosenberg, a Victoria-based physician who makes house calls, is an advocate for keeping the elderly in their homes for as long as possible. His company, Home Team Medical Services, aims to improve quality of life and increase independence for older people and their families. The company provides home-based health care for people 75 to 105 with physiotherapists, rehabilitation aides and care coordinators, in addition to a team of nurses and physicians.

In 2016, Rosenberg received the BC College of Family Physicians Award of Exceptional Contribution in Family Medicine.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC. This article was originally published at thecjn.ca.

Rx for antisemitism?

A resident doctor in Vancouver was confronted by a fellow medical student demanding to know why Israel is exchanging three or more Palestinians for each Israeli hostage kidnapped by Hamas and held in the Gaza Strip. Is an individual Palestinian life of less value than a Jewish life? the student demanded.

This is one of many anecdotes making the rounds among Jewish doctors in British Columbia. These experiences, as well as an inflammatory anti-Israel letter signed by a sizeable number of University of British Columbia medical students, caused more than 100 doctors to assemble to discuss the issues Dec. 5.

“If the university doesn’t take these things seriously, I’m prepared to give up my UBC appointments,” said a Vancouver neurosurgeon who asked that their name not be used because they suspect activists would target them with vexatious complaints to professional governing bodies or harass them online or otherwise. “I don’t need to be associated with a university that does not speak out against antisemitism.”

Medical students in the province are trained in Indigenous awareness among other culturally relevant education, said the neurosurgeon.

“I consider myself to be part of the indigenous people of the land of Israel, and a minority,” the doctor said. “We’ve been labeled as settler-colonialists by a quarter of the medical students and our history has been completely ignored. I think those people should be forced to have some education about the indigenous people of Israel.”

The meeting, held at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, brought together about 50 doctors in person, with another 60 attending virtually. The neurosurgeon left uplifted after hearing from community leaders about strategies and actions being taken.

Addressing the meeting were Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, Nico Slobinsky, Pacific region vice-president for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and Ohad Gavrieli, assistant executive director of Hillel BC. The event was convened by Larry Barzelai, a recently retired family doctor, and Marla Gordon, a physician working in elder care and medical director for long-term care in Vancouver.

The gathering was a reunion of sorts, including some doctors who had been part of an informal cadre of Jews in the field who would get together informally a couple of times a year in recent decades. However, the turnout far exceeded expectations.

Gordon contacted Barzelai, thinking 10 or 20 doctors might want to get together over coffee. As of last week, 240 Jewish doctors, most of them in British Columbia, were part of a WhatsApp group of professionals concerned about antisemitism in their discipline, especially affecting younger doctors. About half attended last week’s event.

The letter that precipitated much of the meeting’s concern was signed by more than 300 UBC medical students – an estimated 20 to 25% of the total student body. The letter called on UBC’s new president, Benoit-

Antoine Bacon, to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but also called Israel a “settler state” that is “dispossessing Palestinians of their homes” and stated that Palestinian people “have been continually abused, traumatized, and killed by the settler state of Israel and its Western allies for over 75 years” through “colonialism and imperialism.”

Gordon said the doctors are asking for the medical school’s diversity, equity and inclusion education modules to address antisemitism.

“Just knowing that we are teaching these students who signed this letter, there is discomfort,” Gordon said. “We feel that everyone should be safe in their workplace. If you are a patient, you should feel safe getting care. What if one of your care providers had signed that letter and knows you’re Jewish?”

As much as the meeting had an agenda of fighting antisemitism and biased approaches to international affairs in the medical sector, Gordon said, it is also important for people to gather in mutual support when the community is feeling isolated.

Barzelai echoed Gordon, noting that several doctors told him that any future meetings should continue to be in person, or hybrid, rather than exclusively virtual, because the camaraderie was crucial.

“People are hurt,” said Barzelai. “They are having all sorts of negative experiences in their workplace, with the faculty, with other professors. They want to do something about it.”

Right now, the letter signed by hundreds of medical students is the foremost concern, he said.

