Matthew Gindin

Value in mentorship

T-Jex after-school supplementary program is a partnership between Schara Tzedeck Synagogue and Shalhevet Girls High School, where the older students mentor the younger. (photo from Shalhevet)

When friends approached Gila Ross several years ago to start a new Hebrew school in Vancouver, Ross turned for inspiration to a program she had previously run in Calgary for college students, refitting it for children.

The program, T-Jex – the Jewish Experience – is built around mentorship and is based out of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue. Vancouver’s Orthodox Shalhevet Girls High School (grades 8 to 12) sends carefully selected mentor volunteers to T-Jex to work one-on-one with students or in groups of two or three. The mentors work predominantly on building Hebrew-language skills with the children. Children also learn as a class with Ross, who is the main teacher and program director, and takes the lead teaching Jewish values, holidays and Torah study.

T-Jex, now in its fifth year, involves about 10 students a year. “It is an amazing opportunity,” Rivka Abramchik, principal of Shalhevet, told the Jewish Independent. “A big part of the Shalhevet curriculum, and the goals we set for our students during the five years they are with us, is to stand up and take leadership. This is an opportunity to take responsibility, to learn the concept of giving back to the community.”

She added, “The girls get to really see how one person can make a meaningful impact. T-Jex so beautifully intertwines with the desire the girls have to be part of Jewish continuity and gives them a chance to give in a way which also gives to the girls themselves. It’s a big commitment – to give up 90 to 130 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon is give up a lot of time for these girls. You would think teenagers would be reluctant but, actually, the idea of teaching a child, students get more inspired than you might think. We have repeats every year.”

Ross gives a presentation at Shalhevet annually to introduce the program to the school’s new students. The importance of committing for a whole year is stressed, as is the importance of engagement, motivation and responsibility.

“I really enjoy working with the kids at T-Jex,” said Grade 11 student Hadassa Estrin. “The gratifying feeling you get when you see them learning about their heritage is so special … like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.”

“Most of our students have been coming from word of mouth, from all over Vancouver and from across the Jewish spectrum,” said Ross. “They have heard from others that kids enjoy coming.”

Ross started a Facebook group for Jewish moms a year or so ago, which has become a virtual community. The group has also helped spread word about the Hebrew school.

Ross, who has six kids of her own, is the youth director at Schara Tzedeck, where she has spearheaded the synagogue’s Families That Give social action projects. She also teaches at Torah High, an after-school program, and works with her husband, Rabbi Samuel Ross, the director of Vancouver National Conference of Synagogue Youth.

“The most wonderful thing to see,” said Ross, “is the students wanting to be here and having fun. To see them take joy in learning and Jewish activities is what it’s all about.”

For more information, visit scharatzedeck.com/education-learning/t-jex-2.

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

Mosaics change our views

Dr. Ra’anan Boustan of Princeton University delivers the Itta and Eliezer Zeisler Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia on March 23. (photo by Gregg Gardner)

A mosaic from Late Antiquity has lessons for Jewish communities today. According to Dr. Ra’anan Boustan of Princeton University, “Jewish identity, historically, was broader, more porous, and integrated more non-Jewish elements than we might think, and, likewise today, we should not hasten to essentialize or rigidly define Jewish identity or culture.”

Boustan offered this insight when delivering the Itta and Eliezer Zeisler Memorial Lecture at the University of British Columbia on March 23. Called Greek Kings and Judaean Priests in the Late Antique Synagogue: The Newly Discovered “Elephant Mosaic,” Boustan’s visit was presented by the Archeological Institute of America, Vancouver Society, and co-sponsored by the UBC Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics, and the department of classical, Near Eastern and religious studies (CNERS).

A 2011 dig led by archeologist Jodi Magness excavated several sections at the site of a former village, Huqoq, near the Sea of Galilee. Among the items uncovered was a mosaic that is said to have adorned the floor of an elaborate 1,600-year-old synagogue.

“The discovery of the mosaic was a major find,” Prof. Gregg Gardner of CNERS told the Jewish Independent. “There are very few mosaics from the ancient world that depict biblical scenes.”

The mosaics’ scenes include Samson fighting the Philistines, Noah and the flood, the destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, and others. A particularly noteworthy element is that the mosaics also show images from Greek history and mythology. “This confluence of biblical and Greek imagery was quite surprising,” said Gardner.

Boustan was in Vancouver to talk about the “Elephant Panel,” which depicts a battle between unknown actors. Although some have argued that the panel represents Alexander the Great, Boustan interprets the mosaic as the depiction of a Seleucid attack on Jerusalem led by King Antiochus VII in 132 BC. “It shows they had a sense of historical connection to predecessors in a more robust way than we might have expected, and wanted to have that memorialized in synagogue art. This shows a historical consciousness, not just the timeless world of rabbis and scriptural interpretation developing in the Talmud of the same period.”

