Pat Johnson – Page 32

Real estate in time of COVID

Michael Geller at the groundbreaking of ConWest’s IRONWORKS development in 2017. (photo from Michael Geller)

The COVID pandemic and the months of social isolation it created will have impacts on real estate prices, urban design and human behaviours, says a local expert. But the changes are not likely to be revolutionary so much as accelerate trends already underway.

Michael Geller, an architect, planner, real estate consultant and property developer, spoke to the Temple Sholom Men’s Club in a virtual event via the meeting platform Zoom May 25. (For more on the club, click here.) Geller is also adjunct professor in Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development and a longtime leader in Jewish communal organizations. His topic was Real Estate in the Era of COVID.

“Housing sales are down significantly and are as low as they have been in recent memory,” he said. Wages have been dramatically impacted for an enormous number of individuals and household debt is increasing significantly. Many renters are unable to meet their payments.

Housing sales are affected by the obvious issues of economics, but also because buyers and sellers are reticent about the physical interaction required in the process of viewing potential homes. Sales have not entirely collapsed, though, he noted.

“There are still some bidding wars for more affordable condos, priced under $700,000,” said Geller, adding: “Can you imagine 30 years ago being told that affordable condos would be under 700,000? It just shows you what has happened to our market in recent years.”

While sales are down, there has not been a significant increase in the supply of either listings or new homes coming to market, he said. “So, at the moment, we aren’t seeing the dramatic drop in prices that many assumed, myself included, would occur.”

What may occur is a stalling of new construction because lenders are cautious. “They don’t want to lend money for anyone to buy land at the moment,” he said. “This is a significant factor.”

While there were many years when there was almost no purpose-built rental housing created, this has shifted, with about 4,000 new units this year in the city proper and 9,300 in Metro Vancouver. This supply, combined with the economic challenges brought about by the pandemic, have had impacts on rental rates. “For the first time in a long time, we are starting to see a softening of rent,” he said.

Foreign investment has been credited with playing an outsized role in property values in recent decades and some commentators speculate that buyers may be “circling like vultures” in the event of comparative real estate bargains in British Columbia, he said.

Geller noted the opposite could occur, however, as the market softens. “Some of the people who came, especially from mainland China but also Hong Kong and Europe, might actually divest themselves of their investments and pull out of the Vancouver market,” he said.

International events will also likely play a role. Uncertainty and upheaval around changes in China’s governance of Hong Kong could make Canada very appealing, especially to the 300,000 residents of Hong Kong who have Canadian citizenship.

“We have a high level of personal safety and, when you think about it, that is one of the most important considerations,” he said. “You can have all the money in the world but if you don’t feel safe in your home at night, you may not necessarily stay in that home.”

British Columbia’s recognized success in dealing with the pandemic has enhanced its international image. “As we start to focus more and more on health issues, that cannot be ignored,” he said.

Foreign investment in Vancouver has dropped significantly since the implementation of the foreign buyers’ tax.

“Will those foreign buyers come back, even if they have to pay 20% premium?” Geller asked. “If they don’t come back, and if that means local developers decide not to build, whether it be rental or condominiums, and we start to see significant unemployment of all those construction workers … then it may well be that the government says, you know, this is a difficult situation, these are unprecedented times and maybe they’ll just decide that, for the next two years, the foreign buyers tax will be reduced to five percent rather than 20% in order to stimulate the economy.”

On the commercial real estate front, the experience of working from home may change our relationship to the office. If people continue working remotely, that could reduce demand for office space. On the flip side, new ideas of personal space and social distancing could mean that people come to expect fewer workers in more space, thereby increasing demand.

If more people do opt for remote work options, some may choose to move to more affordable and remote locations. Home design might adapt to include formal workspaces so that people aren’t using kitchen counters as desks. Condo towers and apartment buildings might opt for hotel-style shared business centres rather than spas. They may move toward more “touchless tech” – a familiar example being the Shabbat elevator.

As stores reopen, retailers may see a decline in shoppers, but Geller suspects that warehouse space is headed for a bull market. “As more and more people are buying online, there is a need for more and more warehouse space to store all this product before it’s delivered,” he said. “This applies not just to clothing and giftware, it applies to food and other goods that are stored in cold warehouses.”

Looking at social changes that have resulted from pandemics in previous centuries, Geller said, “One of the things that came out of [earlier pandemics] was an appreciation of the need for more parks and green space throughout the cities. Central Park in New York, that was created by the New York City Board of Health because of the belief that this would lead to improved human environmental health for everybody in the city. In most European cities and many other American cities, large parks and green networks were created to help people lead healthier lives.”

Improved sanitation, water supply and sewage treatment systems were also at least partly a result of these catastrophes. Home design changed, including the advent of sleeping porches, based on the understanding that fresh air was preferable to stuffy interiors. The modern bathroom, including the proliferation of white tiles that both made it easier to clean and added to the perception of sterility, emerged. Wooden toilet seats, which were the norm, were replaced by plastic ones.