“The fact that that many students would sign a letter I think shows the ignorance of the situation, or their lack of knowledge of what’s going on,” he said. “It just pointed to us that we need to educate these people, that it’s too easy to sign a letter and take sides. But the situation itself is a complex situation. To blithely sign a letter like that is kind of distressing. For us, as doctors, we think that people who get into medical school should have done some critical thinking to get there and would be a bit more nuanced about their opinions about the Middle East.”

A lawyer at the meeting stressed the importance of documenting each and every incident on campus, in the workplace or elsewhere. Pro bono legal assistance is available for students and an antisemitism hotline is likely to be operational in the new year.

An alternative letter, signed by Jewish and non-Jewish doctors and medical students, may be drafted and presented to university administrators. Successive meetings will determine next steps.

Food insecurity at UBC affects Jewish students, too

Food insecurity is a growing problem on the University of British Columbia campus. The Alma Mater Society (AMS) Food Bank saw a 600-visit spike in the past year. Around “40% of undergraduate students and 50% of graduate students said they were worried about running out of food at least once in the past 12 months,” according to the 2022 AMS Academic Experience Survey.

In an open letter to the UBC board of governors, UBC Sprouts highlighted how “[d]espite UBC’s self-proclaimed dedication to reconciliation and equity, they perpetuate food insecurity which disproportionately affects Black, Indigenous, racialized, immigrant, low-income, houseless and/or disabled UBC community members.”

However, Jewish students are also an underrepresented minority group that is subject to this inequity.

Keeping kosher has been one of my greatest personal, physical and spiritual challenges so far in my life. Finding meals on campus that nourish myself and that are within the dietary restrictions of kashrut, all while staying true to my faith and not compromising my values, has been an uphill battle.

As one representing hundreds of Jewish UBC students, I believe there needs to be more access to kosher food on campus.

In Hebrew, the word kosher means “fit” or “acceptable,” according to halakhah, which is Jewish law. Any food grown from the earth is naturally kosher. However, any food that has been processed and prepared by humans must be carefully supervised by an Orthodox rabbi.

You can think of keeping kosher as a form of hygiene. The facility, the kitchen and production line in which a product is manufactured, processed and prepared must be kept very clean – undergoing frequent checks by an Orthodox rabbi – and must avoid cross-contamination with non-kosher food (like pork and shellfish), all with zero signs of any animal infestations (like rats).

In Jewish tradition, mixing milk (representing life) with meat (representing death) is another big no-no. For example, I cannot eat a cheeseburger or order a meal at a café that cross-contaminates dairy utensils with meat utensils. So, even a restaurant that advertises as 100% vegetarian or vegan is not officially kosher until it strictly meets the dietary, hygienic and/or rabbinical supervision requirements above.

Many vendors throughout campus incidentally sell kosher, pre-packaged snacks with a hekhsher, an official certification by an Orthodox organization approving a product as kosher. Although pre-packaged snacks are available, they do not constitute a sufficient meal on their own. There needs to be fresh kosher meals that are healthy, ready-made and affordable.

Since last summer, I have been doggedly persistent at trying to improve vendor availability of kosher food at UBC. I had been in correspondence with UBC Hillel BC, Chabad Jewish Student Centre, UBC Food Services and UBC’s VP Finance and Operations team to arrange a supplier setup and establish “requestor” contact on campus, along with a potential supplier such as the vegan Kosher Experience food truck. But UBC’s bureaucratic system has delayed this process indefinitely.

Kosher food has the potential not only to serve Jewish students, but vegan, vegetarian and Muslim students as well.

While UBC food security initiatives like the UBC Meal Share program, AMS Food Bank, Sprouts, Acadia Food Hub, Agora Café, and the residence meal plan (which has provided some kosher meals since 2020 and kosher meals can be requested in advance, but are only available at designated times for students living in select residences) offer nutritional support for students facing food insecurity, none of them provides kosher-certified meals from a kosher-certified kitchen. For example, the dining halls collaborate with UBC Chabad “to provide support and consultation on kosher food availability at UBC,” but they do not provide kosher-certified meals from a kosher-certified kitchen, according to a statement.