Boustan is a specialist in Judaism in Late Antiquity (circa 200-700 CE) who has focused particularly on understanding “extra-rabbinic culture,” the Judaism that existed outside of what was preserved in the narratives of the rabbis. “The rabbinic writings – the Talmud, the Midrash – preserve the world through their eyes, what they thought was important and how they wanted things to be viewed. The rabbis did not represent all Jews or all Judaism, and the wider Jewish world may have had different viewpoints and priorities.”

Boustan has focused on studying the piyyutim (hymns) written and preserved outside the rabbinic canon and containing some unusual theological ideas, as well as on apocalyptic and mystical literature, which flourished on the fertile edge between Jewish and non-Jewish cultures.

“The mosaic is important for understanding the history of Jews and Judaism and gives us something to think about in terms of Jews living in the Western world today,” he said, noting the broader and more porous nature of Jewish identity in those times, and how we shouldn’t be in a hurry to “rigidly define Jewish identity or culture.”

For example, Boustan explained, “The figural art we are finding at Huqoq and elsewhere upends some of our assumptions that, classically, Jews didn’t do that. In fact, we’ve found many small villages of one to two thousand habitants who built very expensive buildings containing a mixture of folk art and world-class art. In Huqoq, the art is imperial-quality work, which would not be surprising to find in a major landowner’s villa in Antioch. Yet, there it is, being commissioned, paid for and used by a farming village of maybe 2,000 people. That tells us we have a lot more to learn about the Jews of Late Antiquity.”

He noted, “In addition, the synagogue art contains a zodiac wheel with a figure of the sun god, Helios, in the centre. What’s going on there? Is it just a decoration? Was it actually part of religious worship in the synagogue? Was it seen allegorically as a poetic representation of God?

“Helios imagery was adopted by Christians in the third century, along with many other Greek religious symbols,” he said. “As the Greco-Roman world Christianized, however, they distanced themselves from ‘pagan’ imagery. By the late fourth to seventh [century], Jews are the only ones actively cultivating zodiacal and Helios imagery. Ironically, if you find a building with Helios imagery from that period, it’s almost definitely a synagogue.”

The mosaics can be viewed in detail at nationalgeographic.org/news/huqoq-excavation-project.

Overview of the Pale

Jewish Genealogical Society of British Columbia member Danny Gelmon, left, speaks with Hal Bookbinder. (photo Stephen Falk)

Why Did Our Ancestors Leave a Nice Place Like the Pale? That was the title of Hal Bookbinder’s March 14 talk at Temple Sholom.

Bookbinder was hosted in Vancouver by the Jewish Genealogical Society of British Columbia (JGenBC). He is involved with JewishGen, JewishGen Ukraine and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles. He has published numerous articles on research techniques, Jewish history, and border changes; the latter a matter of particular import to Ashkenazi Jews researching their families’ histories in Eastern Europe. A former president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, Bookbinder was honoured in 2010 with the association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

On March 14, Bookbinder gave a detailed and insightful presentation, all without using notes. “Pale comes from the Latin palus for a stake, the stakes which were used to mark off an area.” he explained. “It was also used for the English Pale, a territory within Ireland controlled by the English. The Pale of Jewish Settlement in western Russia was a territory within the borders of Czarist Russia where Jews were allowed to live.”

Bookbinder said, “Limits on the area in which Jews could live came into being when Russia attempted to integrate Jews into the expanding country, from which Jews had been excluded since the end of the 15th century.” From 1791 until 1915, he said, the majority of Jews living in Eastern Europe were confined by the czars of Russia within the “Pale of Settlement.”

Bookbinder broke up the history of the Pale into six periods, each approximately 25 years long: creation, confinement, oppression, enlightenment, pogroms and chaos. The first era, that of creation, arose from Russia’s westward march to seize new territories in Belarus, Poland and Ukraine, he explained. Russia didn’t want Jews within its borders, but, as it expanded its empire westward, it came to be responsible for millions of them, creating a “Jewish question” for itself.

Catherine the Great (who reigned 1762-1796) responded by ruling that Jews should stay in the Pale. The confinement era intensified efforts to keep the Jews in the Pale, so as not to “infect our good Eastern Orthodox brethren,” explained Bookbinder. During this era, Catherine the Great’s son, Paul I, initiated a new program aimed at assimilating Jews into Christian culture by making their lives so miserable they would rather convert than remain as they were.

This led to the period of the cantonists, during which Jewish boys were drafted into the Russian army. Some did convert, though most did not. Large numbers died from mistreatment, neglect and malnourishment. The military schools provided army training as well as a rudimentary education. Discipline was maintained by the threat of starvation and corporal punishment. At the age of 18, pupils were drafted to regular army units, where they served for 25 years. Enlistment for the cantonist institutions, which originated in the 17th century, was most rigorously enforced during the reigns of Paul I’s son Alexander I (reigned 1801–1825) and Nicholas I (reigned 1825–1855), said Bookbinder. It is estimated that around 40,000 Jewish children were stolen from their families during this period. The practice was abolished in 1856 under Alexander II (reigned 1855-1881).

Czar Alexander II took a more “enlightened” approach, continuing to seek the conversion and assimilation of Jews through gentler methods. Czar Alexander III, a rabid antisemite like his grandfather, initiated the era of pogroms after he came to power in 1881.