“The powder room became a creation in a larger house because the man who came to deliver the coal or to deliver the ice, you didn’t want them going through your house using your bathroom, so powder rooms became popular,” he said.

Though he had plenty of ideas, Geller was emphatic that he didn’t really know what the future holds. But he has some confidence about a general forecast.

“Often,” he said, “pandemics and similar sorts of events accelerate changes that were already happening.”

Men’s club is booming

Members of Temple Sholom Men’s Club at last year’s Whistler retreat. This year’s event, scheduled for May but canceled due to the pandemic, was to focus on indigenous issues. (photo from templesholom.ca)

Temple Sholom Men’s Club, which hosted the Michael Geller talk May 25 (click here for story), is catching the attention of the larger Reform movement for bucking the trend of declining vibrancy among synagogue men’s groups. In the process, say its leaders, they are also taking a stab at reducing the sociological phenomenon of men experiencing a dwindling social circle.

The synagogue has seen its men’s club grow from defunct to 260 members since being revived in 2016.

President Larry Bloom and vice-president David Schwartz credit the success to individual members stepping up to organize programming. But they also think one of the keys to success is identifying a particular need for men of all ages in the shul community.

Traditionally, they say, sisterhoods have had clear objectives, including fundraising and specific projects. Men’s groups have tended to be more amorphous in terms of their mission.

“Men’s clubs are traditionally, I think, a ‘what have you done for me lately’-type of deal,” said Bloom. “Typically, men’s club programming is maybe a softball team, a dozen guys in the summer, may be a bagel and bite before services, maybe a poker game at somebody’s house once a month or once a season.”

The Temple Sholom Men’s Club reinvigorated itself through a range of programs with what they call “added value.”

A trip to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra – one of the club’s “co-ed” events – featured a pre-event talk by Gordon Cherry, a former trombonist for the orchestra, as well as from a current VSO member. Movie nights feature guest speakers. When they screened Above and Beyond, the Nancy Spielberg film about the Israel Air Force, Temple member Mark Elster, who served in the Israel Defence Forces, spoke.

Other activities include a regular Mix-and-Mingle before services, family outings to Vancouver Canadians baseball games, beer and wine tastings, educational events, a Men’s Café with Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, the shul’s senior rabbi, Jewish walking tours, and seminars and workshops on topics such as How to Make Your Seder Fun and Meaningful, and Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Their annual fundraiser – a latke sale that this year fried and sold 1,000 of the Chanukah treats – donates revenue to the Temple Sholom school.

A popular annual retreat in Whistler, scheduled for May but canceled due to the pandemic, was to focus on indigenous issues, including First Nations speakers and a blanket ceremony.

Another popular recurring event is Pastrami and Poker, in which a professional poker facilitator comes in with casino-calibre tables and the mood is distinctly high-stakes. The price of admission includes pastrami sandwiches and $5,000 in chips.

“We play a little Sinatra Spotify in the background and you feel like you’ve gone to Vegas,” said Schwartz. A retired lawyer, Schwartz assures that everything is in line with provincial gaming regulations. At the end of the night, winnings are prorated and paid out in raffle tickets, which are drawn for some swanky donated prizes like high-end Scotch.

Bloom is especially proud that the club attracts men from every age group, something that is not always the case in such forums, he said.

“That was always important to us, that we didn’t narrow our range and just go after the boomers and older,” he said.

The success is a counterweight to the known phenomenon that men’s close friendships tend to dwindle as life progresses.

“I don’t think guys go out of their way to say, ‘Gee, I wish I had more friends,’” said Bloom. “But I think most guys, if they were honest, would probably say, ‘I wish I had more buddies.’… That was very important to us right from the start. Let’s bring guys together, give them a venue, give them an opportunity to come together, socialize and then maybe some bonding will happen after that.”

Bloom, who stresses that his title of president is mostly for administrative purposes and the club functions cohesively as a non-hierarchical group, also credits the success to the support of the synagogue.

“We get a lot of support from the shul, a lot of support from our president of the board, from the board itself, from Rabbi Dan for sure,” he said. “I’m not sure every synagogue gives their men’s club the kind of support we get.”

A virtual Yom Hashoah

Toronto actor Jake Epstein hosted Canada’s online Yom Hashoah commemoration on April 20. (PR photo)

Days after many Canadian families celebrated Passover remotely using online platforms for virtual seders, Yom Hashoah was commemorated with a virtual ceremony that linked survivors and others across the country in an unprecedented, but deeply moving, program of remembrance and education.

The 27th of Nissan was set aside in 1951 by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, as Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. This year marked the 75th anniversary since the end of the Second World War and the end of the Holocaust.

Hosted live by Toronto actor Jake Epstein, the event, on April 20, featured prerecorded content from organizations across Canada and new footage broadcast live, including candlelighting from six locations across the country, among them the Vancouver home of Shoshana and Shawn Lewis and their children Charlie, Julian and Mattea.