Regarding the plethora of options above tackling food insecurity, one UBC student remarked, “I really like the diversity that the market offers. When I was walking by, you can see a lot of different ethnic foods, a lot of foods that people would enjoy.” Yet, the diversity of food options (such as halal) and the accommodation of dietary needs (such as gluten-free foods) at UBC happens to include everything except kosher-certified meals. Or, namely, it excludes Jewish students.

For many Jewish students applying to university, kosher food is the deciding factor in their enrolment. If other top Canadian universities, such as the University of Toronto or McGill University, offer access to kosher food, then why can’t UBC?

In my personal experience living off campus, there are some days where I wake up late, rush out the door with no meal and, with no access to kosher-certified meals on campus, go hungry throughout the day. I am tired of it.

With UBC’s recent approval of allocating $500,000 toward food security programs and the AMS’s recent launch of their food security initiative, the AMS Food Bank can establish a contract with the leading Orthodox kosher certification organization in British Columbia – Kosher Check – to supervise the preparation of kosher meals (such as falafel and sandwich wraps) in the facilities of the AMS Food Bank.

While establishing and maintaining a kosher kitchen may not be feasible, having access in the Nest to a microwave, refrigerator and a dry goods rack designated only for kosher-certified meals would be the first most practical action to take.

I stand tall and proud to share my identity with others on campus. But, if there is not even any access to kosher-certified meals on campus, it furthers the marginalization of Jewish students like myself.

If the AMS and the UBC are committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, then they must commit to making kosher-certified meals accessible on campus.

Eitan Feiger is a third-year history student at UBC

Editor’s note: The original version of this letter to the editor was published in the Ubyssey.

Decline of Polish Jewry

Dr. Kamil Kijek of the University of Wrocław, in Poland. (photo from University of British Columbia)

For Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, the question of where to begin life anew after the cataclysm was not as clear as it might seem in hindsight.

Looking back at the successive tragedies of postwar life for Jews in Poland, it might seem obvious that the blood-soaked homeland held little hope for the future. The choices for survivors limited their options, though, and the faith that, surely, the worst had passed played a role in the decision by tens of thousands to try rebuilding their families on the soil of their ancestors.

The disastrous history of Jews in postwar Poland was the subject of a special presentation at the University of British Columbia by Dr. Kamil Kijek, an assistant professor in the Jewish studies department at the University of Wrocław, in Poland. Speaking virtually from Poland to students in-class and to a wider audience online, Kijek addressed the decision faced by Polish Jewish communities to stay in or leave post-Holocaust Poland. He was speaking to a class led by Dr. Ania Switzer, a sessional lecturer at UBC, who was born in communist Poland and who is a translator and historian specializing in Jewish studies and Holocaust education.

“Most of Poland did not become the desert of Jewish life right away,” said Kijek. “It happened over time.”

About 50,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in Polish territory. In early 1946, about 136,000 Polish Jews returned from the Soviet Union, where they had survived the war, and a few thousand others found their way back from other parts of Europe. By July 1946, there were about 200,000 Jews in Poland, compared with about 3.3 million in 1938.

The vast majority of Jews who remained in or returned to Poland after the war did not take up life in the places they had been born. The borders of the country had shifted enormously, with the Soviets taking large swaths of what had been eastern Poland and Poland being compensated with formerly German lands in the west. Jews, along with other displaced Poles, were encouraged to take up residency in these newly acquired places in the west of the country, replacing Germans who were expelled.

“It is almost impossible to understand the tragedy of the people the moment when they are freed,” said Kijek. “We need to understand that the end of the war and so-called freedom actually was a time of psychological collapse for most of these people.… These people, when they come back to the places [of their origin], they see their whole communities destroyed and it’s the first time they are sure that most of their friends and family were killed.”

Significant American and other Western funds flowed into the Jewish communities of the country, intended to rebuild Jewish society there. Hebrew schools, synagogues and other institutions were constructed and supported by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and other international Jewish welfare and aid agencies.