Starting in 1905, with the ascension of Nicholas II, the chaos period began. “Russia was in ferment,” said Bookbinder, “and it was the era of assassination attempts, the Bolsheviks, fighting between the Red Army and the White Army, the Cossacks – creating a situation that was so unpleasant that it prompted many of our ancestors to leave.”

But, Bookbinder asked, “Why did they leave then? They had lived through so many horrors, and this was far from the worst they had seen. I think it is because, during the more enlightened era of Czar Alexander II, our ancestors got a taste of a more dignified, more secure existence and took courage. When things descended again into chaos, they had had enough, and many escaped Russia.”

No simple dichotomy

Amna Farooqi speaks at Temple Sholom during her March 13-14 visit to Vancouver. (photo by David Berson)

Amna Farooqi, a rising peace activist who aims to transcend the division between being pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, was in Vancouver March 13-14 to speak at Temple Sholom and at the University of British Columbia.

Last year, Farooqi, a Muslim-American woman from a Pakistani family, made international headlines when she was elected head of J Street U, the student organizing arm of J Street, which calls itself “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.” She presents a unique perspective: she is against the boycott, divestment and sanction movement and is pro-Zionist, while also being against the occupation, critical of settlements and deeply concerned for Palestinian dignity and human rights. Temple Sholom, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, Or Shalom, Ameinu Canada and JSpaceCanada sponsored her visit to Vancouver.

Farooqi, who finished her term at J Street U as she graduated from the University of Maryland, continues to be active in J Street and spoke at their annual conference last month, which also included Bernie Sanders as a speaker.

Farooqi told the Jewish Independent that she grew up in a religious but progressive Muslim home where politics were a constant topic of discussion. “Have tea and talk politics,” she said. “Very much like Israelis.”

After 9/11, the topics shifted from things happening in India, Pakistan and throughout the Muslim world to American politics and the condition of American Muslims, she said. “In middle school, I began wearing a headscarf to school. I liked wearing the hijab to provoke conversation, and to say that one can be Muslim and American, one does not have to choose one or the other.”

In high school, Farooqi, who had been raised with a concern for Palestinians, began learning more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and fiercely sided with the Palestinians. In 2011, when the Palestine Liberation Organization made a bid for statehood at the United Nations, Farooqi supported it and found herself in an emotional fight with a Jewish friend that came to raised voices and tears. “I realized then that I did not know enough about the conflict,” she said.

Farooqi took Israeli studies courses in college, heeding her parents’ advice that the situation was complex and she should refrain from becoming involved in the debate unless she first studied it in detail. Farooqi’s turning point came when one of her professors had students take part in an involved role-playing exercise, where pro-Palestinian students studied and defended a Zionist (hers was David Ben-Gurion) and pro-Israel students the opposite. This was the beginning, she said, of her “falling in love with Zionism,” without losing her deep concern for the Palestinians.

Over time, Farooqi got more involved with the J Street U chapter at her university, and she spent a semester abroad in Israel studying at Hebrew University, as part of an international student exchange program; the first of several trips.

“My first trip to Israel was an emotionally intense experience from start to finish,” she told the Independent. “There is not a moment in Jerusalem where you are not exposed to diverse perspectives. Everywhere you go there is history, tragedy and beauty.”

She had a Passover seder with a settler family and dined with families in the West Bank. “I remember one visit to the West Bank with some Jews concerned about Palestinian human rights. We visited one family bringing gifts. A young Palestinian child approached my Jewish friends with wonder, and said, ‘You are Jews?’ Bewildered, the child pointed to a nearby house of settlers. ‘But they are Jews.’”

Asked what she perceives as the way forward in today’s increasingly volatile climate, Farooqi said, “It’s a difficult moment. I think the path forward lies in investing in civil society on all sides. None of the governments involved is in a position to show real leadership at the moment.”

Farooqi said the key will lie in building relationships on the ground and in looking at a holistic picture of what drives people on both sides whose behaviour is bstructing peace. “You cannot understand settlers unless you understand the need for affordable housing in Israel,” she said, “and you cannot understand Palestinians who join Hamas unless you understand it may be the only way for them to put food on the table.”

Farooqi said she is excited by the rise of a new Sephardi left in Israel, which she hopes will help inspire a “new, young left” in the country, with ideas that go beyond those of previous generations. And she would like to see more done to help younger Palestinians understand that many Israelis value their rights. “Younger Palestinians need to know that,” she said. “It will change the elections of the future. Palestinians need economic opportunity, and they need real vision and hope. They must be given a real political and economic horizon.”

Speaking of the international Jewish community, Farooqi said, “If you are a pro-Israel, pro-peace, two-state solution person, invest in communal support for that and be careful [about] who we host, who we support, what message are we sending out.”

Even though she is against BDS, she disagrees with the recent Israeli travel ban of BDS supporters. “I oppose the travel ban because going to Israel and actually talking to Israelis made me more pro-Israel,” she said.