In a recorded message, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada stands firm against antisemitism and with Israel and the Jewish people.

“The Shoah was undoubtedly one of the darkest periods in human history and these moments where we pause to remember matter, both to honour those who lived through these horrors but also to make sure these atrocities are never repeated,” Trudeau said. “Sadly, acts of antisemitic violence are more and more frequent today and Canada is not immune to this trend. For many Jewish Canadians, the rise in attacks is not only troubling, it’s downright scary. But, let me be clear, attacks against the Jewish community are attacks against us all. Let me be equally clear, Canada and Israel are partners, allies and close friends and we will continue to stand proudly with Israel. Attacks against Israel, including calls for BDS and attempts to single her out at the UN, will not be tolerated.… We will always condemn any movement that attacks Israel, Jewish Canadians and the values we share.”

The Yom Hashoah program also included recorded messages from Israeli diplomats in Canada and prerecorded musical components.

“During the war, music played an important role in lifting the spirits of ghetto inhabitants, camp inmates, as well as being used as a bargaining chip in negotiating small freedoms in the camps,” said Epstein.

Pieces were performed by the Toronto Jewish Chorus, participants in previous March of the Living programs and by shinshinim, young Israelis performing overseas duties after completing high school. Memorial prayers, El Maleh Rachamim and Kaddish, were offered by Cantor Pinchas Levinson of Ottawa.

Epstein, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, spoke of his family’s history, the good fortune of his grandparents’ survival and the resilience they showed in beginning a new life in a new land.

“Upon being liberated from the camps, survivors faced the inconceivable realization of the enormity of their loss,” Epstein said. “Recovery was a long road ahead. Survivors, like my grandparents, immediately searched for any other surviving family members, only to discover that they had lost everyone. And yet, somehow, they rebuilt their lives.

“My grandparents came to Canada through Pier 21 in Halifax before ultimately moving to Toronto. Even though they were free, the culture shock, the language, the difficulty in finding work, made life extremely hard. My grandfather, an architectural engineer in what was then Czechoslovakia, was lucky enough to find work as a bookkeeper for a lumberyard. My grandmother became a seamstress, working day and night, not only making clothing for customers, but making dresses for my mom as well. Somehow, they managed to connect with other survivors who became like family.…My grandparents’ story of resilience and adversity is a common one. They, like so many other survivors in Canada, raised families, found employment, learned new languages and contributed to Canadian society and Jewish communal life. Some even dedicated their lives, decades later, to speaking out against hate and injustice by sharing their Holocaust stories with students and the public.”

Survivors from across Canada, in video recordings, spoke of their liberation experiences and offered advice to successive generations.

Faigie Libman of Toronto recounted her moment of liberation.

“We saw a man on a horse, a Russian soldier, coming towards us,” she recounted. “He said he was a captain, that we are free. You cannot imagine the joy, you cannot imagine the exhilaration. I still see the picture in front of my eyes, women who could hardly walk, some were even crawling, pulled him down, they were kissing him, they were hugging him, and that day will always be in my mind – Jan. 21, 1945 – we were finally free.”

Sydney Zoltan of Montreal expressed concern about Holocaust awareness after the eyewitnesses pass.

“We, the youngest survivors, now stand in the frontline,” he said. “We often ask ourselves what memory of the Shoah will look like when we are gone. We depart with the hope that our fears are only imaginary.”

Another survivor asked younger generations to be vigilant.

“I want young people to remember, I want them to be politically aware, that their government should never preach hate,” said Elly Gotz of Toronto. “I want them to understand how damaging hate is to people.”

The commemoration, coordinated by the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto, was presented in partnership with organizations across the country, including the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Earlier the same day, a global Yom Hashoah memorial event took place from an eerily empty Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, again with video-recorded survivor testimony and messages from political, religious and civic figures.

Dialogue across differences

Rabbi Dr. Ted Falcon will be joined by Imam Jamal Rahman in a keynote address called Healing at a Time of Polarization, which the public can watch online by registering at vst.edu. (photo from Ted Falcon)

When beginning interfaith or intercultural dialogue, how much emphasis should be placed on similarities and how much on differences? According to a rabbi with decades of experience in the topic, the question puts the cart before the horse.

When Rabbi Dr. Ted Falcon, a Seattle spiritual guide, author, teacher and therapist, leads such interactive processes, he starts with something far more general: the basic humanity of the participants.

“We encourage people to begin a dialogue, a conversation process, not by focusing on similarities or differences in their religious views or nonreligious views, whatever they might be, but begin by creating contexts in which they can meet each other as human beings, meet each other as persons, which essentially is done through sharing stories,” said Falcon.

He uses “a series of questions that people can respond to either in dyads or around tables that elicit stories about important events in their lives, stories about concerns in their lives, stories about important relationships in their lives, so that the dialogue begins by appreciating a common shared human condition. That has made a tremendous difference because only after that do we encourage people looking at more specifically their religious or nonreligious concerns.”