The postwar period saw continuous upheaval in Poland, with civil war between pro- and anti-communist forces. It was not immediately clear that Poland would fall to communism, nor was it apparent at the time that, even if that did transpire, an Iron Curtain would fall across the continent. Polish Jews in the immediate aftermath of the war maintained close and supportive personal and institutional connections with family and Jewish organizations abroad. A degree of political pluralism revived before the country fell into the Soviet orbit.

Government oppression was not the only concern, though. On July 4, 1946, a pogrom in the southern Polish city of Kielce saw 42 Jews murdered and more than 40 injured. This was just the most deadly and well-known of a series of attacks against Jewish survivors after the war. The immediacy of antisemitic violence by their Polish neighbours disabused many Jews of the hope that they could rebuild a life in the country of their birth.

An exodus followed, but Kijek noted that, while contemporary observers might have seen abandoning Poland as an obvious choice, for people then, there were many considerations. They may not have had any money to facilitate relocation. At middle age or later, it might be natural to resist relocating to a place where one’s language is not spoken and one’s work experience is not transferable. And the prewar barriers that left European Jews to their fate remained largely in place: Western countries still did not open their borders to refugees.

Events unfolded quickly as the communists gained the upper hand in the country, the Cold War arose and the state of Israel was founded, providing at least a place where fleeing Polish Jews could find a welcome.

About 100,000 Jews were still in Poland in 1948, when an estimated 30,000 made aliyah. There was a tremendous amount of judgment, even suggestions of sedition, toward Jews who remained in Poland when Israel existed as an alternative, said Kijek.

“For Zionist leaders, any decision to stay in Poland was an act of a kind of national treason or an act of not understanding the lessons of the Holocaust,” he said, adding that those who remained were not all driven by ideological commitment to communism. The remaining Polish Jews represented a cross-section of Jewish society, including Orthodox, socialist and Zionist individuals. Eventually, even Zionist organizations accepted that not all Jews would make aliyah.

About one-third of Polish Jews who survived the war remained in Poland by 1950, but the emergence of the Cold War isolated them from Jews worldwide.

“All these ties are suddenly cut off in the end of 1948 and 1949,” said Kijek. The burgeoning of Hebrew schools and Jewish cultural organizations was stanched by a communist crackdown on “Zionist” institutions. The state nationalized much of the Jewish community’s remaining assets.

A liberalization occurred after the Stalin era and a number of Jews were able to flee Poland in the late 1950s. Those Jews who remained in Poland into the 1960s were, to a large extent, living a non-Jewish life and may have believed that their identity was no longer a barrier to whatever success they could attain in the country. However, following the 1967 Six Day War, in which Soviet-backed Arab countries were defeated by Israel, and 1968 student demonstrations that posed a genuine threat to the continued dominance of the communist regime, the scapegoat of “Zionism” emerged again, with Jews being accused of disloyalty to Poland, some being forced from their jobs, and the final mass exodus of Polish Jews occurred.

When the communist regime fell, in 1989, there were an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Jews in Poland, the last remaining of a millennia-old civilization.

Holocaust by bullets

The harrowing history of Ukraine’s past was recounted recently in the annual lecture honouring Rudolf Vrba, the late Vancouver scientist whose 1944 escape from Auschwitz brought the most concrete proof of the Nazi “Final Solution” to the world.

Dr. Nataliia Ivchyk delivered the 2023 Rudolf Vrba Memorial Lecture, titled The Holocaust in Ukraine: Violence, Gender and Memory. Ivchyk is at the University of British Columbia on a visiting fellowship that was created by Dr. Richard Menkis and Dr. Heidi Tworek to bring to Vancouver a Ukrainian scholar at risk. Ivchyk is associate professor in the department of political sciences at Rivne State University for the Humanities in her hometown of Rivne, Ukraine, and her work is focused on public history and memory politics.