She added, by way of warning, that “Diaspora Jews underestimate the far-right in Israel. Many moderates have become disengaged on Israel, whereas big supporters on the far-right have not.”

Speaking of Sanders’ talk at the recent J Street conference, Farooqi said, “I thought it was a great speech, significant for lots of reasons. Sanders talked about 1948 in a beautiful way, talking of the progressive vision of Zionism and his experiences on a kibbutz, but also talking of the effect on the Palestinians. You can acknowledge both. It is rare for a U.S. politician to do that.”

Now that her term at J Street U is over, Farooqi is turning her attention to affairs at home and looking to get involved in organizing in the United States. “We have our own crisis of democracy to deal with,” she said.

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

Faiths come together

David Coskun dances as Seemi Ghazi speaks. (photo by Matthew Gindin)

On March 9, Congregation Or Shalom, in collaboration with the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster, hosted United in Compassion, an interfaith solidarity event featuring 15 different religious leaders from diverse communities of faith.

The packed synagogue was addressed by faith leaders in clerical collars, kippot, dervish dress, imam robes and even a Zen rakusu (ceremonial garment worn around the neck). During the hour-long devotional service, each leader offered brief words and contemplations on interfaith harmony and peace.

“God created a universe filled with diversity. Every human is free to choose their own beliefs. There is no compulsion in religion,” said Imam Mohammad Shujaath Ali, a Sunni Muslim of Masjid-Ul Haqq mosque, quoting the Quran. “For society to flourish,” he said, “we need these three qualities: compassion for others, collaboration among all, and toleration of views we disagree with. All creatures are God’s family, and God loves those who treat his family well.”

The imam was followed by David Coskun and Seemi Ghazi of the Rifa’i Marufi Sufi order. Coskun, dressed in a long, white, flowing robe and tall hat, performed a hypnotizing, meditative dervish twirl, while Ghazi spoke. “The path of the Sufi, it is all about tawhid (unity),” she explained. “Because of knowing the oneness of all things, we are unafraid to turn in all directions.”

photo - Sheikh Murtaza Bachoo speaks about compassion at the March 9 gathering of faith leaders at Or Shalom — Sheikh Murtaza Bachoo speaks about compassion at the March 9 gathering of faith leaders at Or Shalom. *(photo by Matthew Gindin)*

Ghazi sang a haunting rendition of the Sufi song “I Desire Nothing But You,” commenting, “This is a love song to my brothers and sisters here in this synagogue and down south, that you flourish and are safe and protected.”

Sheikh Murtaza Bachoo of the Shia Muslim Community of British Columbia spoke about ar-rahma, compassion in Arabic, echoing the word for compassion in Hebrew, rachamim. “Compassion,” he said, “is the attribute of God we need to manifest in these times of racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. God’s compassion is boundless and overflowing, and knows no boundaries among creatures.”

Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan, former spiritual leader of Or Shalom and current director of Inter-Religious Studies at Vancouver School of Theology, chanted verses from Genesis describing the creation of human beings in the divine image. She cited a midrash explaining that, when God says “in our image,” it is a reference to all of the different creatures, all of whom are spiritually interconnected. God blessed us, saying, “May you become diverse, may you take good care of each other, and of all creation.”

Bishop Reverend Dr. Gregory Mohr of the B.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada read some of the official pronouncements of his order on the subject of “welcoming the stranger,” stressing that “the stranger” refers not only to newcomers to Canada but to “people already here, people maybe right next door, who we have overlooked and do not know.”

Some of the presenters offered brief devotions or meditations. Eric Kristensen of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) invited audience members to consider some leading thoughts from Quakers of the past into silent questioning.

Linda Mackintosh of the Sathya Sai community offered some thoughts of her guru on world peace, and Sandra Leigh of Give Peace a Chant Kirtan shared the musical chanting of the ancient Gayatri Mantra. Parvin Manshadi of the local spiritual assembly of the Baha’is of Vancouver recited a prayer for peace written by Baha’ullah, and Firdosh Mehta of the Zoroastrian Society of British Columbia shared teachings of the Zoroastrian scriptures on universal ethical values and peace. Michael Newton of the Mountain Rain Zen Community led the congregation in meditation on loving-kindness for ourselves and one another.

Bishop Melissa Skelton of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster read two poems by secular poets – Israeli Yehuda Amichai and Palestinian-American Naomi Shihab Nye – to express the need for Israelis and Palestinians to embrace one another.

“Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,” concluded the poem by Shihab Nye. “Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread / only kindness that raises its head / from the crowd of the world to say / It is I you have been looking for / and then goes with you / everywhere / like a shadow or a friend.”

“In the parashah for this week,” said Rabbi Adam Stein of Congregation Beth Israel, “it says, ‘Build Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell among them.’ It does not say God will dwell in the sanctuary, but rather ‘among them.’ Tonight, I feel we have made a sanctuary for God and brought out the godliness that dwells among us.”