Falcon will be part of a keynote address at a fifth annual multi-religious, multidisciplinary conference presented by Vancouver School of Theology, May 24 to 26. Due to the pandemic, the conference, titled Religious, Spiritual, Secular: Living in a Pluralistic Culture, will take place online. To virtually attend the entire event, registration fees apply, but the keynote and a Monday night concert are open to the public at no cost, although pre-registration is required.

Falcon is a member of the Interfaith Amigos, made up of himself, Pastor Don Mackenzie, a Christian minister, and Imam Jamal Rahman, a Muslim clergyman of the Sufi tradition. The three have published books and present together frequently. Rahman will join Falcon at the conference for the keynote, titled Healing at a Time of Polarization: Reaching Beyond Difference to What We Share.

Once the framework for constructive dialogue is in place, Falcon said in a telephone interview with the Jewish Independent from his Seattle-area home, interfaith exploration can begin to approach similarities that transcend religious differences. Among their Jewish, Muslim and Christian values, the amigos acknowledge some fundamental principles.

“We identified three basic core teachings that our traditions share,” said Falcon. “A core teaching of oneness, a core teaching of unconditional love and a core teaching of compassion. We can utilize those core teachings to then look at our texts, our traditions and our lives and evaluate how does this reflect in my life, how am I not living up to this, what do I need to do to live up to this more authentically? And it’s only after that discussion that we encourage people to engage in more difficult conversations, whether it’s conversations about Israel-Palestine, whether it’s conversations about desire to convert other people, whether it’s conversations about feeling your way is somehow better than other ways, whether it’s conversations about somehow being wary of allowing ourselves to truly appreciate the spiritual wisdom in another’s tradition.”

He admitted that interfaith dialogue is not always possible. But, even among people who acknowledge that they believe their theology to be unerring and people who may not be open to difference, there can still be dialogue, he said.

“In other words, if our conversation is based on my need to get you to change, there is no conversation.” But, he continued, if people recognize that neither they nor their interlocutor will change their minds, there is still a means and a purpose to engaging.

“We share the essential aspect of walking around in a human body with all its frailties and all its challenges and all its wonders,” said Falcon. “We have so much in common that that changes the energetic environment and allows a different kind of conversation to take place. Will you ever convince me that Jesus is the only way? No. But can I truly appreciate that that is your way and authentically support that? Yes, I can do that.”

Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan-Kaplan, director of interreligious studies and a professor of Jewish studies at Vancouver School of Theology, is conference director. She acknowledged that the online, virtual format for the conference changes its nature, but with the drawbacks come benefits.

“We are well aware that people can experience Zoom fatigue and computer fatigue and perhaps don’t want to sit in front of the computer for two full days, no matter how much they are fascinated by the content,” Duhan-Kaplan said. As a result, all of the sessions will be recorded and participants can watch and join the conversation on message boards for 10 days after the conference weekend. This means that, unlike most in-person conferences where participants have to choose between breakout sessions, it is possible to virtually attend all of them.

While the event is an academic conference and it will naturally attract clergypeople, Duhan-Kaplan said it is appropriate for anyone who cares about the role of religion in the public sphere.

“One of the objectives, when it was an in-person conference, was, of course, to get people interested in religion and spirituality from different sectors of our community, to meet each other in person and network,” she said. “The dynamic may be very different online, so, aside from that goal, I’m really hoping that people will come away with a sense of the complexity of creating a community that has room for religious diversity.

“But I also want them to be able to see what some of the components of that complexity are, so that no one throws up their hands and says it can’t be done, but has a sense that by doing acts, whether it’s a group of multifaith chaplains supporting a prison population or whether it’s a group of people getting together to work on the Downtown Eastside or even religious communities twice a year doing outreach to someone of a different faith, I want people to get a sense of understanding that they are part of a larger project and what kind of difference what they do makes.”

For information, to register for the entire conference ($100/$50 students) or sign up to attend the keynote and concert (free), go to vst.edu by May 21.

Security, magic in gardening

While temporarily closed to the public, West Coast Seeds is still getting seeds to gardeners via garden centres, grocery stores and the mail. (photo from West Coast Seeds)

The pandemic and its associated social and economic impacts have focused attention on food security, as well as the therapeutic benefits of gardening in times of turmoil.

This is part of the message from a local company specializing in organic seeds. West Coast Seeds, a Delta-based company that was founded in 1983 and bought by Craig Diamond a half-dozen years ago, has a mission to “encourage sustainable, organic growing practices through knowledge and support … eating locally produced food whenever possible, sharing garden wisdom, and teaching people how to grow from seed.”