Ivchyk’s presentation was based on survivor testimonies held at the USC Shoah Foundation, and narrowed in on the experiences of Jews in the western Ukrainian region of Volhynia and Podilia. Of the approximately 27,000 Jews who lived in Rivne (then known as Rovno) in 1937, it is estimated that just around 1,200 survived to the 1944 liberation by the Red Army. In a single day, on Nov. 6, 1941, about 21,000 Jews were murdered by Einsatzgruppe C and Ukrainian collaborators. The surviving Jews were imprisoned in the Rovno Ghetto, which was created the following month. In July 1942, remaining Jews, about 5,000, were transported to a stone quarry and murdered.

About 1.5 million Jews died in Ukrainian territory during the war years, most of them shot in what has been called the “Holocaust by bullets.”

“The Holocaust has long remained on the margins of collective memory in Ukraine,” said Ivchyk. Babyn Yar, a ravine outside Kyiv where more than 33,000 Jews were murdered over two days in 1941, has become a national symbol of Holocaust remembrance, she said. “However, the local level of remembrance remained low.”

There are many other sites of atrocities that were committed in Ukraine. “Some are marked by monuments, others are still forgotten and lost,” she said.

Of the several thousand Jews who survived the initial mass executions, anyone over the age of 13 was forced into slave labour.

“Nobody wanted to work for the Germans,” Ivchyk quoted one survivor, “but we had to. We hoped it would somehow balance our relationship with the Germans and would help us survive.”

Violence against women was mainly carried out by Ukrainian collaborators, she said, though Nazis also took part.

“I remember many times Germans came at night, knocked on the windows, took away beautiful girls,” Ivchyk quoted a survivor. “Sometimes, they raped and killed them right away. Sometimes, they said we will come again.”

Rabbis became a particular target of violence against men, given their social and symbolic status, and their role as spiritual leaders.

In the Soviet era, historical memorialization was subordinated to the priorities of the regime.

“The Holodomor [the deliberate Soviet famine that killed millions of Ukrainians], the deportation of Crimean Tatars, the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma – all of these events were suppressed in collective memory by the Soviet regime,” she said.

Today, support in Ukraine for Holocaust memorialization is ambivalent.

“The activities of the state today do not prohibit academic, educational or public activities in the field of Holocaust remembrance, but neither does it act as a financial or ideological initiator,” she said.

The Vrba event was funded by the Holocaust education committee of UBC’s department of history, which is responsible for the annual lecture, as well as a number of other organizations, including the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics.

Menkis, associate professor of modern Jewish history at UBC and chair of the Holocaust education committee, noted that the event recognizes Vrba’s contributions to two primary areas to which Vrba’s life was devoted: Holocaust education and science, particularly pharmacology. The annual lectures alternate between these topics.

Menkis told the audience how Vrba and his friend Alfréd Wetzler made the momentous decision to escape from Auschwitz after overhearing conversations around the planned deportation of Hungarian Jewry. After a difficult and dangerous trek, the pair reached northern Slovakia, where they compiled a report documenting the layout of Auschwitz and the extermination process there.

“Although the report is credited with saving many lives,” said Menkis, “Vrba and Wetzler were keenly aware that more decisive action could have saved more. After the war, Dr. Vrba continued to speak about Auschwitz and his experiences. His book, I Cannot Forgive, written with Alan Bestic, was first published in 1963 and has been issued in a number of translations and re-editions since. He is also well known for his unforgettable testimony in Claude Lanzmann’s [documentary film] Shoah and perhaps less well-known but also important was his effective testimony in the Canadian trials against Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.”

Vrba’s widow, Robin, attended the event virtually. Vrba died in 2006.

Two modern-day Maccabees

On Nov. 24, Chabad UBC invited two former Israel Defence Forces soldiers to the Nest on the University of British Columbia campus to speak about their personal stories and life lessons from serving in the army.

Amit Shmuel, a former soldier in the elite Palchan unit, and Matan Roettger, a former soldier in the Kfir Brigade, shared some of their experiences in service; stories of their courage and the sacrifice they made protecting and defending the state of Israel, and especially of their perseverance in the face of suffering and adversity. Both suffered career-ending injuries in the line of duty, and their strength and resilience to mentally and physically recover from their trauma were remarkable.