Or Shalom’s Rabbi Hannah Dresner closed the evening, leading the audience in a niggun, a sacred, wordless melody. She chose the Rav’s Niggun, composed by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, symbolizing the soul’s ascent to God, which is commonly sung at Lubavitcher weddings. “The melody brings out the solemnity and the beauty of when souls come together to truly connect with each other,” said Dresner. “This is what I feel we have done tonight.”

After the service, people met downstairs for food and drinks, having conversations together facilitated by a set of posted questions at each table on hope, inter-communal tolerance and peace.

Karasick gives to SFU library

Adeena Karasick has donated her archive to the Collection of Contemporary Literature at Simon Fraser University’s Bennett Library. (photo from Adeena Karasick)

Critically acclaimed poet and Vancouver native Adeena Karasick was in her hometown last month to celebrate the donation of her archive to Simon Fraser University.

The Collection of Contemporary Literature at SFU’s Bennett Library contains one of the biggest selections of avant-garde poetry in North America. “The collection has been building since 1965,” said Tony Power, the librarian-curator who oversaw the addition of Karasick’s works. “The collection features many of the poets whose tradition Karasick is associated with, such as Michael McClure and Robin Blaser. Karasick was influenced by her teacher, Warren Tallman, who also influenced, for example, Fred Wah, George Bowering and Daphne Marlatt. These are all poets who are featured in the Bennett Library collection.

“Karasick has a very high profile for a poet,” Powers added, “and a certain amount of notoriety for her more daring works.”

Karasick told the Jewish Independent that the Feb. 23 event, in which her personal notebooks became, in effect, public artifacts, was “surreal.”

“I was honoured to be included in this collection, one of the greatest collections in North America of contemporary poets and avant-garde renegades, provocateurs and risk-taking challengers of esthetics,” she said.

Karasick, whose work has been called “beautiful linguistic carnage” by Word Magazine, specializes in non-narrative, intimate works that are most concerned with the play of language itself.

“I am interested in using language to create different effects of meaning production, highlighting language as a physical, material, construct. Play, jouissance [delight], as Jew-essence,” she explained with a smile.

Karasick regularly plays with Jewish themes in her work, whether it’s the invocation of the Kotel (a wall made of words in more ways than one) at the heart of Dyssemia Sleaze, or the Hebrew letter mem, which inspires Mêmewars.

“In the kabbalah, the world is created through language,” she said. “That’s also the way I view things.”

photo - Among Adeena Karasick’s donations to the Collection of Contemporary Literature at SFU’s Bennett Library were books and personal notes — Among Adeena Karasick’s donations to the Collection of Contemporary Literature at SFU’s Bennett Library were books and personal notes. *(photo from Adeena Karasick)*

Karasick’s speech is peppered with words like “intervention,” “transgression,” “disruption,” “nomadicism” and “vagrancy.” She aims, she explained, to “destabilize and subvert linguistic power structures with the hope of instigating new ways of seeing. My poetry uses playfulness and celebrates a sense of creative homelessness, a mashing up of poetry, critical theory and visuality.”

Asked how she felt about being a postmodern artist whose work has been called “an impressive deconstruction of language and meaning” by Canadian Literature, in an age where the American president, it could be said, was much maligned for engaging in similar activity, she pointed to Jewish postmodern philosopher Emanuel Levinas (1906-1995).

“I’m not saying there’s no truth. There is truth. There is what happened,” she said. “The search for the truth cannot be solitary or uniperspectival though, and cannot be an imposition of ‘the truth’ on others in a totalitarian way. Levinas said that truth itself arises out of discourse … it rests in the ethical relation between people, where a search for the truth can take place. Truth requires humility and multiplicity.”

Born in Winnipeg, Karasick’s family moved to Vancouver when she was six months old, and she grew up here. She had her bat mitzvah at Congregation Beth Israel and was very much a part of the local Jewish community. She went to the University of British Columbia for her undergraduate degree, did her master’s at York in Toronto and her doctorate at Concordia, in Montreal, in “French feminist post-structural theory and kabbalistic hermeneutics.”

Karasick now teaches at Pratt Institute in New York and is enjoying a growing distinction as one of the premier avant-garde poets of her generation. She is becoming known for her innovative use of video as well as the printed page.

In 2018, Karasick will release a new book, Alephville, a poem composed of faux Facebook updates. “I was un-nerved by the timing,” she said, referencing the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, “by the fact that it is basically a poem composed of ‘alternative facts.’”

Also next year, Karasick will debut her “spoken-word opera” Salomé: Woman of Valour, a feminist reinterpretation of the biblical character. She co-wrote the piece with Grammy Award-winning musician Frank London of the Klezmatics. They met through KlezKanada, an annual klezmer camp that has been meeting in the Laurentians for 20 years, the poetry division of which Karasick has been director for the last six years.

Karasick wrote the libretto for Salomé: Woman of Valour and London composed the music, an original score that blends Arabic, klezmer, jazz and bhangra. The nomadic and subversive piece will première at next year’s Chutzpah! Festival.