Aaron Saks is West Coast Seeds’ director of finance. (photo from West Coast Seeds)

Aaron Saks, the company’s director of finance and son-in-law of Diamond, said getting back to basics, like growing your own food, seems to be one of the responses to the social isolation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve seen a big push toward food security,” said Saks. “Both ensuring that you know where your food is coming from and getting healthy produce when it might not be readily available other places.”

While so many things are off limits – public parks, basketball courts, beaches – those with backyards can still get in the soil and be in touch with Mother Nature, said Saks.

West Coast Seeds is a pioneer in organic and non-genetically-modified agriculture. Since the Diamond family took over the company, they have refurbished a heritage barn in a rural part of Ladner to be their headquarters, where they have their warehouse and a retail operation, which is temporarily closed to the public. The products are also distributed wholesale to garden centres and grocery stores and they do a large mail order business, which has been ideally suited to adapting to the new reality of the pandemic.

The Diamonds are a fourth-generation British Columbia-based family, notes the West Coast Seeds website: “Since Craig’s grandfather, Jack Diamond, came to Canada in 1927 as a young man and purchased his first business in 1940, the Diamonds have been engaged as leaders in business. They continue to follow the principles of community and philanthropy set by Jack, and further exemplified by his son, Charles. The values of West Coast Seeds resonate deeply with the Diamond family and they are committed to uphold this tradition.”

The values of repairing the world that underpin the Diamond family ethos and the West Coast Seeds mission, Saks said, are being demonstrated globally right now as individuals step up to help their neighbours in this challenging period.

“I think everybody has seen the propensity of society to want to give back at this time,” he said. “One of the pillars of our company is actually tikkun olam.”

The company donates seeds for class projects, school gardens, community education and nonprofit organizations.

The company is balancing the safety of warehouse employees with the need to get seeds to the public, said Saks, expressing gratitude to the staff team for distancing, while still getting product to customers.

“We’re thrilled that they’re able to get seeds, that they’re able to grow, that they can support their local garden centre, support growing their own food and be able to get healthier foods, live healthier lifestyles, as a result of gardening. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to give back wherever we can and create joyful moments,” he said.

When times are tough, said Saks, something comparatively simple like putting a seed in the ground can help people through.

“That mystical thing about gardening,” he said. “Every time it germinates, it’s just a crazy thing, like magic.”

For more information, visit westcoastseeds.com.

On brink of radical change

Prof. Shlomo Hasson was slated to bring a pessimistic forecast for the Middle East’s future to a Vancouver lecture March 31, but his visit was canceled due to the coronavirus crisis. (photo from CFHU Vancouver)

The Middle East is in a time of historical change and geopolitical shifts. The outcome is unknown and, for Israel, there may be good and bad consequences.

This is a core message from Prof. Shlomo Hasson, a professor at the department of geography, School of Public Policy, and Leon Safdie Chair at the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hasson was to speak in Vancouver March 31 at an event organized by the Vancouver chapter of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, but the lecture was canceled due to the coronavirus crisis. The Independent spoke with him by telephone about what he intended to discuss.

“We are in the midst of turmoil in the Middle East because we have this havoc with Iran and the intensifying tension between the United States and Iran,” he said. “We have the ongoing conflict within the Middle East, especially in Syria, the war now between Turkey and Syria. We have the recent events in Libya, we have a worsening situation in Yemen. I’m not optimistic about the Middle East and, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian case … the peace talks were stalled for a long time and now it seems that [U.S. President Donald] Trump’s initiative, in a way, helps to revive the issue but did it in such an awkward way that I’m not optimistic at all about the consequences of this initiative.”

The warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as with some Gulf states, is cause for limited hope, he said.

“This is indeed a good reason to celebrate because there has been a change, even a significant change, between the Gulf states and even Saudi Arabia, and Israel because [they] are facing the same adversary, which is Iran,” Hasson said. “Israel supports Saudi Arabia because it supports them in containing Iran. In that sense, I think there is something to celebrate but this is very modest, because … the public in Saudi Arabia, for example, does not support Israel. It’s sort of an alliance between the rulers of the countries, but the public is not there yet.”

An additional crisis is climate change, which is hitting the region especially hard and will continue to do so, although this also presents opportunities for Israel to build bridges.

“We face the problem of water scarcity and droughts and flooding,” Hasson said. “I think that, especially in this crisis, Israel can help a lot because we have the technology, we’ve mastered the know-how and we can help the Middle East and Africa, while coping with this issue.”

Speaking before the most recent Israeli elections, Hasson predicted that, regardless of the outcome, they wouldn’t play a significant role in the bigger Middle East picture.

“Israel is not the central actor here,” he said. The central actors are Saudi Arabia and Iran, with China, Russia and the United States intervening from outside.

“Israel is in a position of reacting to these global, regional and intra-state developments,” he said. Even if Blue and White had won, said Hasson, it is still a right-wing party and the Israeli populace is developing a rightward consensus. “I don’t think that these elections are going to present a significant change in Israel’s political behaviour.”