The two soldiers were at UBC as part of a larger tour of college campuses all across North America, along with Belev Echad, an organization dedicated to providing financial and moral support to IDF veterans wounded in action and to easing their transition back into civilian life.

The local event was sponsored by Hasbara Fellowships, which helps train young student leaders to become Israel ambassadors and activists on campus. As a Hasbara Fellow myself and having firsthand experience in Israel, I found the stories of Shmuel and Roettger to accurately represent the victory of hope over despair, the value of the sanctity of life, freedom and dignity that have been deeply encoded in the fabric of Israeli society and the Jewish community worldwide.

Just as the Maccabees 2,000 years ago rededicated the Second Temple from destruction to restoration, so too did these two modern-day Maccabees rededicate their lives from tragedy to triumph. They inspire us to not focus on what we cannot control, but rather on what we can: to elevate our attitude and response toward life’s misfortunes by sharing with others our light of faith and hope for a brighter future.

Eitan Feiger is a student at the University of British Columbia, class of 2024.

The effects of isolation

How technology can connect people and reduce social isolation was the topic of the Jewish Seniors Alliance’s fall symposium. (photo from pixnio.com)

At the fall symposium of the Jewish Seniors Alliance, which took place on Zoom Nov. 21, attendees heard from experts on the topic Triumphs and Trials Using Technology: Social Isolation Among Older Adults.

Dr. Kristen Haase, assistant professor of applied science at the University of British Columbia School of Nursing, and Dr. Megan O’Connell, professor of geriatric psychology at the University of Saskatchewan, were welcomed by Gyda Chud, co-president of Jewish Seniors Alliance. Chud pointed out that this session related to the key pillars of JSA:

Outreach: to seniors in the community.
Education: we can learn from the professors’ study results.
Peer support: JSA has projects that help combat loneliness and isolation.

Of their study on social isolation among older adults during the pandemic, Haase said they wanted to explore how the inability to interact in person during the pandemic has impacted seniors. She mentioned that two scientific publications – The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association – had commented on the detrimental effect of isolation on seniors. Haase and O’Connell wanted to look at the effects and what could be done to alleviate them.

There is empirical evidence that social isolation impacts mental, physical and cognitive health. Since technology can facilitate social connection, the idea was to train older adults to use these facilities to lessen their isolation. Use of both the telephone and Zoom was embraced by many older adults, and even those people with some cognitive impairment could be trained to use Zoom and other such tools.

Haase and O’Connell reached out to groups and individuals in British Columbia and Saskatchewan for participants. Four hundred individuals and 41 seniors groups were involved in the study, including JSA. Two of the questions were: How did they change their programs? and How did they maintain social connections?

Some groups opted to meet outdoors. The advent of a vaccine helped alleviate some fears. One of the findings was that introverted people, as well as those who lived in rural areas and those who had family nearby, fared better than more extroverted people.

Many community groups rose to the challenge and introduced new technology to their members. In addition to providing training, they also kept in touch with frail members. In rural areas, where broadband access was problematic, groups had to make major use of the telephone. A 1-800 line was purchased to facilitate contact in these areas. These types of disparities in access were highlighted by the pandemic.

A few community groups closed during COVID, but many rose to the occasion by staying in regular contact, providing iPads to clients and helping them learn how to use them.

Haase and O’Connell then turned to the audience for any questions or other information that would help with their research.

One question was how do we find the truly isolated, as we usually rely on people to self-identify if they are in need. The poser of that question, Larry Shapiro, pointed out that, in the United Kingdom, they use the postal service to check on isolated individuals.

Another issue raised was whether groups should continue with a hybrid model of services – this would involve in-person events plus a Zoom possibility. Hybrid models make programming more accessible for those who are ill or who have a disability that impedes mobility. As well, many older adults are still fearful and need help to re-enter society. Funding would be needed to facilitate such programs.

Tammi Belfer thanked the speakers for their research, which was helping improve the lives of older adults.

Shanie Levin is program coordinator for Jewish Seniors Alliance and on the editorial board of Senior Line magazine.