Treating intergenerational trauma

Left to right: Nina Krieger (Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre), speaker Mark Wolynn, Richard Fruchter (Jewish Family Service Agency), Nicky Fried (Congregation Beth Israel) and Shanie Levin (Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver). (photo by Rhonda Dent Photography)

On Feb. 15, Mark Wolynn, director of the Family Constellation Institute, spoke to an audience of almost 1,000 people at Congregation Beth Israel on the topic Understanding Intergenerational Trauma: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. The crowd sat in rapt silence as he unfolded his own story and the stories of some of the people his therapeutic approach has helped.

Introduced by Rabbi Adam Stein, assistant rabbi at Beth Israel, and Richard Fruchter, chief executive officer of the Jewish Family Service Agency, Wolynn quipped upon taking the stage, “The last time I stood at a synagogue pulpit was at my bar mitzvah.”

Wolynn said his work on intergenerational trauma has particular relevance for those who have survived genocide and war, such as First Nations people, refugees and Jews. His efforts to understand the effects of trauma began when, as a young man, he found himself going blind. He had “the bad kind of central serous retinopathy,” he said, “the five percent kind where it can lead to becoming legally blind.”

Plagued by grey blotches and blurs distorting his vision, Wolynn said he was terrified. He tried a litany of alternative medical cures, which didn’t help, and headed off on a quest for enlightenment.

After marathon meditation sessions and audiences with several gurus, Wolynn said he waited for hours for a satsang (sacred meeting) with a swami in Indonesia. When he finally made it to the front of the line, the guru looked at him for a moment and said, “Go home and make peace with your parents.” It wasn’t until he heard the same message from the next guru he visited that Wolynn returned home to begin his journey into healing his relationships with his family.

Years later, after making both personal and scientific study of the impact of family dynamics and inherited trauma (and healing his blindness), Wolynn has emerged with a persuasive vision of the role that unaddressed trauma can have in our lives – even if the trauma happened in previous generations, and even if you didn’t know about it. “Many of us spend our whole lives believing we are the source of our own suffering when we are not,” he said.

Wolynn presents his findings in terms of epigenetics, the study of how life experience can turn on or off certain genes. He points to findings in both humans and animals showing that the children of traumatized parents react with stress, fear or aversion to stimulus that traumatized their parents, even if the children themselves have no previous negative exposure to the trigger. “We think the effects – the alteration in the genes – may last for three generations,” he said.

Wolynn described several case studies in which patients had symptoms that could be addressed only after patients understood their source in something that had been done to (or by) a mother or grandfather. Wolynn challenged the audience to ask themselves what their greatest fear was and to put it into words, explaining that this was a clue to their “trauma language,” which could, in turn, be used “like breadcrumbs” to lead them back to the unrecognized traumas in their past.

Wolynn laid out a series of steps for uncovering intergenerational traumas and healing the brain. He also shared stories of his use of visualization, ritual and family communication to free both adults and children from chains they didn’t fasten themselves.

Alan Stamp, clinical director of counseling at JFSA, a co-sponsoring agency of Wolynn’s talk, told the Independent, “What Mark is doing is putting a new spin on how to get to the heart of it and resolve the difficulty. The past is alive in the present.”

Stamp said he knows of two people who attended a follow-up training session offered by Wolynn in Vancouver after the public lecture, and who have had success applying Wolynn’s method clinically; one of them being a counselor at JFSA. “It works,” said Stamp.

JFSA offers counseling for a wide variety of issues, and Stamp is hoping that attendees at Wolynn’s talk will be inspired to pursue healing, through JFSA or elsewhere.

JFSA, the Jewish Seniors Alliance of Greater Vancouver, Congregation Beth Israel and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre partnered to bring Wolynn to Vancouver, and the talk was additionally sponsored by the Lutsky families and Rabbi Rokie Bernstein. Banyen Books hosted Wolynn the day after his talk at the synagogue.

Teachings of the Land

On Feb. 12, at Shaughnessy Heights United Church, there was a dialogue featuring Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan Kaplan, director of Inter-Religious Studies at Vancouver School of Theology, and Rev. Ray Aldred, director of VST’s Indigenous Studies Program. Held under the rubric of Shaughnessy Heights’ Reconciliation Matters initiative, The Teachings of the Land: Our Oldest Relative explored the spiritual relationships between people and land.

Aldred, who is from Treaty 8 territory in northern Alberta, said his understanding of the land has been formed by his Cree upbringing and his life study of indigenous wisdom. Asked about the title of the talk, he said, “For us, the land is part of the family.”

Kaplan spoke of the Jewish people’s connection to the land of their birth, Israel. A self-described “born urbanite,” she also spoke of her personal spiritual connections to the land – hiking in nature or learning from her husband how to grow food – and what she called the “eco-theology” of the Bible.

“The first chapter of Genesis takes us through the creation of an ecology, where everything is interconnected and blessed by the Divine,” she explained. “The first human is called ‘Adam’ in Hebrew, which is not just a random pleasing sound, but comes from adamah, red clay dirt, and means ‘the red clay dirt person,’ the ‘earthling.’ The Hebrew Bible is an indigenous text, which tells us ‘how to walk well on the land,’” she said, using a phrase of Aldred’s. “The Book of Leviticus, for instance, teaches us to consciously let the land rest – the commandment of Shmitah, where the land has rest from farming every seven years. The Hebrew Bible teaches that the ecosystem belongs to God, not to us. It is not ours to come in and displace peoples and animals and to take what we want.”