He compares this moment in Middle East history to the pivotal epochs of the past.

“About 100 years ago, we still had the Ottoman Empire and, after that, we had the colonial regimes, the Sykes-Picot regimes, and then we have the nation-state regimes. The Middle East is at the brink of a change, a radical change, and nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen to the Middle East,” said Hasson. “But, in a way, it’s going to affect everything, it’s going to affect the global structure, it’s going to affect the relationships between the United States, China and Russia.”

Modern matchmakers

YVR Yenta is the brainchild of Madison Slobin, left, Ben Eizenberg and Ariel Martz-Oberlander. Adapting to the realities of dating during the coronavirus crisis, they have introduced the online meetup Love in the Time of Covid: Virtual Single Mingle. This photo was taken before physical distancing was required. (photo by Madison Slobin)

Three young Jewish Vancouverites have set up a collective to help their friends – and their friends’ friends – find a romantic match “using old traditions to find modern love.”

YVR Yenta is the brainchild of Madison Slobin, Ben Eizenberg and Ariel Martz-Oberlander. The three believe that their old country methods, with the application of 21st-century technology, can procure a better match than any computer algorithm. Describing meaningful connections as “the antidote to capitalist alienation,” the matchmakers see a need to fill in a city where “finding the perfect view is easy, but finding someone to share it with can be challenging,” according to their introductory material.

The matchmaking collective was just getting up and running when the coronavirus crisis hit, but that hasn’t set them back. They resorted to technology to organize Love in the Time of Covid: Virtual Single Mingle, where anyone is welcome to join an online group chat, then tell the yentas of anyone they might like to be introduced to for virtual (and, perhaps later, in-person) meetups.

The idea of incorporating old world matchmaking practices with 21st-century singles is a growing trend.

“I would love to claim it as an original idea but, honestly, I spent the last three-and-a-half years on the East Coast, living in New York City, so I have been quite connected to young Jewish community there,” said Slobin. “It was something that I kind of knew was happening in different places on the East Coast. I heard that there was one happening in Minneapolis and it seemed to me like a new trend that was popping up, which is young, secular matchmaker collectives.”

In an age when Jdate and other online dating apps are a swipe away, why the need for the personal intervention?

For a certain segment of young people, Slobin said, Jdate isn’t cool. The other reality is that apps tend to be based on looks or instant attraction.

“I think a lot of people go on dates based on that and then don’t find success because they may not share anything other than that mutual attraction and so this is an opportunity to go a little bit deeper,” she said.

YVR Yenta invites clients – it’s all free and there’s no profit motive – to complete a comprehensive questionnaire about their religious affiliation and how important that is, whether they want a match of their own religious tradition, their political views, preferences, interests and a host of other attributes.

“We accept anyone into our dating pool who belongs to any religion, any race, any sexuality, any gender,” she said.

As clientele numbers increase, the yentas write to potential matches, “so will the quality of our matchmaking, seeing as we will have more match options to choose from! Please help us spread the word to your friends and family, either through word of mouth (as was done in the old country) or by sharing our Instagram page (as is done in the 21st century).” They are on Instagram at yvr.yenta.

“This is something that I would want for myself,” Slobin added. “I think it’s a very cool idea and I wanted to make it happen for all the people around me because I feel like I know so many amazing people who are looking for partners. So we decided to volunteer our time to make it happen. Really, it’s quite fun, so it doesn’t feel like work.”

Local team’s global impact

Ran Sommer (photo from the Walking School Bus)

Ran Sommer was working as a project manager for a health region and moonlighting as a volunteer for a very small Vancouver-based international education charity. A trip to India to see the charity’s work in action changed the direction of his career – and the course of the organization.

The Walking School Bus was the brainchild of another young innovator from the Vancouver area, Aaron Friedland, who has received numerous recognitions, including a Next Einstein award, which was presented by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and as one of the Jewish Independent’s 18 Under 36 honourees. TWSB, as it is shorthanded, emerged out of a trip to Uganda

Friedland took, where he learned that many students in that country do not attend school because it is too far for them to walk. The first step in his venture to resolve the problem was a book by the same name, which started a fundraising campaign that led to the purchase of the first vehicle, which shuttles Ugandan kids to school then does duty as a taxi in the off hours to cover expenses and generate revenue for school materials.

When Sommer returned from earning undergraduate and master’s degrees at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., Friedland was one of the first people with whom he reconnected. Both alumni of King David High School, they had been in the same social circles and Sommer had followed Friedland’s successes via social media. He came on board as a volunteer, serving as director of communications.

While Sommer was getting some good training at project management in his day job at the health authority, when he joined a self-funded trip to see TWSB’s operations in India, he was inspired to take a leap into the uncertain territory of a startup nonprofit.

“I was just so blown away to actually see what I was communicating about for the last year,” Sommer said, adding with a laugh: “To see not only that it was real [but] it was 10 times better than I thought it was and I should probably be communicating it better.”

The inspiration was mixed with sadness that he didn’t feel his full-time job was as meaningful. He and Friedland sat down, figured out how to scrape together enough to give Sommer a salary that would just cover his rent and expenses and Sommer became first-ever employee of TWSB, as director of operations. (Friedland was still unsalaried at the time.)

Despite rapid growth since Sommer’s hiring, it’s still a streamlined organization, with seven employees in Vancouver and eight overseas. But, with its tight budgets and small team, the organization has branched out in a range of directions.

The organization was never simply about getting kids from Point A to Point B. First, there is a research component. Graduate students develop symbiotic relationships with TWSB, joining self-funded excursions to the operations – now in India as well – and looking at data from the projects to enhance their delivery and outcome.

Once TWSB put in place the infrastructure to get students to school, they realized some were arriving hungry and thirsty, which impedes learning. The organization added water-catchment systems, chicken coops and community-supported agriculture to their operations. They developed supplementary curriculum, dovetailing with the objectives of the school systems where they work, including an offline database that serves as a sort of virtual library. In a country like Uganda, where a vast majority of the population does not have access to electricity, let alone wi-fi, the curriculum is aided by Raspberry Pi microcomputers – about $100 each – which can communicate with one another in a localized intranet, but not access the internet. Teachers can use the tablets to project material on screens – a benefit in places like some refugee camps TWSB works, where the teacher to student ratio can be one to about 260.

Throughout the charity’s projects are economic development initiatives that both help the communities they serve and create sustainable funding for their work. They created the BrightBox Macro classroom – a shipping container retrofitted into a solar-powered classroom. While students learn in a space that takes up about seven-eighths of the space, a solar charging room powers not only the shipping container classroom but the entire adjacent school. It also provides a charging hub, where people from the community can pay a few cents to charge their cellphones, tablets, flashlights or other electronics, similar to for-profit charging hubs common throughout the developing world. These fees will add up, according to projections, to eventually pay for the entire facility over time.

TWSB also has a small but aggressive fundraising arm that obtains grants from foundations and groups including National Geographic. The academic expeditions are funded by participants themselves, who are asked to raise an additional $1,000 to $2,000.

Based on studies that indicate students can double their reading comprehension exponentially in just months through the multisensory experience of reading the words while hearing them spoken, TWSB developed Simbi.

This “reading-while-listening application” uses different voices, accents and dialects to give the reader the most relevant voice available in their respective region. Again, outcomes are studied and the data shared to make the impacts greater. Simbi began as a part of TWSB curriculum program and then expanded independently as a startup aimed at an even broader market, with Friedland as chief executive officer, while he continues as executive director of TWSB. In addition to the thousands of students served by TWSB, Simbi is in use by another 10,000 who are not part of the project and the objective is to make Simbi available to unlimited numbers.

Through partnerships with Uganda’s minister of education and the United Nations refugee agency, TWSB has expanded its reach into refugee camps and remote public schools.

“There are currently 32,500 students who are interfacing with our technology,” Sommer said. In Uganda, there are 300,000 refugee students alone – not including others in low-income, remote or otherwise underserved communities. And, with expansion into India and a scalable model that they envision taking off globally,

Sommer predicts further exponential growth.

In addition to Sommer and Friedland both having attended Vancouver’s Jewish high school, there is another Jewish connection. The project began during Friedland’s studies in economics at McGill University, with the initial initiative launched within Uganda’s Abayudaya (Jewish) community.

While the Walking School Bus has grown, with 15 employees now around the world, its strength is still in the power of volunteerism, Sommer said.

“We’ve been able to maintain our values and the pillars of the organization because of an incredibly large army of volunteers that are so involved and motivated,” he said.

Climate hot topic at Limmud

Dr. Larry Barzelai and Maayan Kreitzman will talk about environmental activism at Limmud on March 1. (photos from the interviewees)

Environmental activism is among Canada’s top news stories in recent days and the issue will be confronted from both a Jewish and a broader perspective by two leading voices at Limmud Vancouver next month.

Dr. Larry Barzelai, a Vancouver family doctor, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine and B.C. chair of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), will present alongside Maayan Kreitzman, a PhD candidate at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. The pair acknowledges that they come at the topic using different tactics, but aim for the same objective.

Kreitzman has been among those blockading the port and traffic.

“The actions happening in the streets right now are in response to this Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline construction on Wet’suwet’an land,” she said. But this is only one element of the much larger picture, which is that oil and gas development is “occurring unabated and greenhouse gas emissions and ecological destruction is continuing unabated throughout the world, when we know that these activities are threatening our life-support system and are putting billions of people at risk over the next decade. People are already being impacted today.”

The issue brings together a host of concerns, she said, including “indigenous rights and sovereignty, the Canadian government’s complicity in a climate-unsafe future … as well as the business side of that from the private sector.”

Kreitzman has heard the complaints that disruptive protests may turn off potential allies and anger the general public.