When Kaplan attended a course of Aldred’s in 2016, she said she realized she was a “rank beginner” in eco-spirituality. “Hunter-gatherers were specialists in sustainability,” she said. “They were not primitive; they are the next level.”

Kaplan also discussed the view of some that First Nations were one of the lost tribes of Israel, a view Aldred had also jokingly referred to earlier. Although lacking historical evidence to support it, commented Kaplan, “it works as a metaphor for a similar history of displacement.”

Aldred made another biblical allusion when speaking about how early Europeans were greeted by some Ojibwe as “Anishinaabe” (which literally means “people”) but they refused the title. “Reminds me of another story about some other people who didn’t want to be what they were created to be, but wanted to be God,” Aldred commented with a grin, referring to the story of Adam and Eve.

Aldred spoke a lot about the need for humility and the renunciation of certainty in order to find a relationship both to land and to other people. “Your perspective is always limited, it is always just ‘your perspective.’ You need other people, other creatures, to learn from. The Creator is giving us an opportunity to learn humility. If we miss that chance,” Aldred warned, alluding again to a biblical text (Leviticus 18:28), “the land will spit you out.”

Asked about practices of connecting to the land, Kaplan suggested learning about the local ecosystem, spending time exploring it and getting to know the unique creatures who inhabit it. She also spoke about connecting to members of one’s own tribe in order to cultivate a sense of home, and about getting to know the indigenous peoples of the area.

Aldred discussed the importance of really listening to the land so we can make better decisions as a community. Noting that Mary was Jesus’ mother, he asked who Adam’s mother was. “The earth was his mother, and the earth cared for him and cares for us.”

Aldred also said that indigenous people reverse Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, which places basic needs like food and lodging on the bottom and spirituality and community at the top, as being less necessary. “Get your spirituality right,” said Aldred, “and everything else will be right. Take care of your relationship to the land, and take care of your neighbours.”

Asked about the ownership and economic use of land, Aldred said, “We belong to the land, it doesn’t belong to us.” He noted that treaties, in the indigenous understanding, were less about the division of land than about how it should be shared. “Of course, we should enjoy and make use of the gifts of the land,” he said, “but, in our decisions, we should think seven generations ahead – that’s 225 years into the future. That might take a little more time, but it’s worth it to our grandchildren.”

Maya Rae launches first CD

Maya Rae performs on Feb. 23 at Frankie’s Jazz Club. (photo by Saffron Kelly)

Vancouver jazz singer-songwriter Maya Rae will celebrate the release of her debut CD, Sapphire Birds, on Feb. 23 at Frankie’s Jazz Club. The album was produced by jazz impresario Cory Weeds, and features an ensemble of some of Vancouver’s greatest jazz musicians, including Miles Black, who played piano and acted as musical director, Weeds himself on saxophone, Joel Fountain on drums, André Lachance on bass and Vince Mai on trumpet and flugelhorn.

Rae’s burgeoning musical career – she is only 14 years old – had its genesis in nothing particularly special: band classes at school, a few musicians on her mother’s side of the family. Yet, from these modest beginnings, she has arrived on the Vancouver scene with a beautiful, textured voice well ahead of her years and a first CD that showcases excellent musicianship, both hers and that of the experienced ensemble brought together by Weeds and Black.

“If I had a dime for every time someone tells me they have a 14-year-old with tons of talent,” Weeds told the Independent, “I’d have retired in Mexico by now. When I heard Maya, I was pretty wowed, pretty shocked.”

Weeds said he carefully scrutinizes projects that are brought to him. “I don’t do these things for the money,” he said, “I do it because it’s a project I believe in. Miles Black was the X-factor behind the thing. He helped Maya select the music and charted it. It’s rare that a project goes so smoothly. The whole band gelled so well the album practically produced itself. It was just a real pleasurable experience.”

Rae agreed. Asked if working with such seasoned musicians was intimidating, she said it wasn’t. “It was great; we had so much fun. They were so helpful, and they taught me a lot. It was an incredible experience to work with musicians like that.”

Weeds admitted to hesitating before releasing the album on his own label, Cellar Live, due to Maya’s youth. When he heard the finished project, though, his hesitation vanished. “You’d have to be an idiot not to put this out,” he said. “The talent’s there and, when the talent is there, age is irrelevant.”

The CD features two original songs, the title track “Sapphire Birds” (about her family) and “So Caught Up” (about the obsession with appearances among teenage girls). The album also features some excellent covers of standards like “I Feel the Earth Move” and “Summertime”; and surprises, with some smooth and skilled scatting from Rae. Rae’s singing is delivered with strength, precise phrasing and nuance, and is alternately delicate and full, easily holding the listener’s interest throughout the album.