“I think people’s emotions are valid and there is a valid concern about disrupting ordinary people that need to make a living and need to take care of their families,” she told the Independent. “On the other hand, I think many of the people that sometimes make these kind of complaints aren’t really the people that are struggling to feed their families. People that come from a place of privilege need to recognize that these protests inconveniencing them is a small price to pay for the types of progressive changes that will benefit all of us, including their children.”

Kreitzman said she and Barzelai will “bring a concise summary of the latest science to people so that they really understand the magnitude of the situation that we’re in.”

She said, “We’ll be speaking to a spectrum of different actions, from the personal to the more conventional campaigning type of approaches, like report-writing, research, lobbying, letter-writing, to direct-action approaches, which is what I’m most interested in, where people that have privilege start putting their bodies on the line and breaking the law on purpose, using the message of nonviolent civil resistance, which has been successful in many movements throughout history.”

Barzelai takes a more conventional approach to advocacy, but shares Kreitzman’s sense of urgency.

“Climate change, which we’re calling a climate emergency, is upon us,” he told the Independent. “It’s dramatic and we have to take big steps to do something about it. Maayan is taking a bit more radical approach to this. Myself and my group are a bit more middle-of-the-road, shall we say, but I think we both have the same endpoint in mind – that things have to change dramatically.”

CAPE, which has been around for about 25 years, focuses on the health impacts of environmental decisions and climate change.

“We see diseases that are spreading, we see cancers that are becoming more rampant, we are seeing the floods and the wildfires and the temperature changes that are dramatically affecting people’s health and we figure it’s our responsibility as doctors to look at climate change from a health perspective and to inform people of what’s going to happen unless we make dramatic changes,” he said.

Fracking is one area where he thinks British Columbia is “really going down the wrong path.”

“They’ve bought this myth that natural gas is clean energy, which it is absolutely not, and they are doing their best to increase rather than decrease global warming, and we think that’s the crucial issue that needs to be discussed in Canada and especially in B.C.,” he said.

Kreitzman and Barzelai will speak at Limmud Vancouver on March 1.

Tickets and more information can be found at limmudvancouver.com.

Many ideas at Limmud

At LimmudVan’20, Anna-Mae Wiesenthal will present on The “Othering” of Germany’s Jews and Canada’s First Nations. (photo from Anna-Mae Wiesenthal)

The latest local incarnation of the global Jewish learning festival Limmud takes place Feb. 29 and March 1. LimmudVan’20, which is being held at Congregation Beth Israel, begins with Havdalah and a few musical and intellectual appetizers on the Saturday night, followed by a day of presentations on a diverse array of topics on Sunday.

Anna-Mae Wiesenthal, a teacher at King David High School and a PhD candidate in Holocaust and genocide studies, will present on The “Othering” of Germany’s Jews and Canada’s First Nations.

Originating from Winnipeg, Wiesenthal has long had an interest in First Nations issues and has been involved in community programs there. She is aware of the sensitivities around paralleling these histories.

“There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of the word genocide and First Nations, but I approach it from an examination of looking at different viewpoints and different research that argue both sides,” she told the Independent. “What do these two experiences of these two people have in common?” The point, she said, is not to come to any firm conclusions.

“I want to leave it open to the audience to process the information and to assess the commonalities and the differences,” Wiesenthal said. “I’m certainly there to point some of them out, but I think it’s to provide a different perspective that will engage and inspire discussion and curiosity among the participants to go further with it.”

Also not promising any proscribed conclusions is Rabbi Philip Gibbs, who will ask: Would the rabbis approve of Uber? Gibbs, who is spiritual leader of Congregation Har El, in West Vancouver, said that even issues as seemingly modern as an app that permits ride-sharing can be addressed through ancient wisdom.

Traditional arguments around fair and unfair competition have remained with him since rabbinical school and came to the fore in recent weeks as British Columbia argued over, and then slowly and somewhat clunkily implemented, ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft. Some of the issues that could arise include whether a company keeps money in the community it serves or extracts it to some distant parent company. But don’t expect him to come down clearly on one side.

“If you’ve ever looked into a question of Jewish ethics, you know that you can make the joke of saying two Jews will have three opinions,” said Gibbs. “Maybe, through the discussion, someone else will tell me what it seems like I’m thinking, but really I think the goal is just to be more attuned to what some of the issues are so that, as we begin to make choices of who do we call up for a ride to the airport, that we’re taking into account a wider range of values than simply how little we want to pay for it.”

Other presenters will talk about crafting Jewish children’s books (see jewishindependent.ca/new-publisher-set-to-launch); how Leonard Bernstein used the music of Selichot to create West Side Story; the rich and poor among Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam’s Golden Age; building Jewish micro-communities through co-housing; healing Christian antisemitism; analyzing the Israeli smash TV show Shtisel; and many other topics.

Tickets and more information can be found at limmudvancouver.com.