The CD release will be a benefit concert, with proceeds going to Covenant House, a local nonprofit that serves homeless youth. Last April, Rae held a benefit concert at Temple Sholom to benefit Syrian refugee families. “In March, I was asked to open for Champian Fulton, and so I had a band and a set list all worked out, and then I heard my synagogue was sponsoring two Syrian refugee families and that seemed like an important thing to support,” Rae explained. (For more on last year’s concert, see jewishindependent.ca/jazz-to-benefit-refugees.)

Rae also sings once a month at Louis Brier Home and Hospital, accompanied by guitarist Sami Ghawi. She tells a heartwarming story about an incident that happened there recently involving Kenny Colman, a well-known jazz vocalist who was a longtime friend and colleague of Frank Sinatra, among others, and who now lives at the Louis Brier.

“We have an open mic when we perform there,” Maya said. “Kenny came to watch the show, and he joined us and sang. He has advanced Parkinson’s, and they said he hadn’t sung in the eight months since he’d been there. It was very emotional for everyone.”

For more on Rae, visit facebook.com/mayaraemusic. While reservations are now closed for the Feb. 23 show, there will be limited tickets available at the door.

Need for JFSA services grow

Jewish Family Service Agency chief executive officer Richard Fruchter with Ellen Bick, recognizing the work of JFSA staff at the agency’s Nov. 30 annual general meeting. (photo from JFSA)

Richard Fruchter is the new chief executive officer of the Jewish Family Service Agency (JFSA). He barely had time to settle into the agency’s former location before its move to East Broadway, adjacent to Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society. As Fruchter cheerfully leads an office tour, he has clearly settled into his role, proud of the new space, the agency’s staff and their work.

Fruchter is excited to expand the agency’s activities and profile in the Jewish community and beyond, as well as to take it in some new directions required by changing times.

“It’s inevitable now because of the generational shift that there is going to be more need for home support,” said Fruchter, citing one example. “That particular area of service is growing by more than 10% a year. We now have more than 80 home support workers. They go out into all neighbourhoods in the community. We also work with the Better at Home program with United Way, working in the broader community. That’s another potential growth area for us that we have to prepare for.”

Fruchter said JFSA’s activities in the Jewish community are more urgently needed with each passing month.

“What we’re seeing is that there is a tremendous need for food and housing,” he explained. “These are two areas where there is an affordability crisis for our community just like the rest of the community; we’re seeing astounding growth in those two areas on a month-to-month basis. When it comes to food security, we’re seeing growth all across the board – certainly with seniors, but we’re also seeing more families, it used to be mostly individuals. We see people coming to the [Jewish] Food Bank twice a month instead of once. The demand for food vouchers has grown by over 20% this year.”

He added, “If housing is getting more and more expensive for people, they begin making choices between rent and food or medicine, and we don’t want people making those kinds of choices. Those needs tend to tumble into each other, and people end up needing more and more services.

“The advantage that we have as an agency is that we have this remarkable basket of services, so that if someone is food insecure, sometimes they’re also housing insecure. If they are a new immigrant, they may need employment opportunities, they may need a hand-up for a couple of months in transitional housing.”

Another mounting issue, said Fruchter, is the growing needs of aging Holocaust survivors. “We are seeing that many survivors are beginning to need support, or more support,” he said.

“People are not cognizant enough of the presence of poverty in the Jewish community,” he continued. “We plan to partner with CIJA [Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs] to do unprecedented advocacy both within the Jewish community and with the government – federal, municipal and provincial – to show what an important cog we are in helping people to be more resilient and able to deal with the crises in their lives. I am looking forward to working more closely with our partner agencies and our synagogues to make sure no one slips through the cracks.”

As for the role JFSA plays in the broader Vancouver community, Fruchter explained, “Most of the services we do are in the Jewish community, but if you go back to our values, when our sages said, ‘welcome the stranger,’ they didn’t mean the Jewish stranger. They meant, ‘welcome the stranger’! If we find that people are in need, we’re going to go out there and help them. The main areas are employment, settlement and the Better at Home program, which is for lower-income seniors who need a little help to stay in their homes. The United Way came to us and said we love what you’re doing, we wonder if you could replicate that in the broader community.”

Fruchter came to service work in the Jewish community after a background in journalism, communications and social services. His work with the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle was pivotal. “I just grew into that job and loved what I did, and my Jewish identity blossomed from the work I was doing,” he said.

Fruchter worked for federations in Arizona and Minneapolis before heading to Seattle. He first came to Vancouver as a senior management consultant two years ago for the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, after being president and CEO of the Seattle Federation for six-and-a-half years. “I got a call from Mark Gurvis, an old pal in the Jewish communal services field, saying he was moving to New York and had a proposition for me. I got the interim job, then went home. Later, I got a call from JFSA wanting consulting, and that progressed to a job offer. I was inspired by what I was seeing and the potential of the organization, so I accepted.”

Fruchter’s wife and three sons still live in Seattle, while he commutes to Vancouver every Monday.

“I love the community here,” he said. “It is very strong, very intergenerational, very committed. The agencies work well together, the rabbis work well together, which is not the case everywhere